9 ms·

> I've suspected for some time that medicine is actually closer to the dark ages than we like to think it is What does that even mean? Nobody's claiming that

> I've suspected for some time that medicine is actually closer to the dark ages than we like to think it is What does that even mean? Nobody's claiming that modern medicine is anywhere close to perfect but the "dark ages" medicine was Humorism, blood letting and faith healing. Surgeons didn't start washing their hands before childbirth until the 19th century. It's really weird to look back at the mind-boggling progress we achieved in the past 200 years and conclude "we're basically still in the dark ages!"

ThePowerOfDirge 6y ago
Blood letting is still the treatment for iron overload.
- meheleventyone 6y ago
  Right but only because we know the mechanism of action and it's efficacy. It's also performed in a different manner to blood letting as a historical treatment.
- jankotek 6y ago
  Leaches produce enzyme that prevents blood cloth from forming. It also improves oxygenation. For some wounds, leaches would protect leg or arm from amputation.
  - fennecfoxen 6y ago
    * leeches Leaching is a process in which you percolate a liquid (like water) through something, and it picks up chemicals and carries them out. Brewing coffee, for instance.
- buck4roo 6y ago
  "Rationally designed" drugs do this now. An example: Exjade ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferasirox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferasirox
garbagetime 6y ago
Imagine the following. Here's the spectrum of medical knowledge: ----------------------------------------- Here's where we were in the dark ages: --|-------------------------------------- Here's where we are now: -------|--------------------------------- Here's where people like to think we are: ------------------|---------------------- In this scenario it seems like what you're saying and what your parent said are both true (it is true both that medicine is much closer to the dark ages than we'd like to think, and also that we know a great deal more than we knew in the dark ages).
- adriand 6y ago
  But then we’re in the dark ages for everything, except maybe siege warfare. So it becomes a meaningless comment.
  - garbagetime 6y ago
    How do you figure?
  - yreg 6y ago
    Yes, on a scale of dark ages to understanding a field perfectly, it's no surprise we are closer to the dark ages. Well, perhaps we understand basic algebra pretty well.
  - adrianN 6y ago
    Life would be pretty boring if it were different don't you think? If almost everything were already figured out after just a few centuries of the scientific method and we wouldn't expect any substantial improvements to be made ever.
    - shock 6y ago
      No, one's life would not be boring because of that. There's a difference between things being known to sience and _you_ knowing those things. Even now, you can live your full lifespan without getting bored just learning in depth what is already known to science.
scoopertrooper 6y ago
Yes, we've made some great leaps and they shouldn't be discounted, but neural-science is still in its infancy. We still don't know the exact mechanism of action of many commonly prescribed psychoactive medications. We know they work because, unlike in the past, we conduct rigorous studies, but we can only theorise as to why the work and why they don't have the same effect in all patients. This has real implications for how medicine is practiced, which will undoubtedly make our methods look quite primitive to future generations. For instance, physiatrists are still forced into a 'trial and error' approach when finding the correct antidepressant and dosage for each patient.
- pas 6y ago
  I think we know their mechanism of action, but the grim reality is that they don't work that well at low doses, plus there are a lot of side effects even at low doses. (Because their mechanism is so general. Inhibit this, promote that. But those are all over our body. Plus eventually there are tolerance issues - so doctors switch from time to time. But then they have to fiddle with the dose.)
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    You would be quite wrong. We do know some bits about the effects of serotonin in the body, though I would be amazed if we really understood the whole story. But more than that, we have no idea what depression actually is, and that goes for any other psychiatric disease unrelated to direct brain damage. It would probably be more correct to call these syndromes rather than diseases, as we do not know the mechanisms causing the disease enough to even be sure if 'depression' is a meaningful diagnosis (in the sense that coughing is not a diagnosis). We also don't have proper neurological studies of emotional illnesses - there are basically no comparative neurological studies of people diagnosed with depression versus people showing similar symptoms who are expected to quickly recover (for example, people grieving for a lost one). We don't know whether the brain chemistry changes we see in depression are the cause of the disease, or just the way 'sadness'/'lack of motivation' looks like neuro-chemically.
    - 6y ago
vixen99 6y ago
On the other hand, just keeping to the observation, we can at least say that countless pathologists and others over a very long period have failed to identify this anatomical entity. In the main it seems that experts see what they expect to see and if it's not in the anatomy book then it doesn't exist. That's not necessarily perjorative. It's how we humans tend to be when observing the world (including ourselves) around us.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hilbert42 6y ago
