What is everyone's opinion on alternative medicine and naturopathic medicine?

[Josh L.Ac.]

Blah Blah BLah - double post

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[Josh L.Ac.]

I know. In addition to the Evolution fiasco we're also one of the two states in the nation that do not license acupuncturists with master's degrees that have passed the national boards (but we do license MDs/DOs with absolutely no training requirements).


On the flip side, NDs gained licensure here a few years ago - I think they can practice as PCPs, meaning KS is one of the few states that allows it. Kinda odd.

But the chiefs made it to the play-offs and I think that is more important to the 99.9% of the people that live here.

"To hell with politics we're heading to the playoffs!"

 

[ForbiddenComma]

The Chiefs making the playoffs defied all logic and probably the laws of physics too. The local high school football team could run circles around our defense.

Not that I mind. Just keep handing the ball to LJ and let the rest handle itself, I say.

 

[8744]

You should have told him that, considering the trends, you'd be an idiot to go the allopathic route unless of course you wanted to just work with the 20% that it's good for.

Then, just for kicks tell him that the reductionist approach really works well if you're an auto mechanic...according to my brother who is one.

Then, take a pic of his expression!

I know you're trying to communicate but I have no idea what you are trying to tell me.

English, please.

 

[zenman]

I know you're trying to communicate but I have no idea what you are trying to tell me.

I've been aware of that for a long time!

English, please.

When you have only one framework from which to operate, you'have limitations, don't you?

 

[ForbiddenComma]

zenman, a couple questions for ya

1) Do naturopaths believe in the germ theory of disease?

2) Do naturopaths believe in immunization?

 

[8744]

When you have only one framework from which to operate, you'have limitations, don't you?

Okay, try it in Greek. I speak Greek. I guess that's two frameworks. What, you don't speak Greek? You're kind of limited there.

 

[FoughtFyr]

zenman, a couple questions for ya

1) Do naturopaths believe in the germ theory of disease?

2) Do naturopaths believe in immunization?

Just FYI, Josh L.Ac. is into Naturopathic Medicine. Zenman is a nurse who is into tribal forms of healing.

- H

 

[Josh L.Ac.]

Just FYI, Josh L.Ac. is into Naturopathic Medicine. Zenman is a nurse who is into tribal forms of healing.

- H

Am I? Just because I went to school with NDs and practice the sCAM modality of acupuncture / Chinese herbal medicine does not mean that I'm into Naturopathic medicine.


But I do think that the different aspects of naturopathic medicine should be evaluated just like everything else, rather than being simply dismissed via the same logical fallicies that the NDs are accused of making.

 

[ForbiddenComma]

Personally, I think there are a few good treatment options hidden away in what we call alternative medicine. But the problem is, there is no way to seperate it from the chafe due to a complete lack of standardization or peer review. Who's to say what is just placebo effect, what is complete crap, and what truly works?

Anyway, I've heard of a lot of naturopaths who advise their patients not to immunize, and that crime immediately outweighs any good their profession otherwise may achieve.

 

[8744]

Am I? Just because I went to school with NDs and practice the sCAM modality of acupuncture / Chinese herbal medicine does not mean that I'm into Naturopathic medicine.


But I do think that the different aspects of naturopathic medicine should be evaluated just like everything else, rather than being simply dismissed via the same logical fallicies that the NDs are accused of making.

Freudian slip?

 

[Josh L.Ac.]

Personally, I think there are a few good treatment options hidden away in what we call alternative medicine. But the problem is, there is no way to seperate it from the chafe due to a complete lack of standardization or peer review. Who's to say what is just placebo effect, what is complete crap, and what truly works?

Agreed. It's a dirty job...and I'm pretty much through with it. I still keep current with acupuncture and CHM research, but I don't care much about anything else.

Anyway, I've heard of a lot of naturopaths who advise their patients not to immunize, and that crime immediately outweighs any good their profession otherwise may achieve.

Actually I've had this conversation with several NDs and there was even a class about vaccination at Bastyr my last year there. I heard it was informative and encouraged each parent to make up their own decisions (as opposed to being dogmatic or political). Most of the NDs I know got their kids at least some of the vaccines, several did all of them, and I don't recall any that got none [n=10-15 ND/parents].

