Typoz
Member
I'd suggest a more balanced view would be to mistrust all governments, rather than taking sides.
Mod+ Saturated Fat discussion for David
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Super Sexy
New
What about Perry Christie, Prime Minister of the Bahamas? Could we trust him just for fun?
Super Sexy
New
The problem is that anyone with a clear thinking grasp of the evidence has no option but to make that choice- that is, for the much more plausible 'inside job' theory than the utter ridiculousness and implausibility, actually downright impossibility of the official Al Qaeda conspiracy theory.
I don't think anybody committing treason and involved in the mass murder of thousands of innocent people would feel it's their patriotic duty to expose the truth :D ... unless of course they like the idea of spending years alone in a small cell before being placed in an even smaller cell to convulse and suffocate to death in front of a small audience.
It's not "real world experience". Both can be regarded as "real world experience". The difference is between real world experiences under conditions of low validity and under conditions of high validity. There's no need to postulate anything remarkable about the discrepancy. Your intuitive judgement performs so poorly under these low validity conditions that it would have been a big surprise if there wasn't a discrepancy.
An "experimenter effect" as an excuse doesn't help you out, as that it would take you further away from identifying a valid relationship between the drug and a side-effect in any case.
Doesn't work. An experimenter effect of this type would mean we would be unable to have physical laws, build technology that works, or find valid relationships. But we have all those things. And we can actually watch experimenters in the act of engaging in questionable research practices (QRPs) in order to produce their positive effects (http://naturalismisuseful.blogspot.com/2014/03/hand-in-hand-with-flexibility-in.htm).
Hundreds of individual researchers using skills which have never been demonstrated under these conditions. Yeah, that sounds plausible.
Here's the problem. Attributing your symptoms to a particular cause is taking place under conditions where it's very difficult to identify valid relationships. This has nothing to do with the research. Even if a study on statins had never been performed, it still wouldn't make your observations valid. It isn't the case that observations under poor conditions are valid until something better comes along to disprove them. They aren't valid regardless.
It's not even remotely the big deal that you make it out to be. Doctors are constantly updating and changing advice, sometimes dramatically, on the basis of new and better information.
Yeah. And since RCTs work, that should be a big clue against it.
How is the "statin scandal" going to break without an ability to identify valid relationships?
Linda
David Bailey
Member
We will have to wait, but here is the latest example of a doctor deciding to personally come off statins and write about it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/10717431/Why-Ive-ditched-statins-for-good.html
He is a vascular surgeon, so he is possibly as qualified as you are to pass judgement on this matter as you are. What is undeniable, is that there is huge disagreement within medicine about the desirability of taking statins and the effects of saturated fats (read the whole article - both are relevant to his story).
I don't bet, but if I did, I'd wager a fair sum of money that the whole cholesterol/saturated fat/statin dogma is folding!
If it does, the interesting question will be what went wrong, given all those high quality studies pointing the other way.
There probably isn't much point in continuing this discussion - we will both have to watch what happens :)
David
You haven't answered my question. What are we waiting for? What kind of information are we looking for which will show us the true relationship between statins and side-effects? What kind of information will show us the true relationship between saturated fats and heart disease? I'm really trying to understand where you are coming from, so it would be very helpful if you could give me an indication of what it is you are looking for which is different from the kinds of information we have already (or are in the process of collecting).
No he's not. He operates on varicose veins. He gives no indication in his writing that he has an evidence-based approach. And vascular surgeons of any type aren't the specialists who see patients for the purposes of reducing cardiovascular risk factors - internists, cardiologists, and endocrinologists are. He's just going on personal experience plus cherry-picking bits of research in order to support his opinion.
What you should be looking for are people with specific knowledge and experience who have looked at all the research and made a careful summary of what that research shows, as well as what areas are weak and would benefit from additional research. That is, the most qualified judgement comes from those whose opinion you have assiduously ignored:
http://www.nel.gov/topic.cfm?cat=2862
There's nothing unusual there. GPs are often slow adopters of evidence-based recommendations. This isn't specific to statins. They also took a long time to eventually come around to the idea of h. pylori as a significant cause of gastric ulcer. How come their reluctance on that point is used as a sign of closed-minded dogma ignoring the evidence, but their reluctance on this point represents the fight against close-minded dogma?
Again, what kind of information are you looking for that trumps high quality studies?
Well, it would be really, really, really helpful to the discussion if you would answer my questions. Please? :D
Linda