HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU (Stephen Grossman)
Subject: Re: APA and Homosexuality
Reply-To: pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU
Organization: UMASS DARTMOUTH, NO. DARTMOUTH, MA.
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 03:00:33 GMT

In article <1992Dec30.203205.29126@midway.uchicago.edu>, thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank) writes:
>In article <C012vt.72K@umassd.edu> pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU writes:
>>In article <1992Dec23.005116.29281@midway.uchicago.edu>, thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank) writes:
>>>In article <BzoG7o.3p6@umassd.edu> pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU writes:
>>
>>>>Also, the Am. Psychiatric Assoc. permitted itself to be lobbied and intimi-
>>>>dated by homo. activists around 1970 and, without new science, changed their
>>>>public judgement about the psy. unhealthiness of homo.
>>>
>>>Of course the original judgement of the APA was hardly based on "science"
>>>to begin with, but rather on Christian social norms.  There's no reason 
>>>to think that either of their public judgements are accurate.
>>
>>    You have committed the logical fallacy of irrelevant conclusion.
>>    Please provide evidence that the original APA judgement that homosexuality 
>>is psy. illness is _based_ on Christianity. 
>
>Please provide evidence that the APA judgments were based on *anything*.


SG	I agree there is a problem. I had never considred the issue before 
reading that politics influenced the APA.

>>Did APA 
>>explicitly appeal to Christianity or to science? I suspect you made hasty
>>generalization. Can you cite those studies which APA used (to classify homo.
>>as illness) and which, if I understand you, appeal to Christianity rather than
>>lab, clinic, etc. Don't get me wrong. Science is based, not on itself, but on 
>>philosophy. This philosophy may be true or false but it guides research. One
>>application of philosophy is religion and this might have guided the APA or 
the
>>scientists whose work justified the APA claim that homo. is sick. Maybe or
>>maybe not. Can you prove it?
>>    Can homo. be classified as sick _independent_ of religion? That's my 
point. 
>>Or, rather, has it been done? 
>
>To my knowledge, homosexuality has not been classified as sick by any
>science more advanced than phrenology.

SG	Does your knowledge include APA arguments about homosexuality?
Otherwise you commit the logical fallacy of ignorance. Your ignorance is not a 
basis for knowledge. Please study Aristotelian logic.
	
================================================================================
	"In that world, you'll be able to rise in the morning with the spirit
you had known in your childhood: that spirit of eagerness, adventure and cer-
tainty which comes from dealing with a rational universe."
                                                              AYN RAND
================================================================================
Stephen Grossman <PMSC13SG@UMASS.EDU>
================================================================================
Newsgroups: talk.politics.medicine
From: schumach@convex.com (Richard A. Schumacher)
Subject: Re: Why The FDA is a Mass Murderer
Organization: CONVEX Computer Corporation, Richardson, Tx., USA
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 00:14:33 GMT
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.


>But the Life Extension Foundation (PO Box ******, Hollywood, FL 33022), a
>pesky smaller outfit, will send you a bottle of aspirin with beta-carotene
>(a combination that in the PHS reduced the risk for those with pre-existing
>cardiovascular disease by 100% - another result the FDA won't let any company

The risk went to ZERO? Is that what they meant to say? That's ridiculous.


Newsgroups: talk.politics.medicine,sci.econ
From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: Caveat Emptor and Medicines
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 08:52:46 GMT

In article <1992Dec23.164138.6036@midway.uchicago.edu> thf2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
}In article <1992Dec23.065018.12174@genie.slhs.udel.edu> starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:
}>In article <1992Dec23.052232.9268@midway.uchicago.edu> thf2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
}>}Wow!  Reduces risk 100%!  Or, in other words, prevents it completely, right?
}>}(After all, that's what "reduces risk 100%" means.)  Gee, with such accuracy
}>}in advertising, I wonder why the FDA still insists on approving advertising
}>}of health claims?
}>
}>You've gotten your attributions wrong.  I
}>didn't write that, Alan Bock of the Orange County Register did.  I posted the
}>article.
}
}Unquestioningly, I see.

