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nisht: That’s not what Shomea K’oneh means.
stam: I think the government and medical establishment would be ecstatic if you cured cancer, and they wouldn’t care how. There are tens of thousands of doctors out there, they’re not all in the pocket of “big pharma”.
I asked my friends finishing medical school. None of them were approached by anyone to pay them big money to vaccinate people and keep all of the “other alternatives” quiet.
Did you know that free radical functions are necessary for us to live in the first place? Many internal bodily functions can’t happen without free radicals. That’s why our body has so many mechanisms (and needs certain vitamins) to help control reaction between free radicals and DNA.
stam: The Gerson Method may have been around for 70 years, but that doesn’t mean anything. It hasn’t been succeeding at anything for 70 years.
Extensively, from WIkipedia:
Gerson’s therapy has not been independently tested or subjected to randomized controlled trials, and thus is illegal to market in the United States.[1] The Gerson Institute promotes the therapy by citing patient testimonials and other anecdotal evidence.[13] Gerson published a book discussing the alleged success of the therapy in 50 patients, but a review by the U.S. National Cancer Institute was unable to find any evidence that Gerson’s claims were accurate.[1] The NCI found that no in vivo animal studies had been conducted. Similarly, case series by Gerson Institute staff published in the alternative medical literature suffered from methodological flaws, and no independent entity has been able to reproduce the claims.[1]
Attempts to independently check the results of the therapy have been negative. A group of 13 patients sickened by elements of the Gerson Therapy were evaluated in hospitals in San Diego in the early 1980s; all 13 were found to still have active cancer.[12] An investigation by Quackwatch found that the institute’s claims of cure were based not on actual documentation of survival, but on “a combination of the doctor’s estimate that the departing patient has a ‘reasonable chance of surviving’, plus feelings that the Institute staff have about the status of people who call in”.[14]
A 1994 article in the Journal of Naturopathic Medicine[15] attempted to follow 39 Gerson patients in Tijuana. Patient interviews were used to confirm the existence and stage of cancer; most patients were unaware of the stage of their tumor, and medical records were not available. Most patients were lost to follow-up; of the patients successfully followed, 10 died and six were alive at their last follow-up. Review of this study pointed out its “obvious flaws”, including “the majority of patients lost to follow-up, lack of access to detailed medical records, and reliance upon patients for disease stage information”; the authors themselves regarded the results as unclear.
The American Cancer Society reported that “[t]here is no reliable scientific evidence that Gerson therapy is effective in treating cancer, and the principles behind it are not widely accepted by the medical community. It is not approved for use in the United States.”[2] In 1947, the National Cancer Institute reviewed 10 claimed cures submitted by Gerson; however, all of the patients were receiving standard anticancer treatment simultaneously, making it impossible to determine what effect, if any, was due to Gerson’s therapy.[16] A review of the Gerson Therapy by Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center concluded: “If proponents of such therapies wish them to be evaluated scientifically and considered valid adjuvant treatments, they must provide extensive records (more than simple survival rates) and conduct controlled, prospective studies as evidence”.[3] In 1959, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) again reviewed cases of patients treated by Gerson. The NCI found that the available information did not prove the regimen had benefit. Cancer Research UK states that “Available scientific evidence does not support any claims that Gerson therapy can treat cancer […] Gerson therapy can be very harmful to your health.”[17]
Safety concerns[edit]
Gerson therapy can lead to several significant health problems. Serious illness and death have occurred as a direct result of some portions of the treatment, including severe electrolyte imbalances. Continued use of enemas may weaken the colon’s normal function, causing or worsening constipation and colitis. Other complications have included dehydration, serious infections and severe bleeding.[2]
The therapy may be especially hazardous to pregnant or breast-feeding women.[2]
Coffee enemas have contributed to the deaths of at least three people in the United States. Coffee enemas “can cause colitis (inflammation of the bowel), fluid and electrolyte imbalances, and in some cases septicemia”.[18] The recommended diet may not be nutritionally adequate.[19][20] The diet has been blamed for the deaths of patients who substituted it for standard medical care.[21]
Relying on the therapy alone while avoiding or delaying conventional medical care for cancer has serious health consequences.[2] Jessica Ainscough, better known as “The Wellness Warrior”, was a major proponent of the Gerson diet after her diagnosis with cancer. She rejected medical treatment and followed the diet strictly, documenting her progress in a popular online blog. She died from the cancer in February 2015, aged 30.[22]
stam: You found the cure for cancer. Why aren’t you a billionaire?
