I agree completely. The other side of this is: I, or my kid, is doomed anyway, so what have I got to lose? I guess the answer is: individually, maybe not a lot.

I agree completely. The other side of this is: I, or my kid, is doomed anyway, so what have I got to lose? I guess the answer is: individually, maybe not a lot. (One of my favorite Futurama jokes: "Look, do you want false hope or not?") But collectively, we all lose with shoddy medicine and bad science. Relax standards far enough and you're back to the era of shamans, leeches, or patent tonic charlatans. Which, if you read something like Ben Goldacre's Bad Pharma, it feels like we aren't too far from right now.