Oh dear, I should not have to labor the obvious but I will. With all the medical schools, hundreds of thousands of doctors, pathologists, diagnostic tools, xrays, MRIs, etc. etc. that we've had available in the 'modern' era of medicine - in the last 100 or so years - how the fucking hell did we miss something as 'obvious' as this? QED!
- et2o 6y ago
  Because no one is looking for tissue that secretes saliva (not very interesting medically), coupled with the fact that this requires special PET/CT to find. You are a buffoon.
  - mantap 6y ago
    It's quite unnecessary to call people names, and also unwise, people might be tempted to mentally substitute the second person pronoun with a first person one.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - hilbert42 6y ago
    "Because no one is looking for tissue that secretes saliva (not very interesting medically), coupled with the fact that this requires special PET/CT to find. You are a buffoon." et2o: yes—a buffoon—that's very likely true, but at least I admit it! However, you medicos have a damn lot to answer for. Where would you like me to start? Perhaps with the thalidomide fiasco, or more recently the abysmal lack of preparation for COVID-19 even though we knew it was coming decades ago, or the current opioid epidemic, the policies of which were sorted out nearly a century ago with both government regulation and tightly controlled international treaties, all of which have recently been [conveniently] forgotten by the pharmaceutical industry, the FDA, along with a disreputable mob of doctors who disbanded their Hippocratic Oaths for a few shekels from mafia-like Purdue. Right, the law should bring them all to account. Perhaps the most tragic aspect of the opioid crisis is that the thousands of 'good' doctors stood knowingly by and effectively did nothing, seemingly ethics flew out the window. In words loosely attributed to Edmund Burke: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". "(not very interesting medically)" Whilst many areas of medical science have done wonders, in others research has been almost non-existent. You're right, certain diseases/subjects are not interesting or boring and concomitantly that they fail to attract funding is a problem, and it's always been that way. In this regard, the trouble is (and has always been) that the self-governing medical profession has never been able to prioritize patients above their own interests, not to mention money. In essence, medical researchers do not exercise granularity evenly over the field of medical knowledge (as you implied yourself); and that's aided and abetted by large pharma, et al whose principal interest is money, not medicine. ___ Lear: My wits begin to turn. Fool: He that has and a little tiny wit,— (Lear III/I)
rbanffy 6y ago
> medicine was Humorism, blood letting and faith healing. I suspect the doctors of the 23rd century will be similarly horrified by their 21st century counterparts practices.
- tomatotomato37 6y ago
  Chemotherapy will definitely be on that list, as when you ultimately boil it down you are posioning someone just enough where the tumor dies before the rest of their body also dies.
murgindrag 6y ago
I think you're being a little mean to the dark ages. Galen was a pretty accomplished medical researcher, and Roman-era medical implements were quite sophisticated, and were well-established by the time of the dark ages. By the late dark ages, we also saw a lot of modern medical techniques coming in from the Middle East. There's this stereotype of people being filthy, ignorant, and dumb, but it's not really true. And for many of the bad practices from then do persist in poorer parts of the world today affecting likely around a billion people (and some, like homeopathy, even in wealthy parts). Note that I'm not weighing in on the overall debate about where modern medicine is relative to the dark ages. We've made a lot of progress. I'm just refuting the stereotype of the dark ages.
- wrinkl3 6y ago
  > Galen was a pretty accomplished medical researcher, and Roman-era medical implements were quite sophisticated, and were well-established by the time of the dark ages. Were those implements actually practiced throughout the dark ages or did they go the way of the Roman road networks? When people talk of the dark ages they're usually talking of post-Roman Western Europe rather than Asia or the Middle East. I'm not sure if a Bohemian peasant living in 1000 AD would've benefited much from Islamic medicine advancements.
  - murgindrag 6y ago
    Wikipedia defines the Dark Ages as lasting through the 15th century, by which point, Islamic medical advancements would have made it into Europe. Obviously, in 500AD, they didn't yet exist. One of the reason for the decline of the term "dark ages" is that there is increasing evidence that people in this period didn't actually crawl under a rock of ignorance. Large-scale armies and infrastructure projects were gone, but at the same time, a lot more knowledge persisted than is given credit for -- the sorts of things which don't require a massive Roman central government administration to maintain.
    - hilbert42 6y ago
      Right, I used it as an all-embracing term for 'very old', I'm surprised many have taken the term so literally. Perhaps it's characteristic of HN's audience. "One of the reason for the decline of the term "dark ages" is that there is increasing evidence that people in this period didn't actually crawl under a rock of ignorance." Despite my use of 'Dark Ages', I cannot agree with you more. Perhaps you might like to look at this image of a shoulder-clasp from Britain's Sutton Hoo Hoard (it's one of many). Considering both its age and the time in which it was created (and the limited tool available then), to me, this is one of the most remarkable and beautiful objects I've ever seen. It sends shivers down my back when I think of the sheer talent that created it. We are so lucky it's survived essentially intact across the last one and half millennia: https://www.ancient.eu/image/5107/the-sutton-hoo-shoulder-clasps/ https://www.ancient.eu/image/5107/the-sutton-hoo-shoulder-cl... (Make sure you click on the image to get the largest view.)
