Why do the skeptics have to be so negative towards alternative medicine?!

Alternative medicine is so called because it hasn't been proven to be effective.

Yet ill-informed people - and a few who are protecting their business interests - will encourage sick and desperate people to forgo proven medicine to treat themselves with these unproven treatments.

This goes as far as stage 4 cancer patients being promised that changes of diet, seeds, water, vitamins and enemas, yoga and all manner of 'alternatives' WILL cure them.

That's the extreme end; but people who are assured that their height can be increased with homeopathy, that homeopathy will cure their epilepsy, that chiropractic can cure all known disease are no less exploited and led up the garden path.

All the examples I've given are ones that have appeared on this board several times. And they appear wherever alternative medicine is discussed.

As a former cancer patient I fell victim to this crap for a while - it cost me a lot of money before my own research showed me the various cancer 'cures' touted on this board have never been proven to be effective against a single case of cancer, ever. I'm still angry and bitter about that, and my anger and bitterness grows every time I see someone with zero experience or knowledge of cancer making promises to people who are in fear of their lives on the basis of something they've read on Google - on this board and on the Cancer board.

And I'm even angrier and more bitter when the person giving these assurances is simply looking to line their own pockets and those of the rest of their 'profession'. Examples are the homeopath who promises - yes promises - people that homeopathy will cure epilepsy, cancer and AIDS; and the chiropractor who tells people chiropractic will cure all known ills.

So I post here to counter lies and misinformation whenever I can, and to do all I personally can to prevent desperate and vulnerable people being exploited.

If that's being 'negative' - proud to be negative.

Lightning, shame on you for your answer

Well you know why it has the name it has. There is medicine and then there is the alternative to medicine. Why would anyone want people to get ripped off and risk their lives with totally useless treatments such as homeopathy, energy healing, crystals, chiropractic, osteopathy the list is endless, and they all push their worthless treatments for which there is not a jot of evidence of their efficacy.

because their in the business of selling people things as a replacement for real medicine, and those things aren't legitimately tested to see if they actually work, instead they use unscientific testimonials, appeals to an irrational idea that nature is somehow safe, that regular medicine somehow isn't based on compounds originally found in nature, or that something is made more likely to be true simply because it comes either from an old country or old tradition.

people are injured and in a number of cases die either because their illnesses haven't actually been treated, or because the "alternative medicine" has some fundamental flaw in it that causes injury.


in short: why am i negative? because these people are making money on things that are demonstrably useless medically.
whatstheharm.net

thenoseknows: "It's part of their cult's "culture".
Keep in mind these people don't have any credibility.
Anyone whose purpose is to troll a site like this has a screw loose"

Thenose - you should not be so hard on the alties...they truly believe what they say.


Seriously - in answer to your question - it's mainly because we can't stand to see naive laypeople be taken for a BUNDLE (if you think traditional medicine si expensive - have you checked the price of a small bottle of pure, distilled water lately???) on a "treatment" