I appreciate and believe I understand your perspective. I do not refute your criticisms of the research.
I have a different perspective, however. As someone who is expected to die of cancer within a few years, even early/flawed research is of interest. Especially with the cognitive impairments I feel from chemotherapy, I find it challenging to wade through all of the ideas and opinions to get to information that's useful in guiding decisions about my treatment.
In particular, this thread acquainted me with jcims's life experiences. I take his statements at face value and believe that he's indeed spent countless hours researching various treatment possibilities. That he is left with the belief that vitamin C has promise as a treatment option gives me cause to further explore the relevant science. I lack the time, energy, and knowledge to investigate the plethora of options/speculation, so I greatly appreciate when another credible person points me in a direction that's worthy of greater attention.
This doesn't mean I'm planning to ask my oncologist about vitamin C or pursue this as a treatment option at this time. :) It just gives me a promising area of further exploration and I'll see where it leads me.
From this thread, I also gained reinforcement (in part through pazimzadeh's summary, below) of my understanding that taking vitamin C oral supplements during chemotherapy is ill-advised. I'd come across this guidance before, but have been reminded of it by this article and this discussion.
So, my request to you is to please not discourage posts such as this article here on Hacker News. If you prefer to not have your "time wasted [by] this stuff" then please don't click on such articles or please suffer in silence. Or, better yet, post your summary of the research's limitations, as you've done here. (That is, your summary is useful, but your first line saddened me, as I appreciated having my time "wasted" by this article and the subsequent discussion. I hope others here do not heed your request.)
Edit: minor editing to simplify. (I realize this post is still rather wordy, please forgive.)
They're encouraging the scientific process, which is the method by which we validate science. Your objections to scientific process only serves to detract from that process.
