Science Based v. Results Based Treatments for Chronic Idiopathic Symptoms

Henry, who is 'decrying' ? I don't understand the search for an opponent. Persecution, real or imagined, will not improve the results of a therapy. I have no idea what you have decided to define as 'medicine' and how you have decided it opposes whatever you believe it opposes. I think you have made up a straw man for your convenience and I don't think it helps people to understand the possibilities, I think it muddies the water.

 

Scott is decrying. The medical science community is decrying.

 

You will have to ask Scott his definition of 'medicine.' I take to mean therapies devised, and therefore approved, by medical science.

 

Who be 'medical science' ? I have some doctors who prescribed antivirals for me and some who think it is hogwash. What is YOUR definition of medical science ?

 

Medical Science=What they teach in the medical schools-(minus)the component of what they teach that is altered by economic interests+(Plus) the component not yet taught in medical schools but which is presently under medical science research.

Without giving it any more than a minute's thinking, so being therfore subject to amending, that is what I define it as.

 

I think that's a pretty fair assessment.

Some, maybe even most, of what they teach is good.

But even Scott will have to admit that a good deal of it is Band-Aid Therapy.

Our primary care doc told us that he was taught that people come in wanting a fast fix, and that his job as the Primary Care Provider was to do that. He was taught that, "if it quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck," and not to prescribe rule-out tests unless there was a strong indication that those tests were needed. Instead, he should write a prescription for something that was probably not much more than a placebo in order for the patient to leave as a satisfied customer.

He was in medical school in the 1980's, back when antibiotics for children's ear infections were considered to be not much more than a placebo, and without side effects, therefore harmless. He said he was taught that 90% of ear infections were viral (therefore antibiotics were useless), and the remaining 10% didn't NECESSARILY need antibiotics, just because they were bacterial. But the medical wisdom was to give the child antibiotics in order treat the hysterical mother who wanted a quick fix.

We now know, 30 years later, that antibiotics are not benign, side-effect-free magic pills, and that they can cause significant damage with overuse.

But there are still large numbers of pediatricians in the US who still routinely prescribe them for ear infections and other mild illnesses (fever, coughs, sore throats, even bad colds), without doing any kind of test to see what kind of bacteria (if any) they are dealing with. But other doctors, like our PCP and our Ped, are shying away from the instant antibiotic treatment, relying instead on the body's ability to deal with a mild virus.

Now that people are starting to learn that antibiotics for a child's ear infection is not always necessary, there's a corresponding upswing in marketing efforts for children's antibiotics.

Our local grocery store's pharmacy (yes, in the US, we have pharmacies INSIDE the grocery stores) is offering FREE children's liquid antibiotics--but then they charge for the flavoring agent. And they have an array of flavoring agents that look like the flavor list for an upscale ice cream store.

Other stores are offering an impressive list of antibiotics for only $4.

These ads are in the newspapers, magazines, on TV, and on billboards everywhere, all showing a pale, ill-looking, small child, an impressive-looking doctor, and then the same kid, now rosy-cheeked and happy, sucking down yummy medication, while happy mum beams at him.

Conjunctivitis (pinkeye) is another good example. It's usually caused by a virus, but can be caused by allergy or bacteria as well.

However, standard treatment is antibiotic eyedrops. Very few doctors will bother to do a culture to determine if it is bacterial before prescribing antibiotics. And schools and daycares have rules prohibiting a child from re-entering school after pinkeye until they have been on antibiotics for 24 hours!

 

How do I account for the fact that different MD's tell me different things then? Which one is practicing medical science ?

 

June,

Isn't that a better question for them? Yes, and can I be a fly on the wall when you ask that very question? "Hey, which one of you guys is actually practicing medical science?" Yes, I would like to be a fly on the wall.

 

I'd say that they are ALL practicing medical science.

That's why we're all in this debate--er, conversation--because medical science has some truly lousy, life-threatening aspects, as well as remarkable, life-saving aspects.

