Court forcing 16 yr old with cancer into chemo

[scaeagles]

I have heard that 80% of traditional prescription medicines do not have the desired effect in 80% of the people. Either the side effects are worse than what is being solved, or they are not effective, or they lose potency for an individual over time.

I mentioned my venturing into alternative therapies for my disease. Well, I also tried many conventional therapies and medications that were completely ineffective as well. I won't go into everything I was given to take or the types of procedures I submitted to, but nothing had the desired effect for more than a couple of days.

Medicine is an inexact science. For that reason, I hesitate to say that alternative or conventional treatments are or are not effective. Trial and error is often necessary.

[BarTopDancer]

As much as it sucks, until the age of 18 parents, or guardians have control over your body. You have to have parental consent to get piercings and tattoos. In some places you have to have consent to certain medical care (abortions) and some places you don't.

At 18 you are considered old enough to vote, to make your own medical decisions, and enlist in the military (but not old enough to drink legally, that is another issue for another time).

So, I can see why this 16 y/o could not make the decision for himself what medical care he wants to receive; however, his parents were supporting him in his choice and that should be where it ends. If the parents wanted him to only have alternative medicine and he wanted convential medicine I could see an issue, and if he wanted alternative and his parents wanted conventional I could see an issue. I could even see a court battle in these cases.

But in the end, the age of adult is 18, and until then his parents should get the final say, not the courts, and not the social services fighting on behalf of the courts to invoke a choice that neither parent, nor child wanted.

[tracilicious]

I agree with a lot of what you are saying, Alex. Upon googling I found out the same things you said about studies, so my memory must have been very rose colored on the arthritis one. My point isn't that acupuncture is a godsend and western medicine is bunk. My point is that I don't think the opposite is true either. I find it annoying that many view anyone that uses or practices alternative medicine as an idiot, or a quack. In reality, it is usually people that want to know all the options.

For the record, I've never heard of anyone treating an actual disease with acupuncture. Mostly it is balancing the body's systems/managing pain.

I do love homeopathy though, for the sole reason that it gets rid of my hayfever and I can't take any over the counter allergy medicine. Homeopathy gets rid of my allergies like no over the counter stuff did anyways. I have to take it all day long when things are blooming, but it helps. I have really severe hayfever. So, it's at least effective sometimes.

[Alex]

On homeopathy, are you taking something that is truly homeopathic or something that misuses homeopathic to mean "herbal" or "holistic."

With true homeopathy you'd be taking nothing but plain water or (if in pill form) neutral filler.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by tracilicious

For the record, I've never heard of anyone treating an actual disease with acupuncture. Mostly it is balancing the body's systems/managing pain.

Here is a claim of it curing cerebral vascular disease.

Among actual diseases (as opposed to more general discomforts) this site says it can treat psoriasis, exzema, tonsillitis, bronchitis, and emphysema.

This one says that not only can it cure cancer, it will prevent it from happening in the first place.

On this one it cures asthma and Bell's Palsy.

This guy uses it to cure liver cancer.

[wendybeth]

Ewwww..I was taking a swig of water when I read Alex's "Caesar's bladder" comment.

[tracilicious]

It seems to be a combination. But what do you mean?

[Alex]

Originally Posted by tracilicious

It seems to be a combination. But what do you mean?

It can't be a combination. Either your stuff has something in it, or it doesn't.

Homeopathy is the theory that if something causes a symptom then consuming a very small quantity of that item will cure that symptom, even if that isn't what is causing the symptom in the specific case. So, if you're exposed to toxin that causes your eyes to water excessively, a minute quantity of onion (perhaps, this is a made up example of a treatment) would cure you of that toxin exposure. The second half of the theoryis that the smaller the dose, the more powerful the medicine.

Now, when talking about minute quantities, I mean truly infinitesimal quantities. Start with 1 ml of the substance and dilute it to 100 ml. Take 1 ml of the diluted mixture and dilute that to 100 ml (one such dilution is called 1C).

When Hahneman first put forward his theory of homeopathy he recommened a dosage of 30C (doing the dilution described 30 times). This means that for every molecule of the original substance you have 10^60 molecules of water.

To put it another way. If you wanted enough of this homeopathic solution to guarantee that you were getting at least one molecule of the "curing chemical" you would need 10^34 gallons of water. That is if you had a glass that could hold 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons of water you would likely on be drinking one molecule of "onion." So, when you take a single capsule or eyedrop or whatever of a homeopathic solution your chances of actually consuming the substance that will supposedly cure you is essentially zero.

To put it yet another way: if you took that one "onion" molecule and dropped it into the Pacific Ocean (and assumed that all water on earth was connected), it would still be too concentrated by a factor of 10^16.

And this is just Hahnemann's original theory. Modern homeopathy frequently uses dilutions of 50,000C (called LM). This means that if you had a swimming pool the size of our galaxy, it likely would still not contain even a single molecule of curative substance.

To counter the obvious bunkness of all this, many homeopathy proponents posit that molecules of water somehow remember the "vibration" of the curative substance. This ignores the fact that most of the water in the dilution was never anywhere near a molecule of the curative and that all water on Earth has been in contact with billions of non-water molecules since the Earth first cooled and how exactly is it supposed to remember the onion molecule but not the time it was in Caesar's bladder?

The great advantage for homeopathists is that since all they are selling is water, their materials overhead is minimal and margins are very high.

[tracilicious]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

It can't be a combination. Either your stuff has something in it, or it doesn't.

I meant a combination of herbs and flower essences. I've never heard of what you are saying, but I've also never researched homeopathy. Perhaps it includes more than that? Anecdotally, the friends I have that swear by it are never sick.

I had a sports medicine doctor give me arnica tablets for a knee problem, and those are in the scope of homeopathy, are they not? It is a flower.

With the disease acupuncture thing, I simply meant that no one I know that goes to acupuncture does so to cure disease. Although, I suppose arthritis is a disease, and they do cure that.

[Motorboat Cruiser]

Originally Posted by tracilicious

Anecdotally, the friends I have that swear by it are never sick.

I never get sick either. I suspect it is my strict regimen of coffee and cigarettes.