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Comment by catigula | Hacker News Reader

Misinformation about medical science is infinitely tempting even to credible thinkers partially because certain elements of that world have worked overtime to discredit themselves (think opiate safety fraud as a primary example), but also partially because science is messy and cumbersome.

For example, credible thinkers, including many people reading this, likely believe psilocybin and ketamine are credible treatments for mental illness when the evidence is incredibly thin and low quality and these are clearly dangerous substances in many regards.

The temptation to think there are suppressed secrets in the world (there are, in fact, suppressed secrets) is near infinite.

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>likely believe psilocybin and ketamine are credible treatments for mental illness

That’s so vague and disingenuous. Should you take psychedelics if you have schizophrenia or something similar? Absolutely not but there is hard science research proving that they do help with depression and other issues.

I lost all my faith in the medical industry when I went through it. I entered with a minor problem and left with a much worse chronic pain. The doctor who did it to me had the gall to say it was in my head. Fortunately I went to another doctor and the CT scan proved it was in fact not in my head but in my intestines. I’m dealing with this drama, but I learned a lot of doctors are actually really bad and just want to prescribe you stuff and get you out of the door. Ironically the stuff this so called specialist was only making me feel worse and when I told her that she didn’t believe me.

Thankfully I have found some good doctors after much efforts and many references but I lost a lot of respect for the medical industry and came to understand that it’s a business and they just want to see you as many medications as possible and don’t really care about solving your problem.

>That’s so vague and disingenuous. Should you take psychedelics if you have schizophrenia or something similar? Absolutely not but there is hard science research proving that they do help with depression and other issues.

Again, the research exists but is thin and low quality. I'm sorry you went through issues, I know this is common, which is why I addressed readers looking to self-diagnose but thumb their noses at people doing exactly what they're doing.

I don't I feel like the people who have benefitted from those treatments find it low quality.

My mother was also bullshitted by a doctor until she got angry and told him what specific test to do and a week later when the test came back surprise surprise, she was right.

My best friend had an intense pain on her side, she went to a doctor and he said it was in her head, she went to another doctor and surprise surprise she had a hernia.

Another friend had constant intestinal pain and digestive issues, the doctor refused to do a colonoscopy and just gave her medication for IBS, she went to another doctor and finally got a colonoscopy and surprise surprise she had a tumor, thankfully they were able to cut it out but it would have been better if they had found it sooner.

Also when I was young I broke my arm and the doctor set it wrong and now my angle of mobility in it is offset.

I have way more stories like this and barely any positive medical stories. If I could go back in time I would have never gone to the doctor and let my body deal with the issue itself. I would be in a lot less pain right now. I hate how righteously arrogant and head up the ass most of the medical industry seems to be.

The entire medical industry has problems, needs to be revamped and the incentives have to be changed.

>but also partially because science is messy

It's because human beings are messy! If you feed a person a peanut, they might think it's tasty. If you feed a different person a peanut that person may die, quickly. If a god damn peanut can illicit that range of responses in a healthy human being, imagine literally anything else. Of course there is corruption because so much money is on the line and humans in aggregate are a selfish bunch. One thing I always like to point out is that people who try to follow the science and the latest guidance aren't the ones speaking in absolutes. I'm aware the CDC or FDA have gotten things wrong in the past and will get things wrong in the future, but it's the best system we have. It's the anti-science people who speak in absolutes but then the second the cancer diagnosis comes in they come running back begging big pharma for treatment, they'll even bankrupt their entire family trying to get that treatment. It can't be both ways. This is why it's hard to take skeptics seriously. Not only do they throw a thousand things out there, and maybe one or two is right, they conveniently ignore the other 998 things they got way wrong, but when push comes to shove, they love big pharma and beg for it's treatments.

I'm inherently sympathetic to skeptics only because I know people that experienced the following: opiate prescription -> addiction -> death.

I think this goes for many Americans.

I always take skeptics seriously, because what is the alternative? We stop asking questions?

It doesn't mean I believe every skeptic over science, but it does mean that I'm willing to ask questions. In so many cases on the topics RFK Jr goes after, there are significant gaps in the questions that science has answered. People want those gaps filled and have for many, many years.

The answer is always more questions and therefore, more science.

Right now, there's an information vacuum and until that vacuum is filled people will continue to speculate. It's human nature, especially when somebody you care about has been affected and nobody can give you answers other than "this is life now".

You’re correct, but what we’re not doing is more science to answer the questions and fill in the gaps. We’re using anecdotes and conjecture, sometimes conspiracy, in place of science.

He's talked constantly about doing more studies though. That's his entire platform.

Talking about doing more research while being part of an administration that’s defunding it makes me extremely skeptical that there will be more research.

https://www.propublica.org/article/rfk-jr-autism-environment...

https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/hhs-trump-kennedy-autism-init...

> Third, NIH today is announcing the recipients of the Autism Data Science Initiative (ADSI), funding 13 projects totaling more than $50 million to transform autism research. ADSI integrates large-scale biological, clinical, and behavioral data with an exposomics approach that examines environmental, nutritional, medical, and social factors alongside genetics.

> Projects employ advanced methods such as machine learning and organoid models, address both children and adults across the lifespan, and establish replication hubs to ensure rigor. Each project includes community engagement to align research with the needs of autistic individuals, families, and clinicians.

> Meanwhile, a ProPublica review of federal data found that more than $40 million in grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health for dozens of autism-related research projects were canceled under Kennedy’s watch. Some had been awarded to universities the administration is now targeting, while others ran afoul of Trump’s “anti-woke” priorities by mentioning gender and other verboten terms. Among them was a grant to Harvard University to use data on nearly half a million Israeli children to evaluate whether men’s exposure to air pollution affects the risk of having a child with autism. (A small number of grants have been recently reinstated.) A survey of researchers conducted by the Autism Science Foundation, which tallied cuts to training grants and the anticipated cuts to future grants over the next few years, estimated that the total loss of funding could be tens of millions more.

https://www.propublica.org/article/rfk-jr-autism-environment...

So they cut funding then put it back for possibly fewer studies, but with new press release?

It’s my understanding that many of the studies were continuing down paths that had already been well research with little benefit.

Talking?

>I always take skeptics seriously, because what is the alternative? We stop asking questions?

This is the crux of my argument. Of course we don't stop asking questions and you know it. It really bothers me when people argue like this in bad faith. What needs to be pointed out is there is a difference between educated people doing research (aka 'askign questions') and people with no experience spouting nonsense. 99.99% of what I hear from "skeptics" is the latter. Millions of Americans now listen to podcasts, comedians, youtubers, and other sources who lack the basic education to even understand a medical study, let alone conduct actual research. Actual science is 'asking questions'. Modern skepticism is 99.99% of the time not actual science.

Don't confuse skeptics with conspiracy theorists.

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