Talk:List of people killed by alternative medicine practitioners

Smashing list, but could do with a lot more refs. (and possibly better if they were inline?) 10:54, 27 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I'll reference the news sites on where's the harm when I have some time late. I'm pretty abysmal at formatting though. Don't know how to put everything in line. --Danfly (talk) 10:58, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It's just my preference: there's a lot here prefer refs at the end as you've got 'em, but I think it would be easier like :this


 * Abubakar Tariq Nadama, Pennsylvania
 * Abubakar Tariq Nadama, Pennsylvania
 * 11:04, 27 September 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]

Ah, I see. I might redo them like that later. I'm not really up to spending much more time on this list right now. --Danfly (talk) 11:11, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Media reference
Its not the NY Times but this article appears to be used as a reference here. Tmtoulouse (talk) 08:15, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Biased source
The source you are using is a shill for Big Pharma. Please remove the bias, or provide a list of people killed by their "medicine" Talsley (talk) 14:11, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * From the FAQ

5. Who are you? Why did you create this site?

My name is Tim Farley, and I am a software engineer who lives in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. I created the site myself. It is not sponsored by any organization and does not pursue any hidden agenda, other than promoting critical thinking.

I created the site to help educate the public about the power of critical thinking, and the danger of neglecting it. It is a personal project.
 * Now prove your allegation. Bad Faith (talk) 14:17, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Because "alternative" medicine works. Otherwise people wouldn't be so bent on trying to refute it. Talsley (talk) 14:23, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * OK,two options (of a potentially wider range)
 * you're serious but so dense that you can't put together an argument more coherent than the denialist drivel you've come up with so far.
 * you're a troll but so crap that you can only pretend to be serious but so dense that you can't put together an argument more coherent than the denialist drivel you've come up with so far.
 * If it's option 1 then I'm just going to shake my head, and keep reverting your nonsense. If it's option 2 then you're not really trolling, you're just providing mild amusement on a dull afternoon. Either way, you're not coming across well. Bad Faith (talk) 14:33, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * So you refuse to take me seriously? You will simply engage in censorship of the truth or stick your fingers in your ears? Talsley (talk) 14:48, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * So far you have provided nothing to be taken seriously. In case you hadn't gathered, we tend to be suspicious of bold, unsupported assertions around here. That counts for double when these assertions are in favour of woo. Bad Faith (talk) 14:53, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I've been through life and I deserve respect, rather than ridicule. Talsley (talk) 14:57, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Anecdotal evidence expanded to an argument.
It's obvious that a List of people killed by mainstream medicine practitioners would be impossibly long, so this list shows what? As far as I can tell, it shows that people die, sometimes. Cause of death is an interpretation, often weak. I don't see any defined standards. From the introduction, though, it looks like if someone was doing X, as well as Y and Z, they will be listed as having been "killed" by X. And Y. And Z. And the cause of death would be listed on a death certificate as something else. Such as cancer.

Failure to follow standard treatment might needed be a contributing cause, but that's, in fact, speculative. In a few cases it might be quite reasonable, where a disease was easily treated by standard treatment. Given millions of people following alternative treatments, you could show almost anything with the available data.

Rather, the claim that might make some sense would be that X did not prevent their death. However, mainstream medicine often fails to prevent death; in fact, no medicine has been found effective at avoiding eventual death. So ... WTF? "Died" has here been translated to "Killed by ..."

These are the kinds of arguments advanced by Woomeisters, just turned around as a criticism of woo, which it isn't. It's anecdotal evidence, not scientific, and not rational. Obviously. --Abd (talk) 22:10, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
 * "Killed by alternative medicine practitioners" seems quite specific when we don't actually cite exactly how these individual practices directly killed the victims. "Killed by alternative medicine practices" or just "killed by alternative medicine" would seem more apt.  Also, when the article is just a list of names, all linking to the same site (which contains more complete lists), it doesn't really seem like our article is doing anything worthwhile.  It would be better to make it an article about whatstheharm.net, explaining what it's about & linking to it.  22:40, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll agree. First of all, it's quite correct that alternative medicine isn't necessarily harmless. Homeopathic remedies, in themselves, are probably harmless, at least if the dilutions are truly high. Exclusive reliance on them could be quite dangerous, and recommendations from homeopathic practitioners that a patient who truly needs standard medical practice, instead, avoid it, could be very dangerous, but that's a complex judgment, having to do with standards of practice. I looked at the site and at some examples from the site, and an example was given, the first one I looked at, where someone was told he had untreatable pancreatic cancer, so he went to a homeopath and used homeopathic remedies, and apparently believed, for a time, that he'd been cured. Then he died. I see nothing there indicating that he was "killed by homeopathic treatment," and it's quite possible that his quality of life improved for a while, over what it would have been if he simply accepted the medical diagnosis and treatment, which was? It would have been either nothing, with possibly death sooner (mood can certainly influence survival) or some very invasive and probably ineffective medical treatment, with unknown outcome.
 * I have early Stage I, prostate cancer, asymptomatic, except for elevated PSA, which eventually led to a biopsy that found about as small a tumor as one could imagine. I'm just watching it, in spite of having this or that recommended treatment ("now, while we can still get it all.") So I read the literature. The latest medical position on this happened to be covered in a review in the New England Journal of Medicine on men my age with my exact symptoms, recommending "watchful waiting," because most of us will die from something else, and prostatectomy is far from fun, the side effects can be quite serious. Now, suppose I eventually die from prostate cancer, it's certainly possible. Does this mean that the NEJM article "killed me"? Hardly. We are talking about alternative actions, and risks, not certainties, and in the case of the man mentioned on that web page, the alternative was not "not-death." He'd already been told he would die. So how was he killed by an alternative practitioner? Seems that his family didn't like that he thought he was going to live for a while longer. And they wanted to blame someone. Perhaps the practitioner went outside the norms of his profession. Etc. --Abd (talk) 23:03, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

