Occam, I remember that column too. I thought about sending the LA Times a guest column pointing out the irrationality of Christians, but never got around to it. I doubt they would have printed it.
I’d be careful pointing out Huffington was once a conservative. Someone may read her web site and recognize the woo. There. i managed to use that word in this thread.
Who is this Samuel S. Epstein, M.D.? He says, “Under the explicit provisions of the 1958 Delaney Law, which requires an automatic ban on carcinogenic food additives, it is anticipated that Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the newly appointed FDA Commissioner and inspiring public health advocate, will promptly ban the continued use of aspartame.”
Anticipated by whom? By him, I suppose. Anyhow, the internet is now abuzz with people fearing the new ban on Nutrasweet that this guy published in HuffPost.
A quick Google of this doctor says he also wants to ban mammograms - he says they cause breast cancer? That’s rather odd…
Well, down to Costco to buy six large sized industrial boxes of aspartame packets. That should last me for my remaining ten to fourteen years.
It’s a peptide of phenylalanine and aspartic acid, two very common amino acids that our bodies use to make proteins, hormones, and enzymes. Our digestive enzymes quickly break it down to aspartic acid and the methyl ester of phenylalanine in our intestines. We absorb the aspartic acid through our small intestine walls and use it whatever way our bodies need. We also absorb the phenylalanine where it goes to our liver and has the methyl group ripped off of it. Then it is used for general maintenance. The methanol generated is probably about one one-hundredth of a drop for a packet of Nutrasweet. i’d guess we oxidize it to formaldehyde so that microscopic amount can be reacted with one of our body’s many binding agents and kicked out of our kidneys.
I really get annoyed at those people who either never took biochemistry in college or forgot everything they learned then spout these super-conservative fairytales. Their philosophy is that you can never be punished by being too conservative, however, it screws up the thinking of millions of innocent people and makes their lives just a little bit harder.
I love my Diet Pepsi. Huffington and her woo-woo-goons will have to battle me for it. Perhaps American Gladiator style. I’m ready.
But I seriously doubt the FDA is going to up and ban Nutrasweet. I think this doctor, whoever he is, is just trying to stir up controversy and attention for himself. Shame on Huffington for endorsing this newest piece of nonsense.
Yet there were two other articles on her website that I highly enjoyed this past week. So annoying. I hate the woo woo she posts but like some of her other commentary and stories.
If you read the Huffington Post you’re probably familiar with Dr. Andrew Weil and Deepak Chopra as regular bloggers. And if you read the user responses to their articles you know that thousands of people buy their snakeoil wholesale. These shamans are spreading medical fiction and quackery to thousands of people on a regular basis through Huff post.
There have also been a series of big name bloggers (Jim Carey) arguing against the use of vaccinations on children. Their celebrity status is being used to spread mis-information about vaccines.
CFI writers should consider hiring a dedicated writer to blog on the Huffpost and counter all the pseudoscientific thinking reaching so many people everyday.
p.s.
Sorry if this posted twice. I submitted a similar post, but didn’t get any indication that it was posted so I’m trying again
Sorry if this posted twice. I submitted a similar post, but didn’t get any indication that it was posted so I’m trying again
Sorry about that. The program we use has a small glitch that has never been found that loses occasional posts. It’s quite maddening when one has gone to a lot of trouble to write anything of some length. The way to insure that doesn’t happen is to always block off your comments and hit control-c which saves them to wordpad before you submit them. That way if you get a blank area ready for a post, just go to the top of it and hit control-v, which re-enters your post. Whenever you see one of mine with the word “wordpad” it’s my way of pointing out that the glitch is still there.
The Huffpo is at it again. Dr. Frank Lipman advises his patients against taking swine flu vaccine, recommends vitamin D, garlic, antiviral herbal supplements and homeopathic Oscillococcinum. After reading the short post I clicked the link to Lipman’s bio and found all I needed to know.
Frank Lipman MD, is the founder and director of the Eleven Eleven Wellness Center in NYC a center whose emphasis is on preventive health care and patient education. His personal blend of Western and Eastern Medicine combined with the many other complimentary modalities he has studied, has helped thousands of people recover their energy and zest for life. He is the author of the recent SPENT: End Exhaustion and Feel Great Again (2009) and Total Renewal; 7 key steps to Resilience, Vitality and Long-Term Health (2003)
The Huffpo is at it again. Dr. Frank Lipman advises his patients against taking swine flu vaccine, recommends vitamin D, garlic, antiviral herbal supplements and homeopathic Oscillococcinum. After reading the short post I clicked the link to Lipman’s bio and found all I needed to know.
