6 ms·

Three points. First, many (most?) medical advances seem crazy and kooky because they haven't been tried before. So it's not usually as obvious as "this is a pr

Three points. First, many (most?) medical advances seem crazy and kooky because they haven't been tried before. So it's not usually as obvious as "this is a proven scam" vs. "this really works". It's much more frequently "this is unproven". And like Barry Marshall's famous self-experiment with H. pylori, someone has to be first for it to ever get proven. Second, when the government gets it wrong, it gets it catastrophically wrong. The USDA Food Pyramid recommending "6-11 servings of grain" is still being slavishly followed, and in the fullness of time we might well find it partially responsible for the epidemic of obesity and type II diabetes. The FDA is still doing Phase I/II/III clinical trials despite all the evidence in favor of adaptive trials. And tens of millions of people were irradiated by TSA x-ray scanners fast-tracked through the FDA approval process, scanners criticized by UCSF scientists, scanners which have now (finally) been withdrawn. These errors are magnified in impact because no one can opt-out, because a .gov has a bully pulpit, and because strong political incentives exist to silence criticisms. Third, if people have the right to euthanasia, or the right to walk near bridges, I do believe they have the right to try what treatments they want. Frankly I don't consider someone else's medical affairs my business, anymore than I'd ask why they had an abortion. You can argue that vaccinations present a public health issue, and I might agree with you there. But otherwise this strikes me as a right to privacy and right to bodily integrity issue.

jlgreco 14y ago
People can inject just about anything they want into themselves (the Controlled Substances Act being the exception). The issue is when 'doctors' get involved and use their position of trust to scam, harm, and kill. These regulations control what doctors and companies can do, not what individuals can do. btw: "mainlining bleach" is not an exaggeration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7tkyK8r3yw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7tkyK8r3yw
- ramanujan 14y ago
  People can inject just about anything they want into themselves Actually, that is expressly not what the Cowan or the earlier Rutherford decision on Laetrile say. http://www.leagle.com/xmlResult.aspx?page=4&xmldoc=199812405FSupp2d1235_11084.xml&docbase=CSLWAR2-1986-2006&SizeDisp=7 http://www.leagle.com/xmlResult.aspx?page=4&xmldoc=19981... In Court, Plaintiff argued that he should have the right to take whatever treatment he wishes due to his terminal condition regardless of whether the FDA approves the treatment as effective or safe, and that to prohibit him from taking the treatment he wishes violates his rights under the United States Constitution.4 The United States Supreme Court previously addressed and rejected this argument in Rutherford. In Rutherford, cancer patients requested the right to use Laetrile, arguing, as does Plaintiff, that for terminally ill patients the effectiveness or safety of the proposed treatment is irrelevant since such treatment is a last chance effort. However, as identified by the Supreme Court in Rutherford, to permit terminally ill patients to seek any type of treatment regardless of the effectiveness of such treatment would create a cottage industry existing solely to provide potential panaceas to highly vulnerable patients. The language of the Supreme Court in rejecting the Laetrile argument is equally applicable here. "If history is any guide, this new market would not be long overlooked. Since the turn of the century, resourceful entrepreneurs have advertised a wide variety of purportedly simple and painless cures for cancer, including liniments of turpentine, mustard, oil, eggs, and ammonia; peat moss; arrangements of colored floodlamps; pastes made from glycerin and limburger cheese; mineral tablets; and `Fountain of Youth' mixtures of spices, oil, and suet. In citing these examples, we do not, of course, intend to deprecate the sincerity of Laetrile's current proponents, or to imply any opinion on whether that drug may ultimately prove safe and effective for cancer treatment. But this historical experience does suggest why Congress could reasonably have determined to protect the terminally ill, no less than other patients, from the vast range of self- styled panaceas that inventive minds can devise." I don't know about you, but this argument strikes me as bizarre. Terminal patients are to be protected from their own good from a "drug [that] may ultimately prove safe and effective for cancer treatment" because they might be scammed by "inventive minds"? The absolute worst case scenario is that they lose some money and die a little sooner. The best case scenario is that they live! To say that someone else can or should have the power to constrain another human in this way, to keep them from a chance at living, in the name of "protecting" them from doctors or companies...well, we are likely at a fundamental philosophical impasse. Which is why I return to my original point. Feel free to stay in the United States with the FDA. Those with a different cast of mind need a jurisdiction where we can take conscious risks, where we aren't "protected" from medical innovation.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    The fact that you can currently buy MMS and inject it to your hearts desire says otherwise. You can legally, right now, buy all sorts of medical bullshit that the FDA has not vetted. The court decision you bring up seems clearly aimed at preventing an industry of victimization that could occur if legitimacy were lent without review. > The absolute worst case scenario is that they lose some money and die a little sooner. The best case scenario is that they live! No, the worse case scenario is that charlatans, given a license to operate with perceived legitimacy by an "opt-out" system, convince sick people to neglect real treatment for woo. In the vast majority of cases, your best case scenario never happens. We have a system designed to separate the woo from the real. Despite what one might think from the narrative you paint, human trials are involved in this system and sick people receive experimental treatments every day in a controlled fashion. Perhaps this process could be streamlined, but it must stay in place.