oceanplexian 6y ago
You don't have to look far in health policy to see the lunacy of modern medicine. Using nuclear radiation to "cure" cancer. Giving patients highly addictive narcotics for pain relief. Giving patients broad-spectrum antibiotics. And don't get me started on the insanity of current events, with mass over-use of disinfectants, conflicting and dubious public health guidelines (Covid 19 spreads 3M in Europe but only 6ft. in the USA, N95 masks don't prevent infection but surgical masks work great, viruses don't spread while sitting but spread while standing in a restaurant). Dark ages? No. But I can see the parallels.
- omanom 6y ago
  How do you decide to attribute something to "modern medicine" versus "The Game of Telephone, Medical Style"? For example, >Giving patients highly addictive narcotics for pain relief. Is the opioid epidemic modern medicine's fault? Or is it more the fault of doctors who over-prescribe coupled with the lack of a sane healthcare system? Also, are there viable (read: equally effective) alternatives to opioids for pain relief? >Giving patients broad-spectrum antibiotics Is the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria modern medicine's fault? Or is it more the fault of patients who do not finish out their full regimen? And again, are there viable alternatives to broad-spectrum antibiotics? >Covid 19 spreads 3M in Europe but only 6ft. in the USA Distancing guidelines were meant to provide a general reference point, not magical thresholds at which COVID is incapable of passing over... They're going for a distance that is easily visualized, is situated well up on the "diminishing returns" curve, and (when combined with other measures like wearing a mask) provides an "acceptable" risk of exposure. Sneezing, for one example, will throw respiratory droplets much further than the recommendation for social distancing. >N95 masks don't prevent infection but surgical masks work great I'd like to see a source for this claim if you don't mind, as a quick perusal of the FDA[0] and CDC[1][2] do not show this statement anywhere. Everything I've found states they're fairly equally effective. Everything I've found also says that N95 and surgical masks are not recommended for use outside a profession which requires them: Q: Should I purchase personal protective equipment such as facemasks or N95 respirators for me and my family? A: No. Surgical masks and N95s need to be reserved for use by health care workers, first responders, and other frontline workers whose jobs put them at much greater risk of acquiring COVID-19. The cloth face coverings recommended by CDC are not surgical masks or N95 respirators. Surgical masks and N95s are critical supplies that must continue to be reserved for health care workers and other medical first responders, as recommended by CDC. -- CDC does not recommend using masks for source control if they have an exhalation valve or vent. Masks are not surgical masks or respirators. Currently, those are critical supplies that should continue to be reserved for healthcare workers and other medical first responders, as recommended by current CDC guidance. Masks also are not appropriate substitutes for them in workplaces where surgical masks or respirators are recommended or required and available. -- CDC also links to a study[3] that found "Surgical and N95 masks were equally effective in preventing the spread of PCR-detectable influenza". There are plenty of related studies which come to the same conclusion. >viruses don't spread while sitting but spread while standing in a restaurant Again, how is this a "modern medicine" issue, or a "conflicting and dubious public health guideline"? They're not saying "the virus won't spread as long as you're sitting down!", they're saying "if you fucks have to go out, at least try to stay apart for everyone else's sake". [0] https://www.fda.gov/emergency-preparedness-and-response/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19/covid-19-frequently-asked-questions#:~:text=No.%20Surgical%20masks%20and,as%20recommended%20by%20CDC https://www.fda.gov/emergency-preparedness-and-response/coro.... [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/about-face-coverings.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-si... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/cloth-face-cover-guidance.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-si... [3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19522650/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19522650/
grishka 6y ago
For one thing, it feels like we're still very much not confident with anything at all because everything has to be tested in real humans, in real time, before it's considered a valid treatment (clinical trials). I understand why clinical trials are needed — because otherwise we'd still be using mysterious compounds and procedures without having a clue if they actually work — but I believe that at some point we'd become so advanced with knowing how the human body works that we won't have to do that, and so could progress much, much faster, while knowing that our treatments work, and theoretically, instead of experimentally, proving that they should work.
keithnoizu 6y ago
I'm of the same mind. The way in which new antibiotics are identified for example.
ben509 6y ago
Humorism probably produced observable benefits just by encouraging people to eat a balanced diet. Its basic notion that you have different things in your body that need to be balanced is not wrong.

