Amish Salve-maker in Jail, Facing Federal Prison

Events occurring and how they relate/affect Anabaptist faith and culture.
Neto
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Re: Amish Salve-maker in Jail, Facing Federal Prison

Post by Neto »

Am I the only one who keeps on almost clicking on this thread, thinking that it says "SLAVE maker"? :o :shock:
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Josh
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Re: Amish Salve-maker in Jail, Facing Federal Prison

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If we make selling snake oil legal then big business will get in on it. They used to sell tobacco purporting health benefits.
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Valerie
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Re: Amish Salve-maker in Jail, Facing Federal Prison

Post by Valerie »

Josh wrote:Witch doctors make a lot more sense now.
Josh, amazing how youve become so haughty, cynical & an expert on everything. My pharmicist who is highly respected in the field just explained he was very familiar with the baking soda treatment & does not consider it quackery, has heard of its effectiveness, explained to me how it works, knew which organs its most effective in. I value his opinion over your less than knowledgeable assumptions
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Josh
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Re: Amish Salve-maker in Jail, Facing Federal Prison

Post by Josh »

Valerie wrote:
Josh wrote:Witch doctors make a lot more sense now.
Josh, amazing how youve become so haughty, cynical & an expert on everything. My pharmicist who is highly respected in the field just explained he was very familiar with the baking soda treatment & does not consider it quackery, has heard of its effectiveness, explained to me how it works, knew which organs its most effective in. I value his opinion over your less than knowledgeable assumptions
Valerie, there is absolutely no medical or scientific basis to "pH" theories of disease. If your pharmacist supports this kind of thing, I would recommend finding a new pharmacy.
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Dan Z
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Re: Amish Salve-maker in Jail, Facing Federal Prison

Post by Dan Z »

Josh wrote:If we make selling snake oil legal then big business will get in on it. They used to sell tobacco purporting health benefits.
I do have a beef with the false promotion of the benefits of snake oil.
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ohio jones
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Re: Amish Salve-maker in Jail, Facing Federal Prison

Post by ohio jones »

Neto wrote:Am I the only one who keeps on almost clicking on this thread, thinking that it says "SLAVE maker"? :o :shock:
Maybe. I keep thinking of this:

Image
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Valerie
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Re: Amish Salve-maker in Jail, Facing Federal Prison

Post by Valerie »

Dan Z wrote:
joshuabgood wrote:
Josh wrote:Witch doctors make a lot more sense now.
You are right. It really is useless to continue the discussion...it's a mindset I have never thoroughly understood. Though it has frustrated me in years past, I more or less just accept it and don't say anything. Somehow the "witch doctors" capture the imaginations of certain groups of folks and no amount of discussion will convince them otherwise.

Just the other day I was in a conversation, which I can't relate it hear, where some of this type of thinking was bandied about - and it was best just for me to "go with the flow." So with the flow I went keeping my mouth shut =).
Sometimes the mind is powerful medicine all by itself.

The placebo effect is well documented. Setting the supernatural aside for the moment (while not denying God's touch) - there is evidence that people can often be healed by what they believe in - the Tu-Mor-Be-Gone or Baking Soda or whatever simply serves as the focal point for their belief, giving them hope and perhaps healing. Oh...and anecdotal testimonies will always abound to bolster belief (correlation looks a lot like causation).

So...if both the seller and the buyer believe in healing properties of something, and if the placebo effect does more good than doing nothing at all, isn't there some benefit to allowing people to buy snake oil. I'm sure "Big-Herba" is selling untold amounts of relatively inert herbs and supplements to people (and making big bucks) - but my sense is that it probably does more good than harm.

