So my nephew has whooping cough. He's like 4 I think.

My sister is a bit put out because she said he's vaccinated, but no vaccine is 100% effective I guess.

Anyway, all my communication on this is over Facebook because she lives in the US. Anyway, all her friends are telling her to fill him up with probiotics to fix him up. One is getting upset with me because I'm telling my sister that the FDA this year has been sending out letters telling companies that sell probiotics to stop making health claims about them since the scientific evidence is lacking for the claims.

Turns out one of my sister's friends is a naturopath and is now telling her that she knows of scientific trials showing that it works.

It's all woo, right? The FDA isn't actually in the pocket of big medicine to keep the little guy down, right?

And sellers of pro-biotics aren't pharma? It's a billion-dollar industry. They aren't 'the little guy'.

Tell her to take him to a doctor. Kids die of untreated whooping cough.

Before a vaccine was available, pertussis killed 5,000 to 10,000 people in the United States each year. Now, the pertussis vaccine has reduced the annual number of deaths to less than 30.

But in recent years, the number of cases has started to rise. By 2004, the number of whooping cough cases spiked past 25,000, the highest level it's been since the 1950s. It's mainly affected infants younger than 6 months old before they're adequately protected by immunizations, and kids 11 to 18 years old whose immunity has faded.

http://kidshealth.org/parent/infections ... cough.html

chairman bill wrote:And sellers of pro-biotics aren't pharma? It's a billion-dollar industry. They aren't 'the little guy'.

They're probably counted as the little guy because the FDA is picking on them, which apparently proves that they work to this person.

Turns out one of my sister's friends is a naturopath and is now telling her that she knows of scientific trials showing that it works.

Are these secret trials or something? It seems unlikely that this person knows of relevant, sound and significant trials that the FDA has not heard of. If that is the case, why is she telling you, instead of the FDA?

EDIT: Ask for the citation anyway. Peer-reviewed journal?

Sityl wrote:Tell her to take him to a doctor. Kids die of untreated whooping cough.

Before a vaccine was available, pertussis killed 5,000 to 10,000 people in the United States each year. Now, the pertussis vaccine has reduced the annual number of deaths to less than 30.

But in recent years, the number of cases has started to rise. By 2004, the number of whooping cough cases spiked past 25,000, the highest level it's been since the 1950s. It's mainly affected infants younger than 6 months old before they're adequately protected by immunizations, and kids 11 to 18 years old whose immunity has faded.

http://kidshealth.org/parent/infections ... cough.html

She has taken him to the doctor. I think it's children under 1 who are most at risk.

Apparently the doctor said to feed him honey, I guess for the throat since it's soothing?

j.mills wrote:

Turns out one of my sister's friends is a naturopath and is now telling her that she knows of scientific trials showing that it works.

Are these secret trials or something? It seems unlikely that this person knows of relevant, sound and significant trials that the FDA has not heard of. If that is the case, why is she telling you, instead of the FDA?

EDIT: Ask for the citation anyway. Peer-reviewed journal?

She said it was scientific trials backed by woo doctors......... I mean naturopaths.

Now there is some scientific evidence I believe that there are some health benefits to probiotics, but it's lacking on how helpful they are and that the benefits are rather narrow, not this magical cure all that some people seem to think that they are. I don't think the evidence says that if you get sick you should start chugging the stuff down to get better.

I don't see any harm in the kid taking these pro-biotics. Unless he doesn't like the taste or if any of the constituents in the products interfere with recovery. Like say any ban on milk products. Which a lot of these things are. Milk fermented in some way.

You did ask her that didn't you?

Naturopathy's nonsense. Take the kid to a chiropractor and get his vertebrae shuffled.

/sardonicism.

mark1961 wrote:I don't see any harm in the kid taking these pro-biotics. Unless he doesn't like the taste or if any of the constituents in the products interfere with recovery. Like say any ban on milk products. Which a lot of these things are. Milk fermented in some way.

You did ask her that didn't you?

She already said no milk since it will increase mucous production.

I thought that was not true either, just that the milk sticks to the mucous?

Idiot parents who believe milk = mucus nonsense.

No, milk does NOT increase mucus production. This has been proven by several studies.

Now, it's true that a milk allergy could produce nasal symptoms - although milk allergy usually produces foul digestive symptoms instead - but it's just plain stupid to confuse a (rare) allergy with mucus produced by common infectious diseases. It's sloppy thinking. I worry about parents' sloppy thinking where their children are concerned.

If the child prefers juice or water or tea while sick, fine, give the child whichever liquid he wants. But if the child wants a drink of milk, he should have it, and it shouldn't be withheld just because he's got an infection.

hotshoe wrote:Idiot parents who believe milk = mucus nonsense.