No, you don't.

}>}Why don't you tell us how many people died from quack medicines that FDA
}>}policy has kept off the shelves?
}>
}>Why don't you explain why it's such a good thing that medicines that have been
}>approved in other industrialized countries haven't been here (e.g., piracetam,
}>thalidomide)?  Why don't you try justifying this breach of caveat emptor?
}
}Because caveat emptor is hardly a good way to run a society when there isn't
}perfect information.

Right.  Since perfect information is impossible, your position then is that
there should be no caveat emptor at all?

Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu

"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
oneself and others." - Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire
Newsgroups: talk.politics.medicine,sci.skeptic
From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: AIDS risk/Duesberg
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 06:45:08 GMT

In article <1992Dec23.005116.29281@midway.uchicago.edu> thf2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
}In article <BzoG7o.3p6@umassd.edu> pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU writes:
}>    You should have read my AIDS post. Duesberg says there is no peer-reviewed
}>paper which proves the HIV-AIDS _hypothesis_. Is he right?
}
}Didn't see your post (my site just got t.p.med), but Duesberg's been discussed
}in sci.skeptic, and I defer to the expertise there.

What was the general conclusion?

}>    He says modern AIDs is caused by the hard drug lifestyle of malnutrition, 
}>sleeplessness, and chronic tension, classic causes of immune deficiency.
}
}Of course this alternative theory doesn't explain why hemophiliacs and
}infants and blood transfusion recipients get AIDS.  Or why it's so
}prevalent in Africa.  My first guess would be to reject Duesberg's
}theory as having less explanatory power than the current theory.

Blood transfusions in themselves are immunosuppressive, as is malnutrition.

}>    I say scientists are morally intimidated by egalitarianism and so claim
}>that all groups are equally at risk. Duesberg says homo. druggies.
}
}Well, all groups that get exposed to HIV *are* equally at risk.  But some
}behaviors more likely to spread AIDS are more prevalent in some groups than
}others.  But between the religious right and the activist left, the
}educational message conveyed has been less than fully accurate.  

This hasn't been borne out in the USA.  US military recruits are tested for
HIV, estimates of people with HIV in the general population based upon those
figures have held steady at about 1.5 million nationwide since testing began.
Yet the main risk groups remain those who self-medicate intravenously and
male homosexuals.  Annual AIDS cases have been in the 30,000 range.

}>    Also, the Am. Psychiatric Assoc. permitted itself to be lobbied and intimi-
}>dated by homo. activists around 1970 and, without new science, changed their
}>public judgement about the psy. unhealthiness of homo.
}
}Of course the original judgement of the APA was hardly based on "science"
}to begin with, but rather on Christian social norms.  There's no reason 
}to think that either of their public judgements are accurate.
}
}I'm more concerned about the hijacking of fetal tissue research, despite
}the multitude of controls to prevent it from being used to encourage
}abortions, than I am about what the APA considers "normal" this week.

I'm with you on this, Ted.  Then again, I've read too much Szazs to give much
credit to claims of "mental illness."


Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu

"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
oneself and others." - Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire
Xref: sparky talk.politics.medicine:441 sci.econ:9522
From: thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.medicine,sci.econ
Subject: Re: Caveat Emptor and Medicines
Date: 24 Dec 92 19:20:34 GMT
Reply-To: thf2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

In article <1992Dec24.085246.15981@genie.slhs.udel.edu> starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:
>In article <1992Dec23.164138.6036@midway.uchicago.edu> thf2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>}Because caveat emptor is hardly a good way to run a society when there isn't
>}perfect information.
>
>Right.  Since perfect information is impossible, your position then is that
>there should be no caveat emptor at all?

