Paleo Pete's Quackery Record

No one should have the right to force something on us to ingest against our consent. It is not the Council’s nor the Water Supplier to dose us with “medicine” which is not approved as a medicine.

A democratic society is a balancing act between the rights of the collective and the individual, a government that goes too far in either direction has failed in its duty. Part of that is accepting that some people sometimes will be uncomfortable with the results, if you swing so far that the collectivists are always happy you have wronged the individualists, and vice versa. We must accept compromise.

Nearly all of us accept that making safety measures compulsory is acceptable sometimes. Seat belts, baby capsules, isolation in times of pandemic, sobriety while driving and no DIY electrical work all benefit the collective (and the individual) while arguably taking away some level of freedom from the individual. In some cases such measures mainly benefit the individual and some cases mainly society at large, or both.

Applying the same standards to something you describe as ‘medicine’ is no different, the evaluation of net benefit is just the same as seat belts or the Building Code of Australia. Widespread vaccination campaigns are a good example, it is hard to find any initiative that has saved more lives and prevented more misery with the possibility of clean water supplies and sewerage systems. In some cases society is justified in asking individuals to conform to protect itself. Likewise fluoridation of water supplies is not categorically different because you call it medicine.

Supplying fluoride through drinking water is the cheapest and most effective way of delivery and I see no ethical problem in doing so. If you object in principle then welcome to democracy - there are a few things I object to as well but I don’t expect to get my way soon. If you really believe the fluoride is doing you harm, I think you are wrong, all I can suggest is getting a good water filter.

Let us not forget the slippery slope argument.

If we permit compulsory medication for one thing that is the first step towards allowing them give us whatever they want.

This isn’t true, each situation is judged on its own merits. Just because we accepted baby capsules does not mean the next step is straight jackets for political opponents. And anyway chemtrails are already delivering our daily dose of tranquiliser so there is no point in adding it to the water as well.

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:rofl: 72% Chance of being unsuccessful.

https://www.health.qld.gov.au/public-health/industry-environment/environment-land-water/water/fluoridation

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Paleo Pete has really shot himself in the foot this time.

https://www.9news.com.au/national/pete-evans-books-pulled-from-big-w-after-controversial-social-media-post/6b4d09b7-3c51-43a0-b1ee-6770b319abda

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Pete is such an interesting bloke. One particular area of interest is the way he musters so much confidence and panache in saying so little. For example:

"Sincere apologies to anyone who misinterpreted a previous post of a caterpillar and a butterfly having a chat over a drink and perceived that I was promoting hatred,” he said. “I look forward to studying all of the symbols that have ever existed and research them thoroughly before posting.”

This is a foolish argument wrapped up with a ‘sorry, not sorry’ apology. There is no reason for him to study all the symbols that have ever existed just the ones he uses in his posts - a much smaller and entirely manageable number. I have no idea if he was promoting hatred or not but anybody in the media ought to know that that casually using nazi symbols is not on even if done through ignorance.

But no - we get this grumpy complaint that too much is being asked of him. His problem is obviously caused by the Political Correction Police attacking him psychically through the ether. Sneaky beggars.

It may be that this reaction from the publisher was the last straw or already in the works, it isn’t necessarily just because of this offence.

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FB has ‘recognised’ Pete and pulled his page. Hopefully it might be a one-way trip? Even FB is starting to have its limits. Now if they would address the trolls and bots and shonky marketplace sellers…

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edit: More

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Fantastic news.

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Fake news, censorship, how can you have a free society when liberals rule the media. Lack of evidence is no reason to prevent free expression.

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Why not?

If the actions taken were strictly followed few would know of Donald Trump, other than his gaining the US Presidency in 2016. The rest would be a blank entry in Wikipedia, mostly known as the forgotten years.

Ignoring something is hardly likely to make it go away.
The internet remains an open forum. It may be better to know there are PP’s in this world.

Facebooks actions do set a precedent. It’s unlikely all similar content will be removed or members deleted. As much as some might expect removing access will eliminate the cause.

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But strong evidence that the things being expressed are harmful is a very good reason to prevent it.

We’d expect Facebook to remove content promoting terrorism. Pete Evans encouraging others to transmit covid to others really isn’t that different.

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A good example of the limitations of the medium. I should perhaps have appended an irony emoticon, if there is such a thing.

For the record; I do not agree that one ought to be able to say whatever you please in public because of some imagined right of free speech. There are some situations when words can harm the community more than the value of preserving freedom to say them and in that case they should be silenced.

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Except that the reduction in flights during this pandemic has resulted in less tranquilising agent being delivered and hence less tranquillity.

The idea that Australians enjoy total freedom of speech is fanciful. Neither do the citizens of the United States, whatever they may think. Both ‘Paleo Pete’ and the current US president have in my opinion overstepped the bounds even of US law and caused terrible harm by their words.

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That’s very perspicacious, very few have worked that out. Just look at all the articles in the media about the mental health consequences of lock-down. The real problem is the masses are off their meds.

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I think the ancient Greeks had a mask for it. :wink:

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They spoke too soon.

Trump is not the only charlatan to be able to use Twitter or Instagram to fool the gullible.

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Not that I agree with Pete Evans on everything, however, I have had more help from Naturopaths, than doctors throughout my long life. I have been nearly killed twice in hospitals by doctors giving me pain killers that I was allergic to, and apparently had never been tested properly.

All medicines have side effects. Some may cause allergic reactions in some individuals as you appear to have experienced. Such are no different to those which can occur with natural products and foods where similar reactions can occur…think peanuts, soy, dairy, eggs, honey, wheat, seafood etc.

Unfortunately many of the treatments used by naturopaths fall into those that never been tested properly tested. It is based on pseudoscience, beliefs and anecdotal evidence. With medicines they have been scientifically test and approved (by the TGA), and side effects are known. Like any natural product, unfortunately medicines (which incidentally many medicines come from compounds in the natural world) can have undesired side effects when taken by some. Others may experience none.

That is evidence that all medicines ;including what naturopaths prescribe need more testing. Most prescriptions prescribed by doctors have side affects and I realise that we also need more scientific evidence for naturpaths prescriptions. Many doctors don’t help at all unless it is a physical problem that they can see and don’t believe you if you have an internal problem that they can’t see. EG health problems caused by stress.

Medicines have been rigorously tested and have literature that details them, including the minor and major side effects. It is impossible to ‘test’ to 100% in a practical sense, and individuals could have or develop allergic reactions to most anything over a lifetime, and are a case of 1 among the entire sample as testing goes.

Risks and rewards of medicines are well documented, and TGA registered pharmaceuticals have been proven safe when used as directed, and documented side effects are properly monitored and reacted to. That is still not 100% for 100% of the population, but small odds an individual will be an outlier.

On the balance, much of the support for naturopathic ‘medicine’ uses the terms ‘evidence supported’ rather than clinically tested. That is an important distinction. Herbal and natural remedies are centuries old and many have been found to be efficacious, and many have been found to be placebos, and a wrong one can exacerbate a health problem. If an individual is inclined to try naturopathy or any alternative medicine it is important that they advise their regular GP including of any ‘natural remedies’ they are taking, and go to their GP if their alternative treatment is not helping rather than to persevere in the faith it will help tomorrow, if not tomorrow the day after, or the one after that.

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To date I can think of no ingested substances without possible harmful effects in the wrong people/doses. No amount of testing will override that. In an emergency situations medical alert bracelets can be incredibly helpful if you have an allergy to specific medications.

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