7 ms·

> But Traditional Chinese Medicine and Homeopathic Oncology are not treatments; they operate under fraudulent principles - they are, at best, Lifestyle interven

by noibl 14y ago

> But Traditional Chinese Medicine and Homeopathic Oncology are not treatments; they operate under fraudulent principles - they are, at best, Lifestyle interventions The foundational principles of traditional medicine (Chinese, Ayurvedic, whatever) are generally bullshit. But that doesn't mean that everything that emerges from them should be ignored. If researchers have the resources and inclination to engage with specific claims and put them to the test, surprising discoveries can still result in this day and age.[1] Of course, that doesn't mean that discussion of any one patient's treatment should always be surrounded by a haze of quackery. But we shouldn't close the door completely. We should be careful to distinguish the fanciful principles of traditional therapies from their observed benefits over centuries and from the actually fraudulent nature of later pseudomedicine such as homeopathy. [1] http://www.washington.edu/news/2011/04/04/high-dose-of-oxygen-enhances-natural-cancer-treatment/ http://www.washington.edu/news/2011/04/04/high-dose-of-oxyge...

robbiep 14y ago
I agree completely. Part of the problem remains however that so many treatments have been studied and proven wrong, however proponents of treatment by 'Insert CAM modality here' remain willfully blind to the evidence against their treatment, and still tell everyone that will listen that not only does it work, but modern medicine won't test it and the studies aren't done. as evidence I proffer the more than $1 Bn spent by the NCCAM for research into CAM that has largely come up bunk on the big issues. The research should be done, it is important to approach it with an open mind, but CAM proponents must live up to their end of the bargain and stop moving the goalposts whenever a study that debunks a modality is released. ps. I'm not too sure what your link has to do with the discussion exactly - I mean, artemisinin is not exactly part of the CAM stable anymore, it's a well accepted part of 'medicine proper' these days - joining a long list of other traditional therapies, asprin first and foremost amongst them, that have followed that route
- ekianjo 14y ago
  I would be interested to know what you think of Western Medicine in the light of what Ben Goldacre says about how clinical trials are conducted. There are many flaws even in the so-called "Evidence-based" system in Western drug development, which is what you guys are going to rely on when providing treatments. "better than placebo" being enough to register a drug, cherry-picking patients in the results, targetting very niche patient groups, not publishing any of the failed studies but being able to register on a SINGLE successful trial (which could be pure luck, statistically speaking)... and the fact that nobody ever repeats the trials for confirmation. Traditional Chinese Medicine may be bullshit, but I think we have a heavy luggage of bullshit in modern Western Medicine as well and we ought to recognize it. Disclaimer: I have a long track record in pharma industries.
  - robbiep 14y ago
    I think the way some trials are conducted is worrying. Of course there is the points you bring up; I had also heard (but can't find any link from a bit of a cursory look around the net) that all subsequent trials of antidepressants show decreased treatment effect until you end up with meta-analyses that seem to show that they are no better than placebo, leading (jokingly) to Doctors, on the release of a new anti-depressant, saying 'Quick, let's use it before it stops working' Part of the problem I think is the model of the pharma industry (I have no suggestions on where to start to change this!), part is that students/researchers don't want to give up on publication and years of work with null results and so change the aims or methodology, or rig their study... Which is morally indefensible but understandable at the same time.. I think a lot of people involved with medicine are under no illusions as to the limitations of our current methods. However one of the beautiful things about the scientific method is that we are continually testing our preconceived ideas, and trying to tease out if the effects are real or some artefact of bias, statistics, population dynamics, etc. When I started Med School they tell us that 'Within 4 years, 50% of what you have learnt will be wrong and replaced. The difficulty is which 50%'. THAT is how quickly our knowledge is growing, and goes a long way to show that the people involved in the delivery of healthcare don't take this all for granted.
