Michael Harrop
Active member
The problem has even spread to the mods of /r/ScienceBasedParenting who previously created some fantastic rules to make that sub a haven from the type of unintelligent, emotional, anti-scientific behavior that is now rampant there.
GBS is an easy example. 1 in 200 babies are thought to be at risk for severe outcomes, so all 200 mothers are given antibiotics just in case. This is 400 people being permanently harmed in order to attempt to save one life.
First of all, there should be major debate on where the cut-off should be for "justified harm to innocents in order to save one person". Harming 400 to save 1 seems VERY extreme. I think that most people would agree with this. Thus the popular reaction seems to be to deny that the 400 are even being harmed. Unfortunately, it's well-established that they are. It's unconscionable that a handful of people are quietly deciding that harming 400 to save 1 is acceptable. Even if it was "harm 60% to save 40% that would be extremely debatable. Where the appropriate cut-off is, I don't know. But we do know that the gut microbiome impacts and regulates virtually every aspect of human health, function, and development https://humanmicrobiome.info/intro/. So damaging it is not something to take lightly.
Cost-benefit analysis is an essential part of intelligent, evidence-based, ethical decision-making. Discarding it for emotion & fear-based decisions is incredibly harmful, unintelligent, and anti-scientific. It is neither intelligent nor ethical to attempt to keep everyone alive at all costs. There are certain costs which are too great. And that's a big, debatable grey area that should be heavily and widely debated, not swept under the rug.
Whether or not you agree on treatment with antibiotics in a particular case, lying about the facts should be anathema in any science-based discussion. You cannot make ethical, informed decisions based on misinformation. Spreading misinformation because you're emotional about the implications of the truth is incredibly harmful, unintelligent, and anti-scientific.
Secondly, GBS is a good example because it's a case of antibiotic overuse – antibiotic use where the evidence does not support it's use. Antibiotic overuse is rampant. It's a recognized problem, but very little is done about it, and it's almost always only raised as a concern in regards to antibiotic resistance, despite collateral damage likely being a much greater concern.
But for a moment we'll assume that antibiotics for GBS is well-proven to be evidence-based to save the 1 out of 200 infants.
So we have 200 babies, and one of them is sick/weak enough to die.
a) You're a healthy parent and willing to let yourself, your child, and 398 other people be permanently harmed in order to save 1 infant.
Is that noble? Is it intelligent? Is it ethical?
b) You're an unhealthy parent so you're scared about your unhealthy child dying. You don't care about the 398 other healthy children & mothers who will be permanently harmed to save yours.
I would think there is nothing noble or intelligent or ethical about this (b) position. The obvious solution would be to not create an unhealthy child if you're unhealthy. And it's depressing that so many people are so selfish to be unwilling to do that. I want a mini-me. So what if it will be sickly and suffer. So what if there will be consequences for many others. I want one.
Either way, the outcome is that 400 people are now permanently harmed. And we know this harm compounds over generations. Harms from antibiotics are vast, and make you more reliant on those antibiotics to do the job of the now-damaged immune system and missing microbes that the antibiotics killed off.
So antibiotic use must increase even further now that you've made this decision.
This is a downward spiral that seems to be playing a major role in the exponential rise in chronic disease and general poor health & brain function. The result is Idiocracy. It's an unsustainable approach that is causing us to head in the direction of societal & planetary collapse and extinguishing of the human race.
How would you reverse it if there is no one left who is undamaged by this policy? I've personally been damaged from it and have been trying to find such undamaged people who might hold the ability to reverse it. After screening over 50,000 people I still haven't found one. Many people think such individuals don't even exist in modern society anymore, and thus believe that excluded tribes are the only hope.
Well, that's not reliable either. They have pathogens, and some emotional geniuses gave them antibiotics as well; based on the same unintelligent, unscientific thinking (but even worse since antibiotics were never studied to be effective and safe on that demographic, and they knew very well that a major value of that population was their lack of exposure to antibiotics).
There is also evidence that not even FMT can reverse all the damage done from antibiotics [1]. And even if it could, damage done during the developmental stage of life is far more permanent – Eg: you can't unbake a cake.
That is not my position. The main problem is unnecessary antibiotic use.
NO ONE benefits from non-evidence-based antibiotic use. It is only harmful. Well, the people/companies making money off the usage temporarily benefit (to the detriment of a large portion of the population).
Your emotions for your child are completely irrelevant, and will in fact do far more harm than good. Protecting your child and making the best decisions for your child requires you to be logical and unemotional.
Antibiotic overuse is rampant, according to current prescription guidelines (see below). This doesn't even cover the fact that current guidelines are likely FAR too lenient (Eg) due to the fact that nearly all of them only factor in antibiotic resistance and ignore collateral damage.