Depends on how imperfect the information is.
-- 
ted frank                     | thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu 
standard disclaimers          | void where prohibited
the university of chicago law school, chicago, illinois 60637
Newsgroups: talk.politics.medicine
From: hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Subject: Re: More Evidence Against the FDA
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 17:11:33 GMT

In article <schumach.725156285@convex.convex.com> schumach@convex.com (Richard A. Schumacher) writes:
>[whining about impending reduction of laissez-faire in alternative
>"medicine" deleted]

>How quickly they forget. Do you want repetitions of the L-tryptophan
>fiasco of 4 years back? Scores of people were killed or left permamently
>paralyzed to various degrees by a large, faulty batch of the stuff. 
>Protecting an ignorant populace from baseless or fraudulent health
>claims is PRECISELY why the "D" is in the FDA!

Scores out of millions using it were harmed by a previously unknown 
contaminant.  There was nothing wrong with the warning when this was
found, but not the ban.  And there is absolutely no excuse for the
continuing ban, now that screening for the contaminant is properly 
carried out.

A fair proportion of the number harmed would have been if the chemical
was prescription only.  Everything has risks; if every batch of a chemical
has to be tested sufficiently that this could not happen, you would not be
able to afford aspirin.  The Toxic Shock Syndrome incident shows that even
reasonable testing will not find everything.

>Christ on a minibike, why not repeal all traffic laws while you're at it?

Except for those directly affecting others, why not?
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@snap.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)  
{purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP)
From: pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU (Stephen Grossman)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.medicine
Subject: Re: AIDS risk/Duesberg
Date: 29 Dec 92 19:45:02 GMT
Reply-To: pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU
Organization: UMASS DARTMOUTH, NO. DARTMOUTH, MA.

In article <103345@netnews.upenn.edu>, weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P 
Wiener) writes:
>In article <1992Dec23.064508.12019@genie.slhs.udel.edu>, starr@genie (Tim Starr) writes:
>>In article <1992Dec23.005116.29281@midway.uchicago.edu> thf2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:

>That Duesberg, while he has important points, just doesn't know what
>he's talking about.  

    The argument from authority is a logical fallacy but Duesberg _is_ an
an authority: chemistry, molecular & cell bio, identified 1st cancer gene,
mapped genetic structure of retroviruses, discovered that influenza virus
change by recombination, NAS member, 7-yr. Outstanding Investigator Grant,
specialist in retrovirology. He certainly knows more than I on this.
His alleged error would be an expert's error.

>HIV kills helper T-cells, causing immune deficiency.
>This is now known to be a basically false explanation, 

>The correct reaction is to understand how HIV causes AIDS.  

    You have not causally linked premise and conclusion. I have asked if D's
claim that there is NO peer-reviewd paper proving HIV causes AIDS can be con-
tradicted. No has identified any such paper. In the context of my knowledge,
therefore, HIV does not cause AIDS. The gauntlet has been thrown!

>    No one knows, but numerous theories abound.  

    No one knows how ghosts rattle chains but numerous theories abound.
Try some respect for logic. You might find knowledge easier to get.


>Whether there are any cofactors is unknown.  If there are, they seem
>to be very common, considering the high proportion of HIV+ people who
>come down with AIDS, so searching for them is probably not very useful.

    "Other people do have that virus but AIDS patients have it more often...,"
says D. (_Full Context_, Feb. 1992)

>You haven't contradicted Ted Frank.  American non-IV, non-homosexuals
>are just not so exposed to HIV.  In central Africa, they are.

    D says, "HIV by itself, causes no disease whatsoever in most infections."
    
    On Sunday, TV's "60 Minutes" and Dec. 29 _NYT_ had stories on 
stress-illness link. It would be odd, queer even, if homosexuals into long-
term drug "lifestyle" (ie, deathstyle) did NOT get sick.
================================================================================
	"In that world, you'll be able to rise in the morning with the spirit
you had known in your childhood: that spirit of eagerness, adventure and cer-
tainty which comes from dealing with a rational universe."
                                                              AYN RAND
================================================================================
Stephen Grossman <PMSC13SG@UMASS.EDU>
================================================================================
From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.medicine
Subject: Re: AIDS risk/Duesberg
Date: 30 Dec 92 18:14:53 GMT
Reply-To: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
In-reply-to: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)

In article <103345@netnews.upenn.edu>, weemba@sagi (Matthew P Wiener) writes:
>>Blood transfusions in themselves are immunosuppressive, as is malnutrition.

