From: Ian Goddard (Ian@Goddard.net)
Date: Sat Sep 26 1998 - 00:58:03 MDT
At 10:38 PM 9/25/98 -0700, Spike Lee wrote:
>controlled laboratory research has its shortcomings, which is
>why we still have recalls on new cars. also, i cannot access
>the information discovered by ford from their research track.
>but i can see potential problems by going to a ford owners
>chat group.
IAN: True enough, and there's no guarantee that
controlled laboratory research is immune from
disinformation, i.e., results that were rigged,
although duplication of the research should
weed that out, so long as it's independent.
Also, gathering information from a wider population
has its advantages too. In-line with what your
talking about, I did a little research on the web
on a drug that a family member was taking... the
search yielded a bunch of posts and replies on
some mailing-list archives where people cited
side effects they were having. Sure enough,
when I got to the scientific literature on the
drug, they were all there. And the official lists
of side effects are in fact simply gathered from
relatively small groups of people who simply report
what they experience, and thus is basically anecdotal.
Where laboratory research is critical is in understanding
the exact physiological mechanics of a drug's interaction
with the body, and in that way we get a picture as to why it
does what it does, and that really explains what's happening.
For example, if we know that chemical x is an antioxidant,
even before it's taken internally, we can be pretty sure
of a given set of effects that it will have on users.
**************************************************************
VISIT Ian Williams Goddard --------> http://Ian.Goddard.net
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