Who's doing what to who now?

I confess - I've never had the patience to sit through a whole TED talk.

I think what this says is that if you have cancer, you should stick your fingers in an electrical outlet.

/can I get a journalism BA now?

Why is it when I listen to this guy, when he starts in with his (false) description of what gravity is and how it works, do I find myself waiting for the final pitch, where he starts listing prices for magnetic bracelets?

spamdog: I confess - I've never had the patience to sit through a whole TED talk.

I bet you'd have the patience to sit through this one. It's not even 4 minutes and it's a cool idea.

spamdog: I confess - I've never had the patience to sit through a whole TED talk.

I'll save you the trouble. Treating cancer with electrical fields is bullshiat.

How does this compare to the work of renowned scientist Jenny McCarthy?

MrEricSir: I bet you'd have the patience to sit through this one. It's not even 4 minutes and it's a cool idea.

Done. That's how long every TED talk should be.
Sometimes I think some of those speakers actually get off on not getting to the point.

i would totally trust my life to a dude with a dueling scar.

I hope this actually works as well as their two cases claim to demonstrate. I'm just thinking it looks a lot like a crank medical device from long ago, and how many cases do they have negative correlation on.

Then again, Higgs Field Theory looks a lot like the concept of the ether.

So...how many people have to be in on it to make it a conspiracy?

At least two.

How long before the FDA starts taking him to court to revoke his medical license claiming it's frivolous medical practice and then, shortly thereafter,steals his patents claiming his advances in cancer treatment as his own?

ItachiNai: Why is it when I listen to this guy, when he starts in with his (false) description of what gravity is and how it works, do I find myself waiting for the final pitch, where he starts listing prices for magnetic bracelets?

Thank you. This is snake oil at its worst.

lohphat: BronyMedic: The only "electrical" therapy that's legitimate for cancer is the electricity which powers a Gamma Knife or Radiotherapy Machine, or the electrocautary tool used by a surgeon.

Because in science and medicine nothing ever changes and new therapies will never be developed.

FDA approves new medical device for form of brain cancer

It's a conspiracy.

A prospective, randomized, open-label, phase III clinical trial of NovoTTF-100A versus best standard of care chemotherapy in patients with recurrent glioblastoma. (new window) Yeah the American Society of Clinical Oncology are a bunch of easily duped researchers.

Novocure Reports Data Showing TTF Therapy in Combination With Chemotherapy Has the Potential to Increase Overall Survival for Patients With Advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (new window)

So...how many people have to be in on it to make it a conspiracy?


How many "Novo"s do we need in your screed to not believe you?

BronyMedic: The only "electrical" therapy that's legitimate for cancer is the electricity which powers a Gamma Knife or Radiotherapy Machine, or the electrocautary tool used by a surgeon.

Unlike most of the other stuff, there is at least a very specific, plausible, testable mechanism through which the treatment is said to act: Disturbing the formation of spindles by exploiting the polarity of the constituent molecules. There are laboratory observations consistent with this proposed mechanism. There are successful clinical trials.

These are all qualities which the quackery examples lack. That's what separates quackery from real research.
=Smidge=

BronyMedic: You're bordering on Crank Magnetism here.

I consider myself a healthily skeptical person, and I'd agree that there's a lot of nonsense out there.

But you are completely overlooking the facts that separate this from woo. Instead of addressing my points about why this very likely isn't quackery, you brush it off with a little handwaving and accuse me of being a crank myself. Think about how that makes you look.

While you're at it, think about how your inability to use proper links makes you look. There's even a button for it so not knowing how to type a link is not an excuse.
=Smidge=

spamdog: I confess - I've never had the patience to sit through a whole TED talk.

This. Also, the whole "ideas worth spreading" thing is about as pretentious as you can get.

foo monkey: s
I'll save you the trouble. Treating cancer with electrical fields is bullshiat.

Or not.

The University of Leeds did conduct trials on electromagnetic fields in aiding the repair of broken bones in 2001. The rats used showed a 12% decrease in the time taken for the bone to knit and a similar percentage increase in the strength of the repair when the "damaged" EM field was rebroadcast at the affected area stronger than the rats body could generate.

It's accepted that the body generates it's own EM field and when the body is ill/damaged in some way (like a broken bone) the EM field changes in that area; studies do suggest that by increasing the strength of this 'damaged' signal can help the body regenerate faster than normal.

This MAY help people with cancer when used in conjunction with other treatments. But using EM fields to enhance a human bodies natural healing abilities does work and is proven to do so.

ArcadianRefugee: spamdog: I confess - I've never had the patience to sit through a whole TED talk.

This. Also, the whole "ideas worth spreading" thing is about as pretentious as you can get.

