I used to generally agree with Bill Maher

[Mo0o]

Looks like someone didn't take pharmacology

 

[13Gigatons]

He should love drugs, he drinks and smokes enough.

BTW the problem with antibiotics is that people are taking them when they only have the sniffles. The MRSA infection is really frightening since it's so fast.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/heal...rsa/DS00735/DSECTION=3

 

[Mo0o]

Originally posted by: 13Gigatons
He should love drugs, he drinks and smokes enough.

BTW the problem with antibiotics is that people are taking them when they only have the sniffles. The MRSA infection is really frightening since it's so fast.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/heal...rsa/DS00735/DSECTION=3

Yep. Another problem is that people stop taking antibiotics when they feel better as oppose to when their prescription runs out

 

[mcmilljb]

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: DangerAardvark
The number of lives saved by Penicillin far outweighs the watery stools it caused. It's probably the worst example he could have given. That said, overuse does lead to resistance.

True enough, but Prescription Drugs are not really harmless. Which was likely his point.

Who cares if they're not really harmless? They save lives. Would you rather be dead or just not crapping right for a week?

 

[Squisher]

I think we should go back in time when just eating good natural foods and getting good exercise kept us alive to the ripe old age of 45.


Yeah, Bill seemed to have gone past point of ardent fervor to radical extremism. Even the panel seemed a little put off by his statements.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: SmoochyTX
I stopped paying attention in 2001.

As did most Texans

 

[Geekbabe]

Originally posted by: 3NF
Most prescription drugs are invented to make someone money. Restless Leg Syndrome - you need a pill for that? Give me a break. Now there are certainly some medications that help people, but if you abuse it (like Heath did), then it can kill you.

if you're awake all night most every night then yes,you might need meds for RLS.

That said,I think avoiding medication unless it's clearly needed is very wise and that a person should leave no stone unturned in exploring natural/alternative sources of relief for physical ailments.

I'm 51 and take only 1 medication on a regular basis and do so only because alternative measures for relief ,including doing nothing and waiting to see if the problem would resolve itself failed.

 

[biggestmuff]

Isn't he on the board of directors for PETA?

 

[shocksyde]

Originally posted by: Squisher
I think we should go back in time when just eating good natural foods and getting good exercise kept us alive to the ripe old age of 45.


Yeah, Bill seemed to have gone past point of ardent fervor to radical extremism. Even the panel seemed a little put off by his statements.

The writer/comedian to his left said something like, "Bill, your show has taken an... odd... turn."

 

[Dirigible]

Originally posted by: shocksyde

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: shocksyde

Originally posted by: sandorski
The vast majority of Prescription Drugs have nasty side effects. He is correct, but sometimes they are all that will help certain conditions.

Penicillin?

I haven't cared enough to do my own research, but I've heard liberal use of anti-biotics is promoting mutation and resulting in viruses and whatnot that are immune to traditional anti-biotics.
It's natural for every living thing to adapt to it's environment in order to survive. Over many generations of bacteria or viruses, it's not hard to believe that they'll eventually mutate to the point where penicillin has no affect.

Ok, so which scenario is worse:

1. Nobody takes antibiotics and bacteria run wild in your body
2. People take antibiotics and at some point in the future all bacteria become immune to it and then run wild in your body

Can't argue against that, but if we'd taken less of 'em, prescribed them less frivolously, option 2 would take longer to happen.

To be on topic: I've never listened to him, but sounds like Maher's a wacko.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Dirigible

Originally posted by: shocksyde

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: shocksyde

Originally posted by: sandorski
The vast majority of Prescription Drugs have nasty side effects. He is correct, but sometimes they are all that will help certain conditions.

Penicillin?

I haven't cared enough to do my own research, but I've heard liberal use of anti-biotics is promoting mutation and resulting in viruses and whatnot that are immune to traditional anti-biotics.
It's natural for every living thing to adapt to it's environment in order to survive. Over many generations of bacteria or viruses, it's not hard to believe that they'll eventually mutate to the point where penicillin has no affect.

