drjasonmd's Comments (166)

“Mars does seem like the logical next step,but we aren't getting there by lifting a completely constructed ship through the atmosphere and out of Earth's gravity well. A trip to Mars is going to have to start "up there".

Man I'm upset we aren't there by now. I mean, 2009? Did we really think we'd still just be talking about this back in the 1970s?”

“At this point, it's not even possible. My point was that we should have more than one or two tiny little private ventures developing carbon nanotubes. A breakthrough of this magnitude transcends industries and would be a boon to American innovation. The space elevator is just a catalyst for development of the technology. The benefits of developing such a material simply cannot be understated. Everything from planes to cars to medical devices to architecture would be affected by such a technology.

If the government can spend money developing nukes, they sure as heck can put some more effort into developing this technology.

Or we can just wait for the Japanese or the Chinese to do it first and then pay them royalties. We're doing that in medical breakthroughs no anyway.”

“I agree. It's time to think about building true space ships that do not have to be designed to withstand landing or an atmosphere. Our current approach is the engineering equivalent of designing submarines that are capable of flying and landing on unimproved airfields. Just too many requirements to put into one machine.”

“I think the idea of a launch vehicle carrying people and supplies into orbit makes about as much sense as designing a container ship with huge tracks so that it can drive across land. While it may be nice to do everything in one vehicle, it would not be efficient on land or on the sea.

What is needed is to to pursue carbon nanotube technology so that cables can be manufactured that are strong enough to build a space elevator. Then, launch vehicles that are basically no more than fuel tanks that expend themselves getting into orbit can be done away with entirely.

People and supplies can be lifted into space on the elevator to an altitude consistent with geosynchronous orbit where they would then be transferred to ships that never have to reenter the atmosphere. It would be like going to the end of a pier to board an ocean liner instead of trying to bring the ocean liner inland to pick up its cargo. No more wasted weight for all that fuel, no more wasted weight for heat shielding to withstand reentry, and no more design restrictions due to the aerodynamic and strength requirements needed to exit and reenter the atmosphere.

Space ships that stay in space just like traditional ships that stay on the ocean.”

“See my analysis of the Chest study below. Anyone who tries to cling to this study as evidence is either a fake or totally unfamiliar with how clinical studies are performed.

As for the claim that this is magically somehow a mucolytic at 30C, I think you need to familiarize yourself with the science. Do you understand what 30C means? That means it has been diluted by a factor of 1024. A 30C solution would have to have at least one molecule of the original substance dissolved in a minimum of 1,000,000,­000,000,00­0,000,000,­000,000,00­0,000,000,­000,000,00­0,000,000,­000,000,00­0 molecules of water. This would require a container more than 30,000,000,000 times the size of the Earth for you to receive even a single molecule.

So, as I stated, potassium dichromate diluted at 30C and delivered sublingualy isn't a mucolytic. In fact, it's nothing but water (which, incidentally, IS a mucolytic when delivered via a nebulizer).”

“How could he have plagiarized Bechamp? Bechamp, from his own studies, concluded that the germ theory of disease was false. Bechamp concluded that the germs observed under the microscope spontaneously appeared as a result of disease and were not the cause of it (pleomorphism).

So, if Pasteur was a plagiarist, how is it that he came to exactly the opposite conclusion?

Another alternative medicine talking point propagated by its ignorant minions.”

“Are you willing to make the claim that nobody has died while taking homeopathic remedies?

And you're basing this conclusion on your observation of your friends, family, neighbors and yourself?

Well, I can't argue with that data. I mean I could, but clearly my argument would be lost on someone who bases their decisions on such flawed logic.”

“Why is it that homeopathy fails to achieve any fabulous healing in a controlled study? What magic property of homeopathic medicine turns itself off when it knows it is being observed?”

“"The difficulty in "proving" that homeopathy works is difficult because each person may need a different remedy for the same illness."

Hardly. Many individual factors go in to making a treatment description.

"How would you measure that in a lab?"

The same way any treatment is measured: a double-blind, placebo-controlled study on a cohort of patients. It's not like homeopaths haven't tried, but the studies consistently show that homeopathy is bunk.”

“Asthma tends to resolve on its own as one gets older.

But we've known that for centuries.

Wait long enough, and the vast majority of diseases will resolve. That doesn't mean homeopathy works any more than prayer does. All diseases have a natural history.”

“The contrary theory of allopathy hasn't been practiced for over a century. Only homeopaths refer to modern medical practitioners as allopaths. They learned that one from their founder in the 19th century.

The difference between science and faith is science updates its theories as new information becomes available.”

“Denies observable phenomenon? Observable phenomenon are the basis of the scientific method. If you can't observe it, you can't measure it, it doesn't exist.

