5 ms·

Yeah there's a reflexive defense mechanism that prevents a lot of good people from paying attention to non-mainstream health advice. I hesitate to even use the

Yeah there's a reflexive defense mechanism that prevents a lot of good people from paying attention to non-mainstream health advice. I hesitate to even use the words non-mainstream or alternative, because they get made fun of, but it just goes to show how successful the push to demonize alternative health practitioners has been. A shame too, because health is the most important thing in the world and too often these well-intentioned people have a very terrible terrible effect on the world.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
Most alternative medicine is crap. Useless or actively harmful, e.g. arsenic in homeopathy or heavy metals in many Ayurvedic preparations. Where it isn’t, it’s often incorporated into medicine—its practitioners pretend to be persecuted as a marketing tactic. (A lot of “food-based medicine”, i.e. targeted nutrition, falls into this category.)
- canadiantim 3y ago
  I bet you also criticize homeopathy for having dilutions so strong that they don't have any active ingredients in them at all (which is true!), but funny juxtaposed against an argument that homeopathy is poisoning people with arsenic. The reality is that non-alternative medicine is that subset of medicine which has been regulatory captured. Whatever medicine couldn't be made profitable was then deemed alternative and relegated to the quacks. It's a shame we've handed health and medicine to big business on a silver platter.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > funny juxtaposed against an argument that homeopathy is poisoning people with arsenic As I said, useless or harmful. If super diluted, useless. If insufficiently so, harmful. > Whatever medicine couldn't be made profitable was then deemed alternative and relegated to the quacks This is nonsense. If your doctor is never recommending e.g. a diet change or physical exercise or even PT, and only prescribing medication, get a new doctor. Most medical research is not pharmaceutical.
    - tern 3y ago
      "Most alternative medicine is crap" isn't saying much. Most of anything is crap. Everything I know about my condition is from alternative medicine. Mainstream doctors simply throw their hands up. Most things alternative doctors say about it are crap, but I'm grateful that with some investigation, the truth turns out to be well-explored.
lelanthran 3y ago
> I hesitate to even use the words non-mainstream or alternative, because they get made fun of, but it just goes to show how successful the push to demonize alternative health practitioners has been. You gotta be honest with yourself: 1. Anything that is claimed to work gets tested. 2. Anything showing efficacy in double-blind trials get taken up almost immediately. 3. The only stuff left on the table, then, is the stuff that was tested and was found to perform no better than a placebo. This is where all the alternative medicines lie, on the efficacy spectrum. Of course the people selling drinking water or acupuncture sessions are going to claim that "the establishment" has never bothered to test their product - why would they tell you that it's been tested and relegated to "alternative" medicine? The sad fact is that there are a large number (few million, at least) of Phd candidates every year looking to publish a thesis about a drug/process/medicine/practice that is effectively a new cure for something. They will get insanely rich, and famous, and get invited to give talks and get tenure if even one of the currently popular alternative medicines work better than a placebo. You need to ask yourself "Is it really possible that every single graduating student of the bio and medical sciences are either bought off by big pharma or too stupid to get this easily reachable fame and fortune?" Your answer to that question, to yourself, is enough - you don't need to reply to me telling me how $FOO successfully demonized $WORKING_MEDICINE - you need t simply ask yourself why millions of grad students haven't jumped at this opportunity for themselves.
- vonjuice 3y ago
  Just remember there was a time when medical doctors refused to wash their hands for surgeries, adamantly: https://theconversation.com/ignaz-semmelweis-the-doctor-who-discovered-the-disease-fighting-power-of-hand-washing-in-1847-135528 https://theconversation.com/ignaz-semmelweis-the-doctor-who-...
  - lelanthran 3y ago
    > Just remember there was a time when medical doctors refused to wash their hands for surgeries, adamantly: https://theconversation.com/ignaz-semmelweis-the-doctor-who- https://theconversation.com/ignaz-semmelweis-the-doctor-who-... What does that have to do with scientists? I've said how huge fame and fortunes are sitting on the table for the first person who can find evidence for the popular alternative medicines. What medical doctors do, or don't do, is irrelevant, because medical doctors aren't in the business of determining what works and what doesn't, they prescribe only what has already been tested to work. Their job isn't to run tests to determine what works, it's to diagnose and treat using known working medication. If your complaint is that medical doctors don't prescribe alternative medicines, then your beef is not with doctors, but with the science that tested them and found them not to work.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

