HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: km@ky3b (Ken Mitchum)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Non-physician bashing
Date: 15 Dec 92 14:32:07 GMT
Organization: KY3B-Vax Pittsburgh, PA

In article <1992Dec9.000112.2254@ucbeh.san.uc.edu> egf48542@ucbeh.san.uc.edu writes:

|All of the physicians I've encountered on this newsgroup seem capable,
|intelligent, and willing to share information.  I'm sure it has to be
|frustrating for some of them to deal with being challenged.  However, if they
|get tired of it or feel resentful of some of the posters, I would request that
|instead of bitching about how stupid and illogical people on this newsgroup
|are, that they would choose to stop accessing it, or let the frustation go and
|keep posting if they are getting anything out of it.   

This was not a matter of Gordon's being challenged as a physician, but
being challenged because of his religious beliefs. In particular, the
original author was questioning his intelligence, based on those beliefs.
My response was an attempt to mock the author's (lack of) logic in
this regard.

I think you will find that neither Gordon nor I mind being challenged with
regard to medical knowledge by people who are qualified. We do mind being
challenged by people who embrace every quack theory out that is out there,
and who believe that physicians are all part of some gigantic conspiracy
to rob everyone blind while killing them as a sidelight. Unfortunately,
this group is heavily represented in people who post to this newsgroup.

-km
From: dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer)
Subject: Re: Allergy remedies...
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 02:04:14 GMT

In article <1992Dec12.010843.5441@galileo.cc.rochester.edu> barlow@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu (Rebel) writes:
>Does anyone have any information on the new over the counter allergy drug
>called Tavist (sp?)...supposedly it use to be prescription but is now not.
>In the past I have taken Polaramine but stopped due to side effects and I was
>on Seldane but seemed to be building up a tolerance to it and upon hearing
>it had some less than beneficial effects I decided to stop taking it. Now
>I am on prescriptive steriod inhalers to prevent my airways from swelling shut
>and this seems to work pretty well but I am again looking for an oral
>medication. ANy suggestions or comments on Tavist?

Do you mean your nose or your lungs when you use the word "airways"?
Antihistamines aren't very effective, in general, in asthma.

Tavist (clemastine fumarate) is more or less yet-another-antihistamine.
It isn't non-sedating to the degree that a drug like Seldane is; it can
cause drowsiness.  It seems to work OK, though.  It's nothing to get too
excited over.  I should mention that in the OTC packages that are for
sale, you're paying a LOT for a few measley tablets (what, 8?)  If you
find they work, you might ask a pharmacist for a price for a bottle of
100 (if they can be sold that way--for some drugs, at least, like Imodium,
the bulk non-consumer packages are still Rx-only.  Strange but true.)

If you find yourself becoming tolerant of one antihistamine (a phenomenon
I never really believed, but it seems to be real), you might try this one.

-- 
Steve Dyer
dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer
Newsgroups: sci.med
From: sue@netcom.com (Sue Miller)
Subject: Re: Adult male circumcision.  Info request.
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 05:12:59 GMT

In article <1992Dec13.171350.524@news.wesleyan.edu> RGINZBERG@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Ruth Ginzberg) writes:
>In <1992Dec13.145211.6942@gw.wmich.edu> x92paszek@gw.wmich.edu writes:
>
>> Does anyone know ANYTNHING about male adult curcumcision?
>
>I believe that we just had an extended discussion of this subject here quite
>recently.  However, I did not capture it for the FAQ files because I didn't
>realize that this would, in fact, be a FAQ.  If anyone captured & saved the
>text from the last discussion of this topic, I'd appreciate it if you could
>repost it, & then I'll capture & save it for the FAQ files this time.
 ^^^^^^^^^
 NOT!

I think it would be a better idea for people to EMAIL any 
material on the circumcision theme to Ruth for the FAQ project.
After all, we've already just seen a fairly exhaustive string of
opinions about the subject.


sue
From: sue@netcom.com (Sue Miller)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Milk is not a liquid?
Date: 14 Dec 92 18:28:24 GMT
Article-I.D.: netcom.1992Dec14.182824.26258
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

julien@skcla.monsanto.com writes:
>
>> Then I said:
>> julien@skcla.monsanto.com writes:
>>>
>>>In a recent visit to my physcian, one of the questions he asked was how much
>>>liquid I was drinking. I said that I drink alot of milk. He said that milk does
>>>not count. Milk is in a liquid form but it counts as a food. I'll agree that
>>>milk is a source of calcium and vitamin D etc., but doesn't it also contain
>>>alot of water and therefore represent some form of liquid intake? 
>>>
>> 
>> Just a WAG:  perhaps he means that liquids with a high protein
>> and fat content do not represent the type of liquid intake in
>> which he's interested.
>
>I don't know. He also stated that coffee didn't count either. Since I
>don't drink coffee, I don't know what is in it to not qualify as a
>liquid.
> 

Caffeine.  Among other things, it's a diuretic.

