Posted by Cam W. on August 17, 2001, at 5:12:44
In reply to Re: that other thread » Cam W., posted by Elizabeth on August 17, 2001, at 2:54:10
Elizabeth - I am hoping that the bullets I am putting up make it easier to see my answers.
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> > > As I'm sure we all realise, "access" doesn't imply reading and understanding.
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> > •I am not sure that all of the posters and lurkers would understand the implications.
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> How so? (I'm afraid your explanation here has only served to make me more confused! :) )
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•• I'm not sure that I will still make sense on this, but here goes. A person says he/she has access to journals, and then posts the abstracts. Wouldn't some of the lay public assume that this person at least understands what he is posting. For example, the layperson may believe that the person understands what the article is really saying, thus the layperson may assume the artical has been verified and is the truth, rather than a theory (or whatever). A more specific example; and doctors fall into this trap, too; a drug company puts out a study by a leading expert saying that their drug is significantly better than a competitor's drug, for a certain indication. But when you look at the data, the sample size this is derived from is very small, and the result is only significant using fancy statistics. The layperson may not understand that, from a clinical point of view, that the study is really worthless, unless it is confirmed by subsequent randomized-placebo-control trials in naturalistic settings using a much, much larger, and diverse, population. Therefore, the person using his access, can fool the layperson into thinking that the study was critiqued properly, and can take the information as gospel. Did I read too much into this?
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> > The delayed weight gain with Paxil or the increase in non-insulin-dependent diabetes with Clozaril or Zyprexa users are examples of subjective experiences that were pooh-poohed because there was no objective information in the literature.
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> I think that phenelzine can also contribute to type 2 diabetes, no?
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•• Yeah, I think so, but not to the degree we are seeing it with Clozaril and Zyprexa. Even people who do not have risk factors (eg. not overweight or have not gained a lot of weight) are still becoming diabetic. I'll let minds greater than mine figure this one out. Also, the extent we are seeing it with atypicals over MAOIs is possibly due to the difference in sheer numbers of patients using these two classes of drugs.
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> > The posts we answer here are of the subjective nature, where we have to be careful not to read into the case, something that isn't there (hard to do sometimes).
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> Exactly. And that's one reason why I think that it's important not to generalise personal experience to other people. At the same time, we may discover by reading this board that other people have had similar experiences to our own, which suggests that the experience may be caused by the medication (or whatever) in question.
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•• Good point.And a good exchange; it was fun. Thanks. - Cam
poster:Cam W.
thread:67742
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010814/msgs/75363.html