Some of the reasons people gave to not vaccinate their kids went something like this - why vaccinate if the illness is rarely deadly? Getting sick is fairly normal, so if my kid get's the chicken pox and misses a week of school, recovers, than is fine...what's the problem? Or if my kid is only a few hours old, why should I give him a vaccine against HBV if he isn't doing drugs or having unprotected sex? If protecting my newborn son against HBV is such an important health care intervention (since HBV is bad and thus an enemy of society), then why doesn't the government jump in and outlaw smoking, fast food, and alcohol? Are any of these questions actually relevant?


But if you really want to discuss this with a ND, there are several in Lawrence [yeah, go figure]. Give em' a call.

 

[Josh L.Ac.]

Freudian slip?

No smarty-pants, some SDF'er used it once and I took a liking to it.

 

[FoughtFyr]

Am I? Just because I went to school with NDs and practice the sCAM modality of acupuncture / Chinese herbal medicine does not mean that I'm into Naturopathic medicine.


But I do think that the different aspects of naturopathic medicine should be evaluated just like everything else, rather than being simply dismissed via the same logical fallicies that the NDs are accused of making.

I'm sorry. I thought you were an ND. My humble apologies.

I knew that Zenman was NOT a ND.

And the "sCAM" thing is mine...

- H

 

[Josh L.Ac.]

I'm sorry. I thought you were an ND. My humble apologies.

No problem, I know to outsiders we sCAM providers all kinda look the same.

I knew that Zenman was NOT a ND.

And the "sCAM" thing is mine...

- H

I thought it was but I didn't want to steal your thunder by giving credit to the wrong person.

 

[zenman]

Okay, try it in Greek. I speak Greek. I guess that's two frameworks. What, you don't speak Greek? You're kind of limited there.

Eres divertido!

 

[zenman]

zenman, a couple questions for ya

1) Do naturopaths believe in the germ theory of disease?

2) Do naturopaths believe in immunization?

I'm not an ND so can't speak about them. I do have a friend in Germany though who is one. They seem to be popular there.

 

[zenman]

Just FYI, Josh L.Ac. is into Naturopathic Medicine. Zenman is a nurse who is into tribal forms of healing.

- H

Stick Zen Shiatsu on there also. I like to have backup systems, lol.

 

[zenman]

No problem, I know to outsiders we sCAM providers all kinda look the same.

Josh, I was in Singapore last week and saw several impressive TCM clinics. All had full waiting rooms. One was even part of a hospital. I'm in Vietnam now and haven't seen a single acupuncture clinic.

 

[FoughtFyr]

No problem, I know to outsiders we sCAM providers all kinda look the same.

Yeah, I'm sure us evil allopaths are all the same to you too!

BTW - I've actually used accupunture to help with building appetites in ICU patients.

- H

 

[Josh L.Ac.]

Josh, I was in Singapore last week and saw several impressive TCM clinics. All had full waiting rooms. One was even part of a hospital. I'm in Vietnam now and haven't seen a single acupuncture clinic.

My wife is Vietnamese and her parents weren't too excited that she went to acupuncture school. For them, American is better (except for TVs). I think that attitude is pervasive even in Vietnam.

My mother-in-law did get acupuncture last year in Vietnam from a wandering buddhist nun. She got great results for her leg pain...and she didn't seem to concerned when I asked about the needles that were used - not sterilized, in a bag, probably reused.

Sigh.

The TCM hospitals in Chengdu were interesting...apparently they also share the same concern for the germ theory as my mother-in-law.

 

[Josh L.Ac.]

Yeah, I'm sure us evil allopaths are all the same to you too!

Actually since now I'm in an accelerated BSN program, you doctors are all pretty much look the same up on those high horses.

Well, not really. I'm actually surprised how friendly the vast majority of the doctors have been, including the surgeons. Especially the surgeons.

BTW - I've actually used accupunture to help with building appetites in ICU patients.

- H

As for acupuncture for stimulating appetite, that is an interesting application. We tend to use herbs more for that, some of which are easy to find, such as ginger [also found to be effective to treat PONV - from the American Journal of Obestetrics and Gynecology, Jan: 06].

Now how you are able to get away with burning moxa on the end of those needles while the patient is in ICU, I have no idea.

 

[zenman]

My wife is Vietnamese and her parents weren't too excited that she went to acupuncture school. For them, American is better (except for TVs). I think that attitude is pervasive even in Vietnam.