OK, now we're getting somewhere.  He really wants to know how much water
you're getting and keeping.  Your doctor needs to substitute the word
"water" for "liquid".
Newsgroups: sci.med
From: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill)
Subject: Re: Peter Breggin, _Toxic Psychiatry_ (Q)
Originator: sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 17:11:39 GMT
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.


In article <1992Dec15.155632.21024@athena.mit.edu>, jgnassi@athena.mit.edu (John Angelo Gnassi) writes:
|> In article <Bz9Kr3.H04@unx.sas.com> sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill) writes:
|> >If I decide to terminate my chemotherapy for cancer, I can simply
|> >do so and walk away from the hospital (suffering whatever consequences
|> >there may be).  If I am committed to a state psychiatric institute,
|> >am I free to leave when I decide (for whatever reason) to terminate
|> >my treatment?  (Notice that the very concept of "committed" seems
|> >to imply a certain degree of coercion.)  If you will assure me that I
|> >can terminate my psychiatric treatment under the same conditions and
|> >with the same freedoms that I can terminate my cancer treatment,
|> >I withdraw any complaint.
|> 
|> Time to start withdrawing.

Not quite yet.  The operative phrase was "under the same conditions and
with the same freedoms".  Another (apparently knowledgeable) poster
has already denied this.

|> If a patient with a psychiatric disorder is lucid, evidences
|> understanding of the situation, is not in immediate danger of harming
|> self or others, they can walk out AMA - Against Medical Advice.

"Evidences ..." to *whom*?  Who decides?  In the case of my cancer,
*I* decide.  Does a jury of my peers decide?  Or does some psychiatrist
or group of psychiatrists decide?  There are important distinctions
here.

|> Your distinction between psychiatric and medical illness is not
|> relevant.  You don't treat different groups of _diseases_ the same

Oh, but it is *very* relevant.  A major motivation for the disease
model of mental illness is to attain for the diagnosis and treatment
of mental illness the respect accorded to the diagnosis and treatment
of disease by the medical community.  If you want these (well earned)
trappings of respect, you need to do better than simply *calling*
something a disease.

|> way, because they *are* different diseases.  You do, though, treat
|> different groups of _patients_ the same based on their shared
|> symptoms, what you believe the underlying disorder is, and what you
|> think they would realistically want.

The question, of course, is whether underlying the set of symptoms there
*is* a disease.

|> And yes, in response to one of your earlier posts, as a physician, I
|> *would* want ECT for treatment of an involutional depression, followed
|> by medication and counseling.  It's the fastest way out, and short
|> courses of ECT have not convincingly been shown to be harmful, and
|> benefits are well documented.  Why should I want to be depressed
|> longer?

Some people don't read carefully.  In respons to others making this
same claim, my question concerned lobotomy.
-- 
Gary H. Merrill  [Principal Systems Developer, C Compiler Development]
SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Dr. / Cary, NC  27513 / (919) 677-8000
sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com ... !mcnc!sas!sasghm
Newsgroups: sci.med
From: 880506s@dragon.acadiau.ca (James R. Skinner)
Subject: Re: post-Prozac reactions
Organization: Acadia University
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 20:18:38 GMT

werner@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (John Werner) writes:

>In article <1992Dec15.172745.27468@newstand.syr.edu> Mark D. Kline writes:
>>I have started more than 600 people on prozac since 1987.  I have seen no
>>unusual discontinuation effects, and I have seen no unusual suicidality
>>or violent behavior.  

>This reminds me of a question I've been meaning to ask for a while.
>All of the medical professionals here say that there have been no
>reports Prozac causing suicidal or violent behavior.  But occasionally
>people will post anecdotal evidence: "It happened to me!"

>So my question is: what gives?  Did these people not report the
>reactions to their doctors?

I reported it immediatly but was told about the same as the above..
(ie  I have seen no violent behavior when prescribing prozac..)

> Did the doctors think it had nothing to
>do with Prozac?  

Yep, he didn't have any explanation for the feelings though.

