Sequel Thread To Holistic Doctors, and medicine

Thanks PD, I will go there and have a read

I can't really answer your question. All prescription drugs in the US are FDA approved, but I don't know about OTC drugs. I know the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) is responsible for insuring that advertising claims (including those on the package) are accurate, so maybe the FTC is involved with OTC drugs, I don't know, but I do know they're way overloaded and have to pick their battles carefully.That's not a very good answer, maybe someone else knows more.--Percy

OTC drugs are FDA approved as well.Page Not Found | FDA

The OTC drugs do, but there isn't anything on the container to show that they are.Those things that aren't supported by FDA are supposed to carry the Non-FDA blurb.So if I research that product and there are no ding letters on the FDA site or the FTC site, is it safe to assume they are approved?Algae is a GRAS item.

I'm beginning to wonder if you believe anything that is actually supported by valid evidence.Viruses are fought off by the bodies natural defense system through the development of antibodies. When the body is exposed to a new virus there is no protection against it. It doesn't matter how healthy a person is, they're defenseless against a virus to which they've never before been exposed, because they have no antibodies to fight off that virus.A healthy person is better able to withstand a virus's initial onslaught and develop an immune response that develops antibodies to fight off the virus, and then it just becomes a race between the development of antibodies and the virus's ability to make copies of itself. A healthy person can survive an illness longer, giving his immune system a longer opportunity to fight off the virus. That is the extent of the contribution of health to fighting off a virus. Good health makes it more likely the body will successfully fight off the virus, but it definitely does nothing to prevent viral infection.The principle of vaccination is that exposure to an inactivated form of the virus will provoke an immune response so that the body builds up antibodies against that particular virus. After vaccination, whenever the body is exposed to that virus, the antibodies already present prevent the virus from gaining a foothold, thereby preventing illness. Yes, of course. The most successful approach was quarantine of contagious people, which became increasingly successful because as its effectiveness was observed, departments of health were given increasing powers to effect quarantines.I can only wonder what led you to cite declining incidence rates prior to the introduction of vaccines as evidence that they're unnecessary. Whatever you were thinking, progress was made by using methods that prevent exposure, not that prevent infection. First, about some common diseases for which children are usually inoculated:Measles is not usually dangerous, but it is so highly contagious that in an unvaccinated society it would sweep through in epidemics, disabling the economy and seriously compromising public safety.Rubella is very dangerous to the fetus of pregnant women.Chicken pox is also very dangerous to the fetus of pregnant women, and it is extremely dangerous to people with compromised immune systems, such as might result from HIV.Mumps in children is usually mild. Mumps in adults can be very dangerous.Diphtheria has a serious mortality rate, as high as 20% for the very young.Whooping cough "is one of the leading causes of vaccine-preventable deaths world-wide," according to Wikipedia.Polio can cause paralysis.Second, these diseases are opportunistic, taking advantage of people in a weakened state. Everybody isn't healthy all the time, and we certainly don't want to see people who are already sick to also come down with measles or rubella or mumps or chicken pox or diphtheria or whooping cough or polio, any of which could be very dangerous, even fatal, simply because they were never vaccinated. So now your daughter is immune to chicken pox, but let's imagine she never had the disease and it's 20 years later and she comes down with chicken pox while early in a pregnancy. The dangers to the fetus include "skin scarring, malformed limbs, an abnormally small head, vision or hearing problems, and motor or mental developmental disabilities." (from Chicken pox during pregnancy). Sure, I guess, if you're lucky enough to catch them while healthy. But it's even healthier to develop immunity through exposure to the deactivated virus than to the real thing.It also makes no sense to believe it's better to develop immunity through exposure to the live virus (as well as suffering through the subsequent illness) than to the deactivated virus (which usually causes no illness at all). Oh, I see, you just want to present your ideas but not have them rebutted. How wonderfully fair-minded of you! But that's okay, I don't mind rebutting your misconceived ideas. What you're doing is horrific. I watched only the first eight minutes. They presented graphs showing the dramatic declining death rates for whooping cough and diphtheria in the US prior to the introduction of vaccines. This is due not only to aforementioned actions of public health departments, but also the increasing quality and availability of medical care. Reducing the incidence rates of these diseases to near zero required vaccines.--Percy

quote:

---

I do wish I had help with an ND I could personally go to see, but there aren't any around here. I'd truly be in trouble if it weren't for my internet-ND. And she's free, LOL.