Better yet, I have two options for you. You’re either a liar by claiming that diet can cure cancer or you’re the biggest Shev V’al Ta’aseh murderer in human history for not sharing this information with the world.
Raf: That’s an important Machlokes Achronim. A minority opinion holds that you aren’t Yotzei Bein Adam L’chaveiros unless you have Kavanah for the Mitzvah. An even smaller minority holds that you aren’t Yotzei if you do have Kavanah.
And what reason is that? Do you have any sort of Makor for that Svara?
I see no reason to think the Kavanah of the answerer is affected at all by the Kavanah of the reciter.
feivel: That’s why I made the Chiluk between meaning something to him and the Zchus to the Niftar. The Gemara (Tosefta?) says that the Zchus to the Niftar comes from other people answering Amen Yehei Shmei Rabbah-i.e. you are causing them to praise Hashem. So whether you are fully cognizant of those words or not should have no bearing on what it means to the people responding.
stam: Of course vaccines have side-effects. And in our lawsuit culture, companies are forced to protect themselves. So vaccine-makers, which are literally saving billions of lives, are forced to charge extra to protect themselves. Do you know what the Halachah would be Al Pi Torah? If someone is an expert in a field that people need (e.g. doctors), you can’t sue for damages if they make a mistake because the greater good dictates that they need to be able to do their jobs and not be scared of being sued.
Wolf: If it makes you feel better, realize that the Zechus to the Niftar from Kaddish has nothing to do with you understanding or meaning the words (that would be a Zechus to yourself). It comes from the Tzibbur’s answers of Amen and such. So it’s more important that they hear and answer you than for you to understand.
Wow. I checked the wikipedia page. Lots of people blame AIDS on… vaccines. Sometimes you just can’t make this stuff up…
…lolwut?
stam: Many perfectly healthy people get AIDS. That’s certainly a virus. Ebola is still very lethal to healthy people (though more lethal to less healthy people). Your theory doesn’t line up.
stam: Scarlet fever was not eradicated. It still exists. We just have antibiotics for it now. So when kids get it, we put them on penicillin and they get better. It’s still there. It’s just not lethal anymore.
Some diseases lessened in frequency as hygiene got better. Others didn’t. For example, 2 million people died of smallpox as late as 1967.
And the Jews and bubonic plague thing is a myth. Jews were blamed for “poisoning the wells” because Jews were blamed for everything. Historians have shown that Jews died at about the same rate as the general population. There were just some cities where the disease wasn’t spread to the Jewish areas because the Jews had little contact with their non-Jewish neighbors.
So where do viruses and bacteria fit into your “cell health” theory? How does the immune system work?
Please, cite people (a significant number of documented cases) who say their kids changed after being vaccinated.
stam a deya: You never saw damage firsthand. At best, you have seen correlation. Because unless you have mapped these children’s genomes and followed exactly what changed in each cell after the vaccine was administered, you can’t know. You saw a correlation. People see false correlations all the time.
Please, explain to me what cellular health means and how vaccines change it.
Smallpox killed about half a billion people per century until we eradicated it. But it’s good to know that you can’t honestly say that having vaccines at all has been a good thing.
stam a deya: Isn’t it so nice when people have their minds made up about facts and now amount of proof can change their minds? My friends totally understand this and that’s why they fully support my decision to believe the world is flat.
In #2 you seem to not understand how vaccines work, among other things. How would a vaccine change a person’s “cellular health”, whatever that means anyway?
In #3, there is no evidence whatsoever linking vaccines to autism. Like, this is the most-researched scientific idea of the last decade. No one has found anything at all.
Also, please answer Joseph’s question. Do you want no one vaccinated for anything?
DY: Sort of, but it’s not inherent. The number of and response to radicals weighs heavily on what the community itself thinks.
I don’t know what blogs you read, but there is no one really (except edited) who don’t have at least some people strongly defending them.
A large, large percentage of the Jewish blogosphere is heavily critical of Avi Weiss, Ysoschor Katz, and Open Orthodoxy.