My mother-in-law did get acupuncture last year in Vietnam from a wandering buddhist nun. She got great results for her leg pain...and she didn't seem to concerned when I asked about the needles that were used - not sterilized, in a bag, probably reused.

Sigh.

The TCM hospitals in Chengdu were interesting...apparently they also share the same concern for the germ theory as my mother-in-law.

Well, coming out of Saigon this morning I did see a large Traditional Medicine Clinic...with the usual 50 plus scooters parked out front.

 

[Faebinder]

Alternative Medicine For Ya.

 

[ForbiddenComma]

So the general consensus seems to be: acupuncture works for chronic pain, but most everything else is just placebo effect?

 

[zenman]

http://www.essentialhealthcare.com/info_for_practitioners/therapeutic_mechanisms.html

 

[8744]

So the general consensus seems to be: acupuncture works for chronic pain, but most everything else is just placebo effect?

No. The general consensus is that accupuncture works by a placebo effect on those who are culturally conditioned to believe it. I bet ya' if I went to three different accupuncturists with the same complaint they'd all diagnose a different disorder of qi and stick needles in different places.

 

[Josh L.Ac.]

Alternative Medicine For Ya.

Your absolutely right. I was trying to sell his family my secret herbal recipe but they went with the homeopathy instead.

[insert article about some allopathic doctor's misdeed as a rebuttal]


Seriously?

 

[Josh L.Ac.]

So the general consensus seems to be: acupuncture works for chronic pain, but most everything else is just placebo effect?

Not really. We know from research at Harvard that acupuncture is a much better "carrier" of the placebo effect than a sugar pill. We also know that most of the time, acupuncture beats "placebo" acupuncture in the treatment of various conditions.

Where the problem comes in is with acupuncture vs. sham acupuncture. The difference between sham and placebo acupuncture is that sham acupuncture does elicit a response from the body such as non-specific needling effects.

In several studies, there was no statistical difference between real acupuncture and sham acupuncture, which leads some of the uninformed to make the claim that acupuncture just works by placebo. But most of these recent studies have severe limitations, such as not having enough patients in the two groups, having medical acupuncturists with 300 hours of training [versus 3300 for the high-end master's degree in acupuncture programs] deciding the points and performing the treatment, and in some cases, sham treatments that aren't really sham treatments [read: actual treatment].

But if you are not easily convinced, then you can safely say that acupuncture works for pain, headaches, and nausea. Everything else still requires more research and the patient might get results d/t placebo.

 

[Josh L.Ac.]

No. The general consensus is that accupuncture works by a placebo effect on those who are culturally conditioned to believe it.

Really, and where did you get that from, your blog? Or from the silly Frontline episode with the guy from M.A.S.H. [edit: Alan Alda did a series for frontline on sCAM]?

Stick with ER until you learn more on this topic, or at least learn how to spell "A-C-U-P-U-N-C-T-U-R-E".

I bet ya' if I went to three different accupuncturists with the same complaint they'd all diagnose a different disorder of qi and stick needles in different places.

Hold up. You put these two sentences together like you actually think point A is related to point B. After seeing your blog entry on sCAM and the above reply, I think it is time for you review the topic logical fallicies, most notably "the strawman", "red herring", and "confusing cause and effect".



http://www.fallacyfiles.org/noncause.html

Non Causa Pro Causa
Translation: "Non-cause for cause", Latin

Alias: False Cause

Type: Informal Fallacy
Exposition:

This is the most general fallacy of reasoning to conclusions about causality. Some authors describe it as inferring that something is the cause of something else when it isn't, an interpretation encouraged by the fallacy's names. However, inferring a false causal relation is often just a mistake, and it can be the result of reasoning which is as cogent as can be, since all reasoning to causal conclusions is ultimately inductive. Instead, to be fallacious, a causal argument must violate the canons of good reasoning about causation in some common or deceptive way. Thus, to understand causal fallacies, we must understand how causal reasoning works, and the ways in which it can go awry.

Causal conclusions can take one of two forms:

1. Event-Level: Sometimes we wish to know the cause of a particular event, for instance, a physician conducting a medical examination is inquiring into the cause of a particular patient's illness. Specific events are caused by other specific events, so the conclusion we aim at in this kind of causal reasoning has the form:

Event C caused event E.