ThePowerOfDirge 6y ago

Blood letting is still the treatment for iron overload.

meheleventyone 6y ago
Right but only because we know the mechanism of action and it's efficacy. It's also performed in a different manner to blood letting as a historical treatment.
jankotek 6y ago
Leaches produce enzyme that prevents blood cloth from forming. It also improves oxygenation. For some wounds, leaches would protect leg or arm from amputation.
- fennecfoxen 6y ago
  * leeches Leaching is a process in which you percolate a liquid (like water) through something, and it picks up chemicals and carries them out. Brewing coffee, for instance.
buck4roo 6y ago
"Rationally designed" drugs do this now. An example: Exjade ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferasirox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferasirox

garbagetime 6y ago

Imagine the following. Here's the spectrum of medical knowledge: ----------------------------------------- Here's where we were in the dark ages: --|-------------------------------------- Here's where we are now: -------|--------------------------------- Here's where people like to think we are: ------------------|---------------------- In this scenario it seems like what you're saying and what your parent said are both true (it is true both that medicine is much closer to the dark ages than we'd like to think, and also that we know a great deal more than we knew in the dark ages).

adriand 6y ago
But then we’re in the dark ages for everything, except maybe siege warfare. So it becomes a meaningless comment.
- garbagetime 6y ago
  How do you figure?
- yreg 6y ago
  Yes, on a scale of dark ages to understanding a field perfectly, it's no surprise we are closer to the dark ages. Well, perhaps we understand basic algebra pretty well.
- adrianN 6y ago
  Life would be pretty boring if it were different don't you think? If almost everything were already figured out after just a few centuries of the scientific method and we wouldn't expect any substantial improvements to be made ever.
  - shock 6y ago
    No, one's life would not be boring because of that. There's a difference between things being known to sience and _you_ knowing those things. Even now, you can live your full lifespan without getting bored just learning in depth what is already known to science.

