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Comment by harrisreynolds | Hacker News Reader

Did you happen to read the HN story from a couple days ago?

http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/semmelweis

It'd be interesting if in 100 years we were reading the same story about ClO2. Everyone thought the doctor suggesting that everyone wash their hands before delivering a baby was a "quack" when the evidence suggested otherwise. I am only saying I'd like to see objective research here. If the result is that ClO2 is not effective in any way or that it does more harm than good then that is fine; BUT, if the result was that it was effective in very low doses, we should accept that as well. Let hard science prevail... not the quacks or the quack police.

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Semmelweis was an asshole who nobody liked. Doctors of the time _did_ wash their hands, the just didn't do it with lime as Semmelweis wanted.

Semmelweis made-up some crackpot theory about "cadaveric" particles causing disease. That's what made doctor's ridicule him. If he had stuck to experimental evidence, he probably would have been listened to.

Interesting. Do you have sources for that?

The difference is that all you have to do to avoid the "quack" label today is produce evidence that your treatment works. If this crazy-ass bleach treatment actually works like they say it does, it shouldn't be hard to produce evidence to back it up. Until and unless they can produce such evidence, it's only right to criticize those promoting the treatment.

To be fair, that's exactly what he's asking for.

And yet, the proponents for it's effectiveness have yet to provide any evidence that it's worth studying. People who have no reason to believe it will work don't have a lot of incentive to test whether it works. Then again, the people who benefit from it's popularity and don't care if it works don't have much of an incentive to test it either.

The key was in my last sentence: "Until and unless they can produce such evidence, it's only right to criticize those promoting the treatment."

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