Mistakes about event-level causation are the result of confusing coincidence with causation. Event C may occur at the same time as event E, or just before it, without being the cause of E. It may simply be happenstance that these two events occurred at about the same time. In order to find the correct event that caused an effect, we must reason from a causal law, which introduces the next level of causal reasoning:
2. Type-Level: A causal law has the form:

Events of type C cause events of type E.

Here, we are not talking about a causal relation holding between two particular events, but the general causal relation holding between instances of two types of event. For example, when we say that smoking cigarettes causes lung cancer, we are not talking about an individual act of smoking causing a particular case of lung cancer. Rather, we mean that smoking is a type of event which causes another type of event, namely, cancer.

Mistakes about type-level causation are the result of confusing correlation with causation. Two types of event may occur simultaneously, or one type always following the other type, without there being a causal relation between them. One common source of non-causal correlations between two event-types is when both are effects of a third type of event. For examples of causal fallacies, see the Subfallacies of Non Causa Pro Causa:

Subfallacies:

* Cum Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc
* Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc
* The Regression Fallacy
* Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy

Resource:

David Hackett Fischer, Historians' Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought (Harper & Row, 1970), Chapter VI: "Fallacies of Causation".

http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html

Straw Man (Fallacy Of Extension):

- attacking an exaggerated or caricatured version of your opponent's position.

For example, the claim that "evolution means a dog giving birth to a cat."

Another example: "Senator Jones says that we should not fund the attack submarine program. I disagree entirely. I can't understand why he wants to leave us defenseless like that."

On the Internet, it is common to exaggerate the opponent's position so that a comparison can be made between the opponent and Hitler.

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/redherrf.html

 

[zenman]

So the general consensus seems to be: acupuncture works for chronic pain, but most everything else is just placebo effect?

Just placebo effect?

If a drug or a surgical procedure is JUST as effective as a placebo, why aren't we studying the heck out of the placebo?

 

[ForbiddenComma]

I actually had an interview with an ND the other day, just for s**ts and giggles. She spent half the interview working on her inferiority complex and telling me how the ND path is equal to MD... more interestingly, she threw out how I might not be as well suited for the field because I am male.

Ignoring the blatant and possibly actionable gender discrimination for a moment... perhaps it's true that alternative medicine follows a fundamentally feminine model, as opposed to the typically male cold logic and science of the Western model. Maybe that's what attracts a lot of people to that field.

 

[group_theory]

Just placebo effect?

If a drug or a surgical procedure is JUST as effective as a placebo, why aren't we studying the heck out of the placebo?

FDA Approves Sale Of Prescription Placebo
September 17, 2003 | Issue 39•36

WASHINGTON, DC—After more than four decades of testing in tandem with other drugs, placebo gained approval for prescription use from the Food and Drug Administration Monday.

"For years, scientists have been aware of the effectiveness of placebo in treating a surprisingly wide range of conditions," said Dr. Jonathan Bergen of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. "It was time to provide doctors with this often highly effective option."

In its most common form, placebo is a white, crystalline substance of a sandy consistency, obtained from the evaporated juice of the Saccharum officinarum plant. The FDA has approved placebo in doses ranging from 1 to 40,000 milligrams.

The long-awaited approval will allow pharmaceutical companies to market placebo in pill and liquid form. Eleven major drug companies have developed placebo tablets, the first of which, AstraZeneca's Sucrosa, hits shelves Sept. 24.

"We couldn't be more thrilled to finally get this wonder drug out of the labs and into consumers' medicine cabinets," said Tami Erickson, a spokeswoman for AstraZeneca. "Studies show placebo to be effective in the treatment of many ailments and disorders, ranging from lower-back pain to erectile dysfunction to nausea."

Pain-sufferers like Margerite Kohler, who participated in a Sucrosa study in March, welcomed the FDA's approval.

"For years, I battled with strange headaches that surfaced during times of stress," Kohler said. "Doctors repeatedly turned me away empty-handed, or suggested that I try an over-the-counter pain reliever—as if that would be strong enough. Finally, I heard about Sucrosa. They said, 'This will work,' and it worked. The headaches are gone."

Researchers diagnosed Kohler with Random Occasional Nonspecific Pain and Discomfort Disorder (RONPDD), a minor but surprisingly pervasive medical condition that strikes otherwise healthy adults.

RONPDD is only one of many disorders for which placebo has proven effective, Bergen said.