The phenomenon observed in thousands of trials on homeopathy is that it doesn't do anything, yet you still deny this.”

“And how many visits to the homeopath does it take to "cure" anything?”

“Potassium dichromate diluted at 30C and delivered sublingualy isn't even a mucolytic, as my analysis of this study points out.”

“She lost 100 lbs in a few hours? 100 lbs of what? The only thing I can think of would be water, though 100 lbs of it would be about 16 gallons. That's over 3 big water jugs. How did it get in there in the first place? She sure didn't drink it. No human could survive that much excess fluid in their body for even a few minutes and no kidney is capable of excreting that much either. It would take nearly a pound of salt just to balance it out lest her red blood cells would explode.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Please elaborate on this miracle of biology.”

“So while this is an interesting study, it still does not support your claim. It doesn't even qualify as a good pilot study that warrants a larger study, though that would be the next step before claiming it supports the efficacy of homeopathy.

I would even go so far as to state that the very poor design of the study doesn't even make it worthy of publishing, but that's for the editors at Chest to answer for.”

“So a group with nearly twice as many patients on home oxygen therapy (20% versus 36%) had a statistically significant difference in the amount of secretions present upon extubation. That would seem to make sense since the use of home oxygen therapy would indicated that twice as many people in the control group had either far more advanced COPD or other pulmonary commorbidities present that were not reported in this study. Incidentally, a single good outcome in a study this small would be enough to push the statistics into the significant range. This study had 4 more patients in the control group with significantly more advance disease (16%) than the treatment group. That more than accounts for the differences seen in this study. Such spurious statistical anomalies are the reason why small studies are not used to develop treatment guidelines.”

“Second, the two groups are far from homogenous and I have to seriously even question what diagnostic criteria they were using to stage COPD. 9 of the 25 control patients were on home oxygen therapy but only 5 of the control group (nearly half as many), yet the average stage for the control group was 1.20, whereas the average stage for the treatment group was 1.08. Stage 1 COPD doesn't usually require home oxygen therapy, so the staging was way off the mark or there were other serious pulmonary comorbidities that are not being reported here. In either case, that's twice as many patients in the control group on home oxygen. It is unclear how groups with such low stages of COPD ever ended up on mechanical ventilation in the first place. Even more curious is that the average FEV1 for the control group was 52.2, while it was 54.0 in the treatment group. These findings suggest both groups were closer to stage 2 COPD. Unless there was one or two serious outliers in each group that threw the averages off (which should have fallen into the exclusion criteria), it would appear that someone is grossly misrepresenting the findings of this study.”

“First let's start with the design. There were 25 patients in each group. This number is far too small to draw any conclusions for any treatment modality. Studies of this size are known as "pilot studies" and are done to help in the design of future, larger studies. No physician would be so cavellier as to suggest that the results can be used to formulate a treatment regimen. Unless the results were so overwhelmingly positive for the treatment versus the placebo (not just statistically significant), the best that could be concluded is that the results were "interesting", certainly not conclusive.”

“Well Mr. Ullman, at least now you're entering in a scientific debate.

When a study is published, that isn't the end of the debate, however. The reason studies are published with so much detailed information is so that the methods and findings can be reviewed by as many pairs of eyes as possible. While my reading of this study makes me wonder why it was even published in the first place, it's a good example of the thin string of "evidence" that homeopaths try to cling to when justifying their practice. So let's just accept that this study is out there and enter into the debate that all good peer-reviewed studies undergo once they've been enshrined in the literature.

The authors' conclusion states: "These data suggest that potentized (diluted and vigorously shaken) potassium dichromate may help to decrease the amount of stringy tracheal secretions in COPD patients."

The word "suggest" used here is clearly a "wiggle word." However, when one looks at the actual data revealed in the study, you have to wonder how such a conclusion is suggested.”

“"Allopathy" was a term coined by homeopaths to contrast the two practices common in the 18th century. Allos = opposite, homeo = same. It has nothing to do with the science behind modern medicine and the term has never been accepted by modern medical practitioners.

You've already soaked it all in (the Kool Aid that is).”

“It would appear that you are unfamiliar with the physiology of atopic conditions.

Exzema, like asthma, is just a symptom of atopy. It doesn't "march" anywhere.”

“Another case of "I know but I'm not telling."”

“Every form of quackery claims to be under attack by outside forces who are only interested in profits. It's a though-terminating cliche that works on the weak minded.”

“Your appeal at emotion does not change the essential fact that hundreds upon hundreds of studies have not shown a connection between vaccines and death. Did the baby drink mild the night before? Why don't you blame it on that?

Correlation is not causation. The MD who wrote the opinion piece was right. Stories about dead babies shouldn't be published in connection with vaccines . . . because there is none.”