    - illuminate 14y ago
      And that 50% is entirely preferable to loyally sticking with long-disproved falsehoods and pretending that they are preferable to updating any knowledgebase.
  - illuminate 14y ago
    "I would be interested to know what you think of Western Medicine in the light of what Ben Goldacre says about how clinical trials are conducted." The benefit of Western Medicine is that we know these terrible things and can work around them. They are not the system working as should be practiced. Using a fictional modality to treat patients is not a preferable alternative. Reform, not revolution.
    - 14y ago
meric 14y ago
I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss foundational principles of TCM as 'generally bullshit'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acupuncture#Effectiveness_research http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acupuncture#Effectiveness_resea... It's more like - the foundations of TCM hold but over time knowledge passed down has accrued a lot of junk. I wouldn't use TCM to treat cancer. If you look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_food_therapy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_food_therapy a lot of it doesn't make sense. I still believe the principle is sound however; Eat lots of fried foods and drink not enough water and you can expect to get mouth ulcers.
- lobster_johnson 14y ago
  One must keep in mind that while acupunture works (for some things), it is not for the reasons stated by traditional practitioners, which are not scientific. Humans don't have "qi" or energy blockages or chakras or any of the (frankly) bullshit inventions of Chinese and Asian medicine. A lot of traditional medicine works (and a lot made-up, superstitious nonsense does not), but it's invariably something that works with no underlying understanding. To paraphrase Tim Minchin (I believe), alternative medicine that works is called "medicine".
  - rgbrgb 14y ago
    > Humans don't have "qi" or energy blockages or chakras I do. How do you know you don't?
    - lobster_johnson 14y ago
      There is no reason for me to believe that I, or you, do, much as there is no reason for me to believe that ghosts exists, or that crystals can heal. There is no evidence that the things I listed exist, and there are much simpler, scientific explanations why acupuncture relieves pain and discomfort than reasons offered by Chinese medicine. (Acupuncture has not proven consistently effective for much else.) With simple explanations, Occam's razor implies we can rule out the more convoluted explanations. Equally importantly, the phenomena I listed have no rational, scientific basis. They are superstitions, or at best philoshopical abstractions irrelevant except as historical curiosities. If you could formulate a testable hypothesis I would be happy to discuss their validity, but unfortunately their existence are predicated entirely upon faith.
illuminate 14y ago
"The foundational principles of traditional medicine (Chinese, Ayurvedic, whatever) are generally bullshit. But that doesn't mean that everything that emerges from them should be ignored" Those items are medicine, not alt-med or holistic medicine or TCM or naturopathy. The problem is that this wheat will nearly never be separated from the chaff. It's possible for that to happen, as Osteopathy came from similar origins as Chiropractic, but not very common these days. There is little business and ethical interest in rejoining "alt-med" into science-based medicine.

