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Date: | Mon, 3 Jul 2017 09:10:20 -0600 |
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A chapter in the 1992 edition of "The Hive and the Honey Bee"
titled "Other Bee Products" by Justin Schmidt and Steve Buchmann
provides a good summary and perspective on bee venom in human and
veterinary medicine (as of 1992). Some points made:
1) Bee venom is a complex mix of active ingredients with different
pharmacological but strong effects.
2) Most salient among documented activities on mammals are
anti-inflammatory and cortisol activating effects.
3) Testimonials are useful indicators of possible positive effects,
good controlled studies are sparse, but as a whole suggest possible
uses.
4) Dismissing possibly useful applications based on current evidence
may be premature (as of 1992).
A further comment: if one looks in detail at the studies backing FDA
approval of a lot of current pharmaceuticals, the improvement in
outcomes in the treated group is fairly marginal compared to controls-
effects that would be considered fairly biologically insignificant in
other fields. The justification for permitting the use of such
marginally effective compounds is the high value of human health and
life. As a doctor friend told me recently: "For the person for which a
medication works well, their improvement is not the average result of
the study, but 100%". And as a doctor who oversees ambulance responses
in an area of rural Colorado recently responded to someone requesting
black and white answers as to how he makes decisions on trauma patient
care and where ambulances take them: "Medicine is not black and white,
but rather gray".
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