Americans Spend $34 Billion on "Alternative Medicines"

[mswas]

@hotflungwok

What about the people who don’t actually need it, for whom any dose is an overdose? How are people supposed to even measure the dosage? One of the reasons herbs can be bad vs normal medicine is that actual dosage is difficult to determine, and can vary wildly whether the herb is dried or fresh or infused or whatever. There’s a reason kids are taught not to eat things they don’t know anything about, but for some reason adults don’t seem to remember this lesson.

Fair enough, but I still don’t think that, “Some adults are ignorant best to keep it from everyone.”, is a good plan. My view on this spans the spectrum from herbal supplements to what are today illegal narcotics. Unless it is outright deadly in it’s normal usage like Crystal Meth, I am against keeping it out of the reach of the average person.

Why? It’s been quite useful in the past. Just ask all the people who had their lives saved by seat belts. I agree that ideally it shouldn’t be necessary, but this isn’t an ideal world.

Yes, and I am opposed to that sort of thing. I am against infantilizing adults. Adults who aren’t allowed to take personal responsibility continue to act like children. But this is getting too far into a hijack regarding personal responsibility/freedom.

But there would have to be a reason for it. Given the fact that people have been taking these herbs for a long time now and they’re not dropping dead in big piles, I don’t think this is a big risk. I think the opposite is more likely, it will be found that most of these herbs don’t really have much of an effect.

If it doesn’t have much of an effect then it doesn’t matter does it?

[mswas]

@DanBlather

So, flax seed helps lower chloresterol. Yep, I heard from my main-stream, (allopathic :)) doctor that high-fiber diets help with that. He also recommended flax-seed oil to help with eye problems. I never heard my doctor say that plant-based substances can’t be helpful.

Here is the irony though. We have fringy, science-phobic types point to the good effects a plant has on chloresterol. Now how does this work? Is it “cleansing your aura”, or “opening pathways to your chakra”? Nope, it’s just following the principles discovered and documented through scientific methodology over the years.

The fact that modern medicine-rejecting types point to studies about chloresterol is ironic. Why do we know about chloresterol and it’s effects? It wasn’t discovered by someone studying the energy meridians in your body, or checking your aura, it was someone using anatomy, and biology, and chemistry and using tools developed by electricians and engineers following the principles of physics.

But somehow, despite the everyday evidence of how effective science is, we have someone using an electronic medium based on science, point to evidence measured by science, and say “wait a minute, maybe this is something outside the scientfic paradigm”.

Please do me a favor and spead this crap through smoke signals and stop pissing on the graves of people who decided it was actually worth the effort to take the hard classes at school.

Can you point to a single person in this thread who has said that mainstream medicine is a load of crap?

JFLuvly was just pointing out the frustration that some people feel with the constant back and forth of, “It’s good for you, no it’s bad for you, no it’s good for you again…” You’re haranguing at people who DID trust mainstream med and got screwed by it or saw someone close to them get screwed by it.

[DanBlather]

@mswas

Can you point to a single person in this thread who has said that mainstream medicine is a load of crap?

JFLuvly was just pointing out the frustration that some people feel with the constant back and forth of, “It’s good for you, no it’s bad for you, no it’s good for you again…” You’re haranguing at people who DID trust mainstream med and got screwed by it or saw someone close to them get screwed by it.

And I’m haranguimg against an indstry ('cause that’s what it is) that is taking people for billions of dollars a year. Homeopaths selling water for hundreds of dollars an ounce, eastern-herbalists selling bear paws and tiger penises, chiropractors claiming to cure everything. dentists insisting that you have to have all your lead fillings removed at the cost of thousands of dollars, fringe doctors re-affirming people’s belief in “environmental illness”, “doctors” who say you need supplements that you can conveniently only buy from them, and on and on.

To me, if it can be proven to work through double-blind studies then it is medicine. If it can’t, it ain’t. Despite your claims, I see most practioners of non-traditional (non-mainstream, call it what your will) medicine trying to marginalize science-based medicine. They have to, to stay in business.