Ok, so which scenario is worse:

1. Nobody takes antibiotics and bacteria run wild in your body
2. People take antibiotics and at some point in the future all bacteria become immune to it and then run wild in your body

Can't argue against that, but if we'd taken less of 'em, prescribed them less frivolously, option 2 would take longer to happen.

To be on topic: I've never listened to him, but sounds like Maher's a wacko.

He's not really a "whacko", but he has some opinions out of the main stream. He may have been defending Pot as a Medicinal Drug, but I haven't received the Podcast yet. He's actually a very funny Comedian that does mostly Political issues though.

 

[yowolabi]

Originally posted by: mcmilljb

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: DangerAardvark
The number of lives saved by Penicillin far outweighs the watery stools it caused. It's probably the worst example he could have given. That said, overuse does lead to resistance.

True enough, but Prescription Drugs are not really harmless. Which was likely his point.

Who cares if they're not really harmless? They save lives. Would you rather be dead or just not crapping right for a week?

But most people don't take them for life threatening conditions. They take them because they feel bad, and don't want to wait or take the steps for their body to naturally heal itself. For Heath Ledger, for instance, not a single one of those drugs was keeping him alive. That's the case in the vast majority of people. I'm not referring to someone with diabetes taking insulin.

If you want an example of what i'm talking about, let's discuss fevers. When you get sick, your body naturally raises your temperature (fever), as part of the process of fighting the intruder. Bacteria/Viruses live optimally at your natural body temperature, and raising it helps to kill them and helps you expel them through sweating. But a large amount of people will take medicine to bring the fever down, interrupting the work of their immune system, and prolonging their illness. Also, the medicine they're taking is not a "cure". It's something meant to interrupt/change the natural processes of the body. From the body's perspective, it's as much a "poison" as anything that you consider unfit to consume, like chlorine.

The other problem is that people take medication long term to fix the symptoms, instead of finding out and fixing the root of the problem. When you feel bad, it's almost always because you're doing something wrong. In most cases it's your diet and your physical activity level. Even diabetes, which i mentioned earlier, would have never gotten to the life threatening part for the majority of people if they had the correct diet and exercise before the onset of diabetes. If you damage and ignore your body for long enough, it will become much worse at healing itself. The feeling of "pain" is to let you know that your body is injured and needs to be fixed, or it needs to be rested so it can fix itself. Yet many people's first reaction is to take a painkiller so they can ignore their body's message.

Diet happens to be another of Bill Maher's big issues, and they pretty much have to be connected. Their is an alternative to pills, but it's much harder, and usually requires you to be proactive instead of reactive. You don't have to go to the extreme of being a PETA member/vegetarian like him, however our diet in this country is insane. The best article i've read on what we should be eating was posted here.

I wasn't given any of the information about fevers and such from a doctor, which is the problem. Far too many doctors are willing to just prescribe medication to fix any problem. Mostly because of laziness, and partly because doctors and drug companies have a vested interest in selling you drugs indefinitely to help you cope with the problem, instead of helping it go away forever. Also if your doctor started lecturing you about the life changes you need to make your problem go away, a significant amount of people would simply go to another doctor that offers a quick fix pill.

Now, i'm not at Bill Maher's level, thinking that you should never take medicine. If you make a conscious decision that you're willing to trade long term health for short term comfort, that's up to you. You should do it with both eyes open, though.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Originally posted by: lokiju
Sounds like he's into Scientology.

I don't think Scientologists are opposed to taking medication (other than psychotropic medication). I believe you're thinking of Christian Scientists.

 

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: DangerAardvark


He's a board member of PETA. He's pro-gun control. He has some odd ideas about Iraq. But I can still watch his show and laugh at his jokes because he's a comedian, not my personal Jesus.

He's been very outspoken against the pharmaceutical industry for a long time. Stating that all medication will eventually kill you is hyperbole at best, so I'm certainly not defending that. I haven't watched tonight's episode yet.

