Rookem’s Razor: All things being equal the most expensive explanation tends to be the correct one. Chronic and severe pain is a no bullshit tolerance factor, it serves to make one a skeptic, very fast.
WARNING: The following testimonial constitutes an ‘anecdote’ and cites a resolution based upon actual patient input to doctors. When you have gotten up off the floor after fainting from the horrific pseudoscience of it all, simply click your heels three times and repeat over and over “The plural of anecdote is not data” and it will be all better.
I wasted three years of suffering and then $16,300 pursuing the approach Science Based Medicine might prefer for a malady which my Integrative Medicine Practitioner resolved in one appointment, $200 and by means of a supplement. Which now is quackery indeed? I am now in doubt. Patient success experience or revenue goal oriented scripted shotgun testing? Well let’s hold on that conclusion. This was not the last time unfortunately I was to have been harmed by bad medical advice coming from a Science Based Medicine representative ‘skeptic’.
One thing that I do know is that, were I to practice the Big Healthcare method on the left (chart at bottom) in my labs, I would be committing lab fraud in order to bilk my clients out of artificially prolonged revenue through fake science (see The Lyin’tific Method). In Science Based Medicine however, fraud only applies to outsiders, and is misdefined as anything that does not revenue-serve their cronies, any competing business or anything else they decide that they do not like.
Rest assured, Science Based Medicine is not promoting their view of medical care as a smart option for your consideration. Their heading is one of supporting the elimination of your choices and control over your own health, independent of the secure profit pathways for big pharma, big healthcare and their oligarchy cronies extracting from both.
The empirical results are proving to be abysmal, both in terms of the cost of healthcare and the overall health and well being of Americans.
This enormous harm and suffering caused by fake skeptics is just one key reason why skeptics are losing the battle for the American mind.
The Odyssey
It is a scam, and a crime of fraud, that I could not have been instructed about this supplement two decades ago. Why? Because hinting that a supplement might help my flank pain might ‘constitute claims of cures or treatments.’ This is how a mafia works. As a result of our sounds-good-on-paper ‘science’ millions of Americans suffer needlessly, and moreover are being held hostage and bilked out of tax and critical household budget dollars to the tune of $23,000 a year and dramatically upwards, to fund a scam in socialist medicine. Let’s examine how this fraud, activist-supported by Social Skepticism, works.
Yes, indeed I wanted to send out a heartfelt ‘thank you’ to the Science Based Medicine crowd today. Before I do that however, let me relate the Odyssey the science gods tasked me with in my search to resolve increasingly severe lower left quadrant pain. You see over the last two years I have been experiencing recurrent lower left quadrant pain, commensurate with a whole host of other partially debilitating symptoms; none the least of which included facial sores, dizziness, ear ringing, anxiety, hair color dimming, weakness in my workouts, cold sweats, mental fog. I speak often as part of my living in support of my businesses and those subjects inside which I carry a passion. Anything which negatively affects my pneumogastric nerve and central nervous system is an unwelcome life contributor. Of course this greatly distressed me so I went, in 2013, to my General Practitioner with my complaint. He immediately scheduled me for a battery of expensive tests, starting with a colonoscopy which cost my medical plan $6,500, and then proceeded to progressively more and more likely candidates of diagnosis. You will find in social skepticism that the precautionary principle, only applies to the opportunity to make medical profits – aside from that it is always pseudoscience. We followed the Big Healthcare, Big Pharma, Big Skepticism script, much of which agrees with the SBM doctrine. You are stupid, integrative medical professionals are evil, doctors have your best interests as first priority (note: ‘best interests’ correlate to profits with an Pearson r = .99).1
Well sadly, 26 weeks and more later, we found nothing, and nothing worked. Quietly I was told by my Gastroenterologist, “I used to get 3 patients a week with unresolved flank pain back years ago. Now I get 8 patients or more per day. It is my number one patient challenge.” This is called Intelligence, inside The Real Scientific Method – but it is the kind of thing which fake skeptics dismiss with a wave of the ‘it’s nothing but a change in awareness’ hand. And they repeatedly enforce this claim upon science, media and public before any evidence has arrived for the most part – see The Art of the Professional Lie: Einfach Mechanism. Fake skeptics know well that an idea is hard to unseat once it has been uttered as truth, by Lindy Effect alone. You win, absent of much data or study at all. Just scream the conclusion as early as is possible, or after you see any hint of inductive support for your a priori notion. Never mind that everyone else in the world can spot your bias and predict exactly what your conclusion will be, never mind your eroding credibility, just do it. This is just one of the ways in which these fakers outsmart themselves, unjustifiably influence society and cause us all harm and suffering.
‘The plural of anecdote is not data.’
Take it from a successful intelligence professional and research lab head, never trust a person who utters this phrase. They have never accomplished even the first step of real science. They are a diagnostician at best.
