Shifting the goalposts again, David.
You are asked to provide evidence, and you cite “medical conferences”.
Asked to specify an academically credible conference – you offer one that does not meet any criteria for being credible, and that was a couple of years ago.
Why did you not cite the 2010 or 2011 “European Conference on LDN”. Could it be that a quick look would show that it was the same people saying the same things.
I wonder why you do not cite the American LDN conferences. Could this be because a whole lot of people have used LDN to treat a wide range of clinical problems, and it might give the impression that LDN was a “one size fits all” type of medication. There is a lot of medication licenced for use by MS victims - why do you persist in trying to drag all these preparations down to the same level as LDN?
I notice that you avoided answering my point about the numbers that do not add up. Instead, you look for another thread that asks about LDN and trot out the same stuff all over again. A statement that “10’s of thousand that find it works for them” does not fit with the few pence profit per day from each client approach Even if it is just 10,000 people, and the profit is just one penny per daily dose, then that totals nearly Half a Million Pounds. When people can get killed for a mobile phone, that really is a lot of money.
You fall back on the same, tired old "well, if you cannot accept 25 years of evidence, you will never be convinced” line. There is no evidence. A chatty summary of a non-academic “conference” is not evidence. Papers in a peer-reviewed journal or conference are credible evidence. A survey of these 10,000 people who use LDN that reported adverse side effects along satisfactory benefits obtained would be evidence.
Now, I have offered suggestions as to how credible evidence could be obtained, but you either dismiss or ignore them. If you don’t want the trouble of looking for a Masters student looking for a project, any 2nd or 3rd year social science undergraduate could do a search on Pubmed or Medline, and turn it into a quick literature review. Of course, they would have to note that LDN can mean several different things outside of this forum – but that is not too hard to do.
If you are hoping that someone will sprinkle a handful of magic pixie dust over the NHS and LDN as we know the term will suddenly become available on prescription, then I have news for you. It is not going to happen!
Instead I will make you an offer:
Get your Branch to ask the MS Society if a few of you can turn up at the next AGM, clutching laptops running Windows XP or later, and ask people if they will take part in a quick survey. You get the permission, you find the people and the laptops, and I will provide the survey software. If need be, I will even write the survey questions for you – and you can then find someone independent to check that I have not done anything to bias the responses. Both Karen and I, and no doubt a few others here are competent to do the statistical analysis, and again it would be easy to find someone independent to verify that we had not biased the results.
So what will it be? Credible evidence or none? Your call.