scoopertrooper 6y ago

Yes, we've made some great leaps and they shouldn't be discounted, but neural-science is still in its infancy. We still don't know the exact mechanism of action of many commonly prescribed psychoactive medications. We know they work because, unlike in the past, we conduct rigorous studies, but we can only theorise as to why the work and why they don't have the same effect in all patients. This has real implications for how medicine is practiced, which will undoubtedly make our methods look quite primitive to future generations. For instance, physiatrists are still forced into a 'trial and error' approach when finding the correct antidepressant and dosage for each patient.

pas 6y ago
I think we know their mechanism of action, but the grim reality is that they don't work that well at low doses, plus there are a lot of side effects even at low doses. (Because their mechanism is so general. Inhibit this, promote that. But those are all over our body. Plus eventually there are tolerance issues - so doctors switch from time to time. But then they have to fiddle with the dose.)
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  You would be quite wrong. We do know some bits about the effects of serotonin in the body, though I would be amazed if we really understood the whole story. But more than that, we have no idea what depression actually is, and that goes for any other psychiatric disease unrelated to direct brain damage. It would probably be more correct to call these syndromes rather than diseases, as we do not know the mechanisms causing the disease enough to even be sure if 'depression' is a meaningful diagnosis (in the sense that coughing is not a diagnosis). We also don't have proper neurological studies of emotional illnesses - there are basically no comparative neurological studies of people diagnosed with depression versus people showing similar symptoms who are expected to quickly recover (for example, people grieving for a lost one). We don't know whether the brain chemistry changes we see in depression are the cause of the disease, or just the way 'sadness'/'lack of motivation' looks like neuro-chemically.
  - 6y ago

vixen99 6y ago

On the other hand, just keeping to the observation, we can at least say that countless pathologists and others over a very long period have failed to identify this anatomical entity. In the main it seems that experts see what they expect to see and if it's not in the anatomy book then it doesn't exist. That's not necessarily perjorative. It's how we humans tend to be when observing the world (including ourselves) around us.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

hilbert42 6y ago

Oh dear, I should not have to labor the obvious but I will. With all the medical schools, hundreds of thousands of doctors, pathologists, diagnostic tools, xrays, MRIs, etc. etc. that we've had available in the 'modern' era of medicine - in the last 100 or so years - how the fucking hell did we miss something as 'obvious' as this? QED!

et2o 6y ago
Because no one is looking for tissue that secretes saliva (not very interesting medically), coupled with the fact that this requires special PET/CT to find. You are a buffoon.
- mantap 6y ago
  It's quite unnecessary to call people names, and also unwise, people might be tempted to mentally substitute the second person pronoun with a first person one.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- hilbert42 6y ago
  "Because no one is looking for tissue that secretes saliva (not very interesting medically), coupled with the fact that this requires special PET/CT to find. You are a buffoon." et2o: yes—a buffoon—that's very likely true, but at least I admit it! However, you medicos have a damn lot to answer for. Where would you like me to start? Perhaps with the thalidomide fiasco, or more recently the abysmal lack of preparation for COVID-19 even though we knew it was coming decades ago, or the current opioid epidemic, the policies of which were sorted out nearly a century ago with both government regulation and tightly controlled international treaties, all of which have recently been [conveniently] forgotten by the pharmaceutical industry, the FDA, along with a disreputable mob of doctors who disbanded their Hippocratic Oaths for a few shekels from mafia-like Purdue. Right, the law should bring them all to account. Perhaps the most tragic aspect of the opioid crisis is that the thousands of 'good' doctors stood knowingly by and effectively did nothing, seemingly ethics flew out the window. In words loosely attributed to Edmund Burke: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". "(not very interesting medically)" Whilst many areas of medical science have done wonders, in others research has been almost non-existent. You're right, certain diseases/subjects are not interesting or boring and concomitantly that they fail to attract funding is a problem, and it's always been that way. In this regard, the trouble is (and has always been) that the self-governing medical profession has never been able to prioritize patients above their own interests, not to mention money. In essence, medical researchers do not exercise granularity evenly over the field of medical knowledge (as you implied yourself); and that's aided and abetted by large pharma, et al whose principal interest is money, not medicine. ___ Lear: My wits begin to turn. Fool: He that has and a little tiny wit,— (Lear III/I)