Like a few others on the board, I'd generally like to see solid scientific evidence before I believe some substance has healing properties. But ironically, my reliance on empirical proof robs me from benefiting from placebo healing that might otherwise do me good if I only would be open to believing in snake oil. 8-)
Mind over matter? Dan why do you suppose our friend's Onocologist recommended to our friend to go to Italy where they are treating cancer with chemo? I mean- he actually is a physician who was treating our friend who was giving up on the chemo. If you think it was mind over matter, that caused the baking soda treatment done 'professionally' by AN ONOCOLOGIST, why didn't mind over matter work with the radiation?

You're all cracking me up- well- too many that actually do practice medicine will back this up so I really don't need to worry about what several people who really don't know what they are talking about thinks- I am very aware of 'pow wow' among the Anabaptists, who isn't? Of course I don't support that- this is completely different- our highly respected pharmacist, like I said- does not consider it quackery when I approached him, explained how/why it works (it is scientific) and when our friend's 2 masses in his colon were shown to him shrinking and he's alive and well, it matter's not the opinions of skeptics- I will listent to doctors & pharmacists about this, and listen to people here, about Anabaptism- with hopefully a little more charitable comments about that
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cmbl
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Re: Amish Salve-maker in Jail, Facing Federal Prison

Post by cmbl »

Dan Z wrote: So...if both the seller and the buyer believe in healing properties of something, and if the placebo effect does more good than doing nothing at all, isn't there some benefit to allowing people to buy snake oil. I'm sure "Big-Herba" is selling untold amounts of relatively inert herbs and supplements to people (and making big bucks) - but my sense is that it probably does more good than harm.
I don't think it's right to make untested and/or false medical claims, regardless of the benefits; therefore I do not think it wise to allow people to buy snake oil.

And I doubt it does more good than harm. Harm is often difficult to measure, e.g., If the person wasn't using snake oil, they might use something that actually works. That is harm indirectly caused by snake oil. Not to mention that whatever the snake oil substance is, it quite possibly has negative side effects. (Well, just negative effects, because they're side-effects to nothing.)

What follows is not in response to Dan Z, but considering this topic more broadly.
- It's tempting to side with "the little guy" making untested health claims, but we should remember that not all little guys mean well, and not all well-meaning little guys are correct. This is true independent of "Big Pharma" and one's opinion of it.
- We can learn from history. Why does the United States not allow people to make untested medical claims? For starters, the patent medicine industry of the late 1800s led to the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.
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Judas Maccabeus
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Re: Amish Salve-maker in Jail, Facing Federal Prison

Post by Judas Maccabeus »

Biblical Anabaptist wrote:I recognize there is a lot of emotion on both sides of this issue. The word "cancer" strikes fear in the hearts of people and the painful treatments, which in many cases are only temporarily effective, cause folks to seek alternatives. From experience, I know how difficult it can be to make the decision whether to pursue treatment or what treatment to pursue. There will always be those who claim to have been cured by any one of a number of treatments.

In our case, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer in the early stages. She opted for a total mastectomy. She was referred to an oncologist. He insisted that she do chemotherapy even though the 10-year survival rate based on her age, type, and stage of cancer only increased from 79% to 81% with treatment vs non-treatment. We did not feel that those statistics warranted doing the treatment. We don't know what the future holds but we are now 6 years past that with no recurrence at this point. Later the surgeon told us that the type cancer she had would not have responded to chemo. I am told that doctors (J.M. could probably tell us if this is true) make a markup on chemo treatment.

I really suspect that when a "cure" is finally found for cancer it will be something relatively simple. I remember when folks had half of their stomach hacked out because they had stomach ulcers. When a cure was finally found it was a drug that was in every livestock farmers drug cabinet.
First let me answer the question you asked. In general, doctors cannot refer to entities in which they have an interest, for example, if your orthopedic surgeon wants an MRI of your knee, he cannot own (Or anyone related to him) the center where he refers you to for this study. This is called self-referral, and is forbidden by the Stark Law. In recent years, it has been more rigorously enforced. There are stand alone exceptions, if A doctor is an "employee" of a center, does not have a financial interest in it, it can than offer a full range of services, since he is not referring to an entity that he has an interest in. There are exceptions, which I will get into later.

