Re: [ba-unrev-talk] Licensing / health
Another good reference relative to nano-sensor technology, etc. is: (01)
Smart Health Care
< http://www.eng.mu.edu/wintersj/HCTWorkshop/HCT-pos_SW-FutureHome.htm > (02)
Eric Armstrong wrote: (03)
> Paul Fernhout wrote:
>
> > Eric Armstrong wrote:
> > > [Snipped Interesting stuff on patented drugs vs. free supplements]
> > > The real issue here is that, for lack of profit, hugely beneficial
> > > potential remedies go unadvertised, unpromoted, and unrecognized.
> > > [More snipped]
> > > No. The answer, I'm afraid, is social judo. We *have* to create
> > > profit opportunities for useful discoveries, to hasten their adoption.
> > >
> > > Again, there is value in the government-patent process, too. We need
> > > a taxonomy which would allow us to distinguish the cases. I don't
> > > really see it, at the moment. Perhaps the counter-view described above
> > > will help us to identify it.
> >
> > I enjoyed reading this. You are quite right in the main, for example
> > physicians are still prescribing antibiotics instead of cranberry juice
> > for UTIs and applying whatever instead of applying yogurt for yeast
> > infections.
>
> And they are prescribing anitbiotics for poison oak/poison ivy infections,
> when a liquid soap called TecNu attacks the *real* problem, much more
> effectively. It breaks down the oily resin, urishol, which is what causes
> the harm. Before discovering it, I always had to go to the Doctor. Now,
> I never do -- and I've had some pretty severe cases. I've got other
> horror stories, too, but I won't bore you with them.
>
> > <snip: many great examples of medical systems for profit gone berserk>
>
> The most interesting part of your response was the two potential prongs
> for attack. Where I was suggesting making nutritional remedies profitable,
> you appeared to be coming close to the recommendation that drug
> information shouldn't be patentable (especially since the majority of the
> research comes from government labs, or government grants).
>
> Although your suggestion would take some "miracle cures" off the table,
> overall I think we would be a lot healthier. Such a step might help to
> refocus our attention where it belongs, too, on prevention through diet
> and exercise, instead of the temporary fixes that are often labeled as
> "cures" by people who aren't considering long term consequences.
>
> > The medical system definitely has problems. Doctors prescribe what they
> > are pushed by the drug companies, patients have little else to turn, and
> > Pharmacists no longer prescribe (as they once did) and packages by law
> > can't usually claim health benefits. But the internet is starting to
> > change that -- even with something as simple as usenet newsgroups. So
> > here's a suggestion -- perhaps some companies making nutritional
> > supplements will support you in making a free OHS like system like you
> > implicitly outline. If it had a major web presence, then perhaps
> > patients would become more aware of these alternatives.
>
> Interesting thought. Some of the major providers just might get interested,
> at that.
>
> The tricky bit is the mutliple levels of interactions. For example, Vitamin
> C reconsitutes vitamin E after it's does it's job as a heart-antioxidant.
> You
> see a study that says vitamin E prevents heart attacks. Sure, that makes
> sense, when you know what vitamin E does. Then you see one that says
> Vitamin C prevents heart attacks. But knowing the mechanism, you can
> see that vitamin C has an effect on heart attacks that derives from it's
> effect on E.
>
> In fact, had the model existed, you wouldn't have needed a study to show
> that vitamin C prevents heart attacks. You could have queried, "what
> prevents heart attacks", or the like, and come up with the chains:
> E -a-> a) protect cell walls or heart muscles or some such
> C -b-> E b) Reconstitute vitamin E after it has broken down
>
> Even that simple example shows one of the aspects of the problem that
> brought me up short. The WAY in which X assists Y has a lot of
> variations. It may promote absorption of Y, or substitute for Y so Y is
> more available for other purposes, or protect Y from harm, or act as
> a co-factor with Y, or make it possible to construct Y, in addition to
> putting it back together, as in the example.
>
> This is another example of the "typed link" problem. There is a link from
> C to E, but that link has a specific type you need to know about.
>
> The model is also needed to make sense out of studies like the ones that
> show Vitamin C prevents obesity. Well, maybe there is a cause and
> effect relationship. If so, it should be possible to find it in the model.
>
> Or maybe it is just the case that people who are concerned about their
> health take time to exercise. The same people take vitamin C, so maybe
> there is a statistical correlation, with no causal relationship at all.
>
> That consideration brings up the subject of "kinds of evidence". We know
> C -b-> E by inspection of the chemical interactions, and that is very
> strong evidence, or even proof. But a study that shows X --> Y is much
> weaker. So maybe we put "C -?-> obesity" in the model, to identify a
> correlation which has yet to be proved.
>
> For all such entries in the database, links to the source from which they
> came have to be captured, so that arguments can be assessed and data
> reexamined.
>
> And of course, there are the multiple levels of interaction. At the
> physiology level, there are heart and lungs and so on. Then there is
> the cellular level, with different kinds of interactions going on. Then
> the biochemical, with long molecules and interactions. Underneath
> that is the quantum mechanical, which gets fascinating when you look
> at essential fatty acids providing electrons, with proteins providing a
> deficit, thereby making little batteries.
>
> The query, "what affects the heart?", then, has multiple answers, from
> studies that show what happens when people take a supplement, to
> the biochemical interactions that take place.
>
> Like Cyc, this is *huge* undertaking. It requires a lot of data entry,
> and a system for representing the information.
>
> Such a system could provide an awesome foundation for nutritional
> healing, however. At it's peak, I expect that one could model the
> individual organism, masage the diet/exercise/lifestyle inputs and tweak
> the hereditary foundation until the model's symptoms mimiced those of
> the patient, and then suggest dietary interventions (supplements) that
> would make a difference -- monitoring the results achieved to guage
> the accuracy of the model, and feeding that information back in to make
> it more exact.
>
> If major harm were predicted before a nutrititional remedy could take
> effect, then in those circumstances drugs or surgery might be an acceptable
> alternative. Otherwise, why would want even want to?
>
> I have been fortunate enough to find an allopathic physician who depends
> on nutritional remedies -- and who has also been trained in Chinese
> medicine.
> I've got to tell you, this guy is *good*! That's good for me. But there a
> world full of people who are hurting, as a result of ignorance.
>
> > Here is a starting point, an loosely licensed book (seems you could
> > perhaps put it on the web) called "Where there is no doctor: A Village
> > Health Care Handbook" by David Werner which claims to be for both the
> > underdeveloped and overdeveloped worlds.
> > http://www.healthwrights.org/books/wtndoctor.htm
>
> Useful reference. Thanks.
>
> > But if you did create an on-line health and nutrition reference, I hope
> > you structure the licensing in such a way that it encourages the whole
> > community to participate for the long term in creating a global resource
> > related to nutrition and health. An easy way to do that is put the whole
> > thing under some specific form of free or open source license like the
> > GFDL:
> > http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
>
> Good reference. Should I ever gather the wherewithal to make progress,
> I'll make use of it.
>
> At one point, I started collecting data and capturing it in rudientary form.
>
> I found that, like the Cyc, the project, there was a ton of detailed stuff
> to (04)