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I think the best solution would be to say that 'alternative medicine' is still medicine and must follow existing regulations. So, treatments must be prescribed

I think the best solution would be to say that 'alternative medicine' is still medicine and must follow existing regulations. So, treatments must be prescribed by a doctor, they must be approved for use in humans (and so must demonstrate utility and safety), and so on.

KirinDave 17y ago
But the practitioners will fight this. Many of them are canny enough to know that if you measure them by the same yardstick as real medicine they're going to fall short. That's why they dance around the FDA regulations with their disclaimers so often. And what for the more established practices, like chiropractic? They already have "doctors". How do you bootstrap this procedure when hundreds of "trained" professional practitioners already flood the market? Do you say, "Okay guys, put your careers on hold while we do 5-year trials!" And we've already done those trials for the most part, and they've come up negative. So do we just say, "Find a new business?" And you've got to do this all without giving your opponents an opportunity to rile up the public against your actions. Voters can be an irrational lot, but a lot of irrational people can outvote a few rational people. Unless you spin it just so, a narrative of big government crushing small business can be devastating. I think what you're proposing is what we'd like to have happen, but it's incredibly difficult to have it turn out that way.
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gcheong 17y ago
I feel quite the opposite. I think it's similar to the problem of separation of church and state. By that I mean you shouldn't be prohibited from trying out unproven treatments and you can believe whatever you want, but it should be kept separate from the medical system that has been shown by scientific inquiry to be effective.
- KirinDave 17y ago
  Okay, man. I appreciate this "church and state" argument, but we're talking about medicine here. This isn't people's souls at stake, it's their immediate health and lives. It's one thing to limit what people put into their body, I'm nod advocating that. It's another entirely to limit what people claim. People can claim anything can cure anything, and then someone who isn't making a fully informed decision then puts their lives at risk, and in the process loses cash to someone who simply made a statement and offered a service. In many other industries, this is okay. The market tends to detect bullshitters and avoid them. Usually it's only a few over-eager suckers who lose some cash and warn everyone else. But in the case of medicine, transactions are done not only in people's money but also with their health as currency. Asking for the market to correct for this asks for an incredible amount of misery and death to occur before a treatment can be identified. Ethically, this seems like a very bad position to take.

KirinDave 17y ago

But the practitioners will fight this. Many of them are canny enough to know that if you measure them by the same yardstick as real medicine they're going to fall short. That's why they dance around the FDA regulations with their disclaimers so often. And what for the more established practices, like chiropractic? They already have "doctors". How do you bootstrap this procedure when hundreds of "trained" professional practitioners already flood the market? Do you say, "Okay guys, put your careers on hold while we do 5-year trials!" And we've already done those trials for the most part, and they've come up negative. So do we just say, "Find a new business?" And you've got to do this all without giving your opponents an opportunity to rile up the public against your actions. Voters can be an irrational lot, but a lot of irrational people can outvote a few rational people. Unless you spin it just so, a narrative of big government crushing small business can be devastating. I think what you're proposing is what we'd like to have happen, but it's incredibly difficult to have it turn out that way.

deleted 17y ago
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gcheong 17y ago

I feel quite the opposite. I think it's similar to the problem of separation of church and state. By that I mean you shouldn't be prohibited from trying out unproven treatments and you can believe whatever you want, but it should be kept separate from the medical system that has been shown by scientific inquiry to be effective.

KirinDave 17y ago
Okay, man. I appreciate this "church and state" argument, but we're talking about medicine here. This isn't people's souls at stake, it's their immediate health and lives. It's one thing to limit what people put into their body, I'm nod advocating that. It's another entirely to limit what people claim. People can claim anything can cure anything, and then someone who isn't making a fully informed decision then puts their lives at risk, and in the process loses cash to someone who simply made a statement and offered a service. In many other industries, this is okay. The market tends to detect bullshitters and avoid them. Usually it's only a few over-eager suckers who lose some cash and warn everyone else. But in the case of medicine, transactions are done not only in people's money but also with their health as currency. Asking for the market to correct for this asks for an incredible amount of misery and death to occur before a treatment can be identified. Ethically, this seems like a very bad position to take.