Alternative Medicine poll on Sydney Morning Herald
Pinky
Melbourne, Victoria
12510 posts
Vote right.
Let's just teach a scientific approach when it comes to medicine so that people know they are getting an effective treatment when they go to their doctor, shall we?
Health Insurance would be a lot more affordable if "Complimentary Medicine" "Alternative Medicine" "Meditainment" were removed from coverage.
Vitamin Supplements are being targeted in Europe and soon America with calls for them to prove how effective they are or be removed from sale. Its next on the list.
CAM is on the way out; it's only a matter of time now. The skeptic movement is getting stronger as more and more people are willing to speak out against it as new and safe ways to criticise it without the risk of lawsuit are revealed.
Why shouldn't people be able to have a degree in alternative medicine, but have one in theism or philosophy? As long as its clearly labelled its fine with me. I'm not going to any doctor with a degree in alternative medicine, but that's not to say that alternative medicine has never contributed to mainstream science.
Alternative medicine represents thousands of years of collected medical knowledge from dozens of different societies and I think it would be a very silly thing to turn our back on this. This information will be taught and passed around whether or not you like it, so I would prefer it to be taught in a university setting instead of by some crazy kook outside of a regulated curriculum.
This stuff is important for those times when modern medicine is entirely unable to help a patient. When you've exhausted every option modern medicine has to offer, it's time to explore the alternatives. Loads of sensible people do it, and alternative medicine absolutely has something to offer modern society imo.
Hmm I'm torn. While I vehemently disagree with alternative medicine being pushed infront of modern medicine. I think that alternative medicine should be just that, as an alternative to explore.
They say one of the main contributors to Steve Jobs death was that he fucked around with alternative medicine for to long before accepting modern medicine. But he was a cunt anyway so good.
Alternative medicine represents thousands of years of collected medical knowledge from dozens of different societies and I think it would be a very silly thing to turn our back on this.
Nobody has said to turn their backs on it, as there may well be -some- potential findings in there (my guess would be the vast minority, not the majority). It's very simple and clear cut - things need to be tested and proved before being paraded as medical treatments - especially in the climate of vapid or just unfortunately uneducated "science conspiracy" folks. It's real easy, I don't get this "give it a chance" whinge - it has a chance, it just has to pass the same test as anything else. Simply being folk-lore (such as gods and ghosts and magic and magnets and whatnot) gives it no credibility whatsoever.
Researchers say parents sometimes think remedies are "more natural" with fewer side effects than conventional drugs. But in nearly two thirds of the cases the side effects were rated as severe, life threatening or fatal.
The illusion of validity is a bad one.
This stuff is important for those times when modern medicine is entirely unable to help a patient.
There is medicine which has been proven to work, much of it is very old. Your odds of finding something which worked by sampling all the random shit called alternative medicine, are very very low, probably better to just not do that to your body.
alternative medicine absolutely has something to offer modern society imo.
Frustration and a reminder that people don't understand the need for proof over faith.
They say one of the main contributors to Steve Jobs death was that he fucked around with alternative medicine for to long before accepting modern medicine. But he was a cunt anyway so good.
Another way to look at it was that the bullshit of alternative medicine has potentially cost the world a bunch of cool new future tech gadgets (as a start).
Alternative medicine represents thousands of years of collected medical knowledge from dozens of different societies and I think it would be a very silly thing to turn our back on this.
The useful stuff that has come out of that thousands of years of collected knowledge has been subject to rigorous scientific testing, and is now called "medicine". The rest of it unproven, unreliable, and should not be used as an alternative.
So can I point to the Nazi and Japanese medical tests conducted during WW2 and call that the sort of stupid thing that conventional medicine leads to? Or can we just agree that you're hilighting an ethical issue that has nothing to do with the actual application and efficacy of the "medicine" itself?
It sounds like you guys have a problem with the ethics and marketing of natural medicine, but surely you agree that this is a highly important collection of information that likely has a lot to offer western medical science? The big pharma companies are pouring millions into researching this stuff and they're finding all sorts of useful information.
Another way to look at it was that the bullshit of alternative medicine has potentially cost the world a bunch of cool new future tech gadgets (as a start)
If you consider throwing outdated tech into a overpriced streamlined package that a 3 year can use as "cool new future tech gadgets" then sure.
Alternative medicines should be known henceforth as 'alternative to medecine', as this is exactly what you get. Instead of empirically tested and verified treatment, you get unverified horseshit.
Before medicine was well established (probably like 100 years ago, not as long as medicine has actually been around), there were all kinds of attempts made at cures and they were being passed around and sold before any scientific processes were developed, whether that be really old cultural remedies or genuine attempts at early science. Since then we've gotten better at figuring out what works and what doesn't, and the stuff that works is sold as medicine. But the other stuff still hung around. Not only that but because of the rapid progress of technology a few totally unrelated emerging technologies have been fraudulently sold as treatments simply because the technology is not commonly understood.
