| greg78 2005-09-30, 12:01 pm |
| Jean
First of all, I echo your sentiments about the crass way in which
"anti-denialists" have reacted to the EJ affair.
I would like to challenge you (in a friendly way, of course) regarding
your inclination that "I stick to my opinion that it's highly unlikely
regular science be wrong in it's overall approach." I put it to you that
there are a plethora of instances where organised medicine, in particular,
has gotten things HORRIBLY wrong. I would encourage you to do some
research into things like the SMON fiasco, the pellagra, scurvy and
beriberi stories. In these cases an infectious cause was ascribed to
conditions which were later found to be non-infectious and environment
related.
One of the main reasons that I am incredibly sceptical of the HIV/AIDS
paradigm is the stark similarities between the abovementioned conditions
and what is called AIDS. At the time, all these conditions were vehemently
defended by the medical establishment as having infectious aetiology.
Pellagra is particularly illuminating because it only happened in the
first part of last century. For years thousands of children in the US
South were ripped out of their homes and stuck in pellagrine hospitals.
All sorts of "treatments" were tried out on these children. After much
malignment, one doctor EVENTUALLY managed to convince the medical
dunderheads that the cause of the disease was a lack of a B vitamin. But
for years the docs insisted that that was bullshit theory.
The medical history is also a wrecking yard of abandoned treatments that
at the time of their use were considered to be "standards of care". Take
the treatment of syphilis with arsenic, for example (a treatment that was
only discontinued in the 1930's!). And what about the practice of lancing
to remove "bad blood" as a treatment for anaemia! Tellingly, one of the
establishment's most respected medical journals, The Lancet, is named
after the instrument that was used to lance blood out of people.
It is extremely arrogant of our current medical experts that after
centuries of medicine bunging it up royally, on a regular basis, to assume
that they are incapable of screwing up again. So, in conclusion, I would
say that you may want to re-examine your position regarding the likelihood
that the "scientists" have got it all wrong. They've got it wrong in the
past (lots), and there's no reason to believe they won't get it wrong
again.
Regards
Greg
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