If you end up with a doctor who gives you a diagnosis of Meniere's, and then says that with that diagnosis, your only treatment options are prednisone, cortisone shots to the ear, or surgery, that's medical science.

It's also medical science when a doctor performs surgery to re-attach a tendon that was torn off the bone.

It covers both ends of the spectrum.

 

I think practicing medicine does not rule out using the creative part of the brain any more than any profession does. I look for doctors who are trained in the science but who have an innate intelligence and problem solving ability that puts them in a position to use their knowledge in the most effective way. Happily I have found some who do just this. I expect nothing less. A doctor is more than a computer program.

 

Well said June! I agree. Just like any profession some are better problem solvers than others but their knowledge is all based on the same basic medical science. Also,some are of higher intelligence as well. That gives them an advantage to take that basic medical science to a higher level which benefits you the patient.

 

Hank, I need you to give it more than a moments thought. I'm not getting it. I'm feeling really stupid here. I get the first part, I get the last part - it's the middle part, or the minus part, that isn't seeping into the old brain here. I guess I'm not getting what medical science has to do with economic interests... except in regard to pharmaceutical interests. Break it down for the ole gal... It sounds like what you're saying is 'medical science is what they teach in medical school and what they're currently studying regarding human health.

Health economics:

Four factors that are important to Health Economics: Government Intervention, Uncertainty, Asymmetric Knowledge, and Externalities. Governments tend to heavily regulate the Healthcare industry and also tend to be the largest payor within the market. Uncertainty is intrinsic to health, both in patient outcomes and financial concerns. The knowledge gap that exists between a physician and a patient creates a situation of distinct advantage for the physician, which is called Asymmetric Knowledge. Finally, there are many effects that happen between two parties without monetary compensation, called externalities, within healthcare, from catching a cold from someone to practicing safe sex.

Taximom - you got it, maybe you can explain it to me. :-\

 

Taximom has brought evidence against certain corporate economic interests that have altered the curriculum at very prestigious medical colleges in their favor. That is what that is about. Look back a few pages to her Harvard Medical School post.

 

Jordan --

There are whole cultures and civilizations that have long, well-established traditions regarding traditional medicine/healing, including the Chinese, the Native Americans ...

Hey, I love tradition and the pageantry of various cultures, but just because it's been around for a long time is not evidence that a treatment works. Acupuncture has been around since the second century BCE yet there is no good compelling evidence that it works beyond a placebo effect. Some very good recent studies where there were some clever controls in place showed that twirling toothpicks on the skin produced that same result. Think about where SBM has taken the Chinese. At the turn of the last century they were lucky to make it to 35 years of age and now they are living into their 70s since SBM entered in the mid 1900s.

Now, on the other hand, if we were to discover a new plant used by some unknown tribe in the Amazon and it allegedly had incredible pain-relieving properties, that would certainly be something to investigate. And what science would do would be to isolate the active molecule and test it. This is exactly what happened with Willow bark. Guess what we isolated from that? Aspirin. And now it's medicine.

Mainstream medical science is not generally interested in studying the use of herbs and other techniques to cure illness. Medical doctors prescribe medicine and not herbs.

For the simple reason that the vast majority don't work. The ones that do become medicine. St John's Wort, for example, is a herb and was suggested by my doctor because there is evidence to back it up as an effective tool for some with mild depression. She thought it might be worth a go because the SSRIs were giving me hell. It did work but the side effects were worse. Grab a book called "Trick or Treatment". It's a fantastic book and reviews all of this stuff in an objective well-described and fun read. It should be on the high school reading list as far as I'm concerned.


June --

I believe the reason God gave me a brain was so I could make differentiation between the use of unicorns and antivirals in a case like this.