Sound complicated? It is. All of us get annual training on this, and I still barely understand the ins and outs of this.

One of the exceptions are "In office procedures ." Chemotherapy may well be one of them, so if a physician offers chemotherapy infusions as an in office procedure, it may fall under one of the exceptions in the Stark law. I have never worked in this setting, so I have never seen how they bill, but you could expect that there will be a markup between the price they pay for it, and what they charge. So yes, this is possible, in a private office setting. Does it influence the decision making process, i genuinely hope not, but there are ways of making this small possibility go away.

IF I am ever asked for advice about cancer treatment, most of my advice will consist of what kind of setting to receive treatment. I would highly recommend the cancer center/institutes either at or directly affiliated to a teaching hospital. If not that, than a NCI accredited comprehensive or community cancer center affiliated with a hospital.

Here the place where chemotherapy is conducted is generally owned or operated by the institution, and not the treating physician, he may bill for "supervision" of the chemotherapy but the rest of it will be billed by the institution. In addition, at these centers you have access to the latest treatments, protocols and testing that is available. If you are in a situation where it becomes necessary, research protocols are more likely to be available as well. All disciplines are most likely represented in the planning of treatment, and co-ordination is likely going to be better than working with individual practitioners.

This is the best advice I can give. In my short career I have seen outstanding progress. People forget sometimes that cancer is a multitude of different diseases, and each one is different.

As to the idea that "Cancer is a fungus" we KNOW that cancer cells are cells that have mutated but are human cells, as they still have a human genome. We have gotten so good at genetics (Most academic centers employ a full time geneticist, ours does) that we can identify many of the mutations, and know from this what treatments are likely to be effective. A cancer cell is human, a fungus is a plant. To believe that human cells somehow mutate into a cell that is not even a member of the animal kingdom, strains any creditability. This is the sort of thing that evolutionists want to believe is possible. I can't even fathom a mechanism where this could occur, but surely, it would have to be more than altered PH.

For the sake of some here, the baking soda guru, Dr. Simoncini has been "struck off" (Lost his license) in Italy, and apparently convicted of swindling. This is still on appeal, since 2006, and still has not been decided. My understanding of the Italian justice system is that appeals can go on essentially forever, so don't expect a conclusion to this any time in the next decade. He has apparently been sighted in the Netherlands as well.

https://www.cancertreatmentwatch.org/re ... cini.shtml

If you hear about such things being offered in places near the mexican border, like Arizona, the actual treatment will be almost certainly done in Mexico. The stories I have heard from some of these places is truly appalling.

My suggestion is before you engage this crazy stuff, you read Nolan Byler's "The High Cost of Holistic Healing: A Concise examination of Alternative Medicine Practices and Related Issues." It generally goes for less than 5$, he is a conservative mennonite D.O.

Well, I have done my best here. Was speaking at the Chinese group last night, encouraged them to "Make a beginning" in a life with Christ.

J.M.
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Judas Maccabeus
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Re: Amish Salve-maker in Jail, Facing Federal Prison

Post by Judas Maccabeus »

Valerie wrote:
Josh wrote:Witch doctors make a lot more sense now.
Josh, amazing how youve become so haughty, cynical & an expert on everything. My pharmicist who is highly respected in the field just explained he was very familiar with the baking soda treatment & does not consider it quackery, has heard of its effectiveness, explained to me how it works, knew which organs its most effective in. I value his opinion over your less than knowledgeable assumptions
Excuse me? IF a pharmacist is really promoting this he is likely going to lose his license if caught. IF he is a community pharmacist, they are unlikely to deal with chemotherapy agents of the process of cancer treatment. That is an unapproved treatment, and he would fall under the same law as the Amish guy in the OP.

I have seen this all before. I live in what became one of the epicenters of Laetrile. One of the compounding pharmacists I know lost his license over this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdalin

See how quackery works!

J.M.
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