Sadly, this sentiment is incorrect. I hate to go back to this again but medical marijuana is a shining example of an effective medicine that has been rejected by mainstream medical community in spite of concrete scientific support. The reasons for this are pretty numerous; the illegal nature of the drug, the desire for government regulators to remain consistent with the drug-war agenda, etc.
The peer-reviewed evidence is not as "shining" as you make it sound - but let's leave the details of that for another thread. I'll just say that even if marijuana is a wonder-therapy, this antipathy in the mainstream medical community you describe is the result of marijuana's unique position in modern culture. You yourself point out some of the many reasons why marijuana is not like other forms of alternative medicine.
We like to think that science, particularly medicine, is built upon objective facts. Sadly, it is not. Just recently a “scientific” study was released by organization funded in part be a white supremacist group that linked illegal immigration to greenhouse gases.
I'm not familiar with the incident you're referring to, but I ask myself how you know that the study was flawed and biased, and I suspect that this is probably because it was peer-reviewed and found to be so. Can scientists make mistakes? Of course. But the scientific method still represents the most reliable method we have yet discovered (or will ever discover) for separating truth from falsehood. Don't trust blindly, but do trust. And don't trust anyone peddling the message "science is bad". They are either consciously or unconsciously attempting to deceive you.
Some people prefer the idea that they've been helped by a naturally occurring substance, rather than by a synthetic analogue or newly constructed chemical devised by a pharmaceutical corporation who's sole intention is to make as much money out of it.
You have identified a reason why alternative medicine is popular, but you haven't said anything about whether or not it works.
Tim Minchin said it best: You know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine.
There's no a priori reason that some random herb that's "not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease" can't do any of those things. It's just that if it could, they'd be able to demonstrate that fact, and sell it as real medicine and make millions.
But everybody wants a quick and easy cure for what ails them, so they reach for alternatives. It's the same impulse that has allowed quackery to prosper since before the walls of Uruk rose over the Fertile Crescent.
To be fair to those who seek outside of traditional medicine, they are not always looking for quick and easy. In my little corner of medicine, it's desperation that drives people to alternatives (and even more than my field, cancer patients are desperate).
If traditional medicine has no solution for your little girl who is still "locked in", rigid as a board, 10 years after choking... You are going to seek elsewhere. Even the Dominican Republic, to pay a former California plastic Surgeon $30,000 cash for each IV stem cell injections (which have no chance whatsoever of doing anything positive). I have had a patient or two* who have done this over the years, though I've managed to talk most interested patients out of it.
The people I have serious hatred for are the monstrous alternative medicine docs like this Dominican Republic guy, or the guys in eastern Europe taking advantage of desperate parents.
Tim Minchin said it best: You know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine.
I'm a person who will normally try a herbal remedy over medication if I think there is merit for the claim. For instance, there is no "medicine" I know of that can reduce the risk of developing diabetes. If there was tons of people would be on it.
Studies, some of them clinical, have shown a 15% reduction in diabetes cases amongst people who take chromium picolinate and who have a family history.
It would take a lot of work for scientists to determine exactly who is effected and likely they wouldn't do it because they can't make a ton of money off of an easily available herb that isn't dangerous.
If there was a market they might try to say it was dangerous, say if you took 1000 tablets or something, run it through a bunch of expensive trials, possibly even bundle it with something else, make it prescription and then charge $200
for the same $20 worth of herb.
I would prefer they just make sure the herbs aren't toxic and leave it at that.
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If we're talking Amazonian tribes, then Big Pharma wants to become friends with them. Others such as Tibetan and ect. have been studied to death. There are certainly some benefits to certain remedies, but there's also a lot of garbage out there. What's holding back is that certain companies have "raided" traditional medicine for patents and then really piss off locals like in India to which causes a massive slow down on research on new medicines and taxonomy with plants.
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Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
Studies, some of them clinical, have shown a 15% reduction in diabetes cases amongst people who take chromium picolinate and who have a family history.