I understand what you're saying here and the unicorn example sounds absurd but I'm drawing on something everyone here would agree on is complete fiction -- that unicorns do not exist. Why? Because clearly there is no evidence for them existing yet we might still have people who claim to see them nonetheless (or the the earth is flat - another absurd notion that some do evidently believe). There was a big thing that went on in the early 1900s where some people in the UK (I think the UK) claimed they were photographing garden fairies. They had fixed the photos but it took a while to work it out back then and even pros thought the pictures were real. It wasn't long before other people began claiming that they too had been seeing garden fairies. So in the light of there being no evidence for nerve impingement causing the symptoms Hank goes on at length about and the overall lack of evidence for chiropractic which HAS been tested, it belongs in the unicorn basket for MM.

I had a very well trained doctor ...

I certainly agree that we have to remain PROACTIVE in this stuff and keep up with the science ourselves and the latest on real effective treatments -- even newer novel approaches that appear plausible such as antivirals. Doctors are human and there is no perfect doctor out there. I have been through a few myself but now have one who I think is very open-minded and has her fingers on the literature pulse.

Taximom --

But even Scott will have to admit that a good deal of it is Band-Aid Therapy.

Some of it is for sure. But stop with the logical fallacies and gross generalisations as though this is a major problem or somehow is evidence for the failings of SBM. SBM can't fix everything. Nothing can and definitely not NUCCA. Seeing a NUCCA guy probably has the benefit of a nice warm and fuzzy one hour appt with someone who possibly feels more caring versus a 20 min session with a GP who gets down to business but may not feel as emotionally satisfying (there are good studies on this -- people judge not on the therapy but on how the visit "felt"). When I go to the doctor with a bad cold and a sore throat I want something to kill the pain of the sore throat so he gives me Aspro-clear and it reduces inflammation and stops the razor blade pain when I gargle it. He cannot cure the cold because there is no cure for the coomon cold just as there is no cure for migraine or MM. If I show up with pneumonia, he tracks down the bug and gives me an anti-biotic which kills the CAUSE.

House of Hank --

No, medicine is medicine. It comes in a bottle and is meant to control symptoms, not causes.

You do not read anything in this thread, that much is evident. When you start writing this sort of nonsense after it has been addressed in a reasoned way it really does make people here wonder if you are thinking about anything that we spend our precious time writing about. See page 48, reply #711 and READ please.

Until science says it is true, it is false, which of course is absurd.

Another false dichotomy -- I'm losing count! We can still have a working hypothesis, expert opinion etc and build on it as new evidence is collected and compiled. The theory of evolution worked exactly like this and is now fact. The link between smoking and cancer took a long time to arrive at but it HELD UP over time with EVIDENCE. Chiropractic does NOT hold water as a viable MM treatment or anything else for that matter apart from a bad back.

This thread has been going on since the 22nd of May yet you still cannot produce a shred of evidence. Instead we hear about your wild ideas, anecdotes and testimonials, and admire your pictures of people that you draw lines on with Photoshop. Surely you can do better than this or realise that it's time to move on.

Scott

 

A few posts back, regarding the adverse pressure the 1st vertebra can place on the brain stem, I wrote:

“Take your thumb and place it gently touching on your forefinger. Now press in 1 millimeter, >||< that far. The pressure exerted on the brain stem, in the same place, from just such a pressure, exerted everyday 24-7, for an extended period of time, will cause the nerve pathways of the brainstem to become damaged.”

I have since heard a demand to prove this statement. Now following behind such a demand, and attempting to fulfill it, is a precarious place to tread. That is because, no matter what I might offer as proof, the person who places such a demand has merely to contend that my proof is insufficient by his or her standards, and is therefore invalid.

And in this same regard, if I were demanded to prove against a certain contention that my entire conscious being, is physically but a blob of goo, housed inside a Hellman’s Mayonnaise jar, with electrodes feeding the goo with impulses to make my conscious being merely believe the all I detect in this life is real, when it actually is not, I confess, I would have a difficult time proving against such a contention. But merely because one cannot prove against a certain incorrect contention, that does not mean that one cannot look at all the factors in the matter, and using those factors make a reasonable determination of what is true and what is not true, which determination will suffice for all practical purposes for which that determination will matter.