It’s good to know where Joseph’s true loyalties now lie 😛
DY: No. But the Chareidi community has failed to recognize that there are too many of those in their community and that the constant addition of Chumros has bred that attitude in far too many people.
Health: It’s shocking. People (including someone quoted in this thread) actually think polio didn’t exist.
And I bet it shocks these Jewish anti-vaxxers that there could ever be someone who believes the Holocaust didn’t happen.
baryochai: I’d rather find someone who has older unvaccinated kids and younger vaccinated one. In today’s atmosphere about these things, the original choice not to vaccinate almost always means you already have an axe to grind. At best, I would call any statement by such parents confirmation bias.
(That being said, you’re still not providing evidence or at least an anecdote about this. You’re just telling me that this is what parents will say. At least give me a way to Google to find a firsthand testimony of what you’re claiming.)
I could give the city and the names of the people involved, if that helps. The city was Beitar. The people involved I really shouldn’t (and am hopefully not allowed to) name.
I know of a very Frum elderly woman who was visiting her grandchildren in Beitar in Eretz Yisrael. She had serious eye problems (glaucoma and others) and it was a bright summer day. She wore her prescription sunglasses when walking outside and was yelled at by some local teenagers and called a Prutzah. Then someone came up to her and took her sunglasses away, saying it’s not proper for a Bas Yisrael to wear them. The sunlight did serious damage to her eyes and her great-grandson (who told me the story) said it was a Nes that she didn’t need emergency surgery to fix what happened. She couldn’t go outside for over a week, though.
baryochai: You don’t even understand simple math! all old people are mostly unvaxed, the vaxed ones are maximum in their 60s & dying from cancer in front their paretns eyes
Let me explain something to you. Do you know how many people are above the age of 60 right now? Do you know how many were above the age of 60 in the 1960s? Life expectancy is rising (well, it may have been sort of stagnant for the last decade or so last I checked, but it is certainly much higher than even three decades ago). The infant and adolescent mortality rates are way down. People were dying of cancer at 60 50 years ago too. They often just didn’t know what cancer was then. People are living much longer now.
Also, your whole premise is absurd. There is absolutely NOTHING linking vaccines to these things. So much in the world has changed in the last 50 years. There is more of certain types of pollutions, there are cell phone towers, there are computers, there are different bases going into our paints, there are different materials going into our buildings. It is absolutely insane to pretend to know that your claimed, unproven (untestable, really) rise in younger deaths is due to vaccines.
feivel: I am not offended by Chumros. Everyone has Chumros (or, to quote someone about the Briker Rov, “He didn’t have any Chumros; he just had a different Ikkar HaDin). I think the insinuation that someone who doesn’t like taking Chumros isn’t interested in making Hashem happy is unfair and wrong.
The problem is, by putting your comment on this thread (even though you qualified it with a second comment), you are lending weight to the notion that there is no such thing as a bad Chumra (of which this certainly is one; I know of several horror stories about this in particular).
If I was a woman, I certainly would not want to marry anyone who would refuse to marry me based on my (lack of) cooking abilities.
baryochai: I can make ridiculous claims too and use that to make something sound illegitimate. I would call your grandmother thing a straw man, but it’s not even that. It’s just silly. If I claim that going to the bathroom cures cancer, will you stop going to the bathroom because breathing obviously doesn’t help anything?
I have read Humphries. She is an absolute nut. Seriously. She argues that the existence of polio as the cause of all of those child deaths and paralyzed kids until the first half of the 20th century is a myth. Like, she actually claims polio didn’t kill people. She claims that vaccines did nothing to eradicate smallpox. Seriously. If she had it her way, we’d still have millions dying of smallpox every single year because the vaccine doesn’t really do anything. She does not belong in polite (or even impolite) discussion except for the possible Shailah of whether her promoting her views makes her a Rodef.
Do you have any idea at all how much the infant mortality rate has dropped in the past few decades, let alone the last century? It’s not because we have better medicines and doctors. No, of course not.
Also, your presumption of anecdotal evidence (you don’t even cite any, you just say that parents can do it) isn’t proof of anything. You claimed that unvaccinated kids develop faster. Prove it. Show me one study or one reliable something that backs up your claim.
baryochai: I cannot believe I’m seeing these things.
