19 Comments

This is an excellent article, Ashmedai. After reading many books and references concerning drug trials and efficacy and all that, I can only conclude that big pharma does not provide honest data in most cases. Therefore, as with all things related to the covid pandemic and the resulting mRNA gene therapy injections, there is little to chew on that can be termed as accurate data.

In the case of creating assumptions and probabilities, the data must be true, encompassing and virtually sacrosanct. Otherwise, no firm conclusions can be derived. I think most doctors diagnostic judgements are either made from experience or whatever the medical mafia says they should be. They are very seldom independent thinkers, or all that smart beyond holding some degree.

Most doctors are no longer healers or keepers of health. They equate to no more than big pharma controlled thugs and butchers. Tow the line set by the AMA or else you are on the streets and casted as a renegade. In all cases, statistics are no more reliable than the data that supports them. And in many cases, the data are "fudged" to support not a true independent outcome, but an agendized outcome that favors one thing over another.

Expand full comment

As an engineer that attended school with several doctors, I realized that they excelled in memorization while I excelled in mathematics, problem-solving, and logic.

Expand full comment

"If a treatment requires A & B to both happen, and the probability of A = 80%, and the probability of B is 70%, what is the probability for the treatment to be successful?"

P(A) = 0.8

P(B) = 0.7

P(A & B) = (0.8)(0.7) = 0.56

So the probability that the treatment is successful is 56%.

Expand full comment

that's assuming that the likelihoods of A & B are mutually exclusive and have no overlap :)

but this would be the standard answer to such a question if there are no other inputs

Expand full comment

Nice article. It also assumes patients take all the medications exactly as prescribed 😉

Expand full comment

I don't know if I'd go that far ;)

Expand full comment

Please elaborate that 9 = 6 = deadlock.

Expand full comment

That's what I got...

Expand full comment

On Steve Kirch subtack a person asked about heart stents and cancer, seems the two are linked. Like the Hernia mesh is safe, it's not. If I had to evaluate either I'd decline. Heart Stents

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/11/3/16599072/stent-chest-pain-treatment-angina-not-effective

I've had to diagnosis my own health issues, as they don't listen very well. And I'm not a doctor. When the symptoms don't match right, you get it wrong.

Expand full comment

One of the top echelon docs on our side (I forgot who) mentioned a while back that in poorer countries where they can't afford the pricey novel pharma products, they repurpose other stuff, this is standard practice there, and their health outcomes tend to be better than they are in countries like US where we use the novel pricey pharma products.

Expand full comment

It becomes about convenience. I like the internet for information, way more widely available if you know how to get around Google censorship. I dislike cell phones, but that is more the fact I can't hear well even with hearing aids. We don't understand why certain tribes cling to the ways of their forefathers. I like the Conveniences when they make sense. I prefer natural vitamins and minerals when I can. I'm that person who reacts to most modern medicines. But don't like the multiple ones as the formulas are off, or have something you react to in them. Pricey isn't the word, THEFT fits it better. We were told generics would be cheaper. There is a $4.00 difference in Name Brand Synthroid over the poor quality Generic. The SIBO Xifaxan antibiotic is $1,250-$1,350 generic, but at the Military Base it is FREE.

Expand full comment

I can answer why some of us have tremendous deference to inherited wisdom of previous generations, which is one of the most fundamental organizing principles of Jewish religion:

Because inherited wisdom passed down is the manifestation of thousands of years of continuous human experience & observation. (There are other reasons but they would require whole doctoral theses to explain the premises from which they are derived.)

I can't speak to tribes, but I imagine that they are probably rooted in a similar type of thinking at least to some degree.

To illustrate, earlier this year I saw a study (I forgot where offhand) about a tribe in I think it was the Amazon that had some weird ritual for eating a certain fruit that involved cooking it somewhat & a waiting period afterwards. This fruit that was indigenous to their geography was eventually exported somewhere else, where of course the people scoffed at their ritual (which to be fair also involved lots of "praying to the elements of nature" stuff too) & ate the fruit without following the same physical process used in the ritual. What happened? lots of food poisoning :))

It turned out that the combination of how they cooked the fruit plus waiting a certain amount of time afterwards chemically neutered a toxin in the fruit

Expand full comment

Most doctors stupidly ignore Nobel laureate Richet's findings because we now have "modern medicine" and the stuff from 1913 is irrelevant to them. Wells and Osborne discovered in 1911 that early allergen introduction protects against allergies. Our stupid doctors are rediscovering that wheel now.

How to prevent or reduce risk of food allergies, autism, asthma and type 1 diabetes: From a parent who has been burned

https://zenodo.org/record/2061371

Expand full comment

Of course we already knew that, or worse.

Nobel Prize winning proof that most doctors lack fundamental medical knowledge and thus sicken us with devastating chronic diseases

https://zenodo.org/record/3475557

Ignaz Semmelweis showed us that a long time ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis

Expand full comment

Statistics are "racist, sexist and bigoted!"

Expand full comment

Perhaps that study could explain "Dr" Tedros's voodoo maths where 9 = 6 = deadlock.

Expand full comment