Nah, man, I got the joke. I think it would have worked better if you had said “Lime Disease”, but that’s neither here nor there.
I was making my own joke, because Lyme Disease is a running joke among clinicians. CROL can be seen on medical documentation or in correspondence between clinicians because no matter what is wrong with someone, you can’t rule out Lyme.
...you (Rip) were saying something about how the 'hard sciences' were the only thing worth pursuing a degree in or something?
Did that list include the pharmaceutical sciences?
In coronavirus, China weighs benefits of buffalo horn and other remediesAs it races to treat patients infected with the new coronavirus, the Chinese government is seeing potential in a cocktail of antiviral drugs. It is also recommending the Peaceful Palace Bovine Pill, a traditional Chinese medicine made with the gallstone of cattle, buffalo horn, jasmine and pearl.
There is no known cure for the coronavirus that has sickened more than 28,000 people and killed 563 in China. The country’s National Health Commission says doctors should try treating patients mainly with a combination of Western drugs used to treat HIV and fight viruses, depending on the severity of illness.
But the government is also looking at ways to supplement the treatment with remedies that are integral to its national identity — traditional Chinese medicine. It has its supporters.
“I think it is the correct approach,” said Cheng Yung-chi, a professor of pharmacology at Yale University School of Medicine. “The evidence is going to come and we have to give it the benefit of the doubt.”
The hard sciences can be worth pursuing, but only if you are vigilant enough to understand when the "peer reviewed literature" is actually political or bureaucratic bullshit.
Traditional Chinese medicine is promoted heavily by the Chinese government, and many top university doctors who should know better also believe in it. This situation are troubling to be sure but not new, and I can assure you the situation is much worse here in China. I have yet to meet a Chinese doctor here who is not in full support of TCM, and I’ve met nearly a hundred at this point.
A lot of these medicines contain an active ingredient buried amongst a list of plants as long as your arm, though, so someone seems to know it doesn’t work.
Chinese medicine was mostly popularised by Chairman Mao in the 1950's, mainly because he didn't have enough doctors. Probably because he killed them all in the cultural revolution.
Slate sucks but here is the link.Mao’s support of Chinese medicine was inspired by political necessity. In a 1950 speech (unwittingly echoed by the Senate’s concerns about “providing health care to underserved populations”), he said:
Our nation’s health work teams are large. They have to concern themselves with over 500 million people [including the] young, old, and ill. … At present, doctors of Western medicine are few, and thus the broad masses of the people, and in particular the peasants, rely on Chinese medicine to treat illness. Therefore, we must strive for the complete unification of Chinese medicine. (Translations from Kim Taylor’s Chinese Medicine in Early Communist China, 1945-1963: A Medicine of Revolution.)
Chinese medicine is a blight on the world. It seems the more endangered the animal, the more likely it is to make your d*ck hard.
Yes, there are. However, the only hard data that's collected is for children (explained in the articles linked).
"From July 2010 through June 2014, 358 laboratory-confirmed influenza-associated pediatric deaths were reported among children aged 6 months through 17 years. Vaccination status was determined for 291 deaths; 75 (26%) received vaccine before illness onset. Average vaccination coverage in survey cohorts was 48%. Overall VE against death was 65% (95% CI, 54% to 74%). Among 153 deaths in children with underlying high-risk medical conditions, 47 (31%) were vaccinated. VE among children with high-risk conditions was 51% (95% CI, 31% to 67%), compared with 65% (95% CI, 47% to 78%) among children without high-risk conditions."
Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness Against Pediatric Deaths: 2010–2014 | American Academy of Pediatrics
"As of April 19, 2019, a total of 186 pediatric deaths had been reported to CDC during the 2017-2018 season. This number exceeds the previously highest number of flu-associated deaths in children reported during a regular flu season (171 during the 2012-2013 season). Approximately 80% of these deaths occurred in children who had not received a flu vaccination this season."
Summary of the 2017-2018 Influenza Season | CDC