>Did the doctors not want to deal with reporting it to
>the FDA?  Would anyone like to speculate?

No idea...

>I don't really have an axe to grind here, by the way.  I'm inclined to
>believe that most of these "reactions" aren't really caused by the
>drug.  I started taking it a week ago and haven't noticed anything
>unusual.

It has been my experience that this effects if the show up at all
doesn't appear until several months have passed..

-- 

-----------------------------------+--------------------------------------------
        James Robie Skinner        |     Jodrey School of Computer Science        James.Skinner@dragon.acadiau.ca  |  Acadia University, Wolfville, NS, Canada
-----------------------------------+--------------------------------------------
From: 1k1mgm@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Christopher Gunn)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Getting off Xanax
Date: 12 Dec 92 10:11:55 CST
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services

In article <1992Dec09.144105.20089@ux1.cts.eiu.edu>, cfthb@ux1.cts.eiu.edu (Howard Black) writes:
> In article <1992Dec8.202716.452@sr.com> dks@srhqla.sr.com (Dave K. Sprow) writes:
>>because he said once ot passes the liver it does basically the samething
>>as the Xanax. Is this true?  He said that would make it a "clean"
> 
>     I can't imagine what he's referring to.  Alcohol and Xanax are
> different is just about every way in their activity, metabolism, etc.  He
> may have just meant that both Xanax and alcohol are good anxiolytics.

Both alcohol and benzodiazepines are inhibitors at the NMDA subtype
of glutamate/excitatory amino acid receptor (although probably
through different mechanisms).  That's why benzodiazepines are
useful in alcohol withdrawal.  The cause of this *aspect* of
alcohol addiction is upregulation of the NMDA receptors;  I have
no idea whether this happens in benzodiazepine addiction.

I didn't understand what that business about 'passing the liver'
meant either.

Christopher Gunn	Molecular Graphics and Modeling Lab
SPAN--KUPHSX::GUNN	Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Malott Hall
913-864-4428 or -4495	University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS  66045
Newsgroups: sci.med
From: yazz@locus.com (Bob Yazz)
Subject: Re: AIDS, Cancer Cured by Hyperoxygenation
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 00:49:09 GMT

Don_-_Showen@cup.portal.com writes:

| AIDS, Cancer Cured by Hyperoxygenation
| 
| Reprinted from the June 1988 issue of Health Freedom News

It's enough to give Health, Freedom and even News a bad name.
-- 

Welcome to Sci.med -- where-school-of-thought bashing is as old as
sickness itself.
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Sierra Club Service Trips need MDs
From: RGINZBERG@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Ruth Ginzberg)
Date: 14 Dec 92 17:20:48 EDT
Distribution: world
Organization: Philosophy Dept., Wesleyan University
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.20Lines: 50

The Sierra Club Service Trips are backcountry work trips on which volunteers
build and maintain trails, repair meadows, clean up debris, and help
archaeologists.  Service trips are noted for their delicious and filling meals,
and most trip staffs include a cook.  Moderately strenuous activity.

From The Sierra Club Magazine of Jan/Feb 1993:

			D O C T O R S    W A N T E D
		==========================================

Some service trips have a doctor on staff.  These professionals donate their
time and skills for a waiver of the trip fee.  They are not required to work on
the project, but many do so out of the same concern for wilderness shared by
regular participants

	<some details omitted, about excellent safety record to date>

If you are a doctor and think you might be interested in this rewarding
experience, please write:
			Dr. Bob Majors
			3508 Williamsborough Ct.
			Raleigh, NC  27609

Enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope for reply.

1993 Sierra Club Service Trips are usually 1 week long, each, & are scheduled
for such delicious places as:

CANADA:	Lake Superior Park, Ontario
ALASKA:	Glacier Bay Park & Preserve
	Prince William Sound
	Denali Park & Preserve
ARIZONA:10 different Wilderness areas, incl. mountain & canyon & desert
ARKANSAS: Buffalo River
CALIF:	12 different trips, including to:
		Big Sur, Ventana Wilderness
		Santa Cruz Island Preserve
		John Muir Wilderness
		Yosemite Park
		...& others
COLORADO: 9 different trips (many in my personal favorite wilderness areas)
HAWAII:	Maui
IDAHO, ILLINOIS, KENTUCKY, MAINE, MINNESOTA, MONTANA, NEVADA, NEW HAMPSHIRE...
(there is at least one service trip scheduled in most states in the USA)

(anyway, you get the picture....)