"Ridiculous"? No. Unfortunately, even FDA-approved drugs are sometimes afterwards discovered to slowly kill you. Real science, especially real science dealing with a subject as fantastically complicated as the human body, is a long and involved process. Ideally, scientists would observe a test group for an entire generation to make sure the drug didn't have some unexpected long-term effect. Even the FDA's lengthy process is cutting corners, really.
But everybody wants a quick and easy cure for what ails them, so they reach for alternatives. It's the same impulse that has allowed quackery to prosper since before the walls of Uruk rose over the Fertile Crescent.
If thats the stance you are going to take, we would never have any break thru in medicine. All medicines we have now started out as 'alternative' medicine at one time. Again, the way the American FDA works, they are not looking for medicines to work for everyone the same way, just will never happen. They are looking for things that work the way they want on the majority of people.
Size, metabolism, allergies all play into how a drug effects someone. Just because 1 pill stops whats ailing you, doesnt mean that same pill will stop whats ailing someone else.
If thats the stance you are going to take, we would never have any break thru in medicine. All medicines we have now started out as 'alternative' medicine at one time.
Then they undergo scientific tests, and if they pass, they become medicine. How is that "never having any break through"?
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Unless you are considering the word biology in the statement proof they consider pharmacology a science, i didnt see anything in that paragraph to indicate it is. If it was a science, each drug would do the exact same thing to each person. Since there are too many variables form human to human, thats impossible. Its a practice, not a science, or more to the point, and educated guess.
Unless you are considering the word biology in the statement proof they consider pharmacology a science, i didnt see anything in that paragraph to indicate it is. If it was a science, each drug would do the exact same thing to each person. Since there are too many variables form human to human, thats impossible. Its a practice, not a science, or more to the point, and educated guess.
You're confusing science with math. Science explains what we tend to observe in nature, not lay down rigid rules that nature must follow (that's math's domain). If you can prove to me that chemistry, biology, and biochemistry aren't scientific domains then I'll concede pharmacology isn't science.
If thats the stance you are going to take, we would never have any break thru in medicine. All medicines we have now started out as 'alternative' medicine at one time. Again, the way the American FDA works, they are not looking for medicines to work for everyone the same way, just will never happen. They are looking for things that work the way they want on the majority of people.
Size, metabolism, allergies all play into how a drug effects someone. Just because 1 pill stops whats ailing you, doesnt mean that same pill will stop whats ailing someone else.
the problem is that the term "alternative medicine" is a term of exclusion not inclusion.
"Alternative medicine" includes my crazy neighbor telling me "Once I thought my ***** was shrinking, so I stood on my head until it got better."... you hanging upside down from gravity boots as a teenager and wishing yourself taller... as well as that 7 up dude from Live and Let Die cutting the head off a chicken to try to make somebody's pancreatic cancer go away...
"Just take 2 and call me in the morning!"
Obviously there are many treatments for disease that traditional western medicine has not discovered yet. In fact thare's infinite possible treatments, including randomly sticking long needles into your belly. Whenever you say that you think that "alternative medicine works", you have to be very specific what kind of "alternative medicine" you mean. Otherwise, such a statement is almost useless.
the problem is that the term "alternative medicine" is a term of exclusion not inclusion.
"Alternative medicine" includes my crazy neighbor telling me "Once I thought my ***** was shrinking, so I stood on my head until it got better."... you hanging upside down from gravity boots as a teenager and wishing yourself taller... as well as that 7 up dude from Live and Let Die cutting the head off a chicken to try to make somebody's pancreatic cancer go away...
"Just take 2 and call me in the morning!"
Obviously there are many treatments for disease that traditional western medicine has not discovered yet. In fact thare's infinite possible treatments, including randomly sticking long needles into your belly. Whenever you say that you think that "alternative medicine works", you have to be very specific what kind of "alternative medicine" you mean. Otherwise, such a statement is almost useless.