jlgreco 14y ago

People can inject just about anything they want into themselves (the Controlled Substances Act being the exception). The issue is when 'doctors' get involved and use their position of trust to scam, harm, and kill. These regulations control what doctors and companies can do, not what individuals can do. btw: "mainlining bleach" is not an exaggeration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7tkyK8r3yw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7tkyK8r3yw

ramanujan 14y ago
People can inject just about anything they want into themselves Actually, that is expressly not what the Cowan or the earlier Rutherford decision on Laetrile say. http://www.leagle.com/xmlResult.aspx?page=4&xmldoc=199812405FSupp2d1235_11084.xml&docbase=CSLWAR2-1986-2006&SizeDisp=7 http://www.leagle.com/xmlResult.aspx?page=4&xmldoc=19981... In Court, Plaintiff argued that he should have the right to take whatever treatment he wishes due to his terminal condition regardless of whether the FDA approves the treatment as effective or safe, and that to prohibit him from taking the treatment he wishes violates his rights under the United States Constitution.4 The United States Supreme Court previously addressed and rejected this argument in Rutherford. In Rutherford, cancer patients requested the right to use Laetrile, arguing, as does Plaintiff, that for terminally ill patients the effectiveness or safety of the proposed treatment is irrelevant since such treatment is a last chance effort. However, as identified by the Supreme Court in Rutherford, to permit terminally ill patients to seek any type of treatment regardless of the effectiveness of such treatment would create a cottage industry existing solely to provide potential panaceas to highly vulnerable patients. The language of the Supreme Court in rejecting the Laetrile argument is equally applicable here. "If history is any guide, this new market would not be long overlooked. Since the turn of the century, resourceful entrepreneurs have advertised a wide variety of purportedly simple and painless cures for cancer, including liniments of turpentine, mustard, oil, eggs, and ammonia; peat moss; arrangements of colored floodlamps; pastes made from glycerin and limburger cheese; mineral tablets; and `Fountain of Youth' mixtures of spices, oil, and suet. In citing these examples, we do not, of course, intend to deprecate the sincerity of Laetrile's current proponents, or to imply any opinion on whether that drug may ultimately prove safe and effective for cancer treatment. But this historical experience does suggest why Congress could reasonably have determined to protect the terminally ill, no less than other patients, from the vast range of self- styled panaceas that inventive minds can devise." I don't know about you, but this argument strikes me as bizarre. Terminal patients are to be protected from their own good from a "drug [that] may ultimately prove safe and effective for cancer treatment" because they might be scammed by "inventive minds"? The absolute worst case scenario is that they lose some money and die a little sooner. The best case scenario is that they live! To say that someone else can or should have the power to constrain another human in this way, to keep them from a chance at living, in the name of "protecting" them from doctors or companies...well, we are likely at a fundamental philosophical impasse. Which is why I return to my original point. Feel free to stay in the United States with the FDA. Those with a different cast of mind need a jurisdiction where we can take conscious risks, where we aren't "protected" from medical innovation.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  The fact that you can currently buy MMS and inject it to your hearts desire says otherwise. You can legally, right now, buy all sorts of medical bullshit that the FDA has not vetted. The court decision you bring up seems clearly aimed at preventing an industry of victimization that could occur if legitimacy were lent without review. > The absolute worst case scenario is that they lose some money and die a little sooner. The best case scenario is that they live! No, the worse case scenario is that charlatans, given a license to operate with perceived legitimacy by an "opt-out" system, convince sick people to neglect real treatment for woo. In the vast majority of cases, your best case scenario never happens. We have a system designed to separate the woo from the real. Despite what one might think from the narrative you paint, human trials are involved in this system and sick people receive experimental treatments every day in a controlled fashion. Perhaps this process could be streamlined, but it must stay in place.