On the other hand, I have never had a personal doctor claim that some herbs or massage techniques may not be useful for certain conditions. I do know that if I am feeling fatigued all the time I want to first go to a real doctor who will see if I have a physical condition such as anemia, rather than someone who will look first at their formulalry of herbs.

To me, the greates irony is that the left, who is so good about looking at big oil, the insurance companies, and other industries is not livid about homeopaths that sell water at outrageous prices to sick people. It is just stunning that an entire industry can get away with such crap. They should be in jail in my opinion, right next to Madoff.

[Jackmannii]

@mswas

Except that a lot of the wellness care that even you have accepted as being valid is considered to be alt-med, re: Massage Therapy, Forms of Exercise, etc…

Even though alt med elements have tried to appropriate “wellness” for their own, that doesn’t make it so, as I have pointed out. Diet, exercise, encouraging people to stop smoking and abusing alcohol, and a horde of preventative measures ranging from efforts to limit cardiovascular disease to environmental action have long characterized mainstream medicine. Alties should be honest enough to recognize this instead of continuing to spread falsehoods on the subject.

I’m talking about the wo/man on the street who has an interest. You’re cherry-picking the ones that pick a hostile platform. If you searched for complementary medicine instead of alternative medicine the websites would skew my direction.

As requested previously, please cite some popular alt med sites that praise mainstream medicine and urge a complementary approach.

Most of the alt-med practitioners that I know DO accept a complementary approach. One of my best friends is a chiropractor and he would NEVER disparage an MD.

Here again we’re supposed to depend on mswas’s personal say-so.

The reality is that preaching against mainstream medicine is widespread in the chiropractic community. One of the more damaging forms of this involves opposition to vaccination (various polls suggest something like one-third to one-half of chiros admit being antivaxers). Perhaps the greatest hostility to mainstream medicine comes from the “straights”, still a large segment of chiros who think “subluxations” are the cause of most or all disease (and which they can purportedly fix).

*"Straight chiropractors are the most extreme in their anti-scientific views. They openly advocate a philosophical rather than a scientific basis for health care, calling mainstream medicine “mechanistic” and “allopathic.” They call physicians “drug pushers” and disparage the use of surgery. They are careful not to give diseases names, but none-the-less they claim to cure disease with their adjustments. They oppose vaccinations. They also openly advocate the replacement of scientific medicine with chiropractic as primary health care. The statements of Dr. Wilson A. Morgan (who just passed away earlier this month), previous Executive Officer of Life College School of Chiropractic, are typical:

“Chiropractic: The health care system whose time as the official guardian of the public’s health is fast approaching!”
“On the other hand, it is equally appropriate for chiropractors to be viewed as generalists in that the far-reaching effects of their highly specific spinal adjustments usually are followed by the decrease and often disappearance of a very broad array of symptoms, disabilities and pathological conditions.”
“Unlike the medical profession, chiropractic has a very strong philosophical basis, which no doubt has contributed to its having been labeled ‘unscientific’ by the more mechanistically-oriented scientific community.”
“It appears that education will prove to be the best strategy in the ‘war on drugs,’ including education about the dangers of drugs available on the street and also those available from the physician as prescriptions.”*

Instead of the equivalent of personal testimonials, mswas, how about backing your claims here by showing us a position statement by any major chiropractic organization, recognizing the evidence-based limitations of chiropractic to treating musculoskeletal complaints and urging people to seek their primary care from physicians?

Good luck finding them.

@DanBlather

To me, the greates irony is that the left, who is so good about looking at big oil, the insurance companies, and other industries is not livid about homeopaths that sell water at outrageous prices to sick people.

It’s a bipartisan disgrace (note that the two biggest enablers of the supplement industry’s ability to fly under the regulatory radar are Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). Some on the left buy into woo for philosophical reasons; some on the right try to frame their beliefs as a matter of personal freedom/government intrusion.

