major part of it, but I also wouldn’t want to live in a world where we could only get aspirin from willow bark. We either wouldn’t have enough aspirin or we wouldn’t have any more willow trees. Medicines derived from the actual source aren’t possible on a global scale in most cases.

Capitalism is a blight on society and has lead to countless deaths. But in a utopia where money doesn’t exist and people create medicine for the world only to help people wit

I agree with you but in that case, the need to synthesize it could be made entirely based on practicality rather than profit.

Monsanto has entered the chat.

DNA shouldn't be patentable. I guarantee you that the scenario that Micheal Crichton laid out in Next will end up happening at some point unless we reign this shit in.

That was my initial reaction at first as well. However as far as I can tell, natural products are not patentable, unless the product in question has been modified, manipulated etc, to produce something that is deemed to have been significantly changed.

So, in the US, for example, the Supreme Court ruled that human DNA, being a naturally occurring product, cannot be patented. However, it also ruled that complementary DNA, essentially DNA that has been extracted and then modified in a lab, can be patented.

That’s not what I’m saying.

I agree a natural substance can be medicine.

His statement - not mine - is that it couldn’t be patented.

Therefore the profit is limited.

Therefore there are fewer studies than a comparable pharmaceutical.

Therefore when (not if) he is sued, he will be less able to defend himself.

Therefore he won’t prescribe it.

Yeah but so can regular doctors.

A friend went in for a colonoscopy and died from a series of complications. First they nicked the inside of her colon, and it started bleeding. Then there was a whole series of stupid responses, based on the meds she was taking and had disclosed. They just made one mistake after another, until she died.

None of us knew she was walking into that hospital for the last time, because we were all relying on the doctors to be masters of their craft.

To find religious behavior in the medical field doesn’t take long. Another friend has described being unable to process patients because the blood pressure equipment is broken. They’re down to one machine, and the manual squeeze bulbs have all failed, so there’s a massive backlog in their clinic.

Now, they know clinical outcomes are suffering as a result of the lack of throughput, but they have to take blood pressure on every patient before they do anything else. So they’re beholden to this policy, and can’t practice medicine in a rational manner. But they’re embedded in a system that won’t let them use their eyes and brains to operate on what’s in front of them.

So even without belief in the supernatural, doctors are serving a “false god” which is the bureaucracy, and because they can’t serve two gods that means actual medical practice itself takes a second seat.

I used to believe the "they aren't all hacks thing" until I met more chiropractors. While I would like to believe that there's a subset of them out there who treat it more like a science of doing adjustments and what not, I don't think that's actually the case. My mom works for a chiropractor and has gone to several of their conventions over the years, and from what it sounds like they are all nutjobs who believe aligning your spine will cure you of all disease.

I would really love to see the numbers of how many chiropractors are antivaxxers. I bet it's in the high 90%.

Oh I know, and I don’t trust any that ask me what other non-skeletal ailments I have (I had one tell me my acid reflux could be cured by chiro). But I have a few skeletal problems I go to them for about 3 times a year, and it helps.

MDs give you incorrect information too. I had a GP for 5 years who, when I talked about my cataplexy - a well-documented condition that is directly related to my (at that time, undiagnosed) narcolepsy - he told me to go on birth control, then he changed my antidepressant meds, and then when those things didn't help me, he said "try exercising more and lose some weight". If he would had looked up the symptoms I was describing (like I eventually did), he would have probably recommend I see a sleep doctor, but instead, I lived with narcolepsy under his care for 5 years, almost getting fired for falling asleep at my job.

I know it's not the same, as your brother had a life-threatening condition, but all this to say that MDs aren't all outstanding professionals either.

The problem is I’ve been to numerous doctors, working with a pain management specialist now, done physical therapy with a few different places for months, do physical therapy every morning, do yoga, exercise every day, and still no relief. So, like, sometimes it gets so bad I go to the chiropractor because at least they can give me some relief.

This is why you skip the chiropractor and go to the rolfer instead. They’ll free up the fascial tension and release the forces pulling your system out of whack.

osteopath

Thanks, I'll check it out (though I'm in the US). Also, I researched my chiropractor very thoroughly to ensure that he's not likely to kill or disable me.

edit: turns out my insurance covers osteopathic manipulative medicine, and there's 1 practitioner in my area (25 miles, probably more in the 50 mile range since I'm close to a big city). I will be making an appointment with her. Thanks kind stranger!