LymeNet Flash: Us, Them, and Scientific Method...a Rant

This is topic Us, Them, and Scientific Method...a Rant in forum General Support at LymeNet Flash.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://flash.lymenet.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/13269

Posted by pdivi (Member # 7690) on :

I have been perusing the Internet in search of information which will help me assess whether I've had a Lyme relapse, and the biggest finding I've had so far is the medical community is practically useless on this subject. I am forced to take notes from message boards, or choose between the advice of "good" scientists or the "bad" scientists. And I thought the whole foundation under scientific method was taking a hypothesis (not a "side") and proving or disproving it with observation (not "belief"). Where is the objectivity in this mess?

So now I get to choose between camps. One camp has its believe, its anecdotal evidence, and the other camp has the same. One requires you risk not getting well, the other requires you subject your liver to handfuls of antibiotics. But neither has hard, objective, quantitative, scientific proof that passes the sniff test. Why not? We're not dealing with some obscure disease here. We're dealing with a disease that is endemic in some of the most population-dense states in the country.

I read one post here from someone wanting to know what percentage of Lyme patients become chronic. One reply - few. Another reply - almost all. Shouldn't this be a number that's fairly easy to find? Does one even exist? Has anyone in the scientific community bothered to ask?

And here we are on a message boards, administering medical advice to each other, basically conducting human medicinal trials. And no one is even collecting the outcome of these trial in a central place so we can actually LEARN something from them. It's a joke.

So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go take some garlic extract and hope I can keep this bug at bay long enough for the experts to sort out their differences.

Pardon the rant, but I've been searching the Internet for three days straight and I am more confused now than when I started.

Posted by Greatcod on :

I shared your sense of what the scientific
method was. From what I can figure, medical science is plagued by having to control for the enormous complexity of numerous interacting variables. When it comes to Lyme, the problem is multiplied by spinning
the experimental designs to yield desired outcomes. The "no chronic Lyme" side has received most of the money and has published many more articles. Chronic infection is very rare according to them. Its sort of unargueable truth..and in their research, they seem to not even look for it. Its almost surreal, in part because the only serious consequence of Lyme is its chronicity.
I know this is probably not very helpful, but you asked a good question. You are not the only person confused by Lyme "science".

Posted by Kara Tyson (Member # 939) on :

Medicine is part science and part opinion. We will never know everything there is to know about the body or about every disease. What we know today may be disproved 20 years from now.

There are so many variables.

Take for instance the word 'chronic'. Chronic means differant things to a PHD than it does to an MD. It means differant things in one language vs. another language.

There is always a side. The idea that a hypothesis is unbiased is fiction. It doesnt exist outside of a book definition. It really is impossible in the real world. And it does not take into account MONEY, pride, prestige, or patents.

Take for instance a study to see if meat causes cancer. If the study is funded by PETA...I can tell you the result.

Another example has to do with statistics. Statistics can be manipulated and are used inappropriatly all the time.

An example: Let's say you have 100 people in a study.

The people in the study all have cancer. They are asked if they drink coffee. Let's say 70% raise their hands.

It would not be unusual for a headline to read "coffee causes cancer 70% of the time".

**
Much of the problem has to do with words meaning differant things to differant groups of professionals. MD's, PHD's and scientists use the same words but use them in very differant ways.

Posted by lou (Member # 81) on :

If you want documented lyme info, go to www.lymeinfo.net

Posted by janet thomas (Member # 7122) on :

You'll need a lot of garlic cause you'll be waiting a good long while.

But, let's get back to you -Are you having a Lyme relapse? Why would you think that?

Any recent Lyme blood work to shed some light?

If you would share your lyme history perhaps we could help a bit.

Personally I have no dichotomy regarding chronic Lyme. Living with it is all the proof I need.

Oh, BTW, I doubt garlic will stop the wily Bb.