>So?  AIDS isn't some generic immunosuppression.  It's a very particular
>immunodeficiency.  This very particular immunodeficiency is what shows
>up across HIV+ transfusions, but not HIV- transfusions.  It's details
>like this that kill Duesberg's challenge.

I looked it up.  There was a one paragraph mention in Paul, and the
immunological problems associated with blood transfusions, besides
HIV, seems to be various foreign red cell reaction abnormalities.

How many facts can Duesberg ignore before breakfast?
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.medicine,alt.politics.homosexuality
From: gletty@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Bruce Gletty)
Subject: Re: AIDS risk/Duesberg
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 21:05:42 GMT

pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU (Stephen Grossman) writes:

>    "Other people do have that virus but AIDS patients have it more often...,"
>says D. (_Full Context_, Feb. 1992)

Ah, but has anyone wiht AIDS ben HIV negative?? That would shoot all the
theories full of holes.
-- 
This post is mine, and does not necessarily reflect the views of C.C.S.O.
Xref: sparky talk.politics.medicine:445 sci.skeptic:21796
From: dcoster@ernie.Princeton.EDU (David P. Coster)
Subject: Re: APA and Homosexuality
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 02:55:20 GMT


Making History, the struggle for gay and lesbian equal rights, 1945 --
1990, an oral history, Eric Marcus:

"Psychiatrists and psychologists in the postwar period, with few
exceptions, believed that all homosexuals were mentally ill and that
their illness was treatable: You could make a homosexual into a
healthy heterosexual.  Despite the near absence of dissenting opinion,
some homosexuals refused to accepth the prevailing dogma, but they
were almost powerless to challenge it.  Who would do the research and
write the papers that questioned the opinions of the American
Psychiatric and Psychological Associations?"  [From the introduction to
the interview with Dr. Evelyn Hooker.]

"Each of the sixty subjects [thirty of whom were gay, thirty straight,
matched for general educational, economic, et cetera level] was given
three projective personality tests widely used at the time: the
Rorschach  Test, the Thematic Apperception Test, and the Make A
Picture Story Test.  The assumption underlying their use was that the
person being tested would reveal his anxieties, fears, and fundamental
personality predispositions without being fully aware that he was
doing so.
"The test results were then submitted to three judges, all nationally
and internationally known psychological experts who did not know
whether a subject was homosexual or heterosexual.  The judges
evaluated each test and assigned a rating of overall psychological
adjustment on a scale of one---superior---to five---maladjusted.  On
all three tests, two-thirds of the heterosexuals and homosexuals were
assigned a rating of three, which was average, or better!  There was
no inherent association between maladjustment or psychopathology and
homosexuality."  [from the interview with Dr. Hooker]

The results were presented at a meeting of the American Psychological
Association in Chicago in 1956.

The Gay Decades, from Stonewall to the present, the people and events
that shaped gay lives, by Leigh Rutledge:

  September 3, 1969: "The American Sociological Association issues a
public declaration endorsing the rights of homosexuals and other
sexual minorities."

  December 15, 1973: "Declaring that ``by itself, homosexuality does
not meet the criteria for being a psychiatric disorder'', the
governing board of the American Psychiatric Association votes to
recommend that homosexuality no longer be classified as a mental
illness.  Instead, only people who are dysfunctionally distressed by
their homosexuality will be classified as having a ``sexual
orientation disturbance''.
  "Four months later, the APA's full membership votes to approve the
recommendation, 58 percent to 42 percent."


'56, '69, '73 --- it took a while for the facts to sink in --- and
they still haven't reached some people.