"Placebo has been successful in the treatment of everything from lower-back pain to erectile dysfunction to nausea," Bergen said. "That's the beauty, and the mystery, of placebo. It's all-purpose. Think of it like aspirin, but without any of the analgesic properties."

The FDA is expected to approve the drug for a wide range of mood disorders later this year. According to Bergen, initial research has shown placebo to be effective in the treatment of bipolar disorder, depression, dysthymia, panic disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, seasonal affective disorder, and stress.

As industry analysts predict the drug's sales will top $25 billion in the first year, the approval of placebo is expected to unleash one of the pharmaceutical industry's biggest marketing battles to date.

GlaxoSmithKline expects to have two versions of placebo on the shelves in late December. One, a 40-milligram pill called Appeasor, will be marketed to patients 55 and over, while the other, Inertra, designed for middle-aged women, is a liquid that comes in a 355-milliliter can, and is cola-flavored. Eli Lilly plans a $3 million marketing campaign for its 400-milligram tablet, Pacifex.

"All placebos are not the same," Eli Lilly spokesman Giles French said. "Pacifex is the only placebo that's green and shaped like a triangle. Pacifex: A doctor gave it to you."

Despite such ringing endorsements, some members of the medical community have spoken out against placebo's approval, saying that the drug's wide range of side effects is a cause for concern.

"Yes, placebo has benefits, but studies link it to a hundred different side effects, from lower-back pain to erectile dysfunction to nausea," drug researcher Patrick Wheeler said. "Placebo wreaked havoc all over the body, with no rhyme or reason. Basically, whichever side effects were included on the questionnaire, we found in research subjects."

Added Wheeler: "We must not introduce placebo to the public until we pinpoint exactly how and why it works. The drug never should have advanced beyond the stage of animal testing, which, for some reason, was totally ineffective in determining its effectiveness."

In spite of the confusing data, drug makers say placebo is safe.

"The only side effect consistent in all test subjects was a negligible one—an almost imperceptible elevation in blood-glucose levels," French said. "It's unfair to the American people to withhold a drug so many of them desperately think they need."


© Copyright 2006, Onion, Inc.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39082

 

[Josh L.Ac.]

I actually had an interview with an ND the other day, just for s**ts and giggles. She spent half the interview working on her inferiority complex and telling me how the ND path is equal to MD...

Kudos for stepping out and seeing how the other half lives....

...more interestingly, she threw out how I might not be as well suited for the field because I am male.

Ignoring the blatant and possibly actionable gender discrimination for a moment... perhaps it's true that alternative medicine follows a fundamentally feminine model, as opposed to the typically male cold logic and science of the Western model. Maybe that's what attracts a lot of people to that field.

And now we get to the complete nonsense that makes up the majority of CAM. Somehow the whole womyn's lib agenda got mixed up with the anti-rational thought agenda in many peoples' minds...and the results are just plain, downright, maybe-if-I-was-passed-out-drunk ugly.


Reminds me of the worst nursing theory classes I've had to suffer through.

 

[zenman]

I actually had an interview with an ND the other day, just for s**ts and giggles. She spent half the interview working on her inferiority complex and telling me how the ND path is equal to MD... more interestingly, she threw out how I might not be as well suited for the field because I am male.

Ignoring the blatant and possibly actionable gender discrimination for a moment... perhaps it's true that alternative medicine follows a fundamentally feminine model, as opposed to the typically male cold logic and science of the Western model. Maybe that's what attracts a lot of people to that field.

A lot of us in the CAM field are also martial artists and love to beat people up. Hell, I even like the sound of my own bones breaking, lol!

I have taught some females who did have a killer instinct, though.

 

[8744]

Just placebo effect?

If a drug or a surgical procedure is JUST as effective as a placebo, why aren't we studying the heck out of the placebo?

Because there is not third arm of a placebo control study, that is, the effect of not giving any drug at all including the placebo. It could be that no intervention is just as effective as a placebo.

By definition, there is nothing to study with the placebo as its effects are indepedent to what it actually is. That's why only subjective complaints will respond to a placebo. "Mr Smith, this is a super-modern cure-all pill that will make you feel better. How do you feel?"

"I feel better."

You cannot treat, for example, a small bowel obstruction with a placebo because an adhesion does not care how happy or optimistic you are.

