All of Hafornin's Comments + Replies

That's interesting. In England and America I think that it would be illegal to sell desiccated thyroid as a prescription drug without a prescription. But it's perfectly legal to sell it as a food supplement. It's just dried bacon, after all. It's quite difficult to find (people with TSH-detectable hypothyroidism get treated by their doctors with thyroxine, and for most people (~90%??) that seems to work perfectly), but it can be found. I expect some fascist bastards will get round to outlawing that sooner or later. Before they do, we ought to find out whether it will cure CFS etc. After all, once it's illegal people will have to buy it from criminals, and I don't trust their quality control. Also it might put the price up slightly. I'm interested in what the bad things that happened in France were. Obviously this is quite a potent drug, and so if it's for sale to the general public it is certain to cause harm from people taking far too much and overdosing. But at the moment I think it's fairly safe in small doses for trial periods. And I'd very much like to know if that's not true.

You're welcome to post in old threads since threads don't get bumped up to the top when replied to. However, you're likely to get more answers to a question like this one if you post in the current Open Thread.

I've been trying to 'go through channels' for about three months now. I've sent crank emails to every correspondence address on every endocrinology paper I've read that's expressed the slightest sympathy with the 'the patients might be right, you know' position, and they don't reply. I know a fair number of scientists and some doctors and medical students, and some of them think this is worth a look, and some of them know eminent medical researchers. There's just a wall of silence. I can't explain it. I know some of the medical researchers have read 'A medical mystery', and one prominent endocrinologist is reported to have said 'The narrative is broadly correct, but he seems obsessed with the sensitivity of the TSH test. I don't think that's the problem'. I can't even work out what that means. And I've promised (my word is good, and known to be good by my friends) that if there are already people taking this seriously and they just don't want to panic people, or if there are public safety concerns that I don't know about then I'll shut the fuck up. And in fact I'm keeping most of the scary conclusions to myself anyway. But the friends of friends won't meet me, or even reply to e-mails. I think it's generally agreed that a coffee with me is not an unbearable experience, and I can change my mind about major things in five minutes flat. I really wonder what the hell is going on. If this turns out to be true, the first person to publish proof is going to get most of the credit for it. You'd think they'd be avid to talk. There is one doctor who seems to have observed everything I've predicted in his clinical practice, and who still doesn't take the underlying idea seriously. I just don't get it. And another who says 'these concerns have been around for a long time, but if you ask endocrinologists for help they just say "The blood tests are normal, therefore it's not an endocrinological problem"', and obviously thinks that they're useless, but who won't even listen t