He's a liberal loony bin, what did you expect?

 

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: 3NF
Most prescription drugs are invented to make someone money. Restless Leg Syndrome - you need a pill for that? Give me a break.

LOL

When I saw the first commercial for that, I thought to myself "You've got to be kidding me"

 

[91TTZ]

Originally posted by: Squisher
I think we should go back in time when just eating good natural foods and getting good exercise kept us alive to the ripe old age of 45.

You do realize that ~45 used to be the average life span for a human, not the ripe old age that a healthy adult was expected to live, don't you?

If you have a hard time understanding that, you need to take into account that a good percentage of infants either died at birth or in the first couple years of their life.

If 3 children are born, 1 living to 70, the other to 74, and the other dying at 1, the average lifespan of that generation was a little over 48 years old.

 

[feralkid]

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: 3NF
Most prescription drugs are invented to make someone money. Restless Leg Syndrome - you need a pill for that? Give me a break.

LOL

When I saw the first commercial for that, I thought to myself "You've got to be kidding me"

:roll:

No, no one was kidding you. Ask anyone who suffers from this. You may learn something.

 

[rgwalt]

Originally posted by: yowolabi

Originally posted by: mcmilljb

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: DangerAardvark
The number of lives saved by Penicillin far outweighs the watery stools it caused. It's probably the worst example he could have given. That said, overuse does lead to resistance.

True enough, but Prescription Drugs are not really harmless. Which was likely his point.

Who cares if they're not really harmless? They save lives. Would you rather be dead or just not crapping right for a week?

But most people don't take them for life threatening conditions. They take them because they feel bad, and don't want to wait or take the steps for their body to naturally heal itself. For Heath Ledger, for instance, not a single one of those drugs was keeping him alive. That's the case in the vast majority of people. I'm not referring to someone with diabetes taking insulin.

If you want an example of what i'm talking about, let's discuss fevers. When you get sick, your body naturally raises your temperature (fever), as part of the process of fighting the intruder. Bacteria/Viruses live optimally at your natural body temperature, and raising it helps to kill them and helps you expel them through sweating. But a large amount of people will take medicine to bring the fever down, interrupting the work of their immune system, and prolonging their illness. Also, the medicine they're taking is not a "cure". It's something meant to interrupt/change the natural processes of the body. From the body's perspective, it's as much a "poison" as anything that you consider unfit to consume, like chlorine.

The other problem is that people take medication long term to fix the symptoms, instead of finding out and fixing the root of the problem. When you feel bad, it's almost always because you're doing something wrong. In most cases it's your diet and your physical activity level. Even diabetes, which i mentioned earlier, would have never gotten to the life threatening part for the majority of people if they had the correct diet and exercise before the onset of diabetes. If you damage and ignore your body for long enough, it will become much worse at healing itself. The feeling of "pain" is to let you know that your body is injured and needs to be fixed, or it needs to be rested so it can fix itself. Yet many people's first reaction is to take a painkiller so they can ignore their body's message.

Diet happens to be another of Bill Maher's big issues, and they pretty much have to be connected. Their is an alternative to pills, but it's much harder, and usually requires you to be proactive instead of reactive. You don't have to go to the extreme of being a PETA member/vegetarian like him, however our diet in this country is insane. The best article i've read on what we should be eating was posted here.

I wasn't given any of the information about fevers and such from a doctor, which is the problem. Far too many doctors are willing to just prescribe medication to fix any problem. Mostly because of laziness, and partly because doctors and drug companies have a vested interest in selling you drugs indefinitely to help you cope with the problem, instead of helping it go away forever. Also if your doctor started lecturing you about the life changes you need to make your problem go away, a significant amount of people would simply go to another doctor that offers a quick fix pill.

Now, i'm not at Bill Maher's level, thinking that you should never take medicine. If you make a conscious decision that you're willing to trade long term health for short term comfort, that's up to you. You should do it with both eyes open, though.