---

It is difficult to find an ND in this area also. But I do have one locally. I'm also fortunate to have found an MD who understands about NDs and knows the work of my ND, so that is a plus.This cancer site is a good example of what I hope the future of medicine will become in other areas of treatment.Cancer Treatment Centers of America Complementary Therapies

I mentioned this Percy, and as the purpose of this forum is debate then I'm not following the rules unless I'm willing be challenged and defend my position. I've needed a bit of a cool-off period. My apologies for getting emotional at times. Believe it or not, I did well with competitive speech-making in high school. The problem is that they never gave me any formal training, no lessons in logic, nothing. Maybe I got good at persuading people using anecdote as well as a sprinkling here and there of some quotes and information from prestigious sources. I'm trying to re-learn how to go about doing things while I'm here.Having said that, I find myself in an odd position. I am refuting creationist arguments on another website. Here I am making myself look like an ass because I have views that are not always supported by the clinical study evidence required here, and indeed which are often in opposition to it. All I can say is that I'll give evidence where I can, and I'll explain where I can, though what I confess I'm working from is what I feel deep down is right. That's not at all logically defensible, I'm aware, and if people used that excuse then they could justify believing in everything from UFOs to the end of the world tomorrow. However, I have built my views on many things I've heard and read about and I don't tend to file them away for the purposes of debate. I'll see what I can find now to give what I've said some support.Firstly, when I said a person is well protected against disease if they are healthy, what I meant was that they are less likely to suffer ill effects from the diease, not that they are any less likely to have the virus in their body. So I'm not in disagreement with anything you said about that. I'm glad you agree that good health enables a person to fight a virus off more successfully. There's plenty of evidence that disease is so widespread in developing countries because of poverty, resulting in poor nutrition and living conditions. My position there is that vaccinations are best until those countries can be assisted to improve the standard of living of their citizens.In wealthy developed countries, this is a hazier issue in my opinion. Well-nourished children are not going to be so prone to the worst effects of diseases, especially if they are taking large amounts of vitamin C. I know that my daughter is in excellent nutritional health. The risk is small that if she does contract a disease like measles or mumps, she will suffer disabling effects from them. I do understand that the risk is not zero. However, as I have said, the risk of vaccination is not zero either.To date no studies have been performed to compare human populations vaccinated and populations unvaccinated. No one can claim that we know for sure that vaccines are safe. The number that children receive has mushroomed in the past two decades. In 1985 children were vaccinated for 7 diseases. Now it's 16, for which they receive 37 separate vaccination encounters. Vaccines, as I'm sure you are aware, do not just consist of inactivated viruses. They contain substances like ethylene glycol (antifreeze), phenol/carbolic acid, formaldehyde, aluminum, neomycin, streptomycin, and thimerosal. Of these, thimerosal has received the most attention because it consists mostly of ethyl mercury. Thimerosal was withdrawn from many pediatric vaccines in 1999 as a result of concerns over the neurodevelopmental toxicity of organic mercury, although it is still used in influenza, diptheria, and pertussis vaccinations.No studies have been done on the safety of injecting these compounds directly into the bloodstream, though there is growing evidence of the harm that mercury can cause. Why inject such a poison into a person? (For that matter, why put it in someone's teeth?) Babies who are only a few days old are being injected with these substances.I am also concerned about the way the vaccine cultures are developed. They are grown and strained through animal or human tissue; for example monkey kidney tissue, chicken embryo, embryonic guinea pig cells, calf serum, and human diploid cells (the dissected organs of aborted foetuses, as in the rubella vaccine). The problem with animal cells is that during serial passage of the virus through them, the animal RNA and DNA can be transferred from one host to another and undetected animal viruses may slip past quality control testing procedures. This happened in 1955-61 with SV40 (simian virus #40) which has carcinogenic properties. All three types of Sabin's live polio virus vaccine were contaminated, though the "killed" vaccines were contaminated as well. The virus has also been found in subsequent generations, suggesting that it has been passed down from parent to child. You can read more about this here.Some vaccines have used bovine-derived materials from the USDA's BSE list. A polio vaccine was recalled in the UK in 2000 over concerns about BSE.There is also an issue about the effect vaccines have on the immune system. Injecting a virus, alive or dead, bypasses the natural lines of defense in the body. There has been speculation that vaccines could cause autoimmune diseases. Gulf War Syndrome could fall into this category. This article gives a more detailed explanation.Contracting a disease often gives lifelong immunity. If we hadn't started vaccinating for rubella, then young women would not have to worry about it during pregnancy because the vast majority will have already been exposed to the virus and will have immunity. However, the rubella vaccine does not give this lifelong immunity. Arguably, the natural immunity conferred from the contraction of the virus is better than the uncertain immunity given by a vaccine. It's not hard to find cases where people immunized with any given vaccine, ended up contracting a virus they had been vaccinated against.I repeat that these viruses are, on the whole, not as dangerous as we are told to believe. Certainly not to people who are in good health. You said: Was every nation on earth disabled by measles outbreaks until the vaccine was introduced? No. Are the Amish devastated by it now? No.You mentioned chicken pox. The vast majority of people have been exposed to it by the time they are adults -- or would have been, before vaccinations. To my knowledge I have never had it, and I am 35. I have been in close contact with people who have had it, including my sister and my daughter. it's possible that I had such a mild case of it at some point that symptoms never surfaced. Do I want to be vaccinated? Given the sorts of concerns about vaccines that I have raised here, no. I eat a healthy diet and take my vitamin C megadoses. If I did contract chicken pox, I'm quite prepared to ride it out.You mentioned diptheria. There are many different forms of non-toxin-producing, interrelated, relatively harmless "diphtheroids" that live with lots of other so-called disease-causing bacteria in our throats, on our skin, or in the environment, as you can read about here. It is environmental factors which are mostly to blame for cases of diptheria. You might also be interested in reading this extract from a 1912 book titled Leicester: Sanitation verses Vaccination. Close to home for me. It starts by describing "The Inoculation Mania."That's a summary of my case Percy. It's why I believe that there's more danger for my daughter in being vaccinated than there is in her potentially catching something like measles or mumps. She's already received most of her vaccinations and I regret this; but at least I am informed about vaccinations now and can make good decisions for us both in the future.

