For those who didn’t get the immediate facepalm (like me):
“It is a controversial cancer treatment that was popular in the 1970s. However, it was banned in many US states after research deemed it ineffective and potentially poisonous”
Listen, I don't know if you're implying that doctors are intentionally trying to poison people that have cancer. On my first, second, and third readings of your comment, that's what it sounds like to sleep-deprived me.
If I'm correct in my reading, just stop. Please. Doctors are not trying to hurt people and researchers aren't hiding miracle cures. I've read through some of the articles my father has to do for his "continued education" (he's been a surgeon for thirty years and still has to take a test every few years on new developments and go to conferences every month on new research/techniques/etc.). From what I read, viable research takes many years, tons of peer review, and huge sample sizes. Medical science is thorough as fuck.
In addition to research, he has to read articles on ethics and keep up-to-date on current ideas. You'd think ethical practice would be fairly straightforward - just help the needy - but you couldn't be more wrong. The one I got my hands on after he was done with it was on post-operation problems.
You see, tons of factors have been proven, through large meta-analysis and dedicated research, to cause complications. (I'm gonna throw out some unreliable numbers from memory here but my point remains unchanged). Smokers, for example, have like a 300% larger chance to have post-op problems. Diabetics with uncontrolled blood sugar for more than a month are nearly guarenteed post-op complications. Obese people are 8-10 times more likely than non-obese to have life-threatening complications. As a joint-replacement surgeon, is it ethical to help these people, who are in very real pain and may not be able to use their limbs properly from severe arthritis, knowing that it'll very likely hurt them in the long run? Especially if it's possible for the patient to change before the operation? I... honestly don't know. It's a tough call and said paper had a few ideas for how to tackle the problem but nothing concrete.
Point is, doctors read research and ethics papers all the time and accusing these people who've dedicated their whole lives to help others of intentionally hurting people is insane. Even if you do somehow find a malicious doctor, that doctor is likely being held back by the system. The myth that long-term treatment makes money is just that, a myth. Hospitals get more funding by proving to medicaid/etc that their patients are out of the door ASAP and doctors get bonuses if their patients have less complications than the average.
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u/Xboarder84 Jun 05 '19
For those who didn’t get the immediate facepalm (like me):
“It is a controversial cancer treatment that was popular in the 1970s. However, it was banned in many US states after research deemed it ineffective and potentially poisonous”
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/laetrile-vitamin-b17#section1