From: lady@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Lee Lady)
Subject: Re: Starting an alternative medicine newsgroup
Followup-To: sci.med
Summary: Instead of merely being horrified, consider solutions.  
Organization: University of Hawaii (Mathematics Dept)
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 02:06:11 GMT

In article <16832@pitt.UUCP> geb@cs.pitt.edu (Gordon Banks) writes:
>
>Well, just yesterday one of my MS patients came into the VA to see
>me.  He looked pretty bad.  He just got out of his local hospital
>after he became septic from a central line he had put in so he
>could receive some special calcium treatments that were being sent
>to him from this famous MS quack in Germany.  He had almost died.
>Now the line is pulled (he decided not to go back to Germany
>to have one put in again) he has to take the special calcium
>(I guess it is some secret formula) orally to the tune of $600/month.
>It is draining his families finances.  Last week I saw another
>MS patient who asked me if I thought she should go to Germany
>for these treatments.  She's already had all her amalgams drilled
>out by a quack dentist (no, she didn't go dancing the next day).
>Today I read that some poor kid has ADD and is not going to get
>treatment that might make an enormous difference in his life because
>his mother took him to a quack naturopath.  I could go on and on.
>*That* my good fellow, is what sets my blood boiling.

These are horrifying stories and I would certainly like to see a really
workable solution to make sure such things don't happen.  I will also
point out that most proponents of alternative therapies have horror
stories of their own about people who have been allegedly harmed by
conventional medicine.  For instance, chiropractors talk about people
who have been permanently injured by inappropriate orthopedic surgery.

The fact is that many ordinary people don't know who to believe.  The
proponents of conventional medicine claim to be speaking on a basis of
science but a reading of the discussions here in sci.med seems to
indicate that they are actually operating out of a belief system to the
effect that all alternative approaches are bad.  Certainly that's the
conclusion I come to, based first of all on the very sweeping
non-factual attacks here on all conceivable alternative approaches.
And based secondly on the attitude that the absence of research on
a treatment is adequate grounds for calling that treatment
ineffective.  (People like myself are indebted to Sean McLinden for
having explained this.)

Gordon, when people say that doing research on alternative approaches is
a waste of money, I wish that you could tell them some of your horror
stories.  Wouldn't it be worth something to be able to give your
patients real information based on actual research to discredit these
wrong-headed approaches, instead of offering mere opinion?

And wouldn't it be nice if a person considering one of these alternative
approaches could know that their personal physician could give them the
most reliable unbiased information available on that approach?  At least
that way they would get conventional medical advice before trying
something unconventional.  

And this is not to mention the possibility that research into alternative
approaches might turn up some genuinely useful things.  (As I believe it
would.  But that's mere non-factual opinion.)  

--
It is a poor sort of skepticism which merely delights in challenging
those claims which conflict with one's own belief system.  
                                                          --Bogus quote 
lady@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu         lady@uhunix.bitnet