Polio was an epidemic that killed thousands of children a year and left tens of thousands paralyzed. We have a vaccine, and now polio is almost gone. It’s amazing. Baruch Hashem He gave us an opportunity to avoid this.
What is the percentage of non-vaccinated kids that suffer from asthma?
Show me a study linking vaccines to developmental delays. It doesn’t exist. So where do you have that info from?
I take strong offense at feivel’s insinuation that those who don’t like certain (or too many) Chumros don’t have proper appreciation for what HKBH gave us and don’t want to bring Nachas to Him.
nisht: I hear your Chiluk. I hope you hear mine between ridiculing a Shittah and ridiculing a person. I would never ridicule any Frum person, no matter how wrong they are (whether they are a Gadol or not). I will ridicule a Shittah (such as I do to Joseph’s often 😛 ) if necessary, and even that of a Gadol if absolutely necessary. (Though I would obviously be hesitant to do so; in this case I would have no qualms, however, because I honestly think it’s an issue of Pikuach Nefesh. It also helps that my point of Machlokes with these Gedolim here is on an issue of science/Metzius, not Halachah.)
nisht: I’m just curious, but is there ever an instance where you would allow an insult to a Gadol (also, I haven’t been Medayek in all the posts but it seemed to many that many were using strong language against a Psak, not an individual)? Let’s say a bona fide Gadol would say something indisputably evil. Would it be okay to strongly disagree with that Psak? Or once someone becomes a “Gadol” it is impossible to ever disagree with them ever?
YU’s running out of boys like that. There are some, but tons of YU guys just want to stay in learning forever.
achosid: Well, that’s not fair. Once they’re forcefully vaccinated, no need to keep them out of school.
Many people have tried to get R’ Shmuel to be Chozer on this when he said it last time. It’s very unfortunate that people have managed to fool him in this and now they’re fooling other Rabbonim as well.
Check out the Rambam Iggeres Techiyas HaMeisim, but what he says is far from the standard assumption of what it will be like.
Joseph: Also, false. R’ Shlomo Zalman held that this Shittah of the Tzitz Eliezer is one that can be relied on (or, at least, he didn’t outright reject it).
R’ Moshe held that abortions are murder, no matter what (after 40 days). The Tzitz Eliezer famously held otherwise.
Can we stop quoting these Shittos please? They are wholly and entirely rejected by every major Posek in the last century, most notably (and strongly) R’ Moshe Feinstein.
Joseph: That’s a B’feirush Gemara in Sanhedrin. I don’t remember what it says, but the case is there.
Not force feeding is a D’Oraisa violation of Lo Sa’amod Al Dam Reiecha.
newbee: I don’t get your question. Halachta Bidrachav doesn’t mean that we are obligated to create universes. It means we strive to emulate HKBH’s Middos. Not every Chiyuv in Mitzvos stems from this. So there’s a separate Mitzvah of Bechol Nafshecha that’s separate from Halachta Bidrachav.
Joseph: it could be several other Issurim. Many assume it can’t be Lo Sirtzach because that, by definition, is on another person.
Syag: It’s a fine line. Being the only Jewish store in town and knowing that the community will feel bad for/support you doesn’t give a right to overcharge, as unfortunately often happens.
Honestly, he probably lost a lot of support. He’s holding the GOP hostage with his third-party thread, showed his entire lack of loyalty and, honestly, will not win a fight against Megyn Kelly (which he doubled down on with some disgusting personal comments on CNN yesterday).
R’ Ovadia Yosef used to prove that Ma’asehs didn’t happen because they’re against Gemaras.
Nisht: I have never heard such claims of Uri L’tzedek, but I am uninformed. If you could provide sources, I would be happy to read them.
If this restaurant is having money coerced out of them by a bad organization, all the more reason to shop there.
Red carpets are Chukas Akum.
I mean, it’s not a negative. If you also have a Hechsher, you’re still Kosher. And if you want someone you think certifies that you’re being nice to your workers and stuff, why is that a negative?
Nisht: That’s not fair. A lot of restaurants don’t know better. And they think it’s a good thing to certify that they treat their employees nicely and whatever.
zogt: I’ll have to search for Mekoros. I know I’ve seen some that reject him explicitly but everyone’s implicit rejection by just quoting the Rambam also says a lot.