I agree with you, but without trying those 'cures' we never know if they work or not. And just because something works for you, doesnt mean it will work for the next person. Thats true even of proven medicines. Again, doctors 'practice' medicine. Nothing they do is set in stone. Thats why a surgeon who has done the same operation 1000 times can go in one more time and lose the patient. Nothing is certain in medicine.
There's a non sequitur there. If something works, that doesn't automatically mean it will be tested enough to build a solid case for it. And even if this testing happens, that's still a far way from actual production and use.
For instance, say herb x has effectivity in preventing cardiovascular problems by lowering cholesterol. But herb x cannot be patented, so this will require some research to produce a variant that can be patented. And once the functionality of herb x is known, other companies may start producing other variants that fall right outside the patent you got (or your patent may even be revoked). Also, you anticipate strong opposition from companies who at this moment make most of their revenu from sales of statins. In the end, your plan of producing this new medicine is not economical enough to convince your bosses to get funding.
If something is found with beneficial effects on the human body, this does not automatically result in its production and use. That is determined chiefly on economical and political base.
I don't see your point. My scenario was that someone was already selling the product. If someone has taken the trouble to market a product, but can't be bothered to check whether it actually does anything, that sounds really, really suspicious to me.
(In the US, if you want to sell something as a "herbal supplement" but can't prove that it does anything, you have to label is with the phrase "not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease")
Alternative medicine is a misnomer. It is, in fact, an alternative TO medicine.
Now, are there herbal cures that work? Yes. Is there anything to these alternative medicines? Possibly.
But the level of mysticism employed in these things is definitely not something to be embraced.
I don't see how someone that is unabashedly Christian as you can make this statement. You've never met someone that prayed alot, got better, and credited this to God? If you have, did you correct them on it?
Some herbal remedies etc. work. Some don't. There are definitely tons of 'snake oil salesmen', as has been stated. But there is also some validity to it.
And at the same time, the established medical community, including the FDA, are always going to downplay anything natural that you can go buy for 3 dollars without having to go to a doctor. Even if it worked for everyone that tried it, they would still find ways to try to justify convincing people not to use it, even just resorting to pure fearmongering. The pharmaceutical industry is the shadiest industry in existence. They don't want to cure, they just want to manage.
"D'you know what they call alternative medicine that's been proven to work? 'Medicine'"
-Tim Minchin
/Thread
In that sense, all medicines started out as alternative medicine.
White people came to America and saw the native Americans chewing on willow bark. before that they had no real way to combat pain or headaches. That evolved into asprin. According to you, chewing on willow bark would have been considered alternative medicine in this day and age.
In that sense, all medicines started out as alternative medicine.
White people came to America and saw the native Americans chewing on willow bark. before that they had no real way to combat pain or headaches. That evolved into asprin. According to you, chewing on willow bark would have been considered alternative medicine in this day and age.
In fact, the next lyrics of that song are:
“Pharmaceutical companies are the enemy
They promote drug dependency
At the cost of the natural remedies
That are all our bodies need
They are immoral and driven by greed.
Why take drugs
When herbs can solve it?
Why use chemicals
When homeopathic solvents
Can resolve it?
It’s time we all return-to-live
With natural medical alternatives.”
And try as hard as I like,
A small crack appears
In my diplomacy-dike.
“By definition”, I begin
“Alternative Medicine”, I continue
“Has either not been proved to work,
Or been proved not to work.
You know what they call “alternative medicine”
That’s been proved to work?
Medicine.”
“So you don’t believe
In ANY Natural remedies?”
“On the contrary actually:
Before we came to tea,
I took a natural remedy
Derived from the bark of a willow tree
A painkiller that’s virtually side-effect free
It’s got a weird name,
Darling, what was it again?
Masprin?
Basprin?
Asprin!
Which I paid about a buck for
Down at my local drugstore.
The difference between willow bark and the countless "herbal extracts" relegated to a GNC shelf rather than a pharmacy is that when you use science to check if willow bark does anything, it turns out it does.
