How reliable is science? (The limitations of science)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Monday, April 16, 2012, 06:15 (4603 days ago) @ xeno6696

See Matt, this is where you are, IMHO wrong. Hitler also thought that he was doing what was in the best interest of his people. I wasn't being melodramatic, I was being serious. I know this is slightly off topic, but any number of atrocities have been committed throughout history by people who had the best intentions. That is why there is the old cliche "The road to hell is paved with good intent." -You have paced science on a pedestal. I see it in the way you talk about it, and the way you gloss over its short comings repeated, as if refusing to admit them even to yourself, regardless of how many times any of us point out the glaringly obvious failures. -Other doctors and medical researchers undoubtedly had the same information as the surgeon in the article. So tell me why the process failed. Why is it that with all the recorded operations, all of the records, videos, conferences, lectures, text books, journals, and databases not one single person saw that a tremendous majority of cardiology cases were caused by inflammation. Lethal drugs were being created and prescribed for patients to treat the symptom and not the disease? I just want to know why. Without all the evasions and excuse. If the system worked the way that you say it works it would not have happened. Over a million people die every year from heart disease. The doctor in the article had been practicing 25 years, long enough to treat at least two generations. (During which time somewhere close to 20 million people would have died in that time frame.) So, me saying millions of people over two generations is not melodrama, it is simple fact. Like it or not, that is the way it is. -From the CDC
In 2008, over 616,000 people died of heart disease. Heart disease caused almost 25% of deaths—almost one in every four—in the United States.1
Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women. More than half of the deaths due to heart disease in 2008 were in men.1
Coronary heart disease is the most common type of heart disease. In 2008, 405,309 people died from coronary heart disease.1
Every year about 785,000 Americans have a first coronary attack. Another 470,000 who have already had one or more coronary attacks have another attack.2
In 2010, coronary heart disease alone was projected to cost the United States $108.9 billion.3 This total includes the cost of health care services, medications, and lost productivity -That's a lot of money for drug companies and doctors, even if 1/3 of that was lost productivity, which I am quite certain it was not remotely close to that.-Many of the underlying causes of arterial disease have been identified in the scientific literature. Regrettably, cardiologists have only addressed a limited number of these factors, such as prescribing cholesterol-lowering drugs, controlling hypertension, etc. By ignoring the other proven causes for the epidemic of vascular-related diseases, a significant number of Americans are experiencing needless suffering and are dying prematurely.-So you still need more convincing, here you go:-In 1996 the Life Extension Foundation published an article showing that high levels of fibrinogen represented a significant risk factor for heart attack and ischemic stroke (Ridker et al. 2000). The article was based on studies dating back to the 1980s showing that people with elevated fibrinogen levels were more likely to die from a cardiovascular-related disease.-Despite numerous studies linking elevated fibrinogen to increased heart attack risk, few physicians bother to check their patient's blood levels of fibrinogen or other correctable risk factors such as homocysteine and C-reactive protein.-Many cardiologists are still demanding a higher standard of proof before they routinely test their patients' blood for what they consider to be "newly identified" cardiac risk factors. Even when a physician is aware of the importance of testing a patient's blood for the presence of inflammatory risk factors, a common problem is that managed care organizations (HMOs and PPOs) refuse to pay for them.-The sad fact is that the majority of practicing physicians are not yet aware of how to properly correct for elevated inflammatory risk factors (such as C-reactive protein and fibrinogen).-As a result of physician ignorance or insurance company stinginess, many Americans experience progressive debilitating congestive heart failure or cerebral circulatory impairment, when the underlying causes could have been corrected if the physician ordered and then properly interpreted these blood tests.

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.