That being the case, I will demonstrate to all who will look for truth, the validity of my statement above. And when and if the proof I offer is not acceptable to him who demands such proof, which I expect will be the case, then I will have placed it before the onlookers who judge this proof, and leave it to them to rectify the truth from falsehood.

Below please view an illustration of C1, the first vertebra, otherwise known as the atlas bone:



Now directly above the atlas is the lower bone of the skull, the occipital, the center of which is a hole for the brain stem to pass through. That hole is called the foramen magnus:



Now I am going to superimpose these images, the fainter image being the atlas. For the brain stem to remain free from adverse pressure, the holes in these two bones must line up, sort of like this:



But after trauma, perhaps even the trauma of childbirth on occasion, the vertebrae of the neck can be jarred out of place, the result being something that might look like this:

Here’s the phenomenon animated. The green is the atlas:



So how on earth can this happen?

Answer: The atlas is held in place, tightly to the skull, by soft tissue, that is, muscles and ligaments. That’s it. Ever had a pulled muscle? A pulled ligament? Trauma, working on this area of the body can pull a muscle or a ligament just like it can anywhere else in the body. Elsewhere in the body, however, we can work it out, massage it, exercise it, and maybe we can work the muscle and ligament memory back into proper shape. But here, what are you going to do? Well, the same thing, for all practical purpose. One must exercise that bone back into position, thus allowing the muscles and ligaments to relearn what is natural for them. That is what proper upper cervical chiropractic does. After repeated adjustments, the muscles and ligaments, just like they would in any other part of the body, relearn their proper memory. When that happens, the atlas become stable once again.

In many cases, the atlas has been out of position for an extended time. That is why it takes a long time to become stable. And that is why one adjustment generally won’t do the trick.

OK, so we’ve seen this in Hank House’s animations. But that doesn’t prove anything. Show us this in real life, Dr. House.

OK, here is the x-ray of a guy who is badly out of alignment.



Notice the center shot. That shot is looking straight down through the skull, through the foramen magnus, through the atlas. Notice how off angle the atlas is. It should be sitting in there perfectly straight, at right angles to the vertical line drawn from the center of the nose to the center of the rear skull. Those blue lines indicate a whiplash event has occurred, knocking the atlas completely out of position. So with respect to the foramen magnus, the hole in the bottom of the skull, the room allowed for the brain stem has been made smaller by the shift of the atlas. That is unavoidable.

OK, let's look at someone we know. How about me. This is my X-ray taken 5-17-07.



Now this is not the worst one we will see. This was taken about a month and a half after I was adjusted by Dr. Marshall Dickholtz, Sr, in Chicago. I will try to retrieve my very first x-rays on Monday from our local doc, who was not NUCCA, but who took this same shot of me before my first ever adjustment, which would have been October 2006, within just a few days of my last vertigo event of the six month period of my Meniere's experience. I hope to post that x-ray next week.

Anyway, the red lines indicate the misalignment. Those are my red lines. The darker lines the NUCCA doc drew were worse than the ones I draw here. That is becase he goes from foramen to foramen, the holes on each side of the atlas that allow the intervertebral arteries to pass through. So my lines are conservative to the expert's lines. But anyway you slice it, my atlas was out of kilter, not to the extent of the guy above, but still out.

Now, because I cannot get physically in my own head to take a picture, the rest of this will have to reside on reason. The foramen of both bones are roughly the same size. One bone moves with respect to the other. The atlas doesn't actually rotate, it offsets. And the offset is more on one side than the other, making it look like it rotates. So when the atlas offets, and is held that way by new ligament memory established during a trauma event, the result would be a restriction of the space necessary for the brain stem to pass through. Thus, when this happens to a certain degree, pressure will undoubtedly result pressing against the brain stem. That is what must occur.

Now place your index finger and thumb together and press in about 1 millimeter. Now rub that for awhile. You don't really have to do that. I just say that. After a while, you will rub a blister. That is unavoidable. And I do not contend that a blister occurs here, only adverse pressure on the brain stem.