In that sense, all medicines started out as alternative medicine.
White people came to America and saw the native Americans chewing on willow bark. before that they had no real way to combat pain or headaches. That evolved into asprin. According to you, chewing on willow bark would have been considered alternative medicine in this day and age.
Aw, come on, bocephus, it's not that long a thread. Surely you could have found this:
Now, some traditional therapies have been proven to work, and the medical community has adopted them. The standard example here being aspirin. Because willow-bark extract actually is a fantastically effective low-strength painkiller, its active ingredient has been isolated and is now available in every drugstore in the world. If it didn't work, that's when it would be shelved in the "alternative" aisles and we'd all be annoyed by hippies without doctorates prescribing their willow-bark tea for every ailment from gas to cancer.
Also, where'd you get the whole Native American thing? There are willow trees in the Old World. Healers on both sides of the Atlantic used the bark as a painkiller long before there was any contact; Hippocrates wrote about its properties two thousand years before Columbus.
Aw, come on, bocephus, it's not that long a thread. Surely you could have found this:
Also, where'd you get the whole Native American thing? There are willow trees in the Old World. Healers on both sides of the Atlantic used the bark as a painkiller long before there was any contact; Hippocrates wrote about its properties two thousand years before Columbus.
Fair enough, and you are correct.
The point is, ALL medicine starts out as alternative medicine. There is some rumor or accident that leads to the discovery of some object in nature doing something the 'educated' didnt know about. Its scoffed at and thought to be shamanism until it becomes main stream.
The difference between willow bark and the countless "herbal extracts" relegated to a GNC shelf rather than a pharmacy is that when you use science to check if willow bark does anything, it turns out it does.
Nope, the difference is the FDA and the testing process. The pharmacies are nothing more then modern day medicine men that mix natural things together in order to get a certain outcome. Its the same process that GNC product uses, its just not been tested by the FDA. Its the big bad FDA thats the problem. If 'SOME" of the things at GNC didnt work, they would have gone out of business long ago.
If 'SOME" of the things at GNC didnt work, they would have gone out of business long ago.
That doesn't really follow. Because GNC hasn't gone out of business doesn't mean that all of their products work. It could be a subset of their products work and sales of those products keep the company afloat. It could be that none of GNC's products work but "a sucker is born every minute." The fact that GNC is open doesn't really have any bearing on whether or not what they sell actually does what it claims to do.
Charlatanism is one of those things that just won't die. People have been selling snake oil for as long as there has been a public willing to spend money. Either the customer buys into the hype or is desperate enough to go for anything that claims to be a cureall. The problem with snake oil is that even after a particular instance has been proven to not work another will pop up and prey on the same people.
And why are you so hung up on the FDA? The FDA prevents companies from marketing dangerous items as medicine. That's a good thing.
Nope, the difference is the FDA and the testing process. The pharmacies are nothing more then modern day medicine men that mix natural things together in order to get a certain outcome. Its the same process that GNC product uses, its just not been tested by the FDA. Its the big bad FDA thats the problem. If 'SOME" of the things at GNC didnt work, they would have gone out of business long ago.
Placebo effect doesn't count as "working" but it's good enough to keep you in business.
Hell, homeopathic remedies manage to stay in business, and they're just water.
Okay, well, homeopathy is bull****, so there's that. It's placebo water.
But alternative treatments, for some conditions, can work wonders in areas where traditional medicine has some issues, like pain management. I hate the term "alternative" treatments, because the idea that one kind of diagnosis-fueled medicine can replace another is scary - don't stop seeing your doctor because you're seeing an acupuncturist, and vice-versa.
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The peer-reviewed evidence is not as "shining" as you make it sound - but let's leave the details of that for another thread. I'll just say that even if marijuana is a wonder-therapy, this antipathy in the mainstream medical community you describe is the result of marijuana's unique position in modern culture. You yourself point out some of the many reasons why marijuana is not like other forms of alternative medicine.