I happen to believe that people should continue to have freedom to make choices (good and bad) about their health. I do not believe this gives corporate supplement pushers a free pass on promoting ineffective and unsafe remedies - or that the result of us should shoulder the financial burden of supporting people’s choice of woo over evidence-based medicine.

[DanBlather]

@Jackmannii

It’s a bipartisan disgrace (note that the two biggest enablers of the supplement industry’s ability to fly under the regulatory radar are Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). Some on the left buy into woo for philosophical reasons; some on the right try to frame their beliefs as a matter of personal freedom/government intrusion.

Agree, I just don’t have as high expectations for the right.

[Honesty]

@hotflungwok

I think the opposite is more likely, it will be found that most of these herbs don’t really have much of an effect.

Oh, really? Do this:

FIRST DAY:

1. Call off from work for the next two - three days. Say that you’re sick.

2. Purchase powdered or whole nutmeg from Wal-Mart or a supermarket.

3. Go home and consume it all at once. You might find it useful to dissolve it in a drink, but its not necessary.

4. Continue with daily activities. **Do not operate heavy machinery. **

WAIT TWO DAYS:

4. Reread the (your) quote above and declare whether you still agree with your statement.

• Honesty

[Magiver]

@Lobohan

It depends on the claims made. If someone thinks yoga, tai chi or chigung classes are going to cure a disease they’re out of luck.

I’ve used yoga and chiropractic care to great success. The money was well spent. I’ve also adapted exercise equipment to duplicate the back therapy equipment my family DO uses. In addition to that I’ve been able to purchase aftermarket muscle therapy equipment that is a fraction of the cost of traditional equipment.

[mswas]

@Jackmannii

Even though alt med elements have tried to appropriate “wellness” for their own, that doesn’t make it so, as I have pointed out. Diet, exercise, encouraging people to stop smoking and abusing alcohol, and a horde of preventative measures ranging from efforts to limit cardiovascular disease to environmental action have long characterized mainstream medicine. Alties should be honest enough to recognize this instead of continuing to spread falsehoods on the subject.

You are complicit in the hoodwinking by using the catch-all net of ‘alt-med’. The lack of granularity in the usage is part of the problem.

As requested previously, please cite some popular alt med sites that praise mainstream medicine and urge a complementary approach. Here again we’re supposed to depend on mswas’s personal say-so.

Your criteria are tautological. If I cite any you’ll rightly call them complementary med sites. My point is that there is a great deal of overlap and that the term, ‘alt-med’ is too broad to say whether it’s good or whether it’s bad. Some of it is good and some of it is bad. Of course more is bad because within it is contained every piece of junk science that exists.

The reality is that preaching against mainstream medicine is widespread in the chiropractic community. One of the more damaging forms of this involves opposition to vaccination (various polls suggest something like one-third to one-half of chiros admit being antivaxers). Perhaps the greatest hostility to mainstream medicine comes from the “straights”, still a large segment of chiros who think “subluxations” are the cause of most or all disease (and which they can purportedly fix).

So you are saying that either half to a majority are not antivaxers depending on which study you look at.

*"Straight chiropractors are the most extreme in their anti-scientific views. They openly advocate a philosophical rather than a scientific basis for health care, calling mainstream medicine “mechanistic” and “allopathic.” They call physicians “drug pushers” and disparage the use of surgery. They are careful not to give diseases names, but none-the-less they claim to cure disease with their adjustments. They oppose vaccinations. They also openly advocate the replacement of scientific medicine with chiropractic as primary health care. The statements of Dr. Wilson A. Morgan (who just passed away earlier this month), previous Executive Officer of Life College School of Chiropractic, are typical:

They, they, they, they. Not any chiropractors I know, and I know a few.

“Chiropractic: The health care system whose time as the official guardian of the public’s health is fast approaching!”
“On the other hand, it is equally appropriate for chiropractors to be viewed as generalists in that the far-reaching effects of their highly specific spinal adjustments usually are followed by the decrease and often disappearance of a very broad array of symptoms, disabilities and pathological conditions.”
“Unlike the medical profession, chiropractic has a very strong philosophical basis, which no doubt has contributed to its having been labeled ‘unscientific’ by the more mechanistically-oriented scientific community.”
“It appears that education will prove to be the best strategy in the ‘war on drugs,’ including education about the dangers of drugs available on the street and also those available from the physician as prescriptions.”*

Yes there are cranks to be certain.

