Have you looked at the double blind studies of echinachia effectiveness on colds? Now who is trying to sell you something based off of unproven effectiveness? Money is in everything, and naturopathy is no different.
Lamont
Natural Cures THEY don't want you to know about
- Thread starter MartialArtHeart
- Start date
Have you looked at the double blind studies of echinachia effectiveness on colds? Now who is trying to sell you something based off of unproven effectiveness? Money is in everything, and naturopathy is no different.
Lamont
Marginal
Senior Master
Sometimes being shown the cure isn't any more useful than not being shown. :yoda:
Steel Tiger
Senior Master
I would have to say be very wary of Kevin Trudeau and his various claims. He is also responsible for something called the Great Global Warming Swindle. I think he is up there with the money-grubbing alien abduction conspiracy theory nutters, except he is not a nutter. He is confusing people and muddying the waters for his own profit. Do your own research don't rely on guys like this.
OP
OP
MartialArtHeart
Green Belt
It is hard to do genuine research nowadays, there are so many cock and bull stories about this and that theory or miracle drug... as for me, I don't know what to believe anymore... people make a living out of confusing people... why can't we just kill them all and start over with a few honest ones... the only problem will be finding those... preferably they should be martial artists...
:angel:
Steel Tiger
Senior Master
It is hard to do genuine research nowadays, there are so many cock and bull stories about this and that theory or miracle drug... as for me, I don't know what to believe anymore... people make a living out of confusing people... why can't we just kill them all and start over with a few honest ones... the only problem will be finding those... preferably they should be martial artists...
I know what you mean. The pool is now overcrowded and many of the people in it have brought their friend Ego!
If you can find just one guy you trust that should be a good start. From there you can look into peole that person trusts and respects and maybe you can find some useful information. Good luck! It ain't gonna be easy.
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
It is hard to do genuine research nowadays, there are so many cock and bull stories about this and that theory or miracle drug... as for me, I don't know what to believe anymore... people make a living out of confusing people... why can't we just kill them all and start over with a few honest ones... the only problem will be finding those... preferably they should be martial artists...
I can think of 7 off the top of my head that are well trained in herbal that are very very good; 3 in NY, 1 I believe in the state of Washington, 1 use to be in Florida but he moved out west somewhere and I can't remember what state, 1 in London and (although there are many more in this next location, this on is one of the best there) 1 in Beijing.
All were trained at Beijing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, well that is not exactly true, one was a teacher there. Also the one in Washington is actually a specialist in herbology.
I am sure there are more, but these are the ones I know of.
And as far as I know none are martial artists but get close enough and tui na can be pretty damn painful if they hit you in the right place... and they would if forced.
And please don't kill anyone
One of the big problems, at least when it comes to Chinese herbal in the Western world is that the majority of the books on Chinese herbal are written in traditional Chinese not simplified and the majority of Chinese today can’t read them and they are not translated into simplified Chinese which means they are certainly not translated into English. Those that go to the TCM Universities in China have to learn how to read traditional Chinese. Additionally the majority of Chinese language programs in the West teach simplified not traditional.
What does this all mean; the majority of people trained in TCM and Chinese Herbology in the West only know partial formulas. These formulas are not dangerous but they are not as successful in treatment as those that studied the traditional books, they work, but they take longer to work.
Actually now that I think about it there are 4 in NY but the 4th that I know does nothing outside of his family and friends. He is older than all previously mentioned, not a graduate of Beijing TCM University, but he followed a TCM Sifu and learned it the old fashion way in Southern China.
Nomad
Master Black Belt
I work in the pharmaceutical industry as a research scientist devoting my time and energy to addressing diseases like cancer and diabetes which currently don't have anything close to ideal treatments. I am paid well for my work (after spending 10 years in university to get a Ph.D.), but am far (far, far) from wealthy.
There has been a ton of negative publicity and feelings about the pharmaceutical industry in the last several years, and I find this sad. People don't decide to develop drugs to make tons of money... that's not how it works. Most of us get into this field because it is scientifically very interesting and challenging, and because we want to contribute to society. Being involved in the development of a successful drug which helps people (prolong/improve patients' quality of life, help manage diseases for which there are no cures, etc) would be an incredible legacy to leave to the world.
Yes, the pharmaceutical companies make a lot of money when they do get a "blockbuster" drug. Keep in mind that by this point, they have spent on average about 10 years of development and ~800 million dollars to get to the approval stage (not to mention the money spent on the other 10-20 potential drugs that dropped out of development during this period). Then there is the limited lifespan of any drug... limited by the patent coverage which tends to expire around 7-10 years from the market... at which point numerous generic drug makers come on and take away the market (their research focus is very different, and generally only involves cheaper ways to manufacture and formulate the drugs).
There are no cures for cancer that the pharmaceutical industry or anyone else is suppressing. This kind of statement illustrates the author's ignorance of this very complex disease which the best scientists in the world do not have anywhere near a complete understanding of.