Dave.
-- 
----
David Coster
dcoster@princeton.edu
From: mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.medicine
Subject: Re: More Evidence Against the FDA
Date: 24 Dec 1992 01:23:48 GMT
Organization: CenterLine Software, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: 140.239.2.36

In article <1992Dec23.065257.12365@genie.slhs.udel.edu>
starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) copies without commenting:
>The FDA's intent, not to mention its timing, it highly suspect: in recent years
>the cost of health care has soared out of control, and the number of Americans
>without health insurance has risen to nearly 40 million.  Now is the time to
>focus on PREVENTIVE HEALTH, which starts with diet and nutrition; to explore
>affordable ways to prevent health ailments and optimize our well-being...

Here we have the entire libertarian program to improve health and reduce
costs through the free market: snake oil "nutrient supplements, herbs,
vitamin-mineral compounds, and alternative medicines".

It's all part of the big conspiracy to keep you from using "effective"
drugs like laetrile, from buying cars that get 200 miles to a gallon of
water, etc.  :-( for the sarcasm impaired.

Mike Huben

There's a sucker born every minute.
						P. T. Barnum
Newsgroups: talk.politics.medicine
From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: More Evidence Against the FDA
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 08:50:02 GMT

In article <schumach.725156285@convex.convex.com> schumach@convex.com (Richard A. Schumacher) writes:
}[whining about impending reduction of laissez-faire in alternative
}"medicine" deleted]
}
}How quickly they forget. Do you want repetitions of the L-tryptophan
}fiasco of 4 years back? Scores of people were killed or left permamently
}paralyzed to various degrees by a large, faulty batch of the stuff. 
}Protecting an ignorant populace from baseless or fraudulent health
}claims is PRECISELY why the "D" is in the FDA!

Fraud is a crime, and should be treated as such.  Prior restraint is not
a justifiable power of the FDA.

Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu

"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
oneself and others." - Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire
Xref: sparky talk.politics.medicine:444 sci.skeptic:21794
From: pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU (Stephen Grossman)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.medicine,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: AIDS risk/Duesberg
Date: 29 Dec 92 15:55:04 GMT
Reply-To: pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU
Organization: UMASS DARTMOUTH, NO. DARTMOUTH, MA.

In article <1992Dec23.005116.29281@midway.uchicago.edu>, thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank) writes:
>In article <BzoG7o.3p6@umassd.edu> pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU writes:

>>    Also, the Am. Psychiatric Assoc. permitted itself to be lobbied and intimi-
>>dated by homo. activists around 1970 and, without new science, changed their
>>public judgement about the psy. unhealthiness of homo.
>
>Of course the original judgement of the APA was hardly based on "science"
>to begin with, but rather on Christian social norms.  There's no reason 
>to think that either of their public judgements are accurate.

    You have committed the logical fallacy of irrelevant conclusion.
    Please provide evidence that the original APA judgement that homosexuality 
is psy. illness is _based_ on Christianity. Take care to split _(logically)
based_ from _coincidentally consistent with_. I.e, it could be that religion is
accidentally consistent with a concrete scientific judgement. Did APA 
explicitly appeal to Christianity or to science? I suspect you made hasty
generalization. Can you cite those studies which APA used (to classify homo.
as illness) and which, if I understand you, appeal to Christianity rather than
lab, clinic, etc. Don't get me wrong. Science is based, not on itself, but on 
philosophy. This philosophy may be true or false but it guides research. One
application of philosophy is religion and this might have guided the APA or the
scientists whose work justified the APA claim that homo. is sick. Maybe or
maybe not. Can you prove it?
    Can homo. be classified as sick _independent_ of religion? That's my point.
Or, rather, has it been done? 
================================================================================
	"In that world, you'll be able to rise in the morning with the spirit
you had known in your childhood: that spirit of eagerness, adventure and cer-
tainty which comes from dealing with a rational universe."
                                                              AYN RAND
================================================================================
Stephen Grossman <PMSC13SG@UMASS.EDU>
================================================================================
Newsgroups: talk.politics.medicine