At the conclusion of 30 weeks of expensive investigation I was told that I “must have Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS).” This is the pandemic set of symptoms from which an alarmingly increasing number of people suffer; one in which we have no idea what even causes it. Some pretty smart citizens have some well backed ideas, but of course they are slapped down as evil by SBM ‘skeptics’. I am told that the common occurrence of my pain simply stems from ‘an increase in awareness’ as well, for we have to remember that when Science Based Medicine puts out a claim, it does not have to be justified – simply promulgated to the masses unquestioned (see Appeal to Skepticism Fallacy). Now, forget the 54 million suffering people; …fuck them, our science super hero skeptic skills are needed for another much more pressing issue, Homeopathy Awareness! …ehh, that and some bigfoot scrutiny every now and again. Issues of focus that hallmark an ethical and humanity serving life.2 3
…please hold on a moment while I contain my laughing.
I had run into this ilk of malicious and oppressive incompetence before with the stupid idiot at Science Based Medicine who assured me that he represented science, and that folic acid and methylfolate were the same thing, and finally that I was an idiot for thinking any different. This professional medical advice (quackery) served to harm me greatly – as it turned out that I was suffering from decades of macrocytic anemia from having taken folic acid, instead of folate. Fortunately, another thing which was corrected by patients working with patients – and not by appeal to authority as science based medicine.
Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) of course is the diagnosis of last resort after all the money avenues have been exhausted. Now I must learn to live with my IBS, because there is no cure. There is obviously ONE contributing element since the skyrocketing started as a discrete event shortly after 1994 – but I can assure you there is no one cure. Or, it could simply be the ‘luck of the draw’ genetically. You won the lottery again – funny how that keeps happening with medical stuff and never seems to happen at the MiniMart Lotto counter. Nothing in the environment causes it, certainly not glyphosate, and sadly nothing you can do about curing it. Your pain, slight fever, dizziness, and mental fog are all from panic attacks! Yes that is it, our go-to conclusive pseudo-hypothesis is one which cannot be tested for falsification! Such brilliance! Plenty of inductive study to confirm it. Proliferating as so many psychology studies do – standing as imperative proof that you are just weird – we are done! Yay for Science!
I was told to start to meditate and maintain an ‘awareness’ of your ‘triggers’ and ‘stress related episodes’ – as a good portion of this is psychological. Really your fault anyway, for worrying too much. But I do have an expensive set of prescriptions which can alleviate symptoms in the mean time. A funny thought drifted through my head, I had heard this line before – dermatologists attempting to treat my rosacea with $400 a month topical creams, each one of which never seemed to work; and upon being unsuccessful, fell back on this same failed message:
‘Triggers’, the watchword of the lazy and incompetent
‘Stress’, the ad hoc fallacy theory of the century
‘Awareness’, the buzzword of the incompetent and malicious.
Yes, I had heard this line of ‘go away, it’s all your fault’ sales bullshit before. 2018 note.4
Cut down on sugar, coffee, fast food and soft drinks, and exercise more. Yep, heard that too. Oh? You run 4 miles a day now and don’t do any of these things? Well, meditate more and take these two new prescriptions. An antispasmodic for your pain, and a relaxer to stop your ‘panic attacks’ and over-worrying. These two are a mere $92 a month more on top of your other medical costs. A drop in the bucket really.
I Had the Ruby Slippers All Along – Finally Success!
This year, when my IBS started flaring up again, I went to my Integrative Medicine Practitioner this time. She said: “This sounds an awful lot like stomach HCL insufficiency and dysbiosis. I get a lot of this lately, let me tell you. In addition, you had h. pylori after one of your Far East projects, and it can wreak havoc in your stomach’s acid production. Your digestive system is possibly not putting out enough hydrochloric acid and enzyme base. As a result your undigested food is putrefying5 in your small intestine and causing a whole host of dysbiosis symptoms, (my spell checker does not even recognize the words ‘dysbiosis’ or ‘SIBO’ despite its presence as a pandemic in the US population – see chart below) auto-immune, food-sensitivity reactions and pain from that point on in your gastrointestinal tract. Let’s try this first and see how it works: Get an HCL/Betaine/Enzyme supplement and make sure you take 1000 – 2000 mg with each meal.”
Well, they say that science is probative based upon incremental risk. My integrative medical practitioner had made an incremental conjecture of risk – and I was about to test it. And chronic pain is a NO BULLSHIT tolerance factor – it makes you a skeptic fast. She had put her conjecture on the line of risk. As a skeptic, I at least admired that.
Oh my GAWD, my Holistic/Integrative Practitioner recommended a supplement! Oh the quackery!! Let the FDA Letters fly! People are dying! Big Pharma Skeptics rescue us! Let’s take just a second to examine what is going on regarding this grand odyssey of which I only suffered in microcosm. Unresolved flank pain (IBS) is skyrocketing right now in the United States. Any self respecting skeptic should be highly energized to look into such a stark signal. In contrast, aside from accidental overdoses, extreme body builders and reckless weight loss practices, no one is getting hurt by supplements.