------------------------
Ruth Ginzberg <rginzberg@eagle.wesleyan.edu>
Philosophy Department;Wesleyan University;USA
From: petel@sequent.com (Pete Lancashire)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Kellogg and Moral Medicine (was: circumcision)
Date: 15 Dec 92 00:27:08 GMT
Article-I.D.: sequent.1992Dec15.002708.16601
Organization: Sequent Computer Systems, Inc.

djh@osc.edu (David Heisterberg) writes:

>In article <17794@pitt.UUCP> geb@cs.pitt.edu (Gordon Banks) writes:
>>Actually, I've seen this only in old books on morality and such.
>>I've never seen it in any of the reputable text books like
>>Osler's textbook, etc.  What reputable doctors of the time
>>advocated it to prevent masturbation?

>I'd like to use this to segue into a question I've been meaning to
>ask.  In the late 1800s to early 1900s there were quite a few books
>of "medicine for the common man", but which really seemed to be a
>quack justification of somebody's morality.  Probably the best known
>was written by Dr. Kellogg (of Corn Flakes fame).  My question is,
>to what extent was any of this accepted by the medical community?
>And, what kind of reaction was there to it?

>Kellogg's book is a hoot.  He was really hung up on masturbation.
>I have another book from the late '10s (can't recall the author)
>which claimed that hysterectomies invariably led to insanity.
>-- 
>David J. Heisterberg (djh@osc.edu)       Hoeren Sie gut zu,
>The Ohio Supercomputer Center            und wiederholen Sie!
>Columbus, Ohio                             -- ALM German

I have not got a copy but an interesting title that came from
a limited net-search of 'masturbation' is:

   The destroying angel : sex, fitness & food in the legacy of degeneracy
   theory : graham crackers, Kellogg's corn flakes & American health history /
   John Money.  Buffalo, N.Y. : Prometheus Books, c1985.


Also remember that a lot of people (parents) in the early 1900 took
to the 'snake oil' books by the millions. Some of these books went
through many reprints. (Good $$ makers), and remember what I call the
time slip, the MD who is (was) in practice was educated many years
before. So the MD of the '50 may have been to school in the '20s or
'30s. I also believe that the typical MD of the time would not be one
to stand up and try to change to general feeling of the community, esp.
in the first 1/2 of the 1900's. Any history buffs want to comment ?

-pete
Newsgroups: sci.med
From: yazz@locus.com (Bob Yazz)
Subject: Re: Adiposity 101
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 20:41:56 GMT

geb@cs.pitt.edu (Gordon Banks) writes:

| Even if the obese don't eat more, they are eating too much for them.

And I suppose diabetics are just taking in too many carbohydrates?  I
mean, if you don't take in any, you won't need to take insulin anymore,
right?

Why, Gordon, do you continue to insist that the solution to obesity
lies NOT in fixing the metabolic processing of what's eaten, but
rather with merely reducing the amount eaten (whether by life-long
willpower or some future pharmacological intervention that affects
appetite)?

== Bob Yazz ==
-- 

Welcome to Sci.med -- where-school-of-thought bashing is as old as
sickness itself.
From: oispeggy@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Peggy Brown)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: Physician's Incomes
Date: 18 Dec 92 02:49:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <92352.175212DGS4@psuvm.psu.edu>, DGS4@psuvm.psu.edu writes...
>In article <BzDIG5.DKv@acsu.buffalo.edu>, oispeggy@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Peggy
>Brown) says:
>>
>>In article <92351.153826DGS4@psuvm.psu.edu>, DGS4@psuvm.psu.edu writes...
>>>In article <BzBHyG.4vJ@acsu.buffalo.edu>, oispeggy@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu     y
>>(Pegg
>>>Brown) says:
>>>>
>>>>In article <gdavis.724433998@griffin>, gdavis@griffin.uvm.edu (Gary Davis)
>>>>writes...
>>>>>
>>>
>>>What do you mean by socialized medicine?  Do you have any evidence
>>>that physicians in Germany, Canada, France, Britain, etc. are mediocre?
>>>
>>
>>Nope, but I've seen plenty of civil service workers.  In these
>>systems everyone gets the same increases/benefits whether they
>>perform an adequate job or an exceptional job.
>>
>>So after being in a system like this for awhile, the top
>>performers figure out that its stupid to knock themselves silly
>>to do a good job when they get paid as much to do an adequate
>>job.
>>
>>I think this kind of system encourages mediocrity.
> 
>I hope you don't mind if I await further proof (other than your beliefs)
>that Canadian (or German or French) doctors are of poorer quality. :)
> 

I did not say they were of poorer quality.  You jumped to this 
conclusion and started listing doctor's from different countries. 
I do not find it necessary to discuss health care systems of 
all these countries. 