I'm not familiar with the incident you're referring to, but I ask myself how you know that the study was flawed and biased, and I suspect that this is probably because it was peer-reviewed and found to be so. Can scientists make mistakes? Of course. But the scientific method still represents the most reliable method we have yet discovered (or will ever discover) for separating truth from falsehood. Don't trust blindly, but do trust. And don't trust anyone peddling the message "science is bad". They are either consciously or unconsciously attempting to deceive you.
You have identified a reason why alternative medicine is popular, but you haven't said anything about whether or not it works.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
There's no a priori reason that some random herb that's "not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease" can't do any of those things. It's just that if it could, they'd be able to demonstrate that fact, and sell it as real medicine and make millions.
If traditional medicine has no solution for your little girl who is still "locked in", rigid as a board, 10 years after choking... You are going to seek elsewhere. Even the Dominican Republic, to pay a former California plastic Surgeon $30,000 cash for each IV stem cell injections (which have no chance whatsoever of doing anything positive). I have had a patient or two* who have done this over the years, though I've managed to talk most interested patients out of it.
The people I have serious hatred for are the monstrous alternative medicine docs like this Dominican Republic guy, or the guys in eastern Europe taking advantage of desperate parents.
"Medicine."
That is all.
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I'm a person who will normally try a herbal remedy over medication if I think there is merit for the claim. For instance, there is no "medicine" I know of that can reduce the risk of developing diabetes. If there was tons of people would be on it.
Studies, some of them clinical, have shown a 15% reduction in diabetes cases amongst people who take chromium picolinate and who have a family history.
It would take a lot of work for scientists to determine exactly who is effected and likely they wouldn't do it because they can't make a ton of money off of an easily available herb that isn't dangerous.
If there was a market they might try to say it was dangerous, say if you took 1000 tablets or something, run it through a bunch of expensive trials, possibly even bundle it with something else, make it prescription and then charge $200
for the same $20 worth of herb.
I would prefer they just make sure the herbs aren't toxic and leave it at that.
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
Link?
If thats the stance you are going to take, we would never have any break thru in medicine. All medicines we have now started out as 'alternative' medicine at one time. Again, the way the American FDA works, they are not looking for medicines to work for everyone the same way, just will never happen. They are looking for things that work the way they want on the majority of people.
Size, metabolism, allergies all play into how a drug effects someone. Just because 1 pill stops whats ailing you, doesnt mean that same pill will stop whats ailing someone else.
What is the title of this thread, Mad Mat?
Then they undergo scientific tests, and if they pass, they become medicine. How is that "never having any break through"?
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
You do understand medicine is a practice not a science?
Pharmacology is considered a science.
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Unless you are considering the word biology in the statement proof they consider pharmacology a science, i didnt see anything in that paragraph to indicate it is. If it was a science, each drug would do the exact same thing to each person. Since there are too many variables form human to human, thats impossible. Its a practice, not a science, or more to the point, and educated guess.
Explain in your own words what you think this distinction means and what it implies.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
You're confusing science with math. Science explains what we tend to observe in nature, not lay down rigid rules that nature must follow (that's math's domain). If you can prove to me that chemistry, biology, and biochemistry aren't scientific domains then I'll concede pharmacology isn't science.
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The first rule of Cursecatcher is, You do not talk about Cursecatcher.
"Alternative medicine" includes my crazy neighbor telling me "Once I thought my ***** was shrinking, so I stood on my head until it got better."... you hanging upside down from gravity boots as a teenager and wishing yourself taller... as well as that 7 up dude from Live and Let Die cutting the head off a chicken to try to make somebody's pancreatic cancer go away...
"Just take 2 and call me in the morning!"
Obviously there are many treatments for disease that traditional western medicine has not discovered yet. In fact thare's infinite possible treatments, including randomly sticking long needles into your belly. Whenever you say that you think that "alternative medicine works", you have to be very specific what kind of "alternative medicine" you mean. Otherwise, such a statement is almost useless.
