3 ms·

I believe you find this article interesting: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/11/upshot/labels-like-alternative-medicine-dont-matter-the-science-does.html https:

by isolli 8y ago

I believe you find this article interesting: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/11/upshot/labels-like-alternative-medicine-dont-matter-the-science-does.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/11/upshot/labels-like-altern... "My friends who believe in homeopathy don’t really care. Those who favor conventional medicine, though, can be just as blinded. Too often, when confronted with evidence that advanced technology might not be providing benefits, the medical community refuses to change its behavior." He goes on to argue that the distinction between conventional and alternative medicine is misleading. The only distinction should be between what is proven and what is disproven.

gowld 8y ago
"Alternative" means "unproven or disproven", doesn't it?
- isolli 8y ago
  I don't know, it's a matter of definition. What I know is that the article makes a good point.
- Chris_Jay 8y ago
  To pro-alternative folks like myself it just means "not in the medical textbooks yet". Most 'alternative' approaches do have rigorous studies backing them up, just recent and ignored by a lot of people.
  - frostburg 8y ago
    Homeopathy doesn't work. Acupunture doesn't work. Traditional Chinese Medicine doesn't work. Faith healing doesn't work. These rigorous studies you're mentioning do not exist.
    - isolli 8y ago
      This meta-study supports the use of acupuncture to treat chronic pain: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/1357513 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...
      - frostburg 8y ago
        The practice seems to have a (very small) effect compared to placebo or "fake" acupuncture, but the "traditonal" theory of it has no explanatory value whatsoever.
    - mushtar 8y ago
      What about getting allergy shots? Do you know that it was considered 'quack science' just as recently as a few decades ago? Now it's been adopted by mainstream medicine as one of the most effective ways to help deal with allergies. Believe it or not, western medicine doesn't have all the answers, especially when it comes to chronic conditions. Thinking that steroids and antibiotics will cure IBS is quack science, and that's what's being practiced in western medicine.
      - frostburg 8y ago
        You have a distorted view of the methods and procedures of "western" (evidence based) medicine. It is obviously not perfect (and I'm pretty sure that you don't actually know the worst of it - the current obsession with having universal prescriptive protocols for everything is a rather clear local minimum that medical practice is stuck into), but everything else generally doesn't rise above the "not even wrong" bar. "Western" medicine dramatically improved in the last few decades. "Alternative" medicines do not have the intellectual framework or the ability to improve.
chrisbennet 8y ago
"By definition, Alternative Medicine has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. Do you know what they call Alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine." --Tim Minchin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujUQn0HhGEk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujUQn0HhGEk
- isolli 8y ago
  And how would you call medicine that has been proven not to work? This is what the original discussion is about: the medical system can be too slow to recognize and stop harmful practices. There are many examples: Thalidomide, operating on babies without anesthesia [0], intensive glucose control [1], adenoid removal (the topic here) etc. [0] http://www.nocirc.org/symposia/second/chamberlain.html http://www.nocirc.org/symposia/second/chamberlain.html [1] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0810625 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0810625

by isolli 8y ago

gowld 8y ago

"Alternative" means "unproven or disproven", doesn't it?

isolli 8y ago
I don't know, it's a matter of definition. What I know is that the article makes a good point.
Chris_Jay 8y ago
To pro-alternative folks like myself it just means "not in the medical textbooks yet". Most 'alternative' approaches do have rigorous studies backing them up, just recent and ignored by a lot of people.
- frostburg 8y ago
  Homeopathy doesn't work. Acupunture doesn't work. Traditional Chinese Medicine doesn't work. Faith healing doesn't work. These rigorous studies you're mentioning do not exist.
  - isolli 8y ago
    This meta-study supports the use of acupuncture to treat chronic pain: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/1357513 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...
    - frostburg 8y ago
      The practice seems to have a (very small) effect compared to placebo or "fake" acupuncture, but the "traditonal" theory of it has no explanatory value whatsoever.
  - mushtar 8y ago
    What about getting allergy shots? Do you know that it was considered 'quack science' just as recently as a few decades ago? Now it's been adopted by mainstream medicine as one of the most effective ways to help deal with allergies. Believe it or not, western medicine doesn't have all the answers, especially when it comes to chronic conditions. Thinking that steroids and antibiotics will cure IBS is quack science, and that's what's being practiced in western medicine.
    - frostburg 8y ago
      You have a distorted view of the methods and procedures of "western" (evidence based) medicine. It is obviously not perfect (and I'm pretty sure that you don't actually know the worst of it - the current obsession with having universal prescriptive protocols for everything is a rather clear local minimum that medical practice is stuck into), but everything else generally doesn't rise above the "not even wrong" bar. "Western" medicine dramatically improved in the last few decades. "Alternative" medicines do not have the intellectual framework or the ability to improve.

chrisbennet 8y ago

"By definition, Alternative Medicine has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. Do you know what they call Alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine." --Tim Minchin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujUQn0HhGEk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujUQn0HhGEk

isolli 8y ago
And how would you call medicine that has been proven not to work? This is what the original discussion is about: the medical system can be too slow to recognize and stop harmful practices. There are many examples: Thalidomide, operating on babies without anesthesia [0], intensive glucose control [1], adenoid removal (the topic here) etc. [0] http://www.nocirc.org/symposia/second/chamberlain.html http://www.nocirc.org/symposia/second/chamberlain.html [1] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0810625 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0810625