No, milk does NOT increase mucus production. This has been proven by several studies.

Now, it's true that a milk allergy could produce nasal symptoms - although milk allergy usually produces foul digestive symptoms instead - but it's just plain stupid to confuse a (rare) allergy with mucus produced by common infectious diseases. It's sloppy thinking. I worry about parents' sloppy thinking where their children are concerned.

If the child prefers juice or water or tea while sick, fine, give the child whichever liquid he wants. But if the child wants a drink of milk, he should have it, and it shouldn't be withheld just because he's got an infection.

No, this is from the naturopath.

On Wednesday, we operated on a man who had been sick for two weeks and was treating his serious bacterial infection with homeopathic remedies, prescribed by his Naturopath, that included "alkaline water", "St. John's Wort", "green tea" and "echinacea". He developed serious endocarditis and when his heart raced out of control, he finally relented and came to the emergency room. An echocardiogram showed vegetation on his mitral valve and pericardial effusion.

Prior to surgery, his wife was quizzing us about how they treat this condition in Japan without surgery using acupuncture and herbal tea. She was irritated by our "typical western medical focus" and lack of interest in acupuncture.

In the OR suite, the patient decompensated and we had to rapidly open his chest and go on bypass. The pericardium was filled with bloody fluid and the heart's surface looked like it had been gnawed on. I have never seen a heart that looked like that, covered in a thick shaggy rind. The surgeon remarked that "Usually you only see this 'natural course' of the disease in third world countries." The mitral valve was totally destroyed and we discovered a pus filled hole that went from inside the heart all the way through ventricular wall to the surface of the heart.

After fourteen hours of surgery, we were finally able to come off bypass and close the chest. He was transferred to the ICU for maximal treatment with large doses of antibiotics. He died last night from septic shock and circulatory collapse after a protracted resuscitation effort . He was fifty-five years old and the father of three children.

His cause of death should read: "Woo"

AlohaChris wrote:On Wednesday, we operated on a man who had been sick for two weeks and was treating his serious bacterial infection with homeopathic remedies that included "alkaline water", "St. John's Wort", "green tea" and "echinacea". He developed serious endocarditis and when his heart raced out of control, he finally relented and came to the emergency room. An echocardiogram showed vegetation on his mitral valve and pericardial effusion.

Prior to surgery, his wife was quizzing us about how they treat this condition in Japan without surgery using acupuncture and herbal tea. She was irritated by our "typical western medical focus" and lack of interest in acupuncture.

In the OR suite, the patient decompensated and we had to rapidly open his chest and go on bypass. The pericardium was filled with bloody fluid and the heart's surface looked like it had been gnawed on. I have never seen a heart that looked like that, covered in a thick shaggy rind. The surgeon remarked that "Usually you only see this 'natural course' of the disease in third world countries." The mitral valve was totally destroyed and we discovered a pus filled hole that went from inside the heart all the way through ventricular wall to the surface of the heart.

After fourteen hours of surgery, we were finally able to come off bypass and close the chest. He was transferred to the ICU for maximal treatment with large doses of antibiotics. He died last night from septic shock and circulatory collapse after a protracted resuscitation effort . He was fifty-five years old and the father of three children.

His cause of death should read: "Woo"

If he saw a woo doctor they should be charged.

He was & did. I just updated my post to reflect this fact. This is the second patient I've seen "Naturopaths" kill.

The first one was an eleven-year-old girl. She complained of fatigue, constipation, frequent urination, and constantly being thirsty. Her parents took her to a Naturopath who prescribed 'colloidal enemas'. After receiving the first enema, she suffered a massive stroke and became brain dead.

This is how much contempt I have for Naturopaths: I'm willing to bet that a forum member who is a lay-person can make the correct diagnosis. (Medical types, please hold you tongues.)

The Patient: An 11 year-old girl.
The symptoms: fatigue, frequent urination, excessive thirst.

Diagnosis: ?

UTI?

Diabetes?

Diabetes. A thing to watch out for when you're my age and my granddad and uncle had it.

I checked online to see if the symptoms were similar in kids to us old farts.

I'm not sure on the constipation thing or why the kid's head exploded from the inside when they gave her an enema. It's very probable I'm wrong but that's what doctors are for.

I don't know much about enemas but did it cause something like water intoxication? Isn't that one of the risks of enemas?

Rockshell wrote:Diabetes?

mark1961 wrote:Diabetes...It's very probable I'm wrong but that's what doctors are for.

We have two winners! So, Rockshell & Mark1961, please tell the audience: do you have a medical background or have diabetes yourself?

I'm betting no. This is my point entirely: any one with common sense and access to google can come up with the correct diagnosis and say, "You better get to a doctor." Superstition is worse than ignorance in these cases.