by noibl 14y ago

robbiep 14y ago

I agree completely. Part of the problem remains however that so many treatments have been studied and proven wrong, however proponents of treatment by 'Insert CAM modality here' remain willfully blind to the evidence against their treatment, and still tell everyone that will listen that not only does it work, but modern medicine won't test it and the studies aren't done. as evidence I proffer the more than $1 Bn spent by the NCCAM for research into CAM that has largely come up bunk on the big issues. The research should be done, it is important to approach it with an open mind, but CAM proponents must live up to their end of the bargain and stop moving the goalposts whenever a study that debunks a modality is released. ps. I'm not too sure what your link has to do with the discussion exactly - I mean, artemisinin is not exactly part of the CAM stable anymore, it's a well accepted part of 'medicine proper' these days - joining a long list of other traditional therapies, asprin first and foremost amongst them, that have followed that route

ekianjo 14y ago
I would be interested to know what you think of Western Medicine in the light of what Ben Goldacre says about how clinical trials are conducted. There are many flaws even in the so-called "Evidence-based" system in Western drug development, which is what you guys are going to rely on when providing treatments. "better than placebo" being enough to register a drug, cherry-picking patients in the results, targetting very niche patient groups, not publishing any of the failed studies but being able to register on a SINGLE successful trial (which could be pure luck, statistically speaking)... and the fact that nobody ever repeats the trials for confirmation. Traditional Chinese Medicine may be bullshit, but I think we have a heavy luggage of bullshit in modern Western Medicine as well and we ought to recognize it. Disclaimer: I have a long track record in pharma industries.
- robbiep 14y ago
  I think the way some trials are conducted is worrying. Of course there is the points you bring up; I had also heard (but can't find any link from a bit of a cursory look around the net) that all subsequent trials of antidepressants show decreased treatment effect until you end up with meta-analyses that seem to show that they are no better than placebo, leading (jokingly) to Doctors, on the release of a new anti-depressant, saying 'Quick, let's use it before it stops working' Part of the problem I think is the model of the pharma industry (I have no suggestions on where to start to change this!), part is that students/researchers don't want to give up on publication and years of work with null results and so change the aims or methodology, or rig their study... Which is morally indefensible but understandable at the same time.. I think a lot of people involved with medicine are under no illusions as to the limitations of our current methods. However one of the beautiful things about the scientific method is that we are continually testing our preconceived ideas, and trying to tease out if the effects are real or some artefact of bias, statistics, population dynamics, etc. When I started Med School they tell us that 'Within 4 years, 50% of what you have learnt will be wrong and replaced. The difficulty is which 50%'. THAT is how quickly our knowledge is growing, and goes a long way to show that the people involved in the delivery of healthcare don't take this all for granted.
  - illuminate 14y ago
    And that 50% is entirely preferable to loyally sticking with long-disproved falsehoods and pretending that they are preferable to updating any knowledgebase.
- illuminate 14y ago
  "I would be interested to know what you think of Western Medicine in the light of what Ben Goldacre says about how clinical trials are conducted." The benefit of Western Medicine is that we know these terrible things and can work around them. They are not the system working as should be practiced. Using a fictional modality to treat patients is not a preferable alternative. Reform, not revolution.
  - 14y ago

meric 14y ago

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss foundational principles of TCM as 'generally bullshit'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acupuncture#Effectiveness_research http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acupuncture#Effectiveness_resea... It's more like - the foundations of TCM hold but over time knowledge passed down has accrued a lot of junk. I wouldn't use TCM to treat cancer. If you look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_food_therapy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_food_therapy a lot of it doesn't make sense. I still believe the principle is sound however; Eat lots of fried foods and drink not enough water and you can expect to get mouth ulcers.

lobster_johnson 14y ago
One must keep in mind that while acupunture works (for some things), it is not for the reasons stated by traditional practitioners, which are not scientific. Humans don't have "qi" or energy blockages or chakras or any of the (frankly) bullshit inventions of Chinese and Asian medicine. A lot of traditional medicine works (and a lot made-up, superstitious nonsense does not), but it's invariably something that works with no underlying understanding. To paraphrase Tim Minchin (I believe), alternative medicine that works is called "medicine".
- rgbrgb 14y ago
  > Humans don't have "qi" or energy blockages or chakras I do. How do you know you don't?
  - lobster_johnson 14y ago
    There is no reason for me to believe that I, or you, do, much as there is no reason for me to believe that ghosts exists, or that crystals can heal. There is no evidence that the things I listed exist, and there are much simpler, scientific explanations why acupuncture relieves pain and discomfort than reasons offered by Chinese medicine. (Acupuncture has not proven consistently effective for much else.) With simple explanations, Occam's razor implies we can rule out the more convoluted explanations. Equally importantly, the phenomena I listed have no rational, scientific basis. They are superstitions, or at best philoshopical abstractions irrelevant except as historical curiosities. If you could formulate a testable hypothesis I would be happy to discuss their validity, but unfortunately their existence are predicated entirely upon faith.

illuminate 14y ago

"The foundational principles of traditional medicine (Chinese, Ayurvedic, whatever) are generally bullshit. But that doesn't mean that everything that emerges from them should be ignored" Those items are medicine, not alt-med or holistic medicine or TCM or naturopathy. The problem is that this wheat will nearly never be separated from the chaff. It's possible for that to happen, as Osteopathy came from similar origins as Chiropractic, but not very common these days. There is little business and ethical interest in rejoining "alt-med" into science-based medicine.