movielib

Showtime, 9:00pm, CDT.

For the people who feared P&T might take the "Jenny McCarthy" side:

The episode I have waited for all season.

Preview:

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bdshort

It scares me that that man is a father.

I can't wait for this episode, and really wish it was an hour long episode.

Osiris3657

My mom is a practicing physician, so this episode will be of particular interest. The guy in that preview clip is batshit insane.

SteelWill

I think that guy is hitting around the truth, but it's more of an unorganized but common economic motivation than a grand organized conspiracy. There is no doubt the medical industry has a financial interest in a sick populace, and those interests will certainly affect their actions. In other breaking news law enforcement really doesn't want to eradicate crime either. These things may seem counter intuitive, but actually winning the fight against sickness/crime means paychecks go away. It is all about the money in this world.

Edit: I rewatched that clip and really don't have issue with anything the guy actually says here, it's Penn's exaggerated commentary that makes it seem more out there than it really is. And for the record I'm not necessarily anti-vaccine for any particular reason other than generally distrusting big business of any kind (government included). And it's not fair to be automatically dismissive of information on the internet given all the legitimate sources and verifiable info that's there in addition to all the kooky stuff.

Deftones

glad they are taking the right side on this. i hope they rail on idiots like Jenny McCarthy.

orangecrush

I wonder if they'll talk about Gardesil for boys and some of the other newer vaccines? Somehow I don't think so. It sounds like they are going to do more of what Deftones said, which should be good too.

Navinabob

SteelWil: There is no "big business" conspiracy. Law enforcement would love to eradicate crime, it is a service... not a business. Law enforcement is directly responsive to actual crime statistics (more robberies mean more cops dedicated to solving/preventing those crimes) and politicians swayed by idiots (politicians get elected by being "tough on crime" not by seeding incentive programs like free daycare programs). We focus on lock-up, not on rehab. Plus, crime will not go away... it is human nature. You can make arguments that private prisons are "big business" but that is a whole other episode of BS in itself.

And each point the quack made on vaccines are false. Proven false by medical science. If there is any particular points you think he made that are true I'll happily find you medical sources you can read through to show you he is dead wrong. If you'd rather listen to a podcast I have a pretty good one on the topic.

http://www.pusware.com/quackcast/quackcast44.mp3

Conspiracy theorists love saying things like "big pharma" is really putting faulty medicine out there or has already cured cancer but is hiding it. That ignores all common sense. Imagine how much money a company would make killing cancer... every commercial they could ever have on ANY product can start with "from the people that CURED CANCER". Plus, if it ever got out that they held out a cure the public reaction would kill the company... plus if they held out, whats to say a rival company doesn't stumble upon it? Or a small research lab... or a university... or a company in another country??? That idea is ridiculous.

It's always a good idea to be skeptical... but all the information is out there.

orangecrush

That sounds like reptile talk...Kill him!!!!

panchor

I hope the show Jenny McCarthy's tits.

bluetoast

Should be a heated ep.

Navinabob

http://www.jennymccarthybodycount.co...ount/Home.html

Great site for those hating Jenny.

http://quackwatch.org/03HealthPromot...mu/autism.html

A good read on the medical documentation and science-based conclusions. There are a lot of medical practices that have debatable results and conclusions... this just happens to not be one of them.

orangecrush

I agree with this in regaurds to Vaccinations in general, but you will have a hard time convincing me that things like Gardesil are little more than huge revenue source.

SteelWill

Law enforcement is business, big business. There is a ton of money tied up in it. Crime does pay, and thus there is financial incentive to perpetuate it. That's not conspiracy, that's economics. The same economics that applies to disease and medical care. Denying the science behind that is no better than denying science behind vaccines.

I only saw the preview with the father talking about his distrust of the medical industry. For reasons I've stated, I share the mistrust, but I don't deny vaccines work. I do think vaccines, medications, treatments, surgeries are far more risky than anyone likes to admit, even outside of any potential "conspiracy," largely because our understanding of human health and nutrition is still quite porous.

Companies collude, lie, cheat, everything they can get away with to make a buck. Look at the banks. Insurance companies. Chemical companies. It's the very same type of folks running these that are running the pharma companies, so I don't know what you'd expect any better behavior from them. There's far more money in treating a disease than outright curing it, and that's the goal the companies are actively pursuing. Say a company produces a perfectly profitable cancer drug and then discovers an actual cure. Why are they going to cannibalize their existing treatment sales by making it completely obsolete by releasing the cure? Bottom line is as with anything, once you finish a job, you stop getting paid for it.

