re quack quack was re candida yeast bloom fact or fiction ken isis cns caltech edu writes i don t know the first thing about yeast infections but i am a scientist no scientist would take your statement no convincing empirical evidence to support the existence of systemic yeast syndrome to tell you anything except an absence of data on the question the burden of proof rests upon those who claim the existence of this syndrome to date these claims are unsubstantiated by any available data hopefully as a scientist you would take issue with anyone overstating their conclusions based upon their data beasties with present methods even if they were there noring and the fellow from oklahoma sorry forgot your name have also suggested one set of anecdotal evidence in favor based on their personal experiences namely that when people with certain conditions are given anti fungals many of them appear to get better gee i have many interesting and enlightening anecdotes about myself my friends and my family but in the practice of medicine i expect and demand more rigorous rationales for basing therapy than aunt susie s brother in law anecdotal evidence may provide inspiration for a hypothesis but rarely proves anything in a positive sense and unlike mathematics boolean logic rarely applies directly to medical issues and so evidence of exceptions does not usually disprove but rather modifies current concepts of disease so if you have any evidence against the hypothesis for example controlled double blind studies showing that the anti fungals don t do any better than sugar water then let s hear it if you don t then what we have is anecdotal and uncontrolled evidence on one side and abject disbelief on the other in which case please there is no point in yelling back and forth at each other any longer since neither side has any convincing evidence either positive or negative i would characterize it not as abject disbelief but rather scientific outrage over vastly overstated conclusions it appears to me the main question now is whether the proponents can marshall enough anecdotal evidence in a convincing and documented enough manner to make a good case for carrying out a good controlled double blind study of antifungals or else forget convincing anybody else to carry out the test just carry it out themselves and also whether they can adequately define the patient population or symptoms on which such a study should be carried out to provide a fair test of the hypothesis i have no problem with such an approach but this is not what is happening in the trenches of this diagnosis bob schmieg
