Is fen-phen safe?

Quoted message said:

Subject: Is fen-phen safe?
From: "Dave" [email hidden]
Date: 10/22/2003 1:24 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id: <[email hidden]>

Copied from

ahhhh...Davey...you are a bit beyond the times....

Fen Phen WAS pulled from the marketplace about 5 years ago...as SOON as the heart valve problems
began to appear....another example of "CONVENTIONAL medicine" doing the right thing...

the article you are copying has to do with a book a gal wrote about her experiences...

so no fen phen is not safe....we have known it for years (BTW I took it for a year...still have my
heart valves!!)

hawki

"Hawki63" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Subject: Is fen-phen safe? From: "Dave" [email hidden] Date: 10/22/2003 1:24 PM Pacific
Daylight Time Message-id: <[email hidden]>

Copied from

ahhhh...Davey...you are a bit beyond the times....

Fen Phen WAS pulled from the marketplace about 5 years ago...as SOON as

the

Quoted message said:

heart valve problems began to appear....another example of "CONVENTIONAL medicine" doing the right
thing...

AFTER their drug hurt folks.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

so no fen phen is not safe....we have known it for years (BTW I took it

for a

Quoted message said:

year...still have my heart valves!!)

hawki

In said:

"Hawki63" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:20031022173505.16676.00001100@mb-
m07.aol.com...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Fen Phen WAS pulled from the marketplace about 5 years ago...as SOON as the heart valve problems
began to appear....another example of "CONVENTIONAL medicine" doing the right thing...

Quoted message said:

AFTER their drug hurt folks.

Yup -- do you know of a better way to tell what's safe and what isn't? As long as you're consistent
in applying your standard, I promise to take you seriously.

--
| "Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a | completely unintentional side
| effect. " -- Linus Torvalds |
+--------------- D. C. Sessions <[email hidden]> ----------+

"D. C. Sessions" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In <[email hidden]>, toolz toolz

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

"Hawki63" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:20031022173505.16676.00001100@mb-
m07.aol.com...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Fen Phen WAS pulled from the marketplace about 5 years ago...as SOON as

the

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

heart valve problems began to appear....another example of

"CONVENTIONAL

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

medicine" doing the right thing...

Quoted message said:

AFTER their drug hurt folks.

Yup -- do you know of a better way to tell what's safe and what isn't? As long as you're
consistent in applying your standard, I promise to take you seriously.

Well, one might think that spending millions, and the "finest" research, that the testing would
eliminate bad drugs before they are pushed on sick and desperate people. Why should I know of a
better way? I'm not trumpting the supereorty of the "scientific" research. Why spend all that money?
Why not just put any old thing on the market, make a lot of money, and pay a few lawsiuts? Oh hell,
that is fairly well how they do it. Do you think that Alt. should copy the conventional method? If
so, at least the Alts. would have enough money to buy FDA approval.

Quoted message said:

--
| "Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a | completely unintentional side
| effect. " -- Linus Torvalds |
+--------------- D. C. Sessions <[email hidden]> ----------+

In said:

"D. C. Sessions" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:metj61-
[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Yup -- do you know of a better way to tell what's safe and what isn't? As long as you're
consistent in applying your standard, I promise to take you seriously.

Well, one might think that spending millions, and the "finest" research, that the testing would
eliminate bad drugs before they are pushed on sick and desperate people. Why should I know of a
better way? I'm not trumpting the supereorty of the "scientific" research. Why spend all that
money? Why not just put any old thing on the market, make a lot of money, and pay a few lawsiuts?
Oh hell, that is fairly well how they do it. Do you think that Alt. should copy the conventional
method? If so, at least the Alts. would have enough money to buy FDA approval.

By definition, a test can only determine risk to approximately the order of the number of people in
the test. Something that happens to 1 person in 1,000,000 is unlikely to show up in a test involving
100,000 people -- and that's a honking /huge/ test.

On the other hand, a risk of 1/10,000 is well down in the "we live with risks like that every day"
level, at least compared to any serious condition. So the tests tend to run with groups of several
thousand and watch them pretty closely. If that doesn't turn anything up, then it's time to release
it to the general public -- but there's still surveillance. That's what happened to Fen-Phen: the
problems were rare enough to not show up in the tests, only after the stuff was in wide use.

Then it was pulled. Mathematically, there's really no better way to do it. It's impossible to "prove
something safe;" at most you can prove to a high degree of confidence that the /risk/ is less than
some set level. The lower you set the level, the larger the test needs to be; at some point it gets
ridiculous.

--
| "Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a | completely unintentional side
| effect. " -- Linus Torvalds |
+--------------- D. C. Sessions <[email hidden]> ----------+

toolz toolz said:

Well, one might think that spending millions, and the "finest" research, that the testing would
eliminate bad drugs before they are pushed on sick and desperate people.

There are two things that normal drug testing can not spot:

1.) "idiosyncratic reactions" ... the one person in hundreds or thouands whose metabolism just
can'[t handle the drug. Some useful antibiotics (such as the whole sulfonamide clan) and
anaesthetics fall into this category.

2.) Extreme long-term side effects. If you want to make absolutely SURE a drug is safe for long-term
use (15-20 years), the clinical studies would have to be that long, and we'd still be waiting to
see if Erythromycin is safe.