 

[zenman]

That's why only subjective complaints will respond to a placebo. "Mr Smith, this is a super-modern cure-all pill that will make you feel better. How do you feel?"

What about the well-documented case of a Mr. Wright, which occurred during a university study, and the drug Krebiozen and injections of a placebo?

There are too many cases of not only "subjective" improvement but "objective" measurable physical changes in the human body due to the power of the mind. Even MPDs have measurable physical changes in their physiology.

 

[psipsina]

Taking nothing away from your experience, this only shows that your rheumatologist misdiagnosed the cause of your pain, which was well within the confines of Western medicine. It's not like you were prescribed prayer beads and chakra paste - you were given a reasonable explaination and had reasonable tests done on you. Had this been done by, say, an infectious disease physician, this would be lauded as "thinking outside the box."

The rheumatologist said that I had psoriatic arthritis because it was the only explanation that she could think of within her box (I have a very minor skin reaction to some fragranced soaps . . . ) . . . obviously she could have thought to refer me to an allergist and the allergist could have thought outside his box and run an common food allergy IgG test and a candida stool test . . . but going to the guy who specializes in food allergies but doesn't have an MD behind his name seemed like a more simple solution. Obviously there are some MDs out there who would have thought of this approach, but does that really take something away from the specialists who use this approach routinely? The point was that sometimes alternative medicine providers offer treatment that isn't hocus pocus (i.e. prayer beads and chakra paste) and that they are sometimes the most accessible path to those reasonable treatments.

 

[piggie]

who cares if it works, only thing that matter is whther it is perceived to work

 

[8744]

who cares if it works, only thing that matter is whther it is perceived to work

That is not true in the slightest. A LEEP can prevent cervical cancer. A strange oriental herb purported to cure cervical cancer won't. No amount of religious belief is going to prevent dysplastic cells on the cervix from becoming cancerous.

This is so obvious that if you don't understand it...drumroll please as yer' Uncle Panda is going to say something that he pledged he would never say....you don't deserve to be a doctor. Hell, you aren't smart enough to be a doctor.

Piggie, we are not in the business of making people feel good about their treatment. If they do it's only because the treatment works in either curing or managing their condition and the good feelings are a bonus. We don't start a course of treatment on any patient by saying, "This is going to absolutely cure you if you only believe hard enough."

 

[Josh L.Ac.]

That is not true in the slightest. A LEEP can prevent cervical cancer. A strange oriental herb purported to cure cervical cancer won't. No amount of religious belief is going to prevent dysplastic cells on the cervix from becoming cancerous.

Actually if you search pubmed, there is research that shows the "anti-cancer" effects of many Chinese herbs. I had to do a presentation several years ago about the ability of several herbs to block tumor angiogenesis:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=search&DB=pubmed

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/..._uids=15010258&query_hl=3&itool=pubmed_docsum


But the question that is raised is whether or not it is ethical to use Chinese herbal medicine to treat cancer in the US. My alma mater had a doctorate program in oncology and the primary focus was on using herbs as an adjunct to treat cancer and treating the side-effects of cancer treatment. While it is okay in China to use herbs as the primary treatment for cancer (most people couldn't afford the drugs anyway), it probably isn't ethical to do that here.

 

[zenman]

We don't start a course of treatment on any patient by saying, "This is going to absolutely cure you if you only believe hard enough."

Ah yes, the old belief system.

From the book "Why we believe what we believe"

Excerpt from Chapter 1:
The Power of Belief

He wasn’t expected to live through the night. His body was riddled with tumors, his liver and spleen were enlarged, his lungs were filled with fluid, and he needed an oxygen mask to breathe. But when Mr. Wright heard that his doctor was conducting cancer research with a new drug called Krebiozen, which the media was touting as a potential miracle cure, he pleaded to be given treatments. Although it was against protocol, Dr. Klopfer honored Wright’s request by giving him an injection of the drug, then left the hospital for the weekend, never expecting to see his patient again. But when he returned on Monday morning, he discovered that Mr. Wright’s tumors had shrunk to half their original size, something that even radiation treatments could not do.

“Good God!” thought Dr. Klopfer. “Have we finally found the silver bullet – a cure for cancer?” Unfortunately, an examination of the other test patients showed no changes at all. Only Mr. Wright had improved. Was this a rare case of spontaneous remission, or was some other unidentified mechanism at work? The doctor continued to give injections to his recovering patient, and after ten days, practically all signs of the disease had disappeared. Wright returned home, in perfect health.

