He's the committee chair. He, Senator Gillibrand, and Senator Kim seemed to be actively engaged. I'm guessing that the good questions asked came from staff.
But, to me, both the Trump administration and AI seem to have a very flawed understanding (see the Epstein fiasco) of what moral and ethical behavior is. Those in the Trump administration have those who raised them to blame for their warped moral, or ethical outlook. It seems to me that AI suffers from the same problem. Morality and ethical behavior being programed in AI IS being given the same import as the import the parents or guardians who raised those now in the MAGA right raised their kids to believe.
Morality and ethical behavior can be whitewashed if;
it will help the bottom line.
it will strengthen my position.
it will consolidate my power.etc.etc.
My father called that "convenient morality". Our country is now reeling from too much convenient morality.
Yes, I know what you mean. At first I was, like, wait a minute! Black Box was removed from the vaginal estrogen creams and rumor was that there were more changes like it coming? Something positive is actually happening under the current administration? But, yes, I'll TAKE it. A whole generation of women, MINE, was dumped by the wayside because of the misinterpretation of the Women's Health Initiative study data in 2002, the over-dominance of the Harvard crowd in Public Health, the fear of medical malpractice suits, and more. You read the papers written at the time -- and they are saying in plain English that they *aren't* going to treat women over 60, period. The rationale was mostly conjecture leaning heavily on sparse data in the WHI study, but that's what they said. And they would only treat perimenopausal women for a short time at most. I had to talk my doctor into prescribing HRT when it was no longer possible to sleep at night and my health was deteriorating in every direction -- non-hormonal meds ineffective. And if I hadn't had a doctoral degree in Public Health I never would have been able to read the literature, understand what I needed, and talk him into it. He was so frightened that I would die horribly of breast cancer or a stroke because of the HRT that he couldn't see how dangerous untreated menopause all by itself often is. Plus, there's so much untreated or under-treated osteoporosis out there. No woman should be walking around with a widow's hump. That can be prevented. We think many cases of Parkinson's, ALS, MS, and other neurological diseases can be prevented -- because there are neurohormones in the brain, estrogen receptors on the cells in the substantia nigra, etc. As Jennifer said, research scientists and others who were lobbying for menopause treatment in previous administrations are the ones lobbying for this now -- and for whatever reason they are finally making progress.
Thank you for all your advocacy work. As with any medication, hormones included there’s always a certain subset of people who are intolerant to certain medications and/or hormones. You’re correct about the black box warnings, they do not apply to everyone. I am all for these things as long as there’s not a medical reason to avoid them. I am hopeful that new candidates entering medical school these days will be trained on the benefits of translational medicine. That is applying a patient’s genetics to the suitably of certain therapeutics, but it’s largely a matter of the medical schools to train their students and to require a certain level of undergraduate education in genetics and molecular biology and real time clinical applications. As patients and physicians and academians we must insist on personalized medicine, but first a new generation of medical professionals must be properly trained to meet the demands of our rapidly evolving healthcare landscape.
The government should not be in the business of promoting pseudoscientific modalities that are ineffective and or harmful. Thanks again for this piece.
Though few people know it now, the WHI study did demonstrate that HRT prevents colorectal cancer and bone fractures, among other positives. It all got lost in the panic over the breast cancer and blood clot business.
In the case of HRT, it wasn't a group of people intolerant to it -- not at all. HRT was prescribed from the 1960s through the 1990s, and there were no obvious red flags. But in the early 1990s a large clinical trial was funded to determine (among other things) whether HRT can *prevent* heart disease, *prevent* bone fractures, and do a number of other good things. Prior research suggested HRT could do all this, and more. But, there had never been a really large, double-blind clinical trial to properly test these hypotheses. Unfortunately, one committee decided unilaterally to shut down the study after only about 3 years because of hints that HRT might be causing cases of breast cancer and cardiovascular disease (probably from blood clots). It was highly controversial then, and it's even more controversial now. Why? Because the data were too sparse. They didn't actually have a statistically significant result on the breast cancer, for example. That means you don't have the numbers you need to be confident that the result will stay the same as you keep accruing more and more data. The other thing is, breast cancer isn't something you get after only 3 years. It takes more like 9 to 16 years for a breast cancer to develop and be detected. But since they shut down the study and sent out press releases left and right, there wasn't an opportunity to examine the data more closely and accrue more to look at. Plus, it all caused a big panic that has done tremendous damage to women's medicine and to hormone-related research.
I hope this will lead to better tests. I'm grateful to my Dr for listening to me when I asked her to treat my symptoms even though my blood work was 'within normal limits.'
We watched the hearing last night. All four expert witnesses were quite well chosen, presented well, and provided thoughtful responses to the questions from the two committee chairs and Senator Andy Kim, the only other Senator who seemed to be present. The entire session was quite educational.
Rick Scott? Rick Scott? What's his game?