I agree with you, but without trying those 'cures' we never know if they work or not. And just because something works for you, doesnt mean it will work for the next person. Thats true even of proven medicines. Again, doctors 'practice' medicine. Nothing they do is set in stone. Thats why a surgeon who has done the same operation 1000 times can go in one more time and lose the patient. Nothing is certain in medicine.
I don't see your point. My scenario was that someone was already selling the product. If someone has taken the trouble to market a product, but can't be bothered to check whether it actually does anything, that sounds really, really suspicious to me.
(In the US, if you want to sell something as a "herbal supplement" but can't prove that it does anything, you have to label is with the phrase "not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease")
I don't see how someone that is unabashedly Christian as you can make this statement. You've never met someone that prayed alot, got better, and credited this to God? If you have, did you correct them on it?
Some herbal remedies etc. work. Some don't. There are definitely tons of 'snake oil salesmen', as has been stated. But there is also some validity to it.
And at the same time, the established medical community, including the FDA, are always going to downplay anything natural that you can go buy for 3 dollars without having to go to a doctor. Even if it worked for everyone that tried it, they would still find ways to try to justify convincing people not to use it, even just resorting to pure fearmongering. The pharmaceutical industry is the shadiest industry in existence. They don't want to cure, they just want to manage.
In that sense, all medicines started out as alternative medicine.
White people came to America and saw the native Americans chewing on willow bark. before that they had no real way to combat pain or headaches. That evolved into asprin. According to you, chewing on willow bark would have been considered alternative medicine in this day and age.
In fact, the next lyrics of that song are:
The difference between willow bark and the countless "herbal extracts" relegated to a GNC shelf rather than a pharmacy is that when you use science to check if willow bark does anything, it turns out it does.
Aw, come on, bocephus, it's not that long a thread. Surely you could have found this:
Also, where'd you get the whole Native American thing? There are willow trees in the Old World. Healers on both sides of the Atlantic used the bark as a painkiller long before there was any contact; Hippocrates wrote about its properties two thousand years before Columbus.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Fair enough, and you are correct.
The point is, ALL medicine starts out as alternative medicine. There is some rumor or accident that leads to the discovery of some object in nature doing something the 'educated' didnt know about. Its scoffed at and thought to be shamanism until it becomes main stream.
Nope, the difference is the FDA and the testing process. The pharmacies are nothing more then modern day medicine men that mix natural things together in order to get a certain outcome. Its the same process that GNC product uses, its just not been tested by the FDA. Its the big bad FDA thats the problem. If 'SOME" of the things at GNC didnt work, they would have gone out of business long ago.
That doesn't really follow. Because GNC hasn't gone out of business doesn't mean that all of their products work. It could be a subset of their products work and sales of those products keep the company afloat. It could be that none of GNC's products work but "a sucker is born every minute." The fact that GNC is open doesn't really have any bearing on whether or not what they sell actually does what it claims to do.
Charlatanism is one of those things that just won't die. People have been selling snake oil for as long as there has been a public willing to spend money. Either the customer buys into the hype or is desperate enough to go for anything that claims to be a cureall. The problem with snake oil is that even after a particular instance has been proven to not work another will pop up and prey on the same people.
And why are you so hung up on the FDA? The FDA prevents companies from marketing dangerous items as medicine. That's a good thing.
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The first rule of Cursecatcher is, You do not talk about Cursecatcher.
Placebo effect doesn't count as "working" but it's good enough to keep you in business.
Hell, homeopathic remedies manage to stay in business, and they're just water.
But alternative treatments, for some conditions, can work wonders in areas where traditional medicine has some issues, like pain management. I hate the term "alternative" treatments, because the idea that one kind of diagnosis-fueled medicine can replace another is scary - don't stop seeing your doctor because you're seeing an acupuncturist, and vice-versa.