Two months later, the Food and Drug Administration reported that the experiments with Krebiozen were proving ineffective. Mr. Wright immediately became ill. His tumors returned and he was readmitted to the hospital. Dr. Klopfer, however, was convinced that it was the patient’s belief that had healed him. To test his theory, he decided to lie, telling Wright that he had just obtained “a new, super-refined, double-strength product” that was guaranteed to produce better results. In reality, Dr. Klopfer gave him injections of sterile water.

Once again, the patient’s recovery was dramatic. The tumors disappeared and Mr. Wright resumed his normal life -- until the newspapers published the following announcement by the American Medical Association:


Nationwide Tests Show Krebiozen to be a

Worthless Drug In Treatment Of Cancer!


Wright fell ill, returned to the hospital, and died two days later. In Dr. Klopfer’s report, published in the Journal of Projective Techniques, he concluded that when the powers of Wright’s optimistic beliefs expired, his resistance to the disease expired as well.

 

[deleted109597]

Rattlesnake venom is natural. I'm sure somewhere somebody is advocating it for cholesterol purposes.

Just because it's natural doesn't mean it's safe.

Not quite a rattlesnake, but it is still quite effective. Only thing is, we knew it did this before, that's why it made sense to use it.

 

[Burke]

Placebo effect?

LOL

 

[CosmeticAndrea]

Hi everyone,
Did you know that in Germany, doctor's prescribe St John's Wort for depression?
Obviously there is evidence that this works so when will UK dorctors be allowed to do the same?

 

[Hippias]

Just a quick q, is acupuncture considered natural medicine?
Reason being, my dad has a herniated disc. Didn't want to become addicted to pain meds, refused to take many, other meds couldn't do enough, even got an epidural. Went in for a 150$ acupuncture session and was feeling better that night.

 

[Pharmavixen]

Hi everyone,
Did you know that in Germany, doctor's prescribe St John's Wort for depression?
Obviously there is evidence that this works so when will UK dorctors be allowed to do the same?

Is the fact of something being prescribed proof that it works?

I would be cautious recommending St John's wort because of its induction of CP450 enzymes, resulting in a reduction in effectiveness for numerous drugs, including most notably the protease inhibitors.

I'm with Richard Dawkins on this topic: if it works, it's not alternative; it's medicine. OTOH, as a pharmacist, I rather like homeopathic medicines; they do bugger-all, but they don't do any harm either, so your neurotics in general good health can pop all their little sugar pills to their heart's content and not bother real health care professionals with trivialities.

 

[ZincFingers]

Accupuncture has proven results for pain and stress relief, one of the few alternative therapies to have any research at all to back it up. Many other therapies, even if they do absolutely nothing "real" at all, can still help via the placebo effect.

What gets accupuncturists (and chiropracters, and herbalists, etc etc) in trouble is when they say their "therapies" do more than relax, and that they help cure cancer or what have you. The snake oil salesmen know cancer patients are desperate and many are only too happy to prey upon their desperation to relieve them of their funds.

 

[Mydoc]

hmm I personally believe in the chinese system of using Herbs. They have few thousand years with their "technology" now. Sometimes, when I had a cold, the western medicine basically have no cure. Most doc. will tell you take more rest, eat some oranges, drink a lot of water and that's it. In chinese world, they believed some herbs can increase the ability of figiting disease in your immune system rather just give pills that may cause another trouble in patient body.

 

[ZincFingers]

hmm I personally believe in the chinese system of using Herbs. They have few thousand years with their "technology" now. Sometimes, when I had a cold, the western medicine basically have no cure. Most doc. will tell you take more rest, eat some oranges, drink a lot of water and that's it. In chinese world, they believed some herbs can increase the ability of figiting disease in your immune system rather just give pills that may cause another trouble in patient body.

Therefore it must be true!

In related news, the U.S. Army has decided to discard Western "technology"-based devices such as missile launchers, automatic weapons and tanks in favor of swords and the bow and arrow. "Previous cultures have had a few thousand years to perfect the lance and the longbow," an Army spokesman said. "We've had it with modern weapons dealers who can't promise automatic victories in every situations. Recently, we met with some guy who promised victories if only we returned to traditional, natural weaponry.

"How could we say no?"