My point here is to demonstrate the validity of my claim. This can no more be a proof than medical science can prove any of its theories, no more than I can prove that I am not a blob of goo in a Hellman's Mayonnaise jar. But what I write and demonstrate is completely plausible and, coupled with the actual proof that is entered in this thread, proof of a link between the spinal chord below the atlas and the 8th cranial nerve, even for those who previously thought that this was impossible, that possibility should now be real.

I look forward to retrieving my 'virgin' x-rays from our local doc early next week. I am anxious to compare those with the one above taken in May '07. Perhaps you are interested as well.

Hank

 

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH!! OMG!!! Look,, I am living proof that NUCCA has helped me a great deal.
Before I went to NUCCA,, my head was tilted to the left, I veered off to the left while walking. I couldnt walk without something "visual" close by to grab..just in case I fell to the left. My neck muscles were so weak..you really could not eve SEE the line down my neck..WHERE my muscle ONCE was.
Hmm...about 2 months into treatment was the first time I could walk tall and across a grassy field without having anything to hold onto. I just WALKED. I was amazed.
The pressure on the base of my skull is GONE. Before, it felt like I was carrying around a bowling ball. It felt like my head was about to burst because of the pressure at the base.
I do however still have some issues with my bones further down. I am not a doctor so dont ask me which bones....but its close to the left shoulder area. I seem to be getting alot of spams on that side and my last adjustment took away the pain. I am not sure if I continue to get adjustments in that area .. if it will last forever. I do have arthritis in that area.
I am still in stiff mode after my adjustments..and it does takes a couple of days to get use to it. I have not been in an UPRIGHT postition for almost 3 years. Today, I am. My headaches are gone. I walk straight and my son no longer has to walk on my left side with me while in the mall. He use to make sure I didnt bump into the walls in the mall. I can hold my neck up without any support from my left hand.
You need to do what you think will help you. But I will tell you this much.. if you are veering off to the left or right..and your head is tilted.. YOUR BALANCE is way off. How do you gain that balance back..you get ADJUSTED!!! If you get dizzy because you lift your head into a position your not use too..its time to ck out WHY...its not all menieres disease..its not all anxiety...
I was not sure what was going to happen with NUCCA..but I am glad I found it thru this board.
Happy walking with my head held high.

 

njspingirl, I am truly happy that NUCCA has helped you and Hank and others who it has helped. I have no doubt in your story and your linking cause and effect in your improvement. What I think would be most helpful to others is if doctors and patients could figure out which patients it will be most likely to help and which it will not and why. It is possible that it helps but not for the reason the chiro thinks or then again it may be for the reason he thinks. I think your description given above of what you experienced may help some people decide if that is a route they think they ought to try.

As I said before, in my mind it is not a matter of chiropractor vs MD it is a matter of getting the best and most useful from whereever. For instance, in my memory, there was a time when doctors told gastric ulcer patients that their ulcers were caused by 'stress' . Go see a shrink, think pretty thoughts, don't be such a type A personality was the advice. And sometimes doctors were pretty obnoxious about it. Then the bacterium H Pylori was discovered. "Nevermind" take this antibiotic. I am sure that before the discovery there must have been patients who said, 'It's the funniest thing, doc, but ever since I had that other problem and took the antibiotic, my ulcer hasn't bothered me.' and their doctor smiled to himself and thought 'placebo effect, poor weakminded patient'. But stubborn as doctors can be they finally got it right and medical science advanced. That is what I expect of medical science, to keep advancing despite the fact that the state of the art is where it is along the continuum. I think they should learn from evidence whereever it pops up and perhaps not be so arrogant along the way. They might even listen to patients' experiences as they practice the art of medicine. Now days, most doctors I know do have a much much more enhanced appreciation for lifestyle changes as well and my family doctor promotes them tirelessly. But to dismiss medical doctors, oh no, if I have to choose one source of help, I choose the MD's.

I also beg to differ with a comment somewhere above about herbal treatments not usually working. I think a review of history would show that a lot of current day medical science was founded on herbal treatments of the past. It is mostly forgotten now but the active compounds that help so many things were first found in plants, long before they were synthesized from other things.