So can I point to the Nazi and Japanese medical tests conducted during WW2 and call that the sort of stupid thing that conventional medicine leads to? Or can we just agree that you're hilighting an ethical issue that has nothing to do with the actual application and efficacy of the "medicine" itself?
wh.. what?
It has nothing to do with the application and efficacy of the medicine, no. But it is one of the many horrible side effects of people believing in magic and making extremely poor decisions. I am not saying "people shouldn't do CAM stuff because of the bears". Apologies if that is what it sounded like.
I don't really care too much about people who choose to believe in magic and die of some easily curable disease, but when their decisions start affecting other people and the environment then it is a much bigger deal.
It sounds like you guys have a problem with the ethics and marketing of natural medicine, but surely you agree that this is a highly important collection of information that likely has a lot to offer western medical science?
Heh, I have a problem with the ethics and marketing of REAL medicine. If you ever go to the US, watch a few minutes of commercial television - in some cases up to 100% of the ads are for FDA approved drugs.
The problem with CAM is that it takes that massive part of the iceberg that is under the water and assumes that some of is valid. Teaching that you can just pluck stuff out of the air further encourages this viewpoint; teaching CAM at universities gives people completely false hope that there is any legitimacy in that compared to real medicine. If you want to pursue lines of research in discovering new medicines, there are plenty of other good, science based things you can do with your time.
Here is a good Skeptic's viewpoint that probably explains it better than my half-assed, hungover fumbling on the keyboard:
The big pharma companies are pouring millions into researching this stuff and they're finding all sorts of useful information.
That is called research and is not CAM. Fortunately for humanity, the main sales focuses of big pharma are in the USA and the FDA is, as I understand it, still holding out against the tide of ridiculous magical medicine, and thus has what seems to be pretty strict quality controls.
I did hear the FDA wanted to classify herbs and stuff as drugs. Because even if they don't actually help, they do have some sort of effect and that should be regulated and researched like drugs. Don't know what happened with this.
So a personal favourite of mine, lets take fish oil for its supposed cholesterol lowering and arthritis induced inflammation reducing effects. I assume you count fish oil as CAM instead of the GP prescribed drugs for lowering cholesterol or treating arthritis. Im capped at 256k ATM so i CBF searching but im pretty sure there is some decent evidence supporting fish oil use in people with arthritis or cholesterol issues. Do you think fish oil is all a load of BS and has zero benefits?
And also something i think is pretty funny. Ive been taking melatonin for a few years now to improve the quality of my sleep. We used to sell it from the vitamins shelf in QLD (proper melatonin, not homoeopathic stuff).
Then (not entirely sure why) it was restricted to prescription only section of vitamins out the back and was able to be sold once we had a script from a doctor or prescribing health care professional.
Then a drug company produced a modified release melatonin available for GPs to prescribe and suddenly we had all these GPs excitedly prescribing a new sleeping pill on the market despite the fact it had been available for years.
Now somehow the drug company has gotten all our brands of melatonin in vitamins (only 2) pulled from the shelf and are illegal to sell, leaving the ridiculously overpriced drug company version as the only melatonin product available on prescription in australia (you can still import other melatonins for personal use from overseas though).
What do you make of that? Surely that would make melatonin originally a CAM that is now a heavily overpriced and overhyped drug (Circadin if you are interested).
Dont get me wrong, i agree that many hippie products are BS but i think there are some promising products out there that are classified as CAM. IIRC they were having good success in studies with St Johns Wort (herb) for use in addiction withdrawal (smoking, food, drugs).
There is a word for Alternative Medicine that works. It's called 'Medicine'. Anyone who thinks alternative medicines works is a fucking retard.
This! I fucking hate how it's called "alternative medicine". There is NO medicine. I've recently been doing a lot of reading about homeopathy, and man. It's the biggest load of bullshit ever. Water memory? Give me a break.
In my eyes, homeopathy is on the same level as using prayer to cure an illness. It does sweet fuck all.
I think anything should be able to be taught at universities if there is desire and demand for it.
Regulation of medicine and appropriate dissemination of knowledge of the effectiveness and scientific validation of medical treatment, practice and services should not be regulated at the tertiary educational level.
I understand and in most cases agree with people's outrage at the way alternative medicine is marketed, prescribed and sold, but to say it shouldn't be taught at a certain level of education is wrong in my opinion.
Also, carson 'medicine' means any substance that is used to treat illness or disease, be it scientific, placebo, alternative or otherwise.
