werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner) (08/11/85)
For the facts on diet, nutrition and Cancer prevention, write for the free booklet: Food Choices National Cancer Institute Bethesda MD 20205 -- Craig Werner !philabs!aecom!werner "The world is just a straight man for you sometimes"
tjs@cbdkc1.UUCP ( Tom Stanions) (08/14/85)
In article <1848@aecom.UUCP> werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner) writes: >For the facts on diet, nutrition and Cancer prevention, write for the free >booklet: > > Food Choices > National Cancer Institute > Bethesda MD 20205 Surely you jest. Even you must admit that NCI's facts/opinions are biased. If they solved cancer they would lose their funding. Even with this asside if they found out that the natural way worked would they admit it? This is the equivalent of going to a conventional doctor and asking then for nutritional advice. {allegra|ihnp4}!cbdkc1!tjs
root@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein) (08/17/85)
>From: tjs@cbdkc1.UUCP ( Tom Stanions) >Surely you jest. Even you must admit that NCI's facts/opinions are biased. If >they solved cancer they would lose their funding. Even with this asside if they >found out that the natural way worked would they admit it? This is the >equivalent of going to a conventional doctor and asking then for nutritional >advice. I remember when working at the Harvard School of Public Health an astonished outcry when (ok, I'm really working from memory here) the head of NCI (in front of a congressional panel reviewing budget requests) said that the reason his request was so low was that he hoped that congress would spend more money on improving the quality of life in general rather than massive amounts on a disease that will probably frustrate us for years (this was around 1979.) He felt too much was being spent already and that the important basic research was funded fine, he would cut various programs that he felt were worthless at this point. Ok, I guess if you're real cynical you'll figure an ulterior motive for that one also, but sometimes ya gotta face the fact that there *are* people out there (not all of them named Richard Nixon who I assume induced a lot of this cynicism.) As I remember, he got shot down by lobbying from the people who would get cut. Sigh. Does this jog anyone's memory for facts? Oh, foo, this is net.cooks...Ok, here's how I make Baba Ghanouj (sp?) Make a barbecue just like Dad used to make. Put a couple of large eggplants on it (which you have pierced, they *can* blow up.) Leave there till they are quite soft, the outside will char a bit, you'll throw that away anyhow. Let them cool, cut in half, scoop the soft innards into a large bowl (some waste is unavoidable.) Glop in a bunch of tahini to taste, a splash of lemon juice, some garlic (optional), a dash of tamari or salt (optional.) Whip the whole mess using typical tools (it's not too hard with a fork but use the cuisinart if you like) till smooth. eat with pita bread, crackers (nice to put the stuff on a plate or bowl with some black olives, celery sticks etc.) You can also 'do' the eggplants in an oven, but not quite as good. -Barry Shein, Boston University
oliver@unc.UUCP (Bill Oliver) (08/20/85)
In article <1093@cbdkc1.UUCP> tjs@dkc1.UUCP ( Tom Stanions) writes: > >Surely you jest. Even you must admit that NCI's facts/opinions are biased. If >they solved cancer they would lose their funding. Even with this asside if they >found out that the natural way worked would they admit it? This is the >equivalent of going to a conventional doctor and asking then for nutritional >advice. > > >{allegra|ihnp4}!cbdkc1!tjs It is unfortunate that Mr. Stanions is so willing to lay all evil on the backs of rational medicine. Perhaps he does not realize that, in fact, physicians and scientists and their families and loved ones die of cancer just like everybody else. I received no joy in watching my mother suffer from breast cancer when I was a young man. The last words I ever heard her speak were to ask our pastor if it was a sin to pray for death. I received no joy in watching other friends, relatives, and mentors pass on, cut down by diseases for which there are no cures. Mr. Stanions is as wrong as he is insensitive. We who try to find cures for disease are not in it just for the bucks, and if he would bother to do some trivial self-education before blasting away indiscriminately with his vacuous pedantic slander, he would know that we have made phenomenal strides. Look at Hodgkins disease, look at germ cell tumors such as choriocarcinoma. You don`t treat cancer with wheat germ and aloe vera; you use tested and rational approaches and you keep looking for a better understanding of the bases of disease to design protocols for prevention and cure. I sincerely hope that even Mr. Stanions will see a surgeon when he gets his skin cancer or prostate cancer should he live that long. One of the first diagnoses of cancer I ever made was on a man who had squamous cell carcinoma of the skin - a disease which is 100% curable if found in a reasonable amount of time. This fellow felt that all doctors were just out for money and didn`t know shit, so just let the little spot on his hand grow to the size of a baseball. By the time his family forced him to give up his herbal salves and dietary trivialities, he had allowed the cancer, probably the most treatable cancer around, to spread to his brain, lungs, and liver. He had effectively commited suicide. I would be just as happy using my talents to find a cure for aging. Let me tell you, as soon as people find a general cure for cancer if there is one, they will have no more trouble finding funding for the cure of the disease that will replace it as a great killer than they had in finding funding for the treatment of cancer beforehand. I would just as soon try to find ways to allow people live to be 200 as to try to figure ways of helping them reach 70. I have done my best to stay out of these discussions about "natural" medicine, since they reduce so quickly to statements of faith and magic by those who decry conventional medicine. I am quite content to let Mr. Stanions and his ilk act as witnesses against themselves. I will not, however, let him slander my motives. Bill Oliver, MD Assistant Chief Medical Examiner State of North Carolina The opinions expressed above are those of the author and should not be taken as those of any other official, employee, Office, or Agency of the State of North Carolina.
wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly) (08/20/85)
In article <174@unc.unc.UUCP> oliver@unc.UUCP (Bill Oliver) writes: >>they solved cancer they would lose their funding.Even with this asside if they >>found out that the natural way worked would they admit it? ... > >I have done my best to stay out of these discussions about >"natural" medicine, since they reduce so quickly to statements >of faith and magic by those who decry conventional medicine. ... In all this discussion of 'natural' medicine I haven't seen anyone bring up what seems to me to be a key issue: what exactly does the word 'natural' signify when a practitioner of 'natural' medicine accuses the conventional practitioner of hypocrisy or worse? The use of the phrase 'natural medicine' implies that practices that do not adhere to a certain naturalistic philosophy are in some sense suspect. Thus we have 'natural nutrition' opposed to 'artificial nutrition,' so that a vitamin cooked up in a laboratory is missing some vital essence that's present in an otherwise identical vitamin that occurs naturally. Go to your local health food store: you'll see 'natural' sources of minerals like calcium available. The suggestion is that calcium from a source like bone meal or dolomite will contribute to health more efficiently or effectively than the identical mineral that has somehow suffered human intervention and thus been 'contaminated.' Or perhaps certain things have been removed by processing; we know that brown rice has more nutrients than polished rice, so perhaps naturally occurring calcium has associated with it some trace compounds that processing removes and that science doesn't know about yet. It seems to me that both viewpoints are based on the notion of a Fall from Grace: that humanity in turning to technology for solutions to its problems has turned its back on the Garden in a kind of self-imposed exile. The 'natural' ideologues ask us to reject the false knowledge we've acquired the past few hundred years, admit our ignorance, and return to an idealized 'natural' state that involves the rejection of technological solutions and the development of Faith in either an evolved world whose complexity and subtlety will forever remain beyond us or a God who has ordered a world in our own best interests. In either case there's a sense that the cardinal sin of Pride is behind our technological advances, and that the fall occurred when the first hominid shaped the first bone club on the African plains (or in the Garden, depending on the religious basis of one's Faith in 'natural' medicine). Note for example how often these people jump on any evidence that ordinary medicine has made factual or judgement errors, evidence that Science can't after all be trusted so we must place our Faith in something else. Science sees the world as a text whose meaning yields to experimentation and rational examination. Salvation (or a cure) results from a scientific approach to problems. The 'natural' ideologue seems to see the world as a text whose meaning is forever beyond rational explication, and the act of rational examination as a betrayal of our roots as 'natural' beings. Salvation (or a cure) results from an acceptance of our limitations, of our 'sin' in relying too much on a technology that is in some sense outside nature, and of the wisdom of placing Faith in a path to enlightenment laid out by certain enlightened practitioners who are more attuned than most to the deep mysterious rhythms that run the world. Faith in 'natural' medicine is ultimately a form of religious belief, in my opinion. Since it's based on Faith, argument with its most dedicated practitioners is probably futile. -- Cheers, Bill Ingogly
tjs@cbdkc1.UUCP ( Tom Stanions) (08/23/85)
>I received no joy in watching my mother suffer from breast cancer when >I was a young man. I also received no pleasure in watching my mother-in-law win her fight against breast cancer last year without any surgery or drugs. Such disease's are in fact hideous and methods to prevent them are far more welcome then methods to treat them. Even with natural methods the psycological problems are ugly once you have the disease, it is better never to get it. >Mr. Stanions is as wrong as he is insensitive. We who try >to find cures for disease are not in it just for the bucks, and if >he would bother to do some trivial self-education before blasting >away indiscriminately with his vacuous pedantic slander, he would know >that we have made phenomenal strides. Look at Hodgkins disease, >look at germ cell tumors such as choriocarcinoma. You don`t treat >cancer with wheat germ and aloe vera; you use tested and rational >approaches and you keep looking for a better understanding of the >bases of disease to design protocols for prevention and cure. As for insensitive you wished a skin cancer upon me in the next paragraph. As for self-education I have done a great deal. As for the use of wheat germ (using wheat germ as a euphemism for the health industry indicates that you know little about what we do, correct me if I am wrong) to cure cancer, cancer can often be cured via natural methods, and more importantly it can usually be prevented. Yes, our methods are tested and rational. And we strive to understand life and the human body and environment, and a way of living in it as we were meant to, or (more realisticly) the best way to live in this world as it exists now. >I would be just as happy using my talents to find a cure for aging. >Let me tell you, as