Antibiotics should be the last option, limited mostly to well-established life-threatening cases. Not handed out like candy as one of the first options, as is currently the case.
There needs to be major focus on researching and switching to alternatives, but that can't happen until people start taking the harms of antibiotics seriously.
I said that I don't see the issue being solved until the entire medical system is replaced with AI because individuals of all professions are far too flawed to be making such important decisions.
Someone responded that AI will never replace human doctors and statistical decisions are ruthless for the individual. This is false, and a good example of why most people are not qualified to be making these sorts of decisions.
A statistical decision is the most optimal and ethical one. Your emotions add nothing of value; only harm.
If a statistical analysis weighs all the evidence, does a cost-benefit analysis, and concludes that the costs outweigh the benefits in X case, and a human overrules that due to emotions, the human is only doing harm by making an objectively incorrect decision.
The follow-up comment in that chain saying "My hospital's Epic system has told me just about everything under the sun is sepsis" shows a flaw of their Epic system. It shows that the Epic system is currently far too unsophisticated and not advanced enough. That says nothing for the potential that AI has.
Note that my claim is not that AI is currently ready to replace everyone in the medical system. I never predicted when such a thing may transpire. I merely said I don't see these issues being solved until it does.
As long as humans continue to advance without major societal collapse, AI replacing the medical system and most other current-jobs is inevitable. Not only are humans flawed, but we're severely deficient when compared to AI – IE: our memory. There is far too much data for humans to review and take into account https://forum.humanmicrobiome.info/threads/doctors-are-not-systematically-updated-on-the-latest-literature-what-t.27/.
Another example of poor reading comprehension and emotion taking over a person's ability to calmly and rationally engage in productive discussion. Ask yourself why you lack the ability to engage in emotionless, objective, logical analysis and discussion. Could it be that your biological functions are damaged? IE: the gut-brain axis. What if everyone, or even merely a majority of people, were similarly malfunctioning? Wouldn't that be cause for alarm? Can you see how that would be extremely problematic for you individually if everyone reacted to you, or to things you care about, that way?
So it's primarily extremely unhealthy people who need antibiotics. Thus, indiscriminately giving them to everyone is doing unnecessary harm to healthy people.
Original 03 Oct 2022 (44 comments).
GBS is an easy example. 1 in 200 babies are thought to be at risk for severe outcomes, so all 200 mothers are given antibiotics just in case. This is 400 people being permanently harmed in order to attempt to save one life.
First of all, there should be major debate on where the cut-off should be for "justified harm to innocents in order to save one person". Harming 400 to save 1 seems VERY extreme. I think that most people would agree with this. Thus the popular reaction seems to be to deny that the 400 are even being harmed. Unfortunately, it's well-established that they are. It's unconscionable that a handful of people are quietly deciding that harming 400 to save 1 is acceptable. Even if it was "harm 60% to save 40% that would be extremely debatable. Where the appropriate cut-off is, I don't know. But we do know that the gut microbiome impacts and regulates virtually every aspect of human health, function, and development https://humanmicrobiome.info/intro/. So damaging it is not something to take lightly.
Cost-benefit analysis is an essential part of intelligent, evidence-based, ethical decision-making. Discarding it for emotion & fear-based decisions is incredibly harmful, unintelligent, and anti-scientific. It is neither intelligent nor ethical to attempt to keep everyone alive at all costs. There are certain costs which are too great. And that's a big, debatable grey area that should be heavily and widely debated, not swept under the rug.
Whether or not you agree on treatment with antibiotics in a particular case, lying about the facts should be anathema in any science-based discussion. You cannot make ethical, informed decisions based on misinformation. Spreading misinformation because you're emotional about the implications of the truth is incredibly harmful, unintelligent, and anti-scientific.
Secondly, GBS is a good example because it's a case of antibiotic overuse – antibiotic use where the evidence does not support it's use. Antibiotic overuse is rampant. It's a recognized problem, but very little is done about it, and it's almost always only raised as a concern in regards to antibiotic resistance, despite collateral damage likely being a much greater concern.
But for a moment we'll assume that antibiotics for GBS is well-proven to be evidence-based to save the 1 out of 200 infants.
So we have 200 babies, and one of them is sick/weak enough to die.
a) You're a healthy parent and willing to let yourself, your child, and 398 other people be permanently harmed in order to save 1 infant.
Is that noble? Is it intelligent? Is it ethical?
b) You're an unhealthy parent so you're scared about your unhealthy child dying. You don't care about the 398 other healthy children & mothers who will be permanently harmed to save yours.
I would think there is nothing noble or intelligent or ethical about this (b) position. The obvious solution would be to not create an unhealthy child if you're unhealthy. And it's depressing that so many people are so selfish to be unwilling to do that. I want a mini-me. So what if it will be sickly and suffer. So what if there will be consequences for many others. I want one.