Frank Lipman MD, is the founder and director of the Eleven Eleven Wellness Center in NYC a center whose emphasis is on preventive health care and patient education. His personal blend of Western and Eastern Medicine combined with the many other complimentary modalities he has studied, has helped thousands of people recover their energy and zest for life. He is the author of the recent SPENT: End Exhaustion and Feel Great Again (2009) and Total Renewal; 7 key steps to Resilience, Vitality and Long-Term Health (2003)
He is a woomeister.
That is malpractice. With that kind of advice, he should lose his license to practice medicine.
I should also add, the claim that there are antiviral herbal supplements strikes me as questionable. I don’t know enough to be certain, but I believe that there are no herbal supplements with meaningful antiviral properties in humans. And his last piece of advice is to “keep homeopathic Oscillococcinum on hand” for when you get sick. This proves as much as anything that he is a quack.
[ Edited: 27 September 2009 06:45 AM by dougsmith ]
The Huffpo is at it again. Dr. Frank Lipman advises his patients against taking swine flu vaccine, recommends vitamin D, garlic, antiviral herbal supplements and homeopathic Oscillococcinum. After reading the short post I clicked the link to Lipman’s bio and found all I needed to know.
Frank Lipman MD, is the founder and director of the Eleven Eleven Wellness Center in NYC a center whose emphasis is on preventive health care and patient education. His personal blend of Western and Eastern Medicine combined with the many other complimentary modalities he has studied, has helped thousands of people recover their energy and zest for life. He is the author of the recent SPENT: End Exhaustion and Feel Great Again (2009) and Total Renewal; 7 key steps to Resilience, Vitality and Long-Term Health (2003)
He is a woomeister.
That is malpractice. With that kind of advice, he should lose his license to practice medicine.
I should also add, the claim that there are antiviral herbal supplements strikes me as questionable. I don’t know enough to be certain, but I believe that there are no herbal supplements with meaningful antiviral properties in humans. And his last piece of advice is to “keep homeopathic Oscillococcinum on hand” for when you get sick. This proves as much as anything that he is a quack.
No, there are no herbal supplements with antiviral properties in humans. Our resident Vet can tell you what works on animals, but I doubt they will work there either. They need to crack down on these quacks and take away their ability to do so much harm.
Yes, ridiculous. Homeopathy for the flu is so obviously malpractice, even I am astounded that nothing can be done about people like this. Politics trumps science, again.
Does anyone have the contact information needed to write a letter and complain to the medical board where he is licensed? Does one need to be a resident of the state where he practices to file a complaint?
While I doubt they’ll strip him of his ability to practice for this, if enough people complain perhaps he will get a stern warning that will remain on his file. Should any of his patients file complaints down the road, at least there will be the history of woo complaints to back up their accounts and influence further decisions about his license.
That is malpractice. With that kind of advice, he should lose his license to practice medicine.
I wonder if there are sleazy miail order colleges that will issue a Dr. of Medicine certificate for a moderate “tuition”? If so, there’s no way the person could get a license, but could probably legally put MD after his name. I seem to recall a skit or movie scene where Mel Brooks was being treated like a Doctor and called such. When he was challenged to show his medical license, he said, “No, that’s my first name, Docker.”
That is malpractice. With that kind of advice, he should lose his license to practice medicine.
I wonder if there are sleazy miail order colleges that will issue a Dr. of Medicine certificate for a moderate “tuition”? If so, there’s no way the person could get a license, but could probably legally put MD after his name. I seem to recall a skit or movie scene where Mel Brooks was being treated like a Doctor and called such. When he was challenged to show his medical license, he said, “No, that’s my first name, Docker.”
Ha! Yes, I believe there are some borderline colleges that will issue MDs, although its certainly going to be more regulated than other sorts of doctorates—MDs can actually do physical harm to someone if they’re incompetent, after all. And then, of course, there are people who will simply claim to have MDs and not have them.
A propos of the same topic, I do also recall hearing that “Dr. Pepper” had to remove the dot after “Dr” so as not to appear that it was associated with a doctor of medicine. So now if you see the logo, it says “Dr Pepper” not “Dr. Pepper”. I guess it’s supposed that the guy’s first name was “Dr”.
(And also a propos of this topic, Dr. Pepper, Coke, Pepsi and many of the most popular soft drinks today were one time patent medicines—Pepsi Cola was for bad digestion, after all, that’s why it’s called “Pepsi”—to cure dyspepsia—and I’m sure “Dr. Pepper” was originally associated with some guy passing himself off as a medical doctor. All of them were actually HERBAL MEDICINES! So why aren’t they prescribed by alt med? ).
[ Edited: 27 September 2009 03:43 PM by dougsmith ]
