- A financial interest is no conclusive argument for truthfulness. Financial interest is a feature of both classical and homeopathic treatment. Where they differ is the scientific support.
- Wikipedia is actually very accurate about subjects with a critical mass of sufficiently knowledgeable contributors. There are two areas where Wikipedia can err: a subject which is only of interest to a few people and where ardent stupidity wins against specialism; and a subject of no interest, like low level football players

If Wikipedia errs on subjects bordering homeopathy, it is likely that the scientific knowledgeable finally give in to the naive. Fortunately, there are enough skeptics who have made it a personal goal to drive out the ever lasting belief in homeopathy. There are two misconceptions about such skeptics:
- they are not supported by farmaceutical companies
- they don't deny the placebo effect; most of them will agree that drinking pure water may do wonders for diseases that have no trivial cause and are relatively harmless when untreated

What, so you think that if colloidal silver was effective, 'big pharma' wouldn't be mass producing it, advertising it and distributing it beyond the capabilities of any alternative vendor? If 'big pharma' so big, how does it make any sense that they would feel at all financially threatened by the possibility that colloidal silver is a viable treatment option?

And as Knotwilg points out, those touting colloidal silver are also very much financially invested in the issue of whether it works or not.

Nonsense. There is no money in it at all. I make my own and it costs nothing. I could make around 20,000 gallons from one ounce of silver.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

These arguments always remind me that you can prove anything with facts....

Don't underestimate american ingenuity and commercialism. If it was in a drug-store, properly labelled and advertised, people would buy it, not problem. And if if was priced high, people would buy even more. At some convenient moment I suspect that a law would be passed that home-made colloidal silver is "not safe" and should not be used in any circumstances. Only the properly "sanctioned" stuff is safe. And the country would rejoice in the knowledge that they are safe, well protected, and taken care of by the faceless committees working on behalf of big pharma and their lobbyists. And everybody would be going to a proper drug-store, dishing big bucks for the proper medicine. Except, of course, for the few smart ones who would get mad they don't have a piece of the pie and start plotting to overthrow the system... or at least get in on the gig.

Has happened before, will happen again.

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- Bantari
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WARNING: This post might contain Opinions!!

I did not know it was so easy to self-manufacture, but if there's no money in it at all it's surprising that you can buy it online for $15 (http://www.vitaminlife.com/product-exec ... fgodz4AAUg) or in some forms $50 (http://www.naturalhealthyconcepts.com/s ... fgodaL0A3g).

I can buy 20 paracetamol (acetaminophen) tablets for about 40p. So the argument mainstream medicine / big pharma only deal in expensive medicines doesn't ring true.

(Not that I'm saying the profit motive isn't an issue in which diseases/treatments get research/focus/funding. But I think we can forgive Bill Gates for Clippy with his work now fighting third world diseases.)

Three 9-volt batteries, two alligator clips, two 99.99% pure silver rounds, and a gallon of distilled water. There are videos on Youtube to show you how, some better than others. A PPM tester is also a good idea but I already had one of those.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

Warning: Do not buy colloidal silver, it is a scam. Do not make you own colloidal silver, it has no medicinal properties. Do not consume colloidal silver, you are poisoning yourself.

Warning: Do not listen to allopaths for chronic conditions, they are a scam. Do not take allopathic drugs for chronic illnesses, they have no value. Do not consume pharmaceutical drugs, you are poisoning yourself.

Allopaths are good only for acute things like broken legs and short term solutions.

Instead, live a healthy lifestyle, eat well to boost your immune system, prevent problems instead of treating them after they occur. Also, don't support any organization which claims to be doing medical research to find a cure for various diseases such as cancer, diabetes, etc. They are nothing more than self-perpetuating businesses. They never try to encourage prevention, because there is no money in that, but only look for expensive new drugs to treat (not cure) existing conditions.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

Warning: do not get your medical advice from a Go forum.

I would also add, do not give medical advice in a go forum. My previous post, at least the part preceded by "warning" was, of course, tongue-in-cheek, in response to Herman. There is nothing wrong with people discussing their own preferences, even expressing them strongly, because that give others something to think about. But flat out statements such as some in this thread are misplaced.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

Would be interesting to see what the united doctors online have to say about the micro chinese fuseki.