soon as people find a general cure for cancer >if there is one, they will have no more trouble finding funding >for the cure of the disease that will replace it as a great >killer than they had in finding funding for the treatment of >cancer beforehand. I would just as soon try to find >ways to allow people live to be 200 as to try to figure ways >of helping them reach 70. Is it not possible that people can die of old age? Doctors consider death a disease. We see it as the last act of life, as natural as eating. What we consider unnatural is to die in an unnecessary and often ugly manner. Or to be debilitated by arthritis or bypass surgery or other problems. I might well live a little longer than you because I hope to die of old age not some problem you would wish upon me or what you expect for yourself, but more importantly I expect to enjoy life up until that time. >I have done my best to stay out of these discussions about >"natural" medicine, since they reduce so quickly to statements >of faith and magic by those who decry conventional medicine. I am quite >content to let Mr. Stanions and his ilk act as witnesses against >themselves. I will not, however, let him slander my motives. > >Bill Oliver, MD >Assistant Chief Medical Examiner >State of North Carolina We are in fact more than willing to act as witnesses for ourselves, and that is something we do very well. You say that I slander your motives, yet you certainly slander mine. I have said many times that most doctors have good motives. Few of our kind dislike doctors for their motives. When doctors recognize us for what we are then we can both talk about our mutual problem for the benefit of all. {allegra|ihnp4}!cbdkc1!tjs
djhawley@wateng.UUCP (David J. Hawley) (08/23/85)
In article <360@rti-sel.UUCP> wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly) writes: >In article <174@unc.unc.UUCP> oliver@unc.UUCP (Bill Oliver) writes: > >>I have done my best to stay out of these discussions about >>"natural" medicine, since they reduce so quickly to statements >>of faith and magic by those who decry conventional medicine. ... >Science sees the world as a text whose meaning yields to >experimentation and rational examination. Salvation (or a cure) >results from a scientific approach to problems. The 'natural' ideologue >seems to see the world as a text whose meaning is forever beyond >rational explication, and the act of rational examination as a >betrayal of our roots as 'natural' beings. >Since it's based on Faith, argument with its most dedicated >practitioners is probably futile. As Bill notes elsewhere in the quoted article (sadly, I edited the ref. out) the belief in a limitless rationality is also faith. I think its valuable to look for approaches outside our hi-tech (hyper-tech?) machine-intensive methodologies. I think we can also recognize that immature fields of study are more easily criticized (because of low credibility, and because of errors as well). -- These opinions are the best I could come up with on short notice. I would like to thank my parents, my friends, the authors of books I've read, and life itself for helping me form these opinions. However none of the afore-mentioned necessarily agree with what I have said here. {allegra,clyde,decvax,ihnp4,linus}!watmath!wateng!djhawley
oliver@unc.UUCP (Bill Oliver) (08/25/85)
In article <1116@cbdkc1.UUCP> tjs@dkc1.UUCP ( Tom Stanions) writes: > >As for insensitive you wished a skin cancer upon me in the next paragraph. This is, of course, a lie; no doubt that is why such a statement was not quoted by you. I do not wish disease upon anyone. If you live long enough, however, and you are a male, the probability of you getting a prostatic neoplasm is overwhelming. A similar statement is true of skin cancer (such as that on Reagan`s nose). Happily, the majority of people can be adequately treated for these diseases. I used these two examples as cancers which can be effectively treated unless ignored or treated inappropriately. > >Is it not possible that people can die of old age? No. People do not die of old age. The sensescence of the body sets one up for attack by specific diseases and conditions. A person who dies of stroke, heart attack, cancer, infection, or whatever at the age of 100 has died of a specific cause just as if he or she had been shot. You may think that aging and death is a natural and wonderful thing, and in fact, death is sometimes a blessing to those in great distress, but it would be much better to stay young. I suggest you ask around; I believe that almost all of the elder people you talk to would prefer to be twenty or thirty than eighty or ninety. > > >We are in fact more than willing to act as witnesses for ourselves, and that is >something we do very well. You say that I slander your motives, yet you >certainly slander mine. Again, you lie. And again you do not document your contention. I made no statement in my article about your motives. I simply state that you employ slander, half-truth, and even bold untruth, as amply shown above. I do not and did not pretend to know why you do this. I point out that I did not enter this to discuss your contentions about "natural" medicine, but because you specifically stated that we who are trying to cure cancer are doing it a) for the bucks alone and b) that we really don`t want to find a cure because that would dry up our funding. Bill Oliver
oyster@uwmacc.UUCP (Vicious Oyster) (08/26/85)
<> Could you people stop cross-posting your flames to net.cooks, please?