
Fish skin helped bears burned in the Thomas Fire get back on their feet - DoreenMichele
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/environment/article196736809.html
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kawera
A short video of doctors treating burned people with fish skin:
[http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-latin-
america-40054374/can-...](http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-latin-
america-40054374/can-fish-skin-help-treat-burns)

And an article about the same team: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-
health-brazil-burns/brazi...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-
brazil-burns/brazilian-doctors-use-fish-skin-to-treat-burn-victims-
idUSKBN18L1WH)

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nwatson
I also was amazed to read of durable clothing made from fish skin: "The Secret
Language of Salmon Skin Coats" ... [https://www.hakaimagazine.com/article-
short/secret-language-...](https://www.hakaimagazine.com/article-short/secret-
language-salmon-skin-coats/)

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nicolashahn
The doctor in the video said fish skin is good for healing burns because it's
very similar to human skin. Is the mechanism leaching nutrients or entire
layers of tissue from the fish skin to your skin? As in, replacing your skin
with fish skin?

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kawera
It uses fish skin as a source of nutrients, not as a replacement.

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loverofthings
acupuncture? it's quite interesting that even animals suffer from placebo,
despite us not believing they have cognitive ability to understand someone is
doing a "medical procedure" to fix their ailment.

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josephpmay
There’s debate in the medical community whether acupuncture actually works or
is a placebo...

But yea, it does seem weird to do it on bears

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0xcde4c3db
Is there a debate informed by decent evidence, though? As far as I know, no
high-quality study has ever shown acupuncture to significantly outperform sham
acupuncture, let alone outperform usual care. In my experience, studies cited
by lay acupuncture advocates are usually either preliminary types of studies
(uncontrolled or unsuitable control intervention, non-randomized, small N) or
actually involve doing something other than acupuncture, such as running an
electrical current through the needles.

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loverofthings
There have been cases where acupuncture combined with some "proven" treatment
does better than that proven treatment. IMO, that just puts doubt into the
efficacy of that proven treatment.

Any serious disease, like cancer, skin burns, severe pain, there is no
evidence it's better than placebo.

