I was intrigued by Mr. Specter’s proposition that public health measures be extricated from the profit driven pharmaceutical companies that now do the R&D, testing & then relentless advertising of.

That does have merit. And I was wondering if Mr. Specter has a model for that change.

Science & technology have rendered both help & harm. Taking $$ out of the equation
betters the chances for the former.

The issue I still confront is when someone has an experience, a doctor hasn’t had it, no scientific research confirms the experience, and therefore the doctor concludes the person is wrong to rely on the experience.

The doctor should be undecided, not convinced that until science proves otherwise all else is wrong. While the “unwashed masses” are often wrong, it’s not uncommon for research to confirm popular experience after scientists pooh-poohed it.

Minor case in point: I found a very-short-term effect from sugar ingestion on my own energy level under limited circumstances.

I’d also heard of a double-blind experiment on children disproving this. So I looked up peer-reviewed research a some years ago and found four studies. The oldest said yes, there’s an effect. The later three said no, no, and no. And my experience is not double-blinded.

But none of the experiments resembled the circumstances leading to my experience, including major exhaustion before eating the 25-cent cake or whatever. At the time, I was volunteering on an hour of sleep a night and crashing once a week and doing this for months at a stretch and repeating over years. That’s unusual. I’m also more self-aware than many other people. That concept is only lately recognized, as a form of intelligence, with anything like scientific backing. The sugar’s effect on my body was two-step: my energy went up (I did more work) and then I seemed to fall asleep a little sooner after that. None of the scientific tests considered subjects’ self-awareness of work and sleep needs.

(By the way, I don’t recommend sugar for staying awake. Insofar as food is relevant, eat something nutritious. And I identified 78 other factors to consider for staying awake. But that’s another matter.)

Too many parents (and, it used to be and perhaps still is the case, sports coaches) think there’s a very-short-term sugar-energy correlation for us to reject it absolutely. (And maybe my experience can show parents that it isn’t important enough to matter anyway, if a child falls asleep sooner.) Most myths, as far as I’ve noticed, have some factual grounding. Science helps by narrowing down where that truth stands, but those experiments are often costly to run. Clinicians can help by not exaggerating the scientific findings.

And doctors deserve sympathy for having to communicate a body of science to a patient in 2 minutes tops. But that’s why it’s important for us to find and rely on more sources, such as books and websites. I understand NIH scientists are being encouraged to contribute to Wikipedia. That’s a good step.

We want the science. Much of it is brilliant. It’s the clinically overbroad application that undercuts the credibility of science itself among consumers who see white coats and don’t know which wearers are really good at pure science.

Heard you interviewed on WNYC.

Thanks.

–
Nick

At three years old, as the child of foreign correspondents, our son spoke English appropriately and had words and phrases in Spanish, Cantonese and Tagalog. Six months later he was nonverbal (and that is only part of the story). He still does not speak and entered a group home in August. When he was five, Yale University diagnosed Childhood Disintegrative Disorder, one of the hardest hitting forms of autism and took an enormous amount of data from us without offering much support, otherwise.The cause then was unknown and officially it remains so. As you might imagine I am not thrilled with what is all too often portrayed as “responsible” science.” I do not know if my son was vaccine injured or not. But it is a possibility I continue to research along with the possibility of his genetic suspectibility to other environmental toxins. The research of Dr. Maddy Hornig at Columbia University is included in what I study.

Leonard Lopate’s debate with you this week was courageous.

Please note that autism can be deadly as well – and with about one in 91 children and teenagers now affected, as reported by federal researchers – more will die as a result of autism. Individuals with autism can be unreasonably attracted to water. They drown. They suffer deep, deep frustration often due to childhood regression which can heartbreakingly make them aggressive. As the result of bio-medical interventions, based on exacting science, my son is now generally calm. But there was a time many years ago when I wondered if we would make it home alive from a trip to the supermarket.

I am not in a denial mode but rather a searching one. Searching for answers scientists might have found years ago if they were not, for example, convinced that Bruno Bettelheim was correct.

The Lopate show was great at showing how this stuff happens, and it has nothing to do with intelligence or even intellectual curiousity, its cultural. Lopate is the best interviewer in America, yet he has these ideas as well, such as the “organic” food thing. I love NPR, but I suspect that if you waltzed around a typical NPR station trumpeting how “organic” is the biggest con in the history of food (not to mention bad for the environment) you would be looking for work in short time.

All communities, including the scienctific community itself, are rife with denialism.

I am a Yank living in Europe, and unfortunately, Europeans, are even far less likely to embrace science than Americans, ideas are not challenged here at all, it was not what I expected. Its really amazing. The latest craze here is labelling everything, as if a label on a banana can actually help you to understand how it’s basic goodness, how it was farmed, and what the impact of eating it is…

Heading to book store now, Specter,

Thanks