I suggest that if anyone wishes to continue the vaccination discussion they take it to the vaccination thread.
Message 239Please direct any comments concerning this Admin msg to the Moderation Thread.

​

Any response in this thread will receive a 24 hour timeout.Thank you

It sounds like you've got a lot of resources around you, including Dr. Mercola himself -- must be reassuring! Yes this looks like a good site. Critics here might want to note that they also offer conventional cancer therapies alone or in combination with naturopathic approaches.Hope they give vitamin C IVs -- that would be the first thing I'd ask for if I wanted cancer treatement anywhere.

I know Amin PD has asked us to take vaccine discussion to the appropriate thread, but I feel that this is relevant. You say Can I use a single example from your post to show that you are not quite as informed as you believe. If you go to the following site you will notice that the tell you diphtheria vaccine is actually an inactivated form of the diphtheria toxin. This causes you to produce antibodies to the toxin and not the bacterium. Naturally occurring, non-toxigenic diphtheroids, by definition do not produce toxin. Therefore I find it hard to see how these bacteria will confer resistance to diphtheria toxin.The problem with diphtheria is that the toxin it produces (an iron-chelating siderophore) is only produced when iron availability is low and it inhibits protein synthesis all round the body, producing pathological effects in the heart, kidney, gut etc. By targetting the toxin the vaccine ensures maximal protection from these effects. The genes for toxin production are carried on a bacteriophage which the toxigenic strains carry. There are non-toxigenic strains of Corynebacterium diphtheriae. these confer no resistance to the disease whatsoever.I'm not trying to have a go at you, just to demonstrate that you can make yourself even better informed and make the right decisions for the right reasons.I've only used a small part of your post as an example. If you would like to discuss this further, I'll meet you in the vaccine thread.

quote:

---

Wouldn't vaccines prevent the species from developing an immunity or means of surviving the virus?

---

Yes, possibly.Of course, if you think it is better for nearly all, or all children in one or more generations to die so that evolution could make the species less suceptible to a disease, then we should stop vaccinations.There could also be a local or even worldwide extinction of humans due to disease as well. This will be more likely if vaccines are abandoned.We could also stop giving people antibiotics to combat infection and only let the people with the strongest immune systems survive.Similarly, we could stop giving any medical assistance to pregnant women and let more of them and their infants die from post-childbirth complications. this would allow only the people for whom pregnancy and birth were easiest to survive, thus making the species stronger.But that seems a rather callous, Ayn Randian sort of attitude, don't you think? I think you would be well served by reading up on the history of early childhood diseases before Pasteur came along. Do you have any idea what the death rate was for children under two years of age back then?What you are forgetting is the entirety of the history of life is the history of survival against disease as well as against starvation, environmental change, etc.Our species will never be completely immune from all disease, because, of course, viruses mutate and evolve, too. It is not a game that we can ever win once and for all, but we can and do alleviate a lot of suffering and prevent a lot of death with vaccines.Why anyone would want to go back to the days of kids becoming paralysed from polio and simply dying from whooping cough?

quote:

---

If parents received childhood vaccinations, would or could their offspring have immunity? Has this even been checked?

---

Yes, it has been checked. About 200 years ago, the notion of inheritence of acquired characteristics was rejected.The only way parents could pass on immunity to disease would be through a mutation.(Are you talking about the antibodies that newborns get from their mothers through the colostrum in her milk? That still isn't hereditary)Edited by nator, : No reason given.

quote:

---

I believe that a person is well protected against disease if they keep themselves healthy to begin with.

---

Except that infants are vulnerable to disease just because they are infants.That's why dieseases that adults can survive, like influenza, can pretty easily kill a baby.What you don't know about the immune system is a lot.

Posted at my work location: If people want to suggest questions, I'll ask one if there's a question/answer session.--Percy

Nator if you want to discuss vaccines, Purple Dawn asked us to move to the vaccines thread. That's where we are now.

What exactly are her methods? I'd like to see an example, for instance of her cancer protocol. Does she practice orthomolecular medicine?