Since you seem to have misunderstood my point, I'll repeat it.
I do not favor civil-service type systems (sometimes called 
socialized medicine).  Whether other countries have systems like 
this I do not know.  However, I would beware of any system that 
did not reward doctors (or anyone else) for working extra hard,
or a system that did not give them opportunity, to reach their 
full potential.

- Peggy -
Newsgroups: sci.med
From: mazur@bluefin.camb.inmet.com (Beth Mazur)
Subject: Re: Adiposity 101
Organization: Intermetrics, Inc.
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 19:20:53 GMT

In article <dnsurber.724086417@node_26400> dnsurber@lescsse.jsc.nasa.gov (Douglas N. Surber) writes:
>Again, maybe I'm being really dense, but what is Gordon's point about
>violating physics?  You have commented on some moral/philosophical
>differences but much of what you said with respect to the material
>world seems to agree with Chuck, if not the particular intellectual slant.

You are not being dense, you've simply missed some of the previous 
discussion.  The key participants are fighting about one point, and one
point only, and that is how much food obese people eat.  And at this
stage, it is essentially a philosophical argument.

Regardless of the complexity of human metabolism, it seems patently clear 
(for some of us, it is our life experience) that some obese people eat 
far more calories than do people of normal body weight.  Based on
the studies he's collected that show some moderately obese people eat less
than thin people, Chuck often seems to imply this extrapolates to all obese.  

Chuck's latest ploy, of implying that a researcher is "good" if she/he 
believes that obesity is due to the "partitioning of nutrients" and "bad"
if she/he believes it is due to a character disorder, is a straw man of sorts. 

The unfortunate truth is that some obesity *is* due to a character disorder.  
It's called "compulsive overeating" (actually, I believe its official 
name is something else) and my understanding is that it will soon be 
entered into DMSR-III along with anorexia and bulemia.

So to finally answer your question about Gordon's point, many people 
here believe that a 350lb man is eating many more calories than a 180lb 
man.  To imply that he is eating the same, as Chuck often seems to do, 
would appear to violate the laws of physics.  (Unless, as Steve pointed out, 
he is bedridden or has some other physical disorder.)

Curiously, in Adiposity 101, Chuck has the following quote:

	In distinction to the commonly accepted stereotype, research
	shows that the obese do not eat more per pound than their
	lean counterparts.  

Sure sounds like it means the obese eat more, doesn't it?  

Chuck has many valid criticisms of obesity research and the diet industry.
But, unfortunately, he's often trying to remove the planks from our eyes
while failing to first remove the board from his own (to paraphrase a bit).

Beth Mazur                   "...life is more than a vision.  The sweetest
mazur@inmet.inmet.com         part is acting after making a decision."
...!uunet!inmet!mazur                                  -- The Indigo Girls
From: noring@netcom.com (Jon Noring)
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: What are the problems associated with over-use of antibiotics
Date: 18 Dec 92 19:00:49 GMT
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)

Hello,

As having suffered recurrences of sinus infections the last two years, I
figure that I have been on antibiotics probably 8 or 10 times the last two
years (10 day type of therapy).  I am now experiencing, based on several
doctors collective wisdom as well as results from comprehensive blood tests,
a low level, chronic bacterial infection in my nasal area that seems to be
resistant to the anti-b's that I've so far tried.  However, it appears to
be that I may also have a fungal infection component to this as well, which
not all the doctors agree with.

Thus, the question in the Subject: line above.

Thanks.

Jon Noring

-- 

Charter Member of the INFJ Club.

Now, if you're just dying to know what INFJ stands for, be brave, e-mail me,
and I'll send you some information.  It WILL be worth the inquiry, I think.

=============================================================================
| Jon Noring          | noring@netcom.com        | I VOTED FOR PEROT IN '92 |
| JKN International   | IP    : 192.100.81.100   | Support UNITED WE STAND! |
| 1312 Carlton Place  | Phone : (510) 294-8153   | "The dogs bark, but the  |
| Livermore, CA 94550 | V-Mail: (510) 417-4101   |  caravan moves on."      |
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Who are you?  Read alt.psychology.personality!  That's where the action is.
Newsgroups: sci.med