 

Scott:

Concerning page 48, reply #711, again, we are talking solely about Science Based v. Results Based Treatments for Chronic Idiopathic Symptoms. And I agree with you that in your context, which is not our context here, to imagine that medical science has never found a cause of a symptom and attempted to treat, or successfully treated that cause IS rediculous. In fact, the list of maladies for which medical science HAS determined a cause is endless and they should be applauded. As an example, I had pain in my forearm as a kid. I went to the doctor. He did some x-rays. I had a hairline fracture from falling out of a tree. He put me in a sling. So there; I had a symptom, pain. He diagnosed the cause, hairline fracture. He successfully treated the cause, put me in a sling. So it SHOULD go without saying that we are not talking about the advances of medical science in the area of acute symptoms. We are talking about chronic idiopathic symptoms. They are idiopathic because medical science HAS NOT determined a cause, and therefore attempts to control the symptoms by taking medicine from a bottle, which is what I said and stand by.

I will give you a break on this one, because it was in a certain recent post that I made this ABSOLUTELY clear, the scope of the thread. Evidently, you did not read these last posts, which leads me to wonder if you 'read anything in this thread.' But I know that you do. Its just that you have a propensity to extract what seems convenient to extract, and try to use that to further a point that gets increasingly indefensible as this thread persists.

Interesting you bring up the link between smoking and cancer. Scott, to bolster any case you tried to make, this was NOT the example to use. Oh my goodness. I will have to give you a gold shovel for this one. This is what we Americans call, "Stepping in it." So let's talk about that.

Here is an excerpt from 1954 Time Magazine article detailing a certain featured speech at that year's AMA convention:

"A last-minute added attraction staged by a performer who previously had been most unwilling to get into the act stole the show at the A.M.A. convention. The star: the American Cancer Society's Statistician Edward Cuyler Hammond. His show-stopping material: figures proving that heavy cigarette smokers die younger than non-smokers—mainly from heart disease and cancer, notably cancer of the lung.

"Dr. (of Science) Hammond, Yale professor of biostatistics, [previously had been] little moved when Drs. Evarts Graham and Ernest Wynder [five years earlier] reported their conclusion that long-term cigarette smoking can cause lung cancer (TIME, March 7, 1949 et seq.). Nothing proved, he said shortly, and went on smoking cigarettes. So did his assistant, Dr. Daniel Horn. But all the while Hammond and Horn were gathering deadly data. They had taken careful smoking histories of 187,766 white men, aged 50 to 69, in 394 counties in nine states, and were keeping track of them to see what killed them. Hammond and Horn figured it would take three years or more to get worthwhile results, and wagged warning fingers at conclusion-jumpers.

"But after only a year and a half, 4,854 men had died, and the causes noted on death certificates caught Hammond's eye. He asked A.M.A. to put him on its convention program. A.M.A. said no. So Hammond gave A.M.A. bigwigs a sneak preview of his figures; they promptly changed their minds and gave him a top billing for the opening day's scientific sessions.

Pack-a-Day Deal. Among the 4,854 deaths, Hammond told a packed house, were 745 men who daily smoked a pack of cigarettes or more. Their death rate was almost twice as high as that of the men who never smoked. There were 334 deaths from diseases of the coronary arteries, and this again represented a death rate almost double that of nonsmokers. There were 161 deaths from cancer, and this was 2½ times the rate among nonsmokers.

"On the question which had started the whole ruckus—"Does cigarette smoking eventually cause lung cancer?"—the statisticians had to hedge. They did not yet have enough cases to be certain. But on the basis of gleanings to date, they concluded that death from lung cancer is three to nine times as common among cigarette smokers as among nonsmokers, and five to 16 times as common among those who smoke a pack a day or more.

"No less striking were the statisticians' findings that even the most moderate cigarette smokers (half a pack or less a day) also showed significantly higher death rates from both heart disease and cancer than nonsmokers, and that the increase includes all types of cancer, not only in the lung. Cigar and pipe smokers show no consistent increase in mortality. There is less chain-smoking of cigarettes in rural than urban areas, and the rural death rates from heart disease and cancer are lower.