Quoted message said:

Why should I know of a better way? I'm not trumpting the supereorty of the "scientific" research.
Why spend all that money? Why not just put any old thing on the market, make a lot of money, and
pay a few lawsiuts? Oh hell, that is fairly well how they do it. Do you think that Alt. should copy
the conventional method?

Yes. For one, they would be having to show that their remedies do better than random chance.

Tsu Dho Nimh

--
When businesses invoke the "protection of consumers," it's a lot like politicians invoking morality
and children - grab your wallet and/or your kid and run for your life.

"D. C. Sessions" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In <[email hidden]>, toolz toolz

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

"D. C. Sessions" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:metj61-
[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Yup -- do you know of a better way to tell what's safe and what isn't? As long as you're
consistent in applying your standard, I promise to take you seriously.

Well, one might think that spending millions, and the "finest" research, that the testing would
eliminate bad drugs before they are pushed on

sick

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

and desperate people. Why should I know of a better way? I'm not

trumpting

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

the supereorty of the "scientific" research. Why spend all that money?

Why

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

not just put any old thing on the market, make a lot of money, and pay a

few

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

lawsiuts? Oh hell, that is fairly well how they do it. Do you think that Alt. should copy the
conventional method? If so, at least the Alts.

would

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

have enough money to buy FDA approval.

By definition, a test can only determine risk to approximately the order of the number of people
in the test. Something that happens to 1 person in 1,000,000 is unlikely to show up in a test
involving 100,000 people -- and that's a honking /huge/ test.

On the other hand, a risk of 1/10,000 is well down in the "we live with risks like that every
day" level, at least compared to any serious condition. So the tests tend to run with groups of
several thousand and watch them pretty closely. If that doesn't turn anything up, then it's time
to release it to the general public -- but there's still surveillance. That's what happened to
Fen-Phen: the problems were rare enough to not show up in the tests, only after the stuff was in
wide use.

Then it was pulled. Mathematically, there's really no better way to do it. It's impossible to
"prove something safe;"

Oh! Like Chiropractic, or several other "Alternative" therapys? at most you can prove to a high
degree of confidence

Quoted message said:

that the /risk/ is less than some set level. The lower you set the level, the larger the test
needs to be; at some point it gets ridiculous.

--
| "Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a | completely unintentional side
| effect. " -- Linus Torvalds |
+--------------- D. C. Sessions <[email hidden]> ----------+

In said:

"D. C. Sessions" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:rbkm61-
[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Then it was pulled. Mathematically, there's really no better way to do it. It's impossible to
"prove something safe;"

Oh! Like Chiropractic, or several other "Alternative" therapys? at most you can prove to a high
degree of confidence

In the real world (as distinct from mathematics) you can't "prove" anything absolutely. Even
physicists are stuck with "so far we haven't found anything that breaks the theory."

Originally, the word "proof" referred to "tested," in the same sense that "100 proof" liquor is
tested for strength and "armor of proof" is armor that has withstood a crossbow shot. "Proven"
doesn't mean "absolutely beyond doubt," just "has survived testing."

--
| "Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a | completely unintentional side
| effect. " -- Linus Torvalds |
+--------------- D. C. Sessions <[email hidden]> ----------+

toolz toolz said:

Oh! Like Chiropractic, or several other "Alternative" therapys? at most you can prove to a high
degree of confidence

Well, I have yet to see testing of chiropractic* and other alternative therapies that provides any
level of confidence at all. Lots of anecdotes and claims, no clinical studies.

*as an alternative for certain back problems, the massages done by chiropractors have been shown to
be effective for many patients ... but it's not been shown to affect anything like cancer,
diabetes, etc.

Tsu Dho Nimh

--
When businesses invoke the "protection of consumers," it's a lot like politicians invoking morality
and children - grab your wallet and/or your kid and run for your life.

"D. C. Sessions" <[email hidden]> wrote in
:"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Originally, the word "proof" referred to "tested," in the same sense that "100 proof" liquor is
tested for strength and "armor of proof" is armor that has withstood a crossbow shot. "Proven"
doesn't mean "absolutely beyond doubt," just "has survived testing."

As in "the exception that proves the rule."

I believe it was Isaac Asimov who said that pseudoscience was always going to have a wider appeal
than real science because the former *claims* to offer absolute certainty whereas the latter denies
the possibility of being absolutely certain. To which I'd add that mysticism has a wider appeal than
rationality because the former puts the believer at the center of the universe whereas the latter
puts him/her anywhere but there.

"Eric Bohlman" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"D. C. Sessions" <[email hidden]> wrote in :"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Originally, the word "proof" referred to "tested," in the same sense that "100 proof" liquor is
tested for strength and "armor of proof" is armor that has withstood a crossbow shot. "Proven"
doesn't mean "absolutely beyond doubt," just "has survived testing."

As in "the exception that proves the rule."

I believe it was Isaac Asimov who said that pseudoscience was always going to have a wider appeal
than real science because the former *claims* to offer absolute certainty whereas the latter
denies the possibility of

being

Quoted message said:

absolutely certain.

Look at Heisenberg. He was so uncertain, he made it a law.

To which I'd add that mysticism has a wider appeal

Quoted message said:

than rationality because the former puts the believer at the center of the universe whereas the
latter puts him/her anywhere but there.