Red Dog

SteelWill is a plaintiff's trial lawyer's dream juror.

SteelWill

Only if he has a legitimate case. I'm well aware I'm an oddball because I don't blindly follow the popular "logic" on most matters. But I look at the state of this world and fail to see a compelling reason of why I should. For example, am I really the only person who notices the slew of diabetes commercial on TV now? Mixed right in with all the commercials for fast food and sodas that get you there? It's like every morning I wake up in bizarro world.

Navinabob

There is no such thing as popular logic; there is popular beliefs and popular misconception, but not logic. Logic simple is what is true... that fact that you put logic in quotations worries me a tad. There is nothing wrong with being mistrustful and skeptical of people or businesses; but mistrust should lead you towards investigation not conspiracy.

I'm a private investigator that deals mainly with background checks for employers and have done my share of investigating companies so I understand how ugly both a person and a corporation can get. While getting my psychology and criminology degree I even worked at San Jose Parole for 9 months so I've even got to peek inside out justice system... What you are suggesting is a worldwide conspiracy by giving anecdotal examples. I don't see it... none of my colleagues who look for it "for a living" see it either. That tells me something.

"Law enforcement is business, big business. There is a ton of money tied up in it. Crime does pay, and thus there is financial incentive to perpetuate it. That's not conspiracy, that's economics. The same economics that applies to disease and medical care. Denying the science behind that is no better than denying science behind vaccines." What you are saying is not science, it a really strange Non-Sequitur. Law enforcement is big business, it is riddled with wastefulness, bad politics and horrible compromises... but the fact that you can mix those with lots of cash does not prove a conspiracy. Crime does not pay... most people who commit crimes end up poor. The average drug dealer does not make minimum wage... But even if you reverse those facts your point is still not valid. There is not evidence that a nationwide police conspiracy exists to perpetuate crime to keep themselves employed.

"I do think vaccines, medications, treatments, surgeries are far more risky than anyone likes to admit, even outside of any potential "conspiracy," largely because our understanding of human health and nutrition is still quite porous." The good thing about medicine is that there are numbers provided. Every medication on the market has statistics on complications. Just because your understanding of medicine is quite low it does not mean the medical community is in the dark (this is called Argument from Personal Incredulity in critical thinking circles). Can you explain how you came to this conclusion?

There's far more money in treating a disease than outright curing it, and that's the goal the companies are actively pursuing. Say a company produces a perfectly profitable cancer drug and then discovers an actual cure. Why are they going to cannibalize their existing treatment sales by making it completely obsolete by releasing the cure? Bottom line is as with anything, once you finish a job, you stop getting paid for it.

I've already answered your last question when I stated here "Conspiracy theorists love saying things like "big pharma" is really putting faulty medicine out there or has already cured cancer but is hiding it. That ignores all common sense. Imagine how much money a company would make killing cancer... every commercial they could ever have on ANY product can start with "from the people that CURED CANCER". Plus, if it ever got out that they held out a cure the public reaction would kill the company... plus if they held out, whats to say a rival company doesn't stumble upon it? Or a small research lab... or a university... or a company in another country??? That idea is ridiculous."

Navinabob

One of my heroes is Phil Plait. He had a great article on Gardasil. There are more technical accounts out there by other doctors but his is the easiest to read and has some great bullet points. Let me know what you think of it Orange.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/ba...over-gardasil/

This is a more technical blog on it, something closer to a "too-new-to-be-certain" which I lean towards myself... it's a good read on a good site for those who want to expand their medical knowledge.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=98

SteelWill

Navinabob, I don't know why you keep insisting I'm alleging some sort of grand conspiracy exists. I'm not. Whether there is or isn't some grand conspiracy is beside the point I'm making, which is, there exists an economic incentive on the part of the medical industry for maintaining a sick populace. There can be no argument about this, it's economics. And it doesn't take a conspiracy for individuals, or businesses, to follow their incentives. And crime does pay, it pays law enforcement.