The reality is we needed real skeptics back in 1991-1994 when our food base was planned to be changed dramatically based upon paltry science – unfortunately all we got was this cadre of goofball science pretenders who betrayed our consumer health base. They were all caught up in Bigfoot, UFO’s and the Loch Ness Monster back then too. Unfortunately they missed this important issue demanding skepticism, in the mean time. That is why I am speaking up.
When Social Skepticism ignores skyrocketing public health and human rights concerns such as SIBO, and the proliferating list of auto-immune generated maladies stemming from our food, in favor of chasing supplements on behalf of Big Pharma regulation – this activity is not simply pseudo-science or social epistemology, it is called more specifically a legal term: malice and oppression.
Wow, after three full years of misery and health degradation, problem solved. All symptoms are abated and even my hair color is growing robust again. But I am so much more educated you know? And I have Science Based Medicine to thank for that education. I made a decision in accordance with their philosophy which obtained for me a $16,300 education (that because of skyrocketing MooP/deductible costs, on top of the $23,000 we all pay each year already for the health scam). This misadventure alone tallied to 1/5th of the cost of my graduate degree! So I had to learn something, right?! Otherwise I would have never experienced the educational menagerie of things you can do, when you have lots of tools, billable pathways and rote formulas at hand, but don’t have a clue what you are doing.
2019 Update: My healthy family plan medical cost per month is now $2,767. If I held a regular job, like I did in 1998 – I would be losing my home right now from the disease of being healthy and working in America.
This is criminal. Science Based Medicine this reality of citizen suffering is in part, YOUR fault – because healthcare plans have to pay for your promoted ‘science based’ practices and the large scale fraud/exploitation of hard working families you defend.
Were I to practice the method on the left of the 2013 to 2014 comparative chart (above right) in my labs, I would be committing lab fraud in order to bilk my clients out of artificially prolonged revenue through fake science. Yes, I own and have owned several science research and application development labs through the years. In those operations, I could never ethically perform the list on the left under REAL science.
Oh, and one small note: If you have an entry in your records, even one instance that you were referred to one of the specialists on the left in the chart above, and you DID NOT follow the doc’s referral, then you will be declined for health insurance coverage regarding that issue when you apply later in life – say 20 years later – even if you are fine now. I know this from experience having managed several company health insurance plans for my employees. The Health and Pharma industry just cannot seem to get your history of records readily available to the doctors for your health needs, like my doctor could not look up the fact that I had h. pylori in my history, that might have saved me lots of money in this case. But the industry can sure make a DETAILED history of your health decisions readily available for the insurance companies – off of which to identify a non-compliant action on your part, in order to extort money from you.
Such is the generous, self promoting gift of Science Based Medicine. One that keeps on giving in terms of destroying households financially, and in terms of personal health. An elegant accomplishment, harming citizens in two ways at once. Fighting for the rights of oligopolies and cartels everywhere. Well done. So sciencey.
epoché vanguards gnosis
——————————————————————————————
How to MLA cite this blog post =>
The Ethical Skeptic, “An Official ‘Thank You’ to Science Based Medicine” The Ethical Skeptic, WordPress, 9 Nov 2014; Web, https://wp.me/p17q0e-3gy
God created your body and its food perfectly; ill health and weight gain are the logical consequence for not being normal or for something you personally did wrong.
a. Your body is a system and you have the right to manage it. It does not matter whether it was designed or not. Begin to regard and protect your body as a responsive equilibrium, feedback and control system. Its employs hormone, proteomic and antibody systemic signals; which are interleaved, and multi-layered – and every one of them serves a purpose, just as do many other elements which impact your health. You are better served assuming that nothing is functionless, redundant or a vestige of evolution.
I just hung up from a phone call where my pharmacy indicated that a daily prescription renewal has been denied by my physician. I just visited him for this prescription update on October 21st. But he still denied my refill because I have not visited him since that appointment 4 months ago, nor paid the requisite $400 per visit to justify his time in prescribing this common 8 cent per day medicine, which I must take for the rest of my life. I am out of the medicine again, an absence of which damages my health, yet the physician’s office must schedule me long out because it is ‘busy busy busy.’ No, they won’t accept a street lab test because of “concerns over standards and quackery.” The voice attendant recordings all make it clear. Such exemplifies the current state of the disastrous healthcare system crafted, advised and defended by the SSkepticism Cabal.
The current Scam Based Entitled Medicine system promoted by Science Based Medicine, as shown to the right¹, is upside down, grossly over inflated, is not working – and most importantly – is not economically sustainable. The Steven Novella’s of the world, in my opinion are not only are the noisy and unqualified health value chain experts, moreover they consistently demonstrate that they are so verticalized and blind in their understanding of what the average American family faces in terms of Healthcare burdens, that they have erred in their rhetoric through scientific pretense, blatant ignorance and lack of sensitivity to the victims of our current state of healthcare. Oh my gawd, my CAM practitioner advised me to reduce my exposure to corn, wheat and alfalfa based on my allergy response tests, and to increase my intake of magnesium – how horrid the dangers! I shudder at the enormity of the pseudoscience. Thank you for protecting me Dr. Novella.