On the other hand, there have been a huge number of cancer "cures" that have been sold and marketed by both doctors and laymen which play on the patients fears and happily take their money. This is unconscionable. Some of these have included such great ideas as injecting cancer patients with horse urine (no, I'm not kidding or exagerating on this one... my father was a physician who reviewed medical claims asking the government to pay for this "treatment" at about 5-10k per injection).
The purpose of the FDA is to protect consumers from drugs which do not do what they are supposed to do (efficacy) and from those which have an unacceptable safety profile (which differs depending on the disease - in cancer drugs, a certain amount of toxicity is considered "acceptable" as it is very difficult to effectively target cancer cells without having any effect on healthy cells, and the drugs do help extend the lives of those with cancer... the same profile would be unacceptable in a diabetes drug which would have to be taken daily for many years).
Pharmaceuticals do not get to the market unless they convince the FDA through double-blind clinical trials (which remove the placebo effect from the equation) that they are effective, and do what the companies producing them claim. The FDA is also responsible for removing drugs from the market which turn out to be unsafe (unfortunately, there are some side effects which cannot be observed until the drug has been used by much larger groups than in the clinical trials, and for much longer periods).
Herbals, on the other hand, are not covered by the FDA, and have no requirements for either safety or efficacy. Do some of them work? Yes, and many natural products have actually been turned into pharmaceuticals by companies which have identified and purified the active ingredients (eg. Digitoxin from foxglove, Taxol from the bark or needles of yew trees). Although some companies have voluntarily started to use pharmaceutical-grade quality control on their herbals and supplements, many others have not... which means that the dose can vary greatly from batch to batch or from one brand to another.
There is also a false belief in many people that pharmaceutical products have side effects (as many do) but that "natural" remedies do not. This is blatantly false, and many are also beginning to find out that herbals also can have very negative reactions (drug-drug interactions) with other herbals or with pharmaceuticals that people may be taking for a different condition.
Finally... if you think that pharmaceutical drugs have an attractive markup, you haven't looked at the finances of herbal and nutraceutical producers. The lack of oversight and quality control requirements makes them on average much cheaper to produce, and the markup is very significant... so much so that many of the big pharma companies have their own nutraceutical or herbal divisions because they are more profitable than their drug development side.
There has been a ton of negative publicity and feelings about the pharmaceutical industry in the last several years, and I find this sad. People don't decide to develop drugs to make tons of money... that's not how it works. Most of us get into this field because it is scientifically very interesting and challenging, and because we want to contribute to society. Being involved in the development of a successful drug which helps people (prolong/improve patients' quality of life, help manage diseases for which there are no cures, etc) would be an incredible legacy to leave to the world.
Yes, the pharmaceutical companies make a lot of money when they do get a "blockbuster" drug. Keep in mind that by this point, they have spent on average about 10 years of development and ~800 million dollars to get to the approval stage (not to mention the money spent on the other 10-20 potential drugs that dropped out of development during this period). Then there is the limited lifespan of any drug... limited by the patent coverage which tends to expire around 7-10 years from the market... at which point numerous generic drug makers come on and take away the market (their research focus is very different, and generally only involves cheaper ways to manufacture and formulate the drugs).
There are no cures for cancer that the pharmaceutical industry or anyone else is suppressing. This kind of statement illustrates the author's ignorance of this very complex disease which the best scientists in the world do not have anywhere near a complete understanding of.
On the other hand, there have been a huge number of cancer "cures" that have been sold and marketed by both doctors and laymen which play on the patients fears and happily take their money. This is unconscionable. Some of these have included such great ideas as injecting cancer patients with horse urine (no, I'm not kidding or exagerating on this one... my father was a physician who reviewed medical claims asking the government to pay for this "treatment" at about 5-10k per injection).
The purpose of the FDA is to protect consumers from drugs which do not do what they are supposed to do (efficacy) and from those which have an unacceptable safety profile (which differs depending on the disease - in cancer drugs, a certain amount of toxicity is considered "acceptable" as it is very difficult to effectively target cancer cells without having any effect on healthy cells, and the drugs do help extend the lives of those with cancer... the same profile would be unacceptable in a diabetes drug which would have to be taken daily for many years).
Pharmaceuticals do not get to the market unless they convince the FDA through double-blind clinical trials (which remove the placebo effect from the equation) that they are effective, and do what the companies producing them claim. The FDA is also responsible for removing drugs from the market which turn out to be unsafe (unfortunately, there are some side effects which cannot be observed until the drug has been used by much larger groups than in the clinical trials, and for much longer periods).