Why? I saw a TED about a guy with a water filter built in to a jerry can & a bottle. It could process gallons of fetid water and produce clean. It would take less fuel to deliver empty bottles that could use the stagnant water left over in some natural disaster than it would pallet upon pallet of Evian. The filters were down to 1 micron in size so not even a virus was going to get through, the whole thing was recyclable and relatively cheap to mass produce.

Delivering pallets of them instead of bottled water certainly sounds like an "idea worth spreading" don't you think?

Smidge204:
While you're at it, think about how your inability to use proper links makes you look. There's even a button for it so not knowing how to type a link is not an excuse.
=Smidge=

Let them be dude they don't know how to Google.

Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Therapy (new window) First hit on Google for "Electromagnetic bone healing" I was aiming for the Leeds Uni white paper but I'll take a Wikipedia for an internet wall pissing contest.

For the lazy, if that's crank magnetism... why is NASA involved?

mitEj: I love TED talks, But work gets all biatchy about me watching Vids. :(

This is why I use my phone/slate during my lunch break. It's always a nice feeling to come back from lunch having learned something new.

ArcadianRefugee: spamdog: I confess - I've never had the patience to sit through a whole TED talk.

This. Also, the whole "ideas worth spreading" thing is about as pretentious as you can get.

You vote Republican, don't you?

Maxwell Dillon approves!

lohphat: spamdog: MrEricSir: I bet you'd have the patience to sit through this one. It's not even 4 minutes and it's a cool idea.

Done. That's how long every TED talk should be.
Sometimes I think some of those speakers actually get off on not getting to the point.

Welcome to the ADHD generation folks.

I don't need my ADHD to choose written or transcribed material over video or podcasts. I can scan for relevance, and I can read a darn sight faster than I can listen. I'm looking for information, not entertainment.

Okay, I'm looking for entertainment, too. But it's a lot easier to stay entertained when I can control the pace.

GodLessWarriorTM: 1. Why is it only effecting the cancer cells? Wouldn't the described mechanism for stopping/slowing mitosis effect all cells in the area? If not, why not? Why is the electrical field being modulated?

It would, and he never said it didn't. He said it doesn't effect cells that aren't dividing, not that it doesn't effect healthy cells at all. But certain types of cancer cells divide at a MUCH higher rate than normal cells, meaning they die off faster than normal tissues. Which is the goal.


GodLessWarriorTM: 2. Self administered take home kit™ that allows users to shell out money and place metal plates on their face?
This seems very suspicious to me. If it is to believed that the device is fine tuned for the location of the cancer how will a user be able to properly position the plates at the correct location?

It's called training. You'd be amazed at the number of things some patients end up doing on their own. Sticking bandages to your body is pretty boring compared to, say, sticking a tube up your own urethra and into your bladder...

As for alignment, I'd go with a sharpie and just mark where it goes. I doubt it needs to be uber-precise.


GodLessWarriorTM: 3. Testing did not include giving out non-functional devices. The test cited by the FDA gave patients either a working device or standard treatment.

"Okay, you all have extremely aggressive brain cancer. and have on average 6 months to live. We'll split you into three random groups - one group gets the current standard of treatment, the second group gets the experimental treatment, the third gets a placebo..."

Yeah, there are serious ethical issues doing clinical trials on humans you know. Doing a test comparing a new treatment to the best standard of current treatment is a common method for situations where the absence of treatment is guaranteed to result in a slow, painful death. I know it must come as a shock that it's actually illegal to treat people like lab rats...

Methinks your bullsh*t detector needs calibration.
=Smidge=

I suppose I should clarify this now: I'm not saying this is a new miracle cure and it absolutely works as advertised. What I'm arguing here is it passes the sniff test, nothing more.

The claim includes a specific mechanism of operation using known and accepted principals: An electrical field aligns molecules in the cells preventing the formation of the structures required to perform mitosis. We know a lot about the mechanisms of mitosis and about the molecules involved. We know that electrical fields align polar molecules (LCD screens don't work without this effect, for example).

It is sensical that a sufficiently strong electric field could overpower the inter-molecular forces enough to prevent mitosis from occurring, or introducing enough errors in the process to result in cell death.
=Smidge=

In the words noted research physicist and chemist Madame Curie, "Do it and then talk shiat about it" (le faire et puis parlez la merde à ce sujet).

Save the lecture for after you've proved it works - until then...

trippdogg: Save the lecture for after you've proved it works - until then...

ASCO Phase I trial abstract for lung cancer treatment^

ASCO Phase II trial abstract for lung cancer treatment^

FDA press release: Approved for brain cancer treatment^ plus paperwork associated with the FDA approval^

This is a pretty high level of proof that it works.
=Smidge=