rbanffy 6y ago

> medicine was Humorism, blood letting and faith healing. I suspect the doctors of the 23rd century will be similarly horrified by their 21st century counterparts practices.

tomatotomato37 6y ago
Chemotherapy will definitely be on that list, as when you ultimately boil it down you are posioning someone just enough where the tumor dies before the rest of their body also dies.

murgindrag 6y ago

I think you're being a little mean to the dark ages. Galen was a pretty accomplished medical researcher, and Roman-era medical implements were quite sophisticated, and were well-established by the time of the dark ages. By the late dark ages, we also saw a lot of modern medical techniques coming in from the Middle East. There's this stereotype of people being filthy, ignorant, and dumb, but it's not really true. And for many of the bad practices from then do persist in poorer parts of the world today affecting likely around a billion people (and some, like homeopathy, even in wealthy parts). Note that I'm not weighing in on the overall debate about where modern medicine is relative to the dark ages. We've made a lot of progress. I'm just refuting the stereotype of the dark ages.

wrinkl3 6y ago
> Galen was a pretty accomplished medical researcher, and Roman-era medical implements were quite sophisticated, and were well-established by the time of the dark ages. Were those implements actually practiced throughout the dark ages or did they go the way of the Roman road networks? When people talk of the dark ages they're usually talking of post-Roman Western Europe rather than Asia or the Middle East. I'm not sure if a Bohemian peasant living in 1000 AD would've benefited much from Islamic medicine advancements.
- murgindrag 6y ago
  Wikipedia defines the Dark Ages as lasting through the 15th century, by which point, Islamic medical advancements would have made it into Europe. Obviously, in 500AD, they didn't yet exist. One of the reason for the decline of the term "dark ages" is that there is increasing evidence that people in this period didn't actually crawl under a rock of ignorance. Large-scale armies and infrastructure projects were gone, but at the same time, a lot more knowledge persisted than is given credit for -- the sorts of things which don't require a massive Roman central government administration to maintain.
  - hilbert42 6y ago
    Right, I used it as an all-embracing term for 'very old', I'm surprised many have taken the term so literally. Perhaps it's characteristic of HN's audience. "One of the reason for the decline of the term "dark ages" is that there is increasing evidence that people in this period didn't actually crawl under a rock of ignorance." Despite my use of 'Dark Ages', I cannot agree with you more. Perhaps you might like to look at this image of a shoulder-clasp from Britain's Sutton Hoo Hoard (it's one of many). Considering both its age and the time in which it was created (and the limited tool available then), to me, this is one of the most remarkable and beautiful objects I've ever seen. It sends shivers down my back when I think of the sheer talent that created it. We are so lucky it's survived essentially intact across the last one and half millennia: https://www.ancient.eu/image/5107/the-sutton-hoo-shoulder-clasps/ https://www.ancient.eu/image/5107/the-sutton-hoo-shoulder-cl... (Make sure you click on the image to get the largest view.)

oceanplexian 6y ago

You don't have to look far in health policy to see the lunacy of modern medicine. Using nuclear radiation to "cure" cancer. Giving patients highly addictive narcotics for pain relief. Giving patients broad-spectrum antibiotics. And don't get me started on the insanity of current events, with mass over-use of disinfectants, conflicting and dubious public health guidelines (Covid 19 spreads 3M in Europe but only 6ft. in the USA, N95 masks don't prevent infection but surgical masks work great, viruses don't spread while sitting but spread while standing in a restaurant). Dark ages? No. But I can see the parallels.