"twisted intentions"
He's the committee chair. He, Senator Gillibrand, and Senator Kim seemed to be actively engaged. I'm guessing that the good questions asked came from staff.
Excellent point! Lets look into hormones.
But, to me, both the Trump administration and AI seem to have a very flawed understanding (see the Epstein fiasco) of what moral and ethical behavior is. Those in the Trump administration have those who raised them to blame for their warped moral, or ethical outlook. It seems to me that AI suffers from the same problem. Morality and ethical behavior being programed in AI IS being given the same import as the import the parents or guardians who raised those now in the MAGA right raised their kids to believe.
Morality and ethical behavior can be whitewashed if;
it will help the bottom line.
it will strengthen my position.
it will consolidate my power.etc.etc.
My father called that "convenient morality". Our country is now reeling from too much convenient morality.
Yes, I know what you mean. At first I was, like, wait a minute! Black Box was removed from the vaginal estrogen creams and rumor was that there were more changes like it coming? Something positive is actually happening under the current administration? But, yes, I'll TAKE it. A whole generation of women, MINE, was dumped by the wayside because of the misinterpretation of the Women's Health Initiative study data in 2002, the over-dominance of the Harvard crowd in Public Health, the fear of medical malpractice suits, and more. You read the papers written at the time -- and they are saying in plain English that they *aren't* going to treat women over 60, period. The rationale was mostly conjecture leaning heavily on sparse data in the WHI study, but that's what they said. And they would only treat perimenopausal women for a short time at most. I had to talk my doctor into prescribing HRT when it was no longer possible to sleep at night and my health was deteriorating in every direction -- non-hormonal meds ineffective. And if I hadn't had a doctoral degree in Public Health I never would have been able to read the literature, understand what I needed, and talk him into it. He was so frightened that I would die horribly of breast cancer or a stroke because of the HRT that he couldn't see how dangerous untreated menopause all by itself often is. Plus, there's so much untreated or under-treated osteoporosis out there. No woman should be walking around with a widow's hump. That can be prevented. We think many cases of Parkinson's, ALS, MS, and other neurological diseases can be prevented -- because there are neurohormones in the brain, estrogen receptors on the cells in the substantia nigra, etc. As Jennifer said, research scientists and others who were lobbying for menopause treatment in previous administrations are the ones lobbying for this now -- and for whatever reason they are finally making progress.
Thank you for all your advocacy work. As with any medication, hormones included there’s always a certain subset of people who are intolerant to certain medications and/or hormones. You’re correct about the black box warnings, they do not apply to everyone. I am all for these things as long as there’s not a medical reason to avoid them. I am hopeful that new candidates entering medical school these days will be trained on the benefits of translational medicine. That is applying a patient’s genetics to the suitably of certain therapeutics, but it’s largely a matter of the medical schools to train their students and to require a certain level of undergraduate education in genetics and molecular biology and real time clinical applications. As patients and physicians and academians we must insist on personalized medicine, but first a new generation of medical professionals must be properly trained to meet the demands of our rapidly evolving healthcare landscape.
The government should not be in the business of promoting pseudoscientific modalities that are ineffective and or harmful. Thanks again for this piece.
Though few people know it now, the WHI study did demonstrate that HRT prevents colorectal cancer and bone fractures, among other positives. It all got lost in the panic over the breast cancer and blood clot business.
In the case of HRT, it wasn't a group of people intolerant to it -- not at all. HRT was prescribed from the 1960s through the 1990s, and there were no obvious red flags. But in the early 1990s a large clinical trial was funded to determine (among other things) whether HRT can *prevent* heart disease, *prevent* bone fractures, and do a number of other good things. Prior research suggested HRT could do all this, and more. But, there had never been a really large, double-blind clinical trial to properly test these hypotheses. Unfortunately, one committee decided unilaterally to shut down the study after only about 3 years because of hints that HRT might be causing cases of breast cancer and cardiovascular disease (probably from blood clots). It was highly controversial then, and it's even more controversial now. Why? Because the data were too sparse. They didn't actually have a statistically significant result on the breast cancer, for example. That means you don't have the numbers you need to be confident that the result will stay the same as you keep accruing more and more data. The other thing is, breast cancer isn't something you get after only 3 years. It takes more like 9 to 16 years for a breast cancer to develop and be detected. But since they shut down the study and sent out press releases left and right, there wasn't an opportunity to examine the data more closely and accrue more to look at. Plus, it all caused a big panic that has done tremendous damage to women's medicine and to hormone-related research.
I hope this will lead to better tests. I'm grateful to my Dr for listening to me when I asked her to treat my symptoms even though my blood work was 'within normal limits.'
We watched the hearing last night. All four expert witnesses were quite well chosen, presented well, and provided thoughtful responses to the questions from the two committee chairs and Senator Andy Kim, the only other Senator who seemed to be present. The entire session was quite educational.