Are you a doctor? If not, you don't have the necessary education to make some of these claims. For instance, fevers, while they are the body's natural defense against bacteria and viruses, can cause signifcant problems when they get too high. A fever of 99 F or 100 F is OK. A fever of 103 F or higher is actually dangerous and generally indicates that you are suffering from something your body can't handle. Do you know what people did before the days of antibiotics when they had such a fever? Many of them died.

Now, I'll agree with you that our society over-uses medication to hide symptoms. We over use antibiotics to treat viral infections that simply have to run their course. We stop taking antibiotics too soon, which create resistant infections. On the other hand, sometimes a headache is just a headache and in order to sleep or simply function normally, I need to take an asprin to make it go away. Or, when I have a cold and my sinuses hurt, my throat hurts, and I'm constantly draining and coughing, I take something to relieve the symptoms because if I don't, I won't be able to rest. My body needs rest to fight off the infection.

Now, I will agree with Maher with one qualification: Over a long enough timeline medication will kill you. You will eventually encounter a bad batch, use the wrong amount of medication, or have and adverse reaction to a new medication, and you will die. This assumes that an accident or natural causes don't do you in first.

R

 

[3NF]

Originally posted by: feralkid

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: 3NF
Most prescription drugs are invented to make someone money. Restless Leg Syndrome - you need a pill for that? Give me a break.

LOL

When I saw the first commercial for that, I thought to myself "You've got to be kidding me"

:roll:

No, no one was kidding you. Ask anyone who suffers from this. You may learn something.

Maybe they have an anxiety or thyroid problem, hmm? A lot of medications don't solve the problem at all - they just numb or mask the symptoms. So big pharma would rather sell you a pill that you take forever and make big money, rather than having some smart doctor actually fix the problem in a single visit.

 

[BrownTown]

Obviously it is silly to say "all drugs are bad", but personally I avoid the use of drugs as much ass possible, the only drugs I have ever really taken were asthma medicines when I was a kid, I don't think I have taken any drugs for at least 8 years now (high school + college), even over the counter pain or cold medicines (even when I had surgery they gave my hydrocodone and I just threw it away). Now obviously thats a little excessive, over the counter medicines aren't going to hurt you, but I would just as soon never have to be reliant on drugs for anything. This is especially on my stance with mood altering type drugs that so many people take. I have seen alot of people take them and they do good for while, but then your body gets used to them and you need higher doses or newer more powerful drugs, and after a few years the drugs are causing as many problems as the original issue.

 

[lyssword]

http://www.worstpills.org/public/page.cfm?op_id=4 maybe he's talking about this?

also taken from http://www.fda.gov/CDER/DRUG/drugReactions/default.htm
However, other studies conducted on hospitalized patient populations have placed much higher estimates on the overall incidence of serious ADRs. These studies estimate that 6.7% of hospitalized patients have a serious adverse drug reaction with a fatality rate of 0.32%.2 If these estimates are correct, then there are more than 2,216,000 serious ADRs in hospitalized patients, causing over 106,000 deaths annually. If true, then ADRs are the 4th leading cause of death?ahead of pulmonary disease, diabetes, AIDS, pneumonia, accidents, and automobile deaths.

These statistics do not include the number of ADRs that occur in ambulatory settings. Also, it is estimated that over 350,000 ADRs occur in U.S. nursing homes each year.3 The exact number of ADRs is not certain and is limited by methodological considerations. However, whatever the true number is, ADRs represent a significant public health problem that is, for the most part, preventable.

 

[Squisher]

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: Squisher
I think we should go back in time when just eating good natural foods and getting good exercise kept us alive to the ripe old age of 45.

You do realize that ~45 used to be the average life span for a human, not the ripe old age that a healthy adult was expected to live, don't you?

If you have a hard time understanding that, you need to take into account that a good percentage of infants either died at birth or in the first couple years of their life.

If 3 children are born, 1 living to 70, the other to 74, and the other dying at 1, the average lifespan of that generation was a little over 48 years old.

So, you don't believe there has ever been a time in the past where healthy adults lived to an average age of 45?

