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Unfortunately, it's this kind of dismissiveness that's driving people to the likes of RFK Jr. When people don't feel like they're being listened to they'll go o

Unfortunately, it's this kind of dismissiveness that's driving people to the likes of RFK Jr. When people don't feel like they're being listened to they'll go out in search of all manner of remedies proven or not. They want answers and often the answer should be "we don't know" along with acknowledging that a patient's experience is valid and should not be ignored. The problem in our healthcare system is that digging deeply into the causes of someone's disease isn't monetarily feasible because insurance companies refuse to cover such deep investigations in most cases. So we have cookie-cutter medicine driven by insurance companies - if you don't fit into a particular standardized bin there's not much help for you. It's often up to the patient to "do their own research" and that has very mixed results.

2924010774 2y ago
Yeah... I tested positive for Babesia, and took the pills to treat it (the same ones are used to treat malaria). And it went fine and now I test negative. But as I went online to see what other people's experiences were, I found a number of people who were like "I've decided to self-treat this infectious (and potentially deadly) infection with 11 herbs and spices." I can see how people get driven to do that, but it's still tragic.
chairmansteve 2y ago
Many doctors fall for the logical fallacy that "if it's not proven, then it's not true". Many things are true without being proven yet.
- at_compile_time 2y ago
  "There's no evidence of that" often means that there's no money to be made in studying that thing: or, alternatively, that there's a lot of money being made and nobody wants to look for inconvenient answers.
- null0pointer 2y ago
  Disclaimer: I know very little about long covid, so speaking more generally here. I’m also not a doctor. While that is indeed a logical fallacy, doctors are in the business of evidence-based care. How could a doctor responsibly recommend a course of treatment for something which has little evidence, as something unproven would have. Many treatments have both positive and negative effects, and a doctor would typically only recommend a treatment when the good outweighs the bad. On the flip side, there many unproven or proven ineffective treatments patients frequently self-prescribe/self-administer which a doctor would let slide on the basis of it also being harmless. After all, the placebo effect is powerful in and of itself. Taking a wholistic view, medicine is about maximizing the quality of life for patients, as opposed to just being about curing everything. It’s not clear to me how a doctor could responsibly recommend any treatment with potential downsides to a patient with an unproven diagnosis. Such a treatment might indeed help the patient, but it’s a risk/reward tradeoff that needs to be balanced, and while the patient should absolutely be involved in deciding where to draw the line, the vast majority are simply not knowledgeable enough to accurately assess the situation.
  - chairmansteve 2y ago
    I agree with you. The problem is some doctors think they know more than do. You are ill. You go to the doctor. They run tests. The tests come back negative (ie no evidence of illness). The doctor insists you are not ill. But you know you are. But... new tests are being developed all the time. Maybe in 5 years a test will find that you are ill. But for the 5 years up to that point the doctor will insist you are not ill. A better logical position for the doctor would be "you may be ill, but we can't figure out what it is".

2924010774 2y ago

Yeah... I tested positive for Babesia, and took the pills to treat it (the same ones are used to treat malaria). And it went fine and now I test negative. But as I went online to see what other people's experiences were, I found a number of people who were like "I've decided to self-treat this infectious (and potentially deadly) infection with 11 herbs and spices." I can see how people get driven to do that, but it's still tragic.

chairmansteve 2y ago

Many doctors fall for the logical fallacy that "if it's not proven, then it's not true". Many things are true without being proven yet.

at_compile_time 2y ago
"There's no evidence of that" often means that there's no money to be made in studying that thing: or, alternatively, that there's a lot of money being made and nobody wants to look for inconvenient answers.
null0pointer 2y ago
Disclaimer: I know very little about long covid, so speaking more generally here. I’m also not a doctor. While that is indeed a logical fallacy, doctors are in the business of evidence-based care. How could a doctor responsibly recommend a course of treatment for something which has little evidence, as something unproven would have. Many treatments have both positive and negative effects, and a doctor would typically only recommend a treatment when the good outweighs the bad. On the flip side, there many unproven or proven ineffective treatments patients frequently self-prescribe/self-administer which a doctor would let slide on the basis of it also being harmless. After all, the placebo effect is powerful in and of itself. Taking a wholistic view, medicine is about maximizing the quality of life for patients, as opposed to just being about curing everything. It’s not clear to me how a doctor could responsibly recommend any treatment with potential downsides to a patient with an unproven diagnosis. Such a treatment might indeed help the patient, but it’s a risk/reward tradeoff that needs to be balanced, and while the patient should absolutely be involved in deciding where to draw the line, the vast majority are simply not knowledgeable enough to accurately assess the situation.
- chairmansteve 2y ago
  I agree with you. The problem is some doctors think they know more than do. You are ill. You go to the doctor. They run tests. The tests come back negative (ie no evidence of illness). The doctor insists you are not ill. But you know you are. But... new tests are being developed all the time. Maybe in 5 years a test will find that you are ill. But for the 5 years up to that point the doctor will insist you are not ill. A better logical position for the doctor would be "you may be ill, but we can't figure out what it is".