Hello, she is wrong, but it is worth reading and thinking about one line of thinking which defends the current situation of alzheimers research/science/thinking/scare tactics. Lisa agrees there are no standards by which we can all, always agree on if you do or do not have some disease labeled as alzheimers disease.. Like cancer she asserts, just because we dont know what causes it, doesnt mean we shouldnt spend million/billions of dollars attempting to treat it (even I might add with treatments which all but guarantee a trade off between a failing quality of life - but relatively long, and a higher quality of life - but relatively shorter. Cancer tumors do kill folks/ do attack their healthy organs. Today Alzheimers plaques (how can a label - with no science) are now claimed to suddenly be ending the lives of thousands. Ever since the Nuns autopsy study we have know that we all live with amyloid deposits, tau plaques, and otherwise deteriorating brains as we age. But we all dont, in fact none of us have the same progression, symptoms, and deaths (vaguely attributed to Alzheimers disease.) . For years alzheimers disease never appeared as a cause of death on a death certificate. Thanks to awfulizers and the constant reminders we are all going to die who are living with alzheimers), the pseudo/thus far mythical disease now (just within the last few years) has starting appearing on the death certificates of more and more elders. Perhaps the gold standard is simply fools gold? Just because we dont like what happens to us when we grow old, and like it even less in some than others, do we have to label them as diseased proclaiming they are fading away, refer to their brains as rotten or half empty?And must we hang or to or ignore what was once thought of as scientific proof, but now science has moved on from the flat earth to the round ball earth) simply because it is a useful mistruth to repeat because our view of a flat universe and our race to build a large space ship to avoid the cost of growing very old - probably alzheimers as we fall off the edge of it? She points to heart disease as an example of something whose cause we dont know. I agree. And tdo we promote and sponsor fun runs to cure this awful disease? Or, we spend money on figuring out how to help those living with it? Where does most of the effort/dollars/press releases go - towards the holy cure or towards creating and maintaining healthy hearts? And where does Alzheimers research/money/press releases go? Psychosocial research - improving the quality of life of those who live with the condition and/or are living life styles which seem to predict it -but wait you cant make as much money from selling an apple or a jogging suit, or hosting a run for the cure (formerly called Memory Walks. as you could make for a cure pill for heart disease, and what if we could vaccinate ourselves against (dare I say something who cause we dont know? There is little profit in cure, almost unlimited in avoidance pills. Lastly she claims Peter and Danny want to end all cure research? Its a straw argument - exaggering an argument and then attacking the exaggeration. We is needed, now, based on what we know, what we have learned after spending millions and millions on research and still being unable to identify a cause or a cure, it s balance between psychosocial research - studying how to improve the quality of lives of lost living with the symptoms of dementia of this or that probable type, and cures. Right now there simply is no balance. The national plan could have been titled the full employment act for alzheimers researchers interested in their own ideas of what causes alzheimers and how to cure it. We have been following that unwritten plan for twenty five years. Led by the breathlessly announced breakthroughs, lights at the end of tunnels, almost there press releases of The National Alzheimers Association. Now they have added insult to injury and promote their own fund raising efforts by reminding us all that all of us living with the symptoms will DIE, we will be best characterized as SUFFERNS, SHELLs of our form selves. This strategy would simply be absurd and laughable were it not so effective in keeping this unbalance as the status quo. Attacks on The Myth of Alzheimers when that is simply another way of labeling a label for which there is no scientific proof of its existence are wrongheaded to say the least. At worst they contribute to the science less hope of others desperate for hope. Others who bare the cost of an awful today for an even more awful tomorrow in hope of a better day after tomorrow. A hope which has no hints, no growing consensus, a supporters outside some well indended and some not so well intended alzheimers disease small community. When opinion leaders such as Lisa question the science of scientists, when deeply invested caregivers write, walk for a cure - this inspite of twenthy five years of others walking and making no discernable progress...when all this happens it time for people with dmentia to stand up and speak out. I ask you to read her words and think about them. Then you too decide. I have just done so. She is wrong! Richard Taylor
Posted on: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 06:27:05 +0000
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