As for my conclusion about how porous the current medical industry's understanding of health and nutrition is, tell me, are eggs are good for me? Or milk? Is a high carb/low fat diet healthy? Is it more or less healthy than a low carb/high fat diet? Does dietary cholesterol influence blood cholesterol? Or a myriad of other questions the medical industry continually flip flops on, just plain can't answer, or worse, has gotten dead wrong. If they could answer just what does cause autism we wouldn't be having this discussion. As good as our medical industry is perceived to be, it still has a long way to go to reach a point where I'd say it actually understands human health, or treat people effectively as it should. Here's a joke for you. What's the good thing about cancer and heart disease? It keeps hospitals from being the number one killer of Americans. Yep, 200,000 folks a year dead directly from hospital mistakes and medicine complications. High five.

Please stop trying to use your "common sense" to trump the science of economics. If it's economically preferential for a company to sit on a cure and still market a treatment, they likely will. They are going to milk the treatment as long as they possibly can before playing their cure card because it's most profitable. They have little to fear from a competitor releasing a cure in the mean time, because they are doing the very same thing. But current pharma r&d is geared towards treatment over cure anyway, so the likeliness of an actual cure being developed is small. And in the case that something may show to be a little too promising, all they have to do is shelve it before any wide scale testing takes place to maintain plausible deniability against just sitting on a cure. On the off chance they do face competition, they'll buy it up from a smaller company, kill them through patent litigation, or pull out that formula they had been sitting on but had no compelling reason to bring to market yet.

I put common "logic" in quotes because I recognize most of what people "know" is far from it. That knowledge may happen coincide with what is logical, but it is rarely based on logic. I've come to realize faith and simply what one wants to believe and is told to believe forms the basis of most opinions and things like facts, reason, and logic rarely sway anyone from those opinions. Not to imply that I'm not guilty of this too, but while most people don't seem to be conscious of it I am, and I do try to get my perception of any given thing to match the actual reality of it. (On this subject there is a great BBC documentary on Edward Bernays called Century of the Self that should be watched by everyone.)

starman9000

There's a huge market for conspiracy theories, therefore they are bunk.

JasonF

Penn & Teller have a lot of nerve taking on vacations given that they live in a city that owes its exist to people who go there on vacation.

Navinabob

The funny part of your post when listing medical confusions is when you link those things to science. What you are really doing is listing things accepted by the general populace because it is things listed by people who claim to be professionals, the misinformed media or quacks. General healthy guidelines have remained generally the same over the last few decades of modern medicine. What happens is you get authors on Oprah pitching revolutionary ideas and everything goes to shit. Everyone "knows" how many glasses of water we're told to drink a day... everyone assumes that came from a doctor who conducted a lengthy study that was peer reviewed when in truth that never existed.

The media is often confused because they don't really get what a pilot study is so they'll quote a radically different opinion without knowing that it was just a small scale fact-finding study that by it's very nature can get crazy results. Thankfully, in real science, that is only the first test and then more studies are done with larger sample size and strict controls. We just don't hear about those follow-up studies because a story everyone already knows is not a story that get ratings.

And yes, phama companies focus on both cures and alleviating symptoms. Symptoms is usually a bit easier then the other one methodologically speaking. Plus in working towards a cure we can take small steps that get released by drug companies in order to fund further studies to find a cure. I still feel that in our capitalistic society a drug company would gladly kill off all of its competition with a cancer cure and could charge whatever they felt like to the public for it. The creator of that drug would sit beside Jesus, Einstein and Ghandi as one of the greatest people to ever lived.

This "continue to milk" idea makes sense in a lot of cases... I'm pressed to leave work right now but I'll gladly post good examples of your position in my next post.

SteelWill

Are those the same general health guidelines that have directly lead to massive amounts of obesity, diabetes, and God knows what else in this country? The same guidelines that school meals follow, of which poorer children typically have two a day of, and who are leading the pack in those statistics? The same guidelines that list ketchup and potatoes as vegetables? Our understanding of nutrition has changed dramatically vs. what we knew thirty years ago. Just think what we might know 30 years from now. Or maybe we'll still have Shrek telling kids to play an hour a day so they can eat his green twinkies.

And feel free to post studies that conclusively answer the questions I asked as well. You can blame the media for jumping to conclusions, I can blame the medical industry for a lack of actual conclusions. But actually, one of those questions I asked has been answered rather conclusively, because we've observed the consequences of getting it wrong for the past 30 years.

starman9000

They said potatoes are vegetables?!?!? Those bastards!!!!

SteelWill

How about counting corn as a vegetable? Better yet, let's link up all those studies that reinforce those government recommended RDA values for vitamins and minerals. That 100% is still all you need to be healthy, right?

starman9000

How about counting vegetables as vegetables and not changing definitions because some are less healthy than others?