Most alternative medicine is crap. Useless or actively harmful, e.g. arsenic in homeopathy or heavy metals in many Ayurvedic preparations. Where it isn’t, it’s often incorporated into medicine—its practitioners pretend to be persecuted as a marketing tactic. (A lot of “food-based medicine”, i.e. targeted nutrition, falls into this category.)

canadiantim 3y ago
I bet you also criticize homeopathy for having dilutions so strong that they don't have any active ingredients in them at all (which is true!), but funny juxtaposed against an argument that homeopathy is poisoning people with arsenic. The reality is that non-alternative medicine is that subset of medicine which has been regulatory captured. Whatever medicine couldn't be made profitable was then deemed alternative and relegated to the quacks. It's a shame we've handed health and medicine to big business on a silver platter.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > funny juxtaposed against an argument that homeopathy is poisoning people with arsenic As I said, useless or harmful. If super diluted, useless. If insufficiently so, harmful. > Whatever medicine couldn't be made profitable was then deemed alternative and relegated to the quacks This is nonsense. If your doctor is never recommending e.g. a diet change or physical exercise or even PT, and only prescribing medication, get a new doctor. Most medical research is not pharmaceutical.
  - tern 3y ago
    "Most alternative medicine is crap" isn't saying much. Most of anything is crap. Everything I know about my condition is from alternative medicine. Mainstream doctors simply throw their hands up. Most things alternative doctors say about it are crap, but I'm grateful that with some investigation, the truth turns out to be well-explored.

lelanthran 3y ago

> I hesitate to even use the words non-mainstream or alternative, because they get made fun of, but it just goes to show how successful the push to demonize alternative health practitioners has been. You gotta be honest with yourself: 1. Anything that is claimed to work gets tested. 2. Anything showing efficacy in double-blind trials get taken up almost immediately. 3. The only stuff left on the table, then, is the stuff that was tested and was found to perform no better than a placebo. This is where all the alternative medicines lie, on the efficacy spectrum. Of course the people selling drinking water or acupuncture sessions are going to claim that "the establishment" has never bothered to test their product - why would they tell you that it's been tested and relegated to "alternative" medicine? The sad fact is that there are a large number (few million, at least) of Phd candidates every year looking to publish a thesis about a drug/process/medicine/practice that is effectively a new cure for something. They will get insanely rich, and famous, and get invited to give talks and get tenure if even one of the currently popular alternative medicines work better than a placebo. You need to ask yourself "Is it really possible that every single graduating student of the bio and medical sciences are either bought off by big pharma or too stupid to get this easily reachable fame and fortune?" Your answer to that question, to yourself, is enough - you don't need to reply to me telling me how $FOO successfully demonized $WORKING_MEDICINE - you need t simply ask yourself why millions of grad students haven't jumped at this opportunity for themselves.

vonjuice 3y ago
Just remember there was a time when medical doctors refused to wash their hands for surgeries, adamantly: https://theconversation.com/ignaz-semmelweis-the-doctor-who-discovered-the-disease-fighting-power-of-hand-washing-in-1847-135528 https://theconversation.com/ignaz-semmelweis-the-doctor-who-...
- lelanthran 3y ago
  > Just remember there was a time when medical doctors refused to wash their hands for surgeries, adamantly: https://theconversation.com/ignaz-semmelweis-the-doctor-who- https://theconversation.com/ignaz-semmelweis-the-doctor-who-... What does that have to do with scientists? I've said how huge fame and fortunes are sitting on the table for the first person who can find evidence for the popular alternative medicines. What medical doctors do, or don't do, is irrelevant, because medical doctors aren't in the business of determining what works and what doesn't, they prescribe only what has already been tested to work. Their job isn't to run tests to determine what works, it's to diagnose and treat using known working medication. If your complaint is that medical doctors don't prescribe alternative medicines, then your beef is not with doctors, but with the science that tested them and found them not to work.