It would be great if it works out, but I believe this treatment has been suspended in China as there are mixed results (ie people have ended up worse).
Being from Scotland I'd trust an NHS evaluation more than random news reports.
Being from Scotland I'd trust an NHS evaluation more than random news reports.
If your Alzheimer's is caused by poor drainage due to a one off blockage this would solve it completely, but if its due to something else this would probably just be temporary as the article notes.
The government shouldn't be in the business of telling people what they can do, or have done, to their own bodies.
There is a lot of history in this. Cancer and autism communities have fallen victim to these schemes as far back as those conditions have been recognized. Every year there is a new batch of researchers who claim they’ve found a cure but the government meanies are preventing them from curing the whole world. They generate a lot of false hope, take a lot of money from desperate patients, and then fade into obscurity after the communities realize nobody is actually getting cured by these treatments.
This happens in every condition where there is not yet a good medical treatment. Long COVID is a good example of a recent condition where hundreds of doctors have claimed to have invented new treatments. They generate a lot of headlines, collect a lot of money from desperate patients before everyone realizes the cure isn’t working, and then they abandon their cure like it never existed.
This is why governments regulate these things. If you assume all of the treatments might work, it seems cruel for governments to get in the way. If you look at the history of how this plays out, they almost never actually have any substance behind them. It’s almost 100% grift or researchers who can’t admit when they’re wrong.
Real life is more complicated.
Other laws still exist too.
Owning pillows is legal. Killing people is not legal. Just because owning a pillow is legal doesn't mean you can smother someone to death with it.
I would hope that someone diagnosed with a mental disorder such as Alzheimers would lose their drivers license (not sure if this is the case), but if they were subsequently cured and passed a new driving test, then would you have a problem with that?
You can throw the book at people taking any experimental drug that can have a gazillion side effects they have no clue about, but this doesn't help the people that might get killed because someone experimented with a cure, did not want to harm anyone but still did. People are not numbers, but real parts of the world and someone else's lives. Laws are there to keep people safe, but are just the last line of defense.
You can take both positions, but your argument is overly simplistic.
I gave the pillow example because it clearly shows how ridiculous it is to link things like this together. Your arguing that people should be denied experimental Alzheimers surgery because (paraphrasing) "maybe they'll feel cured, but won't be, and will kill someone in a car accident" (WTF?!), is no different to arguing that people should not be allowed to buy pillows because they might use them to smother someone.
Making laws against killing or endangering others (driving impaired, etc) is fine and desirable. Using the need for such laws to apparently try to make a case for banning experimental surgery is absurd.
But they absolutely should be in the business of licensing and controlling claims you make as a professional.
If you're someone who is performing this procedure and not making claims of medical benefits based on your license, I can see the arguments for allowing it. The flip side is you lose some of the legal protections you get as this is not a medically sanctioned procedure. Let the family sue you for the harm you may have caused and the department of justice arrest you for any lives that may be lost.
And the surgeon is in prison according to the article.