The author says go ahead and change it
The only reason this article is called "list of people killed by alternative medicine practitioners" is because Real first name and last initial requested it years ago. I only built an article around that title in order to practice writing wiki-lists at the time. The title is indeed misleading as many of these people were not directly killed by practitioners (as is stated in the intro). One reason I would give for possibly holding on to the list itself is the fact that whatstheharm.net does not provide a complete list of fatalities as one single list. It is also possible to add any future fatalities related to altmed in this list as they arise, although no one seems to bother too much about that. I would suggest "fatalities related to alternative medicine" as a better title. I will not be doing it myself though. I've lost most of my interest in RW at this stage. --StacyB (talk) 18:59, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Lists like this
my own view is that lists like this are rather stupid. they remind me of "lists of people who believe in creationism". why? cause if you compiled a list of people killed by doctors - actual medical doctors, in the daily course of their jobs, trying to heal, you'd see a much larger list, even if you could some how compare similar starting points. We also don't know what happened in any of these cases. Was it an allergic reaction to something? Did the patient have a stroke while on the practitioner's chair? Was it a known poison in the compound? is this really quality "proof" that quacks are quacks? Godot She was a venus demilo in her sister's jeans  17:32, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
 * These are all coming from (at least a short look) one source, which we don't look at critically. woudln't it just be far better to link that source ot our articles on these topics.  "there is reason to worry about the safety of X... this site documents people who have died from X".[[Image:green mowse.png|25px]]Godot  She was a venus demilo in her sister's jeans  17:36, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, this list should be deleted.--Krej talk 17:40, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm removing any death where the patient had full medical knowledge of their illeness, and CHOSE not to take that path. That is their right, i suppose, but it doesn't mean that the alti meds killed them.  Saying these are people "killed by alternative medicine" is nonsense.  I am keeping any where the patient was misdiagnosed by an altie, or where the treatment itself interfeered with medicine or caused the condition to get worse.  Being stupid, or stubborn, or scared is not teh same as "being killed by".[[Image:green mowse.png|25px]]Godot  She was a venus demilo in her sister's jeans  18:01, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Delete
Is this useful? lots of people are killed by conventional medicine too, by misdiagnosis, misprescription, surgical error etc. So:

Keep

 * I say keep it. The issue in my opinion is not the article itself, but the name. As it stands the article is restricted (in theory) to people killed specifically by alternative medicine. If it was renamed "List of people killed by belief in alternative medicine", then it would cover people who were killed by not going to a doctor because they went to get snake oil instead. Also, the article description, atleast at the moment, is "This is a list of people whose deaths were caused either directly or indirectly by alternative medicine.", which I would say includes people killed by not getting actual medicine.--Token Conservative (talk) 19:54, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
 * There are several problems with it, not least that all examples are cited to one website, making this page a rather redundant partial mirror of WtH. Plus argumentum ad epic list is a dangerous game, and borders on Gish galloping.  Then there's the problems over some of the examples & how we're defining people "killed" by alternative medicine.  As Godot has highlighted, the list included people who were diagnosed with terminal conditions before they experiment with alt-med, so we can't really say they were "killed" by alt-med at all.  And we're really stretching the definition when we include people who died in alt-med related accidents such as a house-fire started by ear-candling.   It would be better to scrap this list and expand the What's The Harm? article to take a more critical look at the site, maybe including a few of the more poignant examples and a few of the more questionable ones.  20:13, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
 * All that really says to me is a need for some more careful review of listed examples and more research into the subject. But I'll go with what the mob decides, I'm just stating my opinion and my reasoning--Token Conservative (talk) 20:26, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I respect your opinion that we should highlight dangers, sure. For example, when editing this list, i found that the stuff with chriopratic really can be/is dangerous if they do it wrong.  But there are simply so many problems with us trying to reivew any/all of these cases.  If the chiropractor sucked up a storm, and just did it wrong, is that the same as saying chiropractor is dangerous (maybe Brx has some info here, from his massage classes - i don't know if they would have ever talked alt med).  If a doctor (as in 2 of the cases) mis represented himself as a DOCTOR, and was later found for fraud - that too is not really the homopathy killing the person, but a criminal.  I think we cover this stuff in a more generic sense on other pages "Often, people who trust in herbal med are not turning to real med soon enough".  but that is quite different than "here are 22 people who died after coming in contact with alt med".  [[Image:green mowse.png|25px]]Godot  She was a venus demilo in her sister's jeans  21:28, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Unkeep

 * I think it should be erased and edited to redirect to What's The Harm?.--Krej talk 23:28, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
 * please delete. it makes us look as desperate for a case as "list of creationists".  i mean, "she died in a fire." proved ear candeling was dengrous![[Image:green mowse.png|25px]]Godot  She was a venus demilo in her sister's jeans  18:05, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
 * delete; no redirect.  18:35, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Zap. As has been mentioned elsewhere, the list of people who have been "killed" by conventional medicine would be a lot longer. Not because conventional medicine is worse - simply because more people use it and because the people who use it are frequently a lot sicker then those who use alt med. So this list is meaningless.--Bob"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that." 21:37, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Long-eared jerboa tied to a firework
Sophie Wilder  22:31, 2 February 2013 (UTC)