omanom 6y ago
How do you decide to attribute something to "modern medicine" versus "The Game of Telephone, Medical Style"? For example, >Giving patients highly addictive narcotics for pain relief. Is the opioid epidemic modern medicine's fault? Or is it more the fault of doctors who over-prescribe coupled with the lack of a sane healthcare system? Also, are there viable (read: equally effective) alternatives to opioids for pain relief? >Giving patients broad-spectrum antibiotics Is the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria modern medicine's fault? Or is it more the fault of patients who do not finish out their full regimen? And again, are there viable alternatives to broad-spectrum antibiotics? >Covid 19 spreads 3M in Europe but only 6ft. in the USA Distancing guidelines were meant to provide a general reference point, not magical thresholds at which COVID is incapable of passing over... They're going for a distance that is easily visualized, is situated well up on the "diminishing returns" curve, and (when combined with other measures like wearing a mask) provides an "acceptable" risk of exposure. Sneezing, for one example, will throw respiratory droplets much further than the recommendation for social distancing. >N95 masks don't prevent infection but surgical masks work great I'd like to see a source for this claim if you don't mind, as a quick perusal of the FDA[0] and CDC[1][2] do not show this statement anywhere. Everything I've found states they're fairly equally effective. Everything I've found also says that N95 and surgical masks are not recommended for use outside a profession which requires them: Q: Should I purchase personal protective equipment such as facemasks or N95 respirators for me and my family? A: No. Surgical masks and N95s need to be reserved for use by health care workers, first responders, and other frontline workers whose jobs put them at much greater risk of acquiring COVID-19. The cloth face coverings recommended by CDC are not surgical masks or N95 respirators. Surgical masks and N95s are critical supplies that must continue to be reserved for health care workers and other medical first responders, as recommended by CDC. -- CDC does not recommend using masks for source control if they have an exhalation valve or vent. Masks are not surgical masks or respirators. Currently, those are critical supplies that should continue to be reserved for healthcare workers and other medical first responders, as recommended by current CDC guidance. Masks also are not appropriate substitutes for them in workplaces where surgical masks or respirators are recommended or required and available. -- CDC also links to a study[3] that found "Surgical and N95 masks were equally effective in preventing the spread of PCR-detectable influenza". There are plenty of related studies which come to the same conclusion. >viruses don't spread while sitting but spread while standing in a restaurant Again, how is this a "modern medicine" issue, or a "conflicting and dubious public health guideline"? They're not saying "the virus won't spread as long as you're sitting down!", they're saying "if you fucks have to go out, at least try to stay apart for everyone else's sake". [0] https://www.fda.gov/emergency-preparedness-and-response/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19/covid-19-frequently-asked-questions#:~:text=No.%20Surgical%20masks%20and,as%20recommended%20by%20CDC https://www.fda.gov/emergency-preparedness-and-response/coro.... [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/about-face-coverings.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-si... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/cloth-face-cover-guidance.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-si... [3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19522650/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19522650/

grishka 6y ago

For one thing, it feels like we're still very much not confident with anything at all because everything has to be tested in real humans, in real time, before it's considered a valid treatment (clinical trials). I understand why clinical trials are needed — because otherwise we'd still be using mysterious compounds and procedures without having a clue if they actually work — but I believe that at some point we'd become so advanced with knowing how the human body works that we won't have to do that, and so could progress much, much faster, while knowing that our treatments work, and theoretically, instead of experimentally, proving that they should work.

keithnoizu 6y ago

I'm of the same mind. The way in which new antibiotics are identified for example.

ben509 6y ago

Humorism probably produced observable benefits just by encouraging people to eat a balanced diet. Its basic notion that you have different things in your body that need to be balanced is not wrong.