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About 13 years ago I suffered an awful reaction to Cipro. I documented my symptoms and posted to reddit. I was called insane, delusional and a liar. This was in

by avgDev 2y ago

About 13 years ago I suffered an awful reaction to Cipro. I documented my symptoms and posted to reddit. I was called insane, delusional and a liar. This was in medical and science communities. Since then, Cipro and other flouroquinolone drugs have received a 'black' label and warnings of causing tendonitis and neuropathy. Recently, I learned about Ignaz Semmelweis who many years ago discovered that hand washing significantly reduces the risk of death from childbirth fever. When he presented this idea he was rejected by the medical community. His ideas were dismissed and he was harassed. Today, it is obviously standard procedure to wash hands. In reality this is often still the case today. Science doesn't lie but the data and results can be manipulated especially when there is a personal and financial gain.

cryptonector 2y ago
As the saying goes, science advances one funeral at a time. > Science doesn't lie but Science is a process -- a process run by fallible humans. Fallible doesn't mean just that "they[we] can make mistakes" but also that "they[we] are corruptible". Science doesn't lie, but scientists are another story. Science is something we must all be prepared to do, not merely trust. Also, science requires healthy skepticism. We don't agree with Einstein because his theory is cool and all -- we mostly agree with Einstein because the data mostly agrees with Einstein. And even today we're a bit skeptical of General Relativity because of problems like the galaxy rotation problem. Even today we call GR a theory, and we will never call any scientific theory a fact, always only either a theory or a discredited theory.
cryptonector 2y ago
> His ideas were dismissed and he was harassed. Harassed? He was locked up in an insane asylum. And was probaly poisoned to death.
lesuorac 2y ago
> When he presented this idea he was rejected by the medical community. His ideas were dismissed and he was harassed. We live in an interesting world don't we. A parallel I always think about is that basketball players who are paid literally millions could improve their freethrow% by using a granny shot [1]. They all know it. They don't care. One thing to remember is that he didn't propose germ theory. He didn't have solid proof of what was wrong and only the observation that hand washing worked. This is shakey ground to get onto because it's how you end up with cargo cult behavior. [1]: https://www.npr.org/2017/05/28/530504774/why-rick-and-canyon-barry-stay-true-to-the-granny-shot https://www.npr.org/2017/05/28/530504774/why-rick-and-canyon...
_yb2s 2y ago
Medicine and science have a long ways to go to really grasp the diversity of individuals... most arguments about medicine I see online seem to include at least one side implicitly assuming that all humans must respond to the same things in the same way. Reddit is probably especially bad for that, sorry to hear it happened to you when you were looking for help. People are diverse enough that literally everyone is going to have some what in which they are different, and respond in an extremely rare way to some medication or treatment. Hopefully they simply never end up needing and receiving the ones where that would happen. In general, there are infinite possible rare events: rare events are extremely common, it is only specific rare events that are uncommon. People confuse this and assume that rare events are impossible. For example, I have an awful adverse reaction to even very low doses of the supplement creatine- widely considered probably one of the safest and lowest risk supplements in existence. People will say straight to my face that the adverse reaction I had isn't possible, because research shows it is safe. Pointing out that the research was not specifically done on me does not seem to carry any weight. I wonder if those people would literally choose to die from a medication they were obviously reacting badly to, because of a disbelief in the possibility of it occurring, even when it is occurring? I'd bet they take it seriously if it happens to them, but not to other people.

by avgDev 2y ago

cryptonector 2y ago

As the saying goes, science advances one funeral at a time. > Science doesn't lie but Science is a process -- a process run by fallible humans. Fallible doesn't mean just that "they[we] can make mistakes" but also that "they[we] are corruptible". Science doesn't lie, but scientists are another story. Science is something we must all be prepared to do, not merely trust. Also, science requires healthy skepticism. We don't agree with Einstein because his theory is cool and all -- we mostly agree with Einstein because the data mostly agrees with Einstein. And even today we're a bit skeptical of General Relativity because of problems like the galaxy rotation problem. Even today we call GR a theory, and we will never call any scientific theory a fact, always only either a theory or a discredited theory.

cryptonector 2y ago

> His ideas were dismissed and he was harassed. Harassed? He was locked up in an insane asylum. And was probaly poisoned to death.

lesuorac 2y ago

> When he presented this idea he was rejected by the medical community. His ideas were dismissed and he was harassed. We live in an interesting world don't we. A parallel I always think about is that basketball players who are paid literally millions could improve their freethrow% by using a granny shot [1]. They all know it. They don't care. One thing to remember is that he didn't propose germ theory. He didn't have solid proof of what was wrong and only the observation that hand washing worked. This is shakey ground to get onto because it's how you end up with cargo cult behavior. [1]: https://www.npr.org/2017/05/28/530504774/why-rick-and-canyon-barry-stay-true-to-the-granny-shot https://www.npr.org/2017/05/28/530504774/why-rick-and-canyon...

_yb2s 2y ago

Medicine and science have a long ways to go to really grasp the diversity of individuals... most arguments about medicine I see online seem to include at least one side implicitly assuming that all humans must respond to the same things in the same way. Reddit is probably especially bad for that, sorry to hear it happened to you when you were looking for help. People are diverse enough that literally everyone is going to have some what in which they are different, and respond in an extremely rare way to some medication or treatment. Hopefully they simply never end up needing and receiving the ones where that would happen. In general, there are infinite possible rare events: rare events are extremely common, it is only specific rare events that are uncommon. People confuse this and assume that rare events are impossible. For example, I have an awful adverse reaction to even very low doses of the supplement creatine- widely considered probably one of the safest and lowest risk supplements in existence. People will say straight to my face that the adverse reaction I had isn't possible, because research shows it is safe. Pointing out that the research was not specifically done on me does not seem to carry any weight. I wonder if those people would literally choose to die from a medication they were obviously reacting badly to, because of a disbelief in the possibility of it occurring, even when it is occurring? I'd bet they take it seriously if it happens to them, but not to other people.