calumniations of "rich bitches" (fill in the ad-hominems of 'patients' who show up with Something! that isn't in the PDR), has veritably become chronic for them: yet the claim has produced already, opposing-camps! As if the inconclusive diagnoses themselves: did not demonstrate a state-of-ignorance, but only: unstable wannabe 'patients'.

Could this issue be a further demonstration of the subtler side-effects of say, the language-murder that produces scientism?--and the increased active disdain for 'science' itself--many medicos do really sloppy-Science IME, anyway. Add-in the oft supercilious treatment of (quite competent patients) via those MDs who missed: If you want Doctors to stop acting like Gods? get up off your knees.

I've no competence to evaluate the mental-state of the person and her med-history; that info doesn't constitute more than one data-point, at best. But I recognize the creeping-Certainty form as manifests in the vehemence of some of those who Have 'chosen sides' already: on an issue obviously not studied sufficiently yet! (outside this set of threads, I mean.)

I get (enough..) the 'blinding' facet, and it's worthy of consideration, in its absence. But there seems a larger-scale issue here, when those trained to be objective choose-sides quite more frimly than the unstudied-matter can possibly justify.
cf.

written by watermelonpunch, December 19, 2014 1:38
Another thing that bothers me about this topic...
Not here, but how I've noticed it's handled in some of the articles I've seen recently.

[...]

This creates a really bad framing premise.
So you know, anyone who dares speak out about having had a bad case with Lyme Disease can immediately be characterized to be the sort of person believing vaccines cause autism, that mental illness doesn't exist, that HIV doesn't cause AIDS... and you know, are probably likely to be found watching Youtubes of Infowars, Brother Nathanael, or videos about the Illuminati or how the Apollo moon missions were faked.

I have a hard time believing that's the case for even a small percentage of the people who have Post-treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome symptoms.

The dozens of people I've ever known with Lyme Disease tested positive for it.
I don't think any of these people were anti-science. Certainly none were against utilizing modern mainstream medicine.

And though it's rare I grill people to find out what they think of various weird conspiracy theories... I've usually found that people who believe in that kind of stuff tend to tell me without me asking!!
And of all the people I've had lecture me on various things considered to be "out there" (including the guy who told me that Corning Glass had its own agency of international super spies)... none of those people ever told me about having Lyme Disease, chronic or otherwise.

Then this (!)

written by liberal, December 19, 2014 4:57
tew wrote,
Maybe, but we'd need to take a scientific approach to determining whether that statement is true. How would you measure how much respect a scientist shows for science?

There's a lot of work already done on this in the particular case of the abuse of statistics in the biomedical sciences. See e.g. the work of John P. A. Ioannidis. There's also quantitative work done on publication bias using e.g. funnel plots.

The basic story is that the bullshit factor in medicine and medical science is enormous. Not just in pharma, where as Dean points out the opportunity to collect economic rents creates enormous distortions, but everywhere. Just as an example, the science behind the amine theory of depression is actually extraordinarily weak, and SSRIs do a little better than placebo in treating depression, but by an amount that isn't really clinically significant.

[...]

More..

{{sigh}} Bolded: that's been my view for decades. Mare's nest. Nice try for some equanimity, but the word [Id] got appropriately touched-on in one post. :-0

My bias would be towards those who malign the basic-competence of most MDs du jour, as it fits my professional experience of their behavior, re heavy-ion dosage to Their Patients. (I vas dere, but that isn't a lot of 'data' either! nor any post-dosage info.)

Some days it looks as if that alleged Western Civilization has actually cracked-throughout, but a strong-enough wind has yet to arise, to produce visible rubble.
Were I to acquire some Elite new disease, I have little idea where? I'd go first, then second/third for a diagnosis, let alone vetting the proposed "procedure"--always given as-if it were verified by NIST.

One thing I'd bet a C-note on: the garbling will get worse before it might ever reduce; $$-corruption, of unknowable degree has entered science and Science too, as surely as there is also scientism. That drive for One's Nobel.. that Id-fantasy includes {tacitly} a House on a Hill somewhere too, as earned-perk.

I hope there's enough Luck to go around :-)