""A Positive Theory." No one piece of evidence taken alone proves a cause-and-effect relationship between smoking and these higher death rates, said Dr. Hammond. But, he went on, every bit of evidence so far available fits the hypothesis that it is a case of cause and effect. Sallying from their statistical sanctuary, Hammond and Horn went out on a limb: "It is our opinion that regular cigarette smoking causes an increase in death rates from [heart disease and cancer]. We now advance this as a positive theory." " Whoa!, Ya think?

Reference: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,858498,00.html

So in 1949, statistician Hammond of the American Cancer Society, eschews the notion that smoking causes cancer, saying that nothing is proved. AND HE KEEPS ON SMOKING AS HE TESTIFIES. So officially, as of 1949, according to the American Cancer Society, the society who should be the first to know, smoking did not cause cancer, as evidenced by the society's lead statistician SMOKING as he testified.

Now did smoking just recently start causing cancer? No. Smoking has always caused cancer. But it took five years after Hammond's initial testimony, decrying that smoking caused cancer, while smoking himself, for him to come back to even commit that, "cigarette smoking causes an increase in death rates from [heart disease and cancer]" But according to TIME, when asked directly, "Does cigarette smoking eventually cause lung cancer?"—"the statisticians had to hedge. They did not yet have enough cases to be certain."

So according to the American Cancer Society, still as of 1954, there was only a correlation between smoking and the onset of lung cancer, this after gazillions of data points that they could have used to satisfy anyone’s curiosity on the matter. So you might think, well, the advent of this monumental discovery would have been just right around the corner then. Wrong. Fast forward 10 years, 1964:

"1964. Ten scientists work for 14 months to review the world scientific literature at the time and conclude in the Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health that "cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient import in the United States to warrant appropriate remedial action." AMA accepts a $10 million no-strings-attached grant from the tobacco industry to do a five-year study of smoking. This serves to suggest that organized medicine was not ready to accept the surgeon general's findings. The AMA executive vice president, F.J.L. Blassingame, testifies against cautionary labeling on cigarettes. Per capita consumption of cigarettes drops by two percent. Mild warning labels are required on tobacco products." Source: http://www.mindfully.org/Industry/Tobacco-ChronologyJul98.htm

So here we have the bastion of hope for medical research, the AMA, 10 years after Hammond testified that smoking causes an increase in death rates from heart disease and cancer, taking a $10 million grant, tax free, from the tobacco industry, to study not whether smoking tobacco will cause cancer, but whether is it even harmful to one’s health, this after the United States Surgeon General has declared smoking to be an important health hazard, important enough to label every pack of cigarettes made in America to that effect. And surprise me again, the AMA executive vice president “testified against cautionary labeling on cigarettes.” Can anyone imagine, after taking a $10 million grant from the tobacco industry, the pressure this man must have felt the day he testified?

So, when was it that the AMA finally came out and officially admitted that smoking causes lung cancer? Answer: NEVER. I’ll go into the timeline of all that has occurred since 1964 in my next post. But if anyone doubts Taximom’s earlier assertion that corporate and industry-wide economic interests ever taint the findings of medical science, which makes those findings anti-science, the smoking example Scott brought up ought to convince you. And for that, I thank Scott for bringing this subject up. But again, I will have to give Scott a pass here too, just like before. He may just be to young to remember any of this.

 

Here is a different account.

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/301/5/539

Henry, it just seems like you want to discredit doctors not get to the facts and perhaps others just want to discredit chiropractors not get to the facts. These axe's to grind, just don't seem helpful to the discussion, they seem to blind people to the facts.

 

So where is the difference and where in all of this has the AMA told us that smoking causes lung cancer? All I read here is a stripped down version of the same facts, leaving out any facts that put the AMA in an unflattering light. Please show me any discrepancy in the facts presented. I have not found one.