Instead of the equivalent of personal testimonials, mswas, how about backing your claims here by showing us a position statement by any major chiropractic organization, recognizing the evidence-based limitations of chiropractic to treating musculoskeletal complaints and urging people to seek their primary care from physicians?

Here’s a pro chiro site that doesn’t list the woo in any of it’s language.

http://nccam.nih.gov/health/chiropractic/

Here’s a site for a chiropractic organization that is doing precisely what you are looking for.

General Chiropractic Council helping sceptics police complementary medicine –...

Though most cites would be akin to the first cite because chiropractors aren’t going to seek to bash other chiropractors as a standard part of their selling spiel. If you do a search using “chiropractic complementary medicine”, you’ll find plenty of links to chiros that are favorable to complementary care with mainstream modalities. If you look up Osteopaths you’ll find even more, just like you’ll find osteopaths that are anti-mainstream med.

Good luck finding them.It’s a bipartisan disgrace (note that the two biggest enablers of the supplement industry’s ability to fly under the regulatory radar are Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). Some on the left buy into woo for philosophical reasons; some on the right try to frame their beliefs as a matter of personal freedom/government intrusion.

Took me about two minutes on Google.

I happen to believe that people should continue to have freedom to make choices (good and bad) about their health. I do not believe this gives corporate supplement pushers a free pass on promoting ineffective and unsafe remedies - or that the result of us should shoulder the financial burden of supporting people’s choice of woo over evidence-based medicine.

I agree. I believe in truth in advertising. As long as that is your idea of regulation I am all for it.

[mswas]

@Magiver

I’ve used yoga and chiropractic care to great success. The money was well spent. I’ve also adapted exercise equipment to duplicate the back therapy equipment my family DO uses. In addition to that I’ve been able to purchase aftermarket muscle therapy equipment that is a fraction of the cost of traditional equipment.

Really it depends on what the pathology is. And that’s the problem with the anti-alt-med crowd, they are using overly broad language, kind of like the study in the OP.

[Jackmannii]

@mswas

Your criteria are tautological. If I cite any you’ll rightly call them complementary med sites.

So you have none to cite. When did “I haven’t anything to offer except my opinion” become synonymous with “tautological”? Is that an example of “granularity”?

So you are saying that either half to a majority (of chiropractors) are not antivaxers depending on which study you look at/

So you’re fine with the idea that up to half of chiropractors denigrate one of the most outstandingly successful public health initiatives in history? You should also be aware that the two biggest chiropractic organizations oppose mandatory immunization, the basis of any successful program:

*"Chiropractic’s two largest organizations oppose compulsory immunization. The ACA has acknowledged “routine vaccinations have been a proven and effective campaign in the control of many diseases.” [5] However, its current policy is:

The ACA supports each individual’s right to freedom of choice in his/her own health care based on an informed awareness of the benefits and possible adverse effects of vaccination.

The ACA is supportive of a conscience clause or waiver in compulsory vaccination laws thereby maintaining an individual’s right to freedom of choice in health care matters and providing an alternative/elective course of action regarding vaccination. [Adopted in 1998]

The International Chiropractors Association (ICA)'s current policy states:

The International Chiropractors Association recognizes that the use of vaccines is not without risk.

The ICA supports each individual’s right to select his or her own health care and to be made aware of the possible adverse effects of vaccines upon a human body. In accordance with such principles and based upon the individual’s right to freedom of choice, the ICA is opposed to compulsory programs which infringe upon such rights.

