Outlawing ALL unproven medical practices,

[Edwardo Piet]

You can't protect people against their own stupidity.

Only against other peoples stupidity.

You can try... it depends how stupid they are.

EvF

[Meatball]

I think it's more important to protect people from fraud than anything. As long as a product isn't using lies or misinformation to sell itself, I see no reason why they shouldn't be able to sell it.

Shit like copper bracelets and a lot of diet pills fall under that category.

[Autumnlicious]

I agree with the GP - medical practices must be regulated carefully and qualified. To remotely sell a product that claims to function or affect one in a medical manner should be fraud unless it is passed through rigorous government-run testing.

Immediate human health should be protected from corporations - like banning tobacco advertisements have done to keep from glamorizing the act to children. Sure, product placement and depicted/actual usage are seen all the time, but the extent is much smaller and more uncontrolled, as it should be.

Adults should be allowed to make their own decisions, but I think that as a community we should, like the way we regulate narcotics advertising to the way we regulate companies, restrict the ability of unscrupulous people from making money over medical fraud, as that does immediate harm to their health. It leaves the same loophole like smoking enjoys in theater (actor smokes as part of role, or vice written in, etc) but heavily restricts the ability to defraud new customers.

[Tiberius]

Why do people trust the government so much? Don't make the testing government-run, make it private so that companies have to pay for the product to be certified. It's worked with security certificate systems on the internet so far; I see no reason why it can't be extended to other products.

Course, you could also have private charities doing the same thing for free, or making sure the private companies doing the testing are legit.

[Zen Badger]

But these scam remedies have been shown repeatedly to have no value or benefit.

Yet people still line up to buy them and then say how wonderful they are.

A lot like religion really.

[fr0d0]

A lot like religion really.

Question your own dogma Zen

[Autumnlicious]

Why do people trust the government so much? Don't make the testing government-run, make it private so that companies have to pay for the product to be certified. It's worked with security certificate systems on the internet so far; I see no reason why it can't be extended to other products.

Course, you could also have private charities doing the same thing for free, or making sure the private companies doing the testing are legit.

No it hasn't worked out well at all on the internet. I assure you that an NSA security certification is far more dependable and verifiable than some unimportant small fry for profit venture. SSL certifications on the internet are questionable, as anyone can get them (a hot topic at the last Chaos Computer Club conference in security for SSL null string attacks).

And why the fuck do you think that the communications system that is the internet is even remotely comparable to medical testing processes? Medical testing is slow and ponderous, like the law, for good reasons. It is more applicable to compare medical testing and certification via the FDA to the judicial system, as the final stages are full of paperwork, wide-scale testing and records keeping; in addition to the scale of time involved in certification.

Government-run testing, at the expense of the company (the way the FDA does it), keeps a common denominator with lesser opportunity for corruption than a for-profit venture, with definite interests in rushing out a treatment. Civil servant laws in the US are incredibly strict in the FDA, NASA, etc, while there are almost no hindrances in private companies, which also have fewer accountability requirements. Adding accountability via law is difficult and opens up a can of worms over how much the government can meddle in a private practice, while the government passing federal and administrative law to apply to itself is much easier to do so.

[Pippy]

I think that the first point would go further than copper bracelets and hoodoo dolls. What about outlawing SSRI depression medication. In Exploding the SSRI Myth I read that SSRI (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors) medication was no more effective than placebos in all tests. A great moment was when someone asked the author is that meant they had no effect, and he said "oh no, they certainly have side effects". Here in the States it seems retired Pharma men end up working for the FDA and it is becoming undeniable that the FDA is not doing it;s job. Look at it passing all of Monsanto's dangerous, unethical and poorly designed (and very dangerous) "patented genetics". And the passing of SSRI's which may cause far more harm than good.

If we're gonna ban the bullshit medicine, we have to get all of it. I would assert that I think a lot of modern medicine is snake oil. Did you see the newest commercial about so-called "preventive medicine"? Take these pills every day, and you won't get sick. They could be vitamins, or they could just be chalk. But at $120 a bottle or whatever ridiculous prescription price, why not?

What about Canadian companies making HIV and Malaria drugs for cheaper to sell and donate, and getting sued by the owners of the intellectual information? The brown people living on a dollar a day can't afford you 4000% mark-up, so we are not stepping on their toes or affecting the bottom line...

I am all for the re-thinking of medicine, but instead of trinckets and flim-flam I want to take a serious look at the retardation that is modern medicine. Fluoride in the water! A topical! It's like drinking skin cream and hoping it has some effect. Oh, it will have some effect for sure...

Silly modern medicine. Thinking positive thoughts, controlling what we can and not what we cannot. Having faith, and mostly just being brave in the face of the unknown. Much better for you health than all these pills combined...

[Zen Badger]

A lot like religion really.

Question your own dogma Zen

I do all the time.....

I still can't take religion seriolsy tho.

And how often do you examine your belief system?

[Eilonnwy]

Silly modern medicine. Thinking positive thoughts, controlling what we can and not what we cannot. Having faith, and mostly just being brave in the face of the unknown. Much better for you health than all these pills combined...

Actually, vaccines and clean water did more for the better health of everyone than anything else. "Faith" had nothing to do with it.