Either way, the outcome is that 400 people are now permanently harmed. And we know this harm compounds over generations. Harms from antibiotics are vast, and make you more reliant on those antibiotics to do the job of the now-damaged immune system and missing microbes that the antibiotics killed off.
So antibiotic use must increase even further now that you've made this decision.
This is a downward spiral that seems to be playing a major role in the exponential rise in chronic disease and general poor health & brain function. The result is Idiocracy. It's an unsustainable approach that is causing us to head in the direction of societal & planetary collapse and extinguishing of the human race.
How would you reverse it if there is no one left who is undamaged by this policy? I've personally been damaged from it and have been trying to find such undamaged people who might hold the ability to reverse it. After screening over 50,000 people I still haven't found one. Many people think such individuals don't even exist in modern society anymore, and thus believe that excluded tribes are the only hope.
Well, that's not reliable either. They have pathogens, and some emotional geniuses gave them antibiotics as well; based on the same unintelligent, unscientific thinking (but even worse since antibiotics were never studied to be effective and safe on that demographic, and they knew very well that a major value of that population was their lack of exposure to antibiotics).
There is also evidence that not even FMT can reverse all the damage done from antibiotics [1]. And even if it could, damage done during the developmental stage of life is far more permanent – Eg: you can't unbake a cake.
What is the main problem? What is my position?
Someone [purposely] misinterpreted my position to be "parents should let their children potentially die of easily curable infections rather than using antibiotics".That is not my position. The main problem is unnecessary antibiotic use.
What does that mean?
Antibiotic overuse is when evidence does not support the use of antibiotics for a particular case.NO ONE benefits from non-evidence-based antibiotic use. It is only harmful. Well, the people/companies making money off the usage temporarily benefit (to the detriment of a large portion of the population).
Your emotions for your child are completely irrelevant, and will in fact do far more harm than good. Protecting your child and making the best decisions for your child requires you to be logical and unemotional.
Antibiotic overuse is rampant, according to current prescription guidelines (see below). This doesn't even cover the fact that current guidelines are likely FAR too lenient (Eg) due to the fact that nearly all of them only factor in antibiotic resistance and ignore collateral damage.
Antibiotics should be the last option, limited mostly to well-established life-threatening cases. Not handed out like candy as one of the first options, as is currently the case.
There needs to be major focus on researching and switching to alternatives, but that can't happen until people start taking the harms of antibiotics seriously.
AI:
Dr Martin Blaser mentions in his book "Missing Microbes" that this issue may only be balanced out if parents start suing doctors/hospitals for antibiotic overuse. Personally, I don't find that to be a tenable solution (for a variety of reasons).I said that I don't see the issue being solved until the entire medical system is replaced with AI because individuals of all professions are far too flawed to be making such important decisions.
Someone responded that AI will never replace human doctors and statistical decisions are ruthless for the individual. This is false, and a good example of why most people are not qualified to be making these sorts of decisions.
A statistical decision is the most optimal and ethical one. Your emotions add nothing of value; only harm.
If a statistical analysis weighs all the evidence, does a cost-benefit analysis, and concludes that the costs outweigh the benefits in X case, and a human overrules that due to emotions, the human is only doing harm by making an objectively incorrect decision.
The follow-up comment in that chain saying "My hospital's Epic system has told me just about everything under the sun is sepsis" shows a flaw of their Epic system. It shows that the Epic system is currently far too unsophisticated and not advanced enough. That says nothing for the potential that AI has.
Note that my claim is not that AI is currently ready to replace everyone in the medical system. I never predicted when such a thing may transpire. I merely said I don't see these issues being solved until it does.
As long as humans continue to advance without major societal collapse, AI replacing the medical system and most other current-jobs is inevitable. Not only are humans flawed, but we're severely deficient when compared to AI – IE: our memory. There is far too much data for humans to review and take into account https://forum.humanmicrobiome.info/threads/doctors-are-not-systematically-updated-on-the-latest-literature-what-t.27/.
Another example of poor reading comprehension and emotion taking over a person's ability to calmly and rationally engage in productive discussion. Ask yourself why you lack the ability to engage in emotionless, objective, logical analysis and discussion. Could it be that your biological functions are damaged? IE: the gut-brain axis. What if everyone, or even merely a majority of people, were similarly malfunctioning? Wouldn't that be cause for alarm? Can you see how that would be extremely problematic for you individually if everyone reacted to you, or to things you care about, that way?
Antibiotic overuse:
So it's primarily extremely unhealthy people who need antibiotics. Thus, indiscriminately giving them to everyone is doing unnecessary harm to healthy people.
Informed consent:
As /u/bestplatypusever helpfully pointed out, I neglected to mention the informed consent issue:Original 03 Oct 2022 (44 comments).
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