Alternative medicine should be used more in the Western Culture

Rebuttal: Pro made many points that were obviously flawed. I will show you the point first, and the rebuttal will be stated after. I do not know "Sally." For all I know, you made her up. Sally does indeed exist and I apologise that I did not include the source of this information in the previous round. The source will be included at the end. Did "Sally" know she was receiving medicine? Was "Sally" told that the medicine could work? Did "Sally" believe the medicine could work? If the answer to any of those questions is "Yes," then there is a possibility that "Sally's" condition was helped by the placebo effect. I understand what you’re saying, however by your argument people also believe that the medicine they are given will work in conventional medicine. Also, after a conventional doctor told her that it was incurable I don’t think Sally would have believed very much in alternative medicine working so it was unlikely that her cure was due to the placebo effect. Everything has side effects. Every nutrient that we put into our bodies has an upper intake limit, above which, it becomes toxic. Alternative medicine of course, is not completely free of side effects Alternative remedies do not have active ingredients. Drugs are not all made in labs. Before Bayer isolated the chemical compound that you and I know as "aspirin," the same effects could be found by eating the bark of a willow tree. Saying that eating the bark of a willow tree has effects like aspirin contradicts your point that alternative remedies do not have active ingredients. I still have not seen a peer-reviewed study proving the effectiveness of alternative medicine over a placebo. Everything does not have to be studied to be useful. If you think back to before conventional medicine was created, everyone had to use herbs and therapy in order to cure themselves. If alternative medicine did not work then all these people would have died. I concede that alternative medicine's holistic approach helps patients, but it is not something that should replace conventional medicine. How does meditation help with an infection? If bacteria is in your bloodstream, does therapy do any good? If we refer back to the moot, it is saying that alternative medicine should be used more, not that it should replace conventional medicine, so your point is irrelevant. Also, meditation and therapy are not the only alternative medications out there. Obviously for things like infections you would use antibacterial herbs such as Goldenseal or Aloe Vera. If you have a bacterial infection, you can improve your self-worth as much as you want, but until your body cleanses itself, it will only have an effect on how good you FEEL, rather than how good you actually are. As I mentioned before, you would have antibacterial herbs for this, or you could have honey. These remedies would help your body cleanse itself, making you feel better as well as actually being better. Affirming Point: Conventional doctors these days often don’t pay attention to the patient’s needs. Doctors often believe in their medicine so much that if they can’t find a cure, or if the disease they are attempting to cure is not within their medical knowledge, they do not attempt to cure it. This was true for sally, to whom doctors said that her skin infection was incurable. They also don’t make a full examination of the patient to see exactly WHY they are sick. When we go to the doctors with cold symptoms, they immediately assume that you have a cold, without giving you a full check up. An example is sinusitis, which is an inflammation of tissue lining the sinuses. When you get this, you have symptoms that are very much similar to that of a cold, like a runny nose, cough or a fever. However it is much more dangerous than a cold and if it gets serious and is left untreated, the infection could pass through the sinus and start infecting the fluid and tissues around the brain, resulting in meningitis. http://www.youtube.com... http://www.seattleorganicrestaurants.com... http://www.boogordoctor.com... http://www.disabled-world.com... http://voices.yahoo.com... http://foodmatters.tv...