The International Chiropractors Association is supportive of a conscience clause or waiver in compulsory vaccination laws, providing an elective course of action for all regarding immunization, thereby allowing patients freedom of choice in matters affecting their bodies and health. [Adopted in 1993]

The ICA does not acknowledge benefit and even sells a book called Vaccination: 100 Years of Orthodox Research Shows that Vaccines Represent a Medical Assault on the Immune System, which contends that vaccines are ineffective and dangerous."*

Here’s a pro chiro site that doesn’t list the woo in any of it’s language.
http://nccam.nih.gov/health/chiropractic/

NCCAM is a division of the NIH that was put together to investigate (and in the view of some lawmakers, was intended to validate) different types of complementary and alternative medicine. It is not a “pro chiro site”, although the page on chiropractic glosses over or completely ignores the prevalence of chiropractic woo (such as “adjusting” peoples’ spines to deal with internal complaints).

Neither this site or the other one you listed represent examples of what I asked you for, namely:

“Instead of the equivalent of personal testimonials, mswas, how about backing your claims here by showing us a position statement by any major chiropractic organization, recognizing the evidence-based limitations of chiropractic to treating musculoskeletal complaints and urging people to seek their primary care from physicians?”

Took me about two minutes on Google.

And it shows.

[vivalostwages]

My mom’s oncologist/hematologist said it was a good thing for her to be taking vitamins like C and E, and supplements like calcium and Omega 3.

Mom’s gastroenterologist says the calcium is good and the rest are bogus.

Mom’s podiatrist says it’s wishful thinking that the calcium will do any good.

I just find it interesting that the specialists have very different views of what’s good to take and what isn’t.

[hotflungwok]

@Honesty

Oh, really? Do this:

I said most, not all. Obviously at least some herbs do have an effect (willow bark comes to mind), but I highly doubt that all herbs can do all the things that’s attributed to them. This is the first link I get looking for herbal cures, and apparently Fenugreek can cure a whole mess of stuff, including diabetes. And diabetes itself can cured by a bunch of things.

[Dead_Badger]

@Magiver

I’ve used yoga and chiropractic care to great success.

To cure a disease, or to relieve muscular and/or back pain?

To repeat: chiropractors regularly claim to be able to alleviate infant colic, asthma, ear infections and other conditions completely unrelated to musculoskeletal health. Indeed, in response to the torrent of ridicule the profession has attracted in the UK recently (as a direct result of their decision to conduct censorship of dissent in the courts), the British Chiropractic Association released what they described as the “plethora” of evidence that their treatments were valid. This selection, the very best research they could come up with to validate their claims, was utterly pathetic, containing not one single study that even had that most basic scientific requirement, a control group. Some of the papers cited weren’t even studies, but were just practice guidelines. Some didn’t even involve chiropractic. And this is the best they could cherry-pick.

I don’t think anyone would have a particular problem with chiropractic if it limited itself to what it essentially is; a posh massage. But as with reflexologists and homeopaths and other woo practitioners, they continue to make fanciful claims of implausible effects that have no evidence base, and indeed have frequently been shown to be no different to placebo. This is what people object to.

[Jackmannii]

@hotflungwok

…apparently Fenugreek can cure a whole mess of stuff, including diabetes. And diabetes itself can cured by a bunch of things.

This sort of thing (multiple different alt med “cures” for a condition) always strikes me oddly. If one herb or supplement fixes the problem, why do you need to have a whole raft of them in your armentarium? The same goes for single alternative modalities (there’s that word again) that are alleged to cure multiple conditions. There are a number of these cure-alls kicking around (apple cider vinegar is one example). If one will do the trick for so many different diseases, how come there are half a dozen or more being promoted?

A Google search on the name “Dr. Nancy Malik” (who commented here a few posts back) turns up a homeopath by the same name who practices in India (and whose Wiki Answers page states “She is a popular name among the Homeopathic Fraternity mainly due to the impossible and challenging cases she treats.”

If our new Dope commenter is the same Nancy Malik, it’d be interesting to hear from her about the nature of those impossible and challenging cases, and whether it’d be truly worthwhile for the U.S. healthcare system to pour all these increased dollars into treating people with homeopathy, seeing that medical science regards homeopathy as an elaborate system of placebo therapy employing what essentially consists of water.