Herbals, on the other hand, are not covered by the FDA, and have no requirements for either safety or efficacy. Do some of them work? Yes, and many natural products have actually been turned into pharmaceuticals by companies which have identified and purified the active ingredients (eg. Digitoxin from foxglove, Taxol from the bark or needles of yew trees). Although some companies have voluntarily started to use pharmaceutical-grade quality control on their herbals and supplements, many others have not... which means that the dose can vary greatly from batch to batch or from one brand to another.
There is also a false belief in many people that pharmaceutical products have side effects (as many do) but that "natural" remedies do not. This is blatantly false, and many are also beginning to find out that herbals also can have very negative reactions (drug-drug interactions) with other herbals or with pharmaceuticals that people may be taking for a different condition.
Finally... if you think that pharmaceutical drugs have an attractive markup, you haven't looked at the finances of herbal and nutraceutical producers. The lack of oversight and quality control requirements makes them on average much cheaper to produce, and the markup is very significant... so much so that many of the big pharma companies have their own nutraceutical or herbal divisions because they are more profitable than their drug development side.
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
Agreed and they should be covered here to protect those that feel natural is safe. This is also why I always recommend someone go to a person that is highly trained in the use of herbal remedies, and to be honest the level of training I am talking about in herbal is VERY hard to get in the west and very hard to find here too. I am talking pharmacist level training in herbal.
It was once explained to me by another PhD that it is a trade off. Is the side effect you are likely to get form taking the drug worth the cure for your problem.
But you are ABSOLUTLY correct, and my wife has said this as well, herbals can be dangerous if administered and or used by people that feel they are safe just because they are natural. And she contacts a specific company that mixes her herbals to the specifications that she requires. This is a company she dealt with in China and you can only use them if you are a licensed TCM person in the US. But here is another point, licensed TCM in the US generally means Acupuncture not herbal so it is still no guarantee that you are getting herbal form a trained herbalist either.
Actually my wife make no money on herbal, the amount she is charged by the company is so high that if she added anything to it would be too expensive for her patients since NONE of it is covered by insurance unlike just about all Western pharmaceuticals.
She could save money by buying all of the herbs herself and mixing all of her own prescriptions but then she has to take a lot more time and there is storage to consider.
A local herbal store once called her to see if she wanted to buy all of their Chinese herbal, they were getting out of Chinese herbal the market and sticking with other herbals, she went to check and told them no. She told me afterwards that all of the herbal they had was bad (too old and some where stored wrong as well). But I certainly would not have known this by looking at them and I would venture to say that 99.9% of the people that went there for Chinese Herbal would not have known it either.
Nomad
Master Black Belt
Xue Sheng, when I made the previous statement about the money to be made on herbals and nutraceuticals, it was primarily aimed at the big companies mass producing the over-the-counter stuff, and definitely not aimed at small practitioners like your wife (just to clarify).
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
Didn't think it was, just wanted to add the perspective that is all.
EDIT AND ADDITION:
Go to any Chinatown and you can get the stuff cheap, but buyer beware, it may not be fresh, it may not be real. If you don't know what you’re looking at you will get cheated.
A quick story and I will stop; my wife bought a few bottles of a Chinese herbal cough medication from a local Chinese store. After she got back to her office she looked at all the bottles and saw one that was a bit different. She read the ingredients (written in Chinese) and said "this is a fake" she returned it to the store and they were honestly unaware of it being a fake, they may have been Chinese but they do not know what was suppose to be in it and the labels were virtually the same. Now their NYC supplier may have known but they would never be able to prove it so they gave her another bottle that was not a fake and threw the fake out. Again I doubt most would have known without the extensive background and training that my wife has.
Empty Hands
Senior Master
The following site will end those problems. Of course, you will have to learn science-ese - but nothing worth having is easy.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=PubMed
I always like these comments about the pharmaceutical companies trying to kill the herbal industry because of money.
We all know that big bad multinationals manufacture drugs, and herbals/natural medicine is manufactured by fairies and little old ladies in their basements.
Last I looked, giants like Jamieson, Sisu et al, are doing quite well promoting stuff that has never been proven effective.
We all know that big bad multinationals manufacture drugs, and herbals/natural medicine is manufactured by fairies and little old ladies in their basements.
Last I looked, giants like Jamieson, Sisu et al, are doing quite well promoting stuff that has never been proven effective.
Lynne
Master of Arts
As you say, Trudeau is a snake. My, he's charismatic though. He'd make a good televangelist.
One of his latest books is a weight loss cure. Another book to rip off people struggling with their weight. In his fantastic weight loss cure, he recommends ludicrous stuff like enemas instead of healthy diet and exercise. He lures people in with, "I have the secret of weight loss." He claims kings and princesses and celebrities have travelelled to a special clinic in Germany (I think it was Germany) and now he's going to share the secret(s). Pfffft.
Isn't he already?
From http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/evangelist
6.a person marked by evangelical enthusiasm for or support of any cause.
Lynne
Master of Arts
I guess he is! Pastor Trudeau, anointed by ??????
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