I read the article last evening before I turned in in this time zone, and have just read all the comments posted till now overnight. Readers of the writings of

I read the article last evening before I turned in in this time zone, and have just read all the comments posted till now overnight. Readers of the writings of Dr. John P.A. Ioannidis[1] will already be familiar with many of these issues, which dog most research on human health and medical treatments. Several of the previous comments here are very helpful in pointing out that human physiology is based on much more complicated system interactions than most man-made machines, and subtle individual variations in genome or personal environment that are now poorly understood can make a different in how drugs work for different patients. That said, an important point that hasn't been made here yet is that "alternative" treatments to the treatments developed by medical science often have a much worse data problem, because no one is gathering data about the alternative treatments for safety or for effectiveness in the first place. In the United States, "natural supplements" are regulated in a way that exempts billions of dollars of annual revenue from any review about whether the supplements do any good at all.[2] Chiropractic manipulation can kill, but chiropractors don't look into that issue carefully.[3] What you as a person who desires to stay healthy for many years have to do is turn in the first instance to medicine that works[4] and to continually ask your doctors for explanations of what they are doing and what the rationale is for what they are doing. Patients thinking more will encourage physicians to think more. Voters telling governments to regulate treatments more rationally will also help, as will voters supporting more funding of basic medical research. [1] https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/john-ioannidis?tab=publications https://med.stanford.edu/profiles/john-ioannidis?tab=publica... [2] "Dietary supplement industry says “no” to more information for consumers (again)" http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/big-supp-resists-giving-consumers-safety-and-effectiveness-information/ http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/big-supp-resists-giving-... [3] "Stroke Death from Chiropractic Neck Manipulation" http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/stroke-death-from-chiropractic-neck-manipulation/ http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/stroke-death-from-chirop... [4] "There is no such thing as alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't." http://books.google.com/books?id=zOh0t3QFXdoC&dq=There+is+no+such+thing+as+alternative+medicine.+There+is+only+medicine+that+works+and+medicine+that+doesn%27t http://books.google.com/books?id=zOh0t3QFXdoC&dq=There+is+no...