I assume you count fish oil as CAM instead of the GP prescribed drugs for lowering cholesterol or treating arthritis
Uh, there are clinical trials that suggest that fish oil could help with preventing joint degeneration. Last time I checked, trials on dogs gave some pretty convincing results. Melatonin has a lot of sound supporting evidence as a treatment for some sleep disorders, and has been made a prescription drug. I don't think it can really be considered an alternative medicine anymore.
However, I think these things fall more into the field of nutrition than medicine. This brings up a somewhat interesting debate. Eating a healthy diet with the appropriate levels of fruit, vegetables, dairy, meat, fish, complex carbohydrates etc can prevent and even reverse so many diseases and health issues. Diabetes, heart disease, some mental health issues, some types of cancer and more obvious issues like rickets or scurvy can all be prevented and treated by eating a healthy diet. Don't get me wrong, drugs are necessary in the short term to treat emergency cases, but they should only be a stop-gap to keep somebody alive while they get their diet and exercise sorted. Cases where a person needs life-long medication should be rare. Our diet full of refined carbohydrates and lack of lipids, fruit and vegetables is killing us.
Last time I checked, trials on dogs gave some pretty convincing results.
Pretty sure you will find a large number of quality studies on humans. There are probably animal trials as well but they are not the only studies.
I too count fish oil as more a dietary thing (because of the omega 3 content) along with dietary supplements or dietary improvements and i consider that a perfectly normal method of improving peoples health.
Cases where a person needs life-long medication should be rare. Our diet full of refined carbohydrates and lack of lipids, fruit and vegetables is killing us.
Strongly agree with you there. I think there needs to be more of a focus on diet rather than superficial drug treatment but thats a complicated issue. Diabetes type 2 for example, most people prefer popping pills each day to manage their blood sugar levels as opposed to losing weight, eating a better diet and exercising more to bring the levels down naturally. In this case, i strongly disagree with drug treatment over dietary and lifestyle changes but most people want the easy option. Fuckwits.
Surely that poll is still being scammed by "yes" votes; the balance looks way too close. There cannot be that many weirdos in this country. I note you can revote by just clearing cookies? Although maybe it doesn't count a second one from the same IP address.
The number of votes in the poll was about eight times more than the number of online readers of the story, a clear indicator that the poll had been gamed. Fairfax technical staff said the poll logs all but confirmed that the voting had been manipulated.
All Fairfax polls state that they are "not scientific" - and they're added to stories more for reader entertainment - but on controversial issues such as alternative medicine, abortion and internet censorship, they are held up by interest groups as a rock solid gauge of public opinion.
In email messages seen by this website, supporters of alternative medicine, including Blackmores and the Complementary Healthcare Council of Australia, contacted their mailing lists urging them to vote "yes" in the poll. Alas, the "no" vote won by a landslide.
The number of votes in the poll was about eight times more than the number of online readers of the story, a clear indicator that the poll had been gamed. Fairfax technical staff said the poll logs all but confirmed that the voting had been manipulated.
That's not a clear indicator it was gamed :-/
It just means the direct link to the poll was spread around more. If anything, 8x is more likely an indicator that the poll wasn't gamed.
Just to clarify something ... medical science doesn't know everything (nothing does). What is 'medicine' called before it's fully tested to see if it actually does something? Potential Medicine?
Have all "alternative medicines" been tested, and could some of them still be "potential medicines"?
Just a thought, I'm healthy so I don't need either, but from an outside view, that's what I'm wondering from reading the thread!
Yes, but they shouldn't be sold as any kind of medicine until they have been tested.
And when they are tested and proven to be effective then what? Make them prescription only and 100x the price? It doesn't work like that anyway because unless there's a patented way of producing a particular extract of a natural compound for specific properties you can't patent it so big companies can't get monopoly control on it.
Yes there are probably many breakthroughs waiting out there, but if you want to get into whether there is potential in alternative medicine to become real medicine, perhaps you should nominate a few examples and look into what studies have been done on those treatments. You would think the common ones have been tested by scientists and companies looking to find the next big thing. The ones that continue to be sold as 'alternative' have no doubt been unsuccessful in trials, and some probably never get to a serious experimental stage because it is easy to determine that it isn't worth putting money into something like that.
I don't get why people get so caught up on the terminology as long as whatever it is has been tried and tested by the scientific method, had strong positive results, it should be looked into and utilised.
And when they are tested and proven to be effective then what? Make them prescription only and 100x the price? It doesn't work like that anyway because unless there's a patented way of producing a particular extract of a natural compound for specific properties you can't patent it so big companies can't get monopoly control on it.
Yeah, because there's not half a dozen different brands of fish oil capsules in supermarkets these days.
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