"I've tried it, it doesn't work. Too prone to invasions"
- "That's because you abuse it: it's flawless when used properly."
"Micro Chinese opening is a scam by the Chinese"
- "Actually it's a fuseki, not an opening"
"Fuseki is just Japanese for opening"
- "If so, then why would the CHinese call their micro variation a fuseki. These are archenemies!"
"Not in Go they aren't. I heard the Japanese are far behind these days"
- "Not at all. They have a guy Iyama Yuta, he has the highest earnings in the world"
"That's because the Japanese newspapers are rich. But the Chinese and the Koreans are stronger"
- "Do they play go in Korea? They play baduk, not go"
(...)

Well, diabetes is a different kind of disease than cancer. And you and I are old enough to remember when a diagnosis of cancer meant a life expectancy of fewer than 5 more years, except for certain cancers. And we are old enough to know a number of people who are cancer survivors. Myself included. Where would we be without prior research?

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

You miss my point. Most cancers are environmental: the incidence was much lower a hundred years ago. If more money was put into cleaning up the environmental factors and teaching people how to avoid them then there would be far fewer people dying of cancer. I would like to see these organizations devote a significant percentage to prevention and education instead of treatment. Don't do away with the treatment research, or course, but don't make that the only use of resources.

It is kind of like when HMOs first came on the scene. They were supposed to be health maintenance organizations, but they soon morphed into regular treatment organizations.

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Still officially AGA 5d but I play so irregularly these days that I am probably only 3d or 4d over the board (but hopefully still 5d in terms of knowledge, theory and the ability to contribute).

As far as cancer being less prevalent, there are a few things that argue against this:

First, when cancer was seen as a death sentence, it was much more heavily stigmatized, and people didn't discuss it as cancer. It was often perceived as contagious, and people could and did lose jobs and otherwise suffer ostracizing for it. Edit: Apparently I forgot to add that this stigma could have easily lead to under-reporting cancer deaths as such.

Second, life expectancy has increased greatly over the past century, and cancer risk increases with age. When people are dropping dead of, say, heart-attacks or tuberculosis in their 40s, you don't know if they would have ended up with colon cancer in their 60s.

Finally, with large-scale nuclear weapons testing in the mid 20th century, there was widespread exposure to carcinogens that we may still be experiencing the effects of today. Certainly I know wines can be dated to pre and post nuclear era based on the presence of now-widespread radioactive elements that were distributed through the environment by nuclear tests. While the current level of exposure for people is quite low, it's certainly not as low as it was previously. However, you can't clean something that's now evenly distributed around the globe and being constantly circulated by the environment.

I disagree. The incidence of cancer was lower 100 years ago because of a much lower life expectancy. The incidence for most cancers is strongly increasing with age. In other words, nowadays many people live long enough to get cancer. If you really want to do any useful comparison, then you have to compare age cohorts. Even if you do so that might be skewed: 100 years ago, it was much more likely for everyone to die at a young age(because of other causes, like bacterial infections in the pre-antibiotics era).

BTW: Do you have a relilable source for the statement "Most cancers are environmental"?
If so, please let me know.

Re: life expectancy, what you said. Was about to comment about it and you were faster.

IIRC, wine can also be dated using Krakatoa/Hekla other volcanoes, since they also changed environent significantly.

Interesting side note: Strong winters following a ---Hekla--- Laki eruption in 1783 meant reduced crops all over Europe. Which increased (already high) peasant unrest, you guess how it all followed.

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Geek of all trades, master of none: the motto for my blog mostlymaths.net

We pretty much agree. I remember in college finding out that you can induce skin cancers in mice by shaving them and rubbing their skin. It seems like almost any repeated injury can cause cancer. (It is true, as mentioned by hibbs below, that part of why we see more cancer these days is that people live longer, but that does not mean that most cancer is not environmental.)



Not entirely. I belong to Kaiser, and they certainly stress disease prevention and health maintenance.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Two things. First, the increase in life expectancy in advanced societies since the mid 19th century is mostly the result of keeping children alive. Only a few years have been added to life expectancy at age 20 since 1800, even though decades have been added to life expectancy at birth.

Second, there may well be a survivor effect. People who survived childhood 150 years ago may have been more robust and able to resist developing cancer. Whether cancer was environmentally caused or not. You see such an effect now in Hiroshima survivors. Those who are still alive have a greater life expectancy than others their age.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.