 

[rgwalt]

Originally posted by: Dirigible

Originally posted by: shocksyde

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: shocksyde

Originally posted by: sandorski
The vast majority of Prescription Drugs have nasty side effects. He is correct, but sometimes they are all that will help certain conditions.

Penicillin?

I haven't cared enough to do my own research, but I've heard liberal use of anti-biotics is promoting mutation and resulting in viruses and whatnot that are immune to traditional anti-biotics.
It's natural for every living thing to adapt to it's environment in order to survive. Over many generations of bacteria or viruses, it's not hard to believe that they'll eventually mutate to the point where penicillin has no affect.

Ok, so which scenario is worse:

1. Nobody takes antibiotics and bacteria run wild in your body
2. People take antibiotics and at some point in the future all bacteria become immune to it and then run wild in your body

Can't argue against that, but if we'd taken less of 'em, prescribed them less frivolously, option 2 would take longer to happen.

To be on topic: I've never listened to him, but sounds like Maher's a wacko.

Actually, I'll argue with that... New antibiotics are developed on a regular basis to treat the bacteria that become resistant. We hear the horror stories released by the news, the CDC, the WHO, etc. These stories tell us the importance of making the current arsenal last longer by not over perscribing and always finishing our perscriptions. However, what the stories don't tell us is the arsenal that doctors have at their disposal to take care of the super bugs. There is a good last line of defense that is under continuous improvement.

Secondly, some bacteria simply do not develop drug resistance, or develop it very, very slowly. Penicillin has been used and misused for close to 70 years. However, when I had a bad case of tosilitis last year, my doctor perscribed penicillin and it cleared right up. I don't want to think about what would have happened to my throat if I hadn't visited the doctor.

Medicine is a tool people. It is neither good nor bad, just an instrument to solve a problem. Like any tool, medicine can be misused and ultimately be harmful. When applied wisely, it is on the whole very beneficial. If you chose not to vaccinate your kids because you think medicine is bad, don't be surprised when they get polio or die from the measels... or worse yet small pox. These diseases wiped out massive amounts of population all over the world before effective vaccines and other treatments were developed.

R

 

[Gibsons]

Originally posted by: yowolabi

Originally posted by: mcmilljb

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: DangerAardvark
The number of lives saved by Penicillin far outweighs the watery stools it caused. It's probably the worst example he could have given. That said, overuse does lead to resistance.

True enough, but Prescription Drugs are not really harmless. Which was likely his point.

Who cares if they're not really harmless? They save lives. Would you rather be dead or just not crapping right for a week?

But most people don't take them for life threatening conditions. They take them because they feel bad, and don't want to wait or take the steps for their body to naturally heal itself. For Heath Ledger, for instance, not a single one of those drugs was keeping him alive. That's the case in the vast majority of people. I'm not referring to someone with diabetes taking insulin.

If you want an example of what i'm talking about, let's discuss fevers. When you get sick, your body naturally raises your temperature (fever), as part of the process of fighting the intruder. Bacteria/Viruses live optimally at your natural body temperature, and raising it helps to kill them and helps you expel them through sweating. But a large amount of people will take medicine to bring the fever down, interrupting the work of their immune system, and prolonging their illness. Also, the medicine they're taking is not a "cure". It's something meant to interrupt/change the natural processes of the body. From the body's perspective, it's as much a "poison" as anything that you consider unfit to consume, like chlorine.

snip

You need to take a course on immunology, you're speaking from ignorance.

 

[Tobolo]

Originally posted by: feralkid

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: 3NF
Most prescription drugs are invented to make someone money. Restless Leg Syndrome - you need a pill for that? Give me a break.

LOL

When I saw the first commercial for that, I thought to myself "You've got to be kidding me"

:roll:

No, no one was kidding you. Ask anyone who suffers from this. You may learn something.

My girl has that. It doesn't bother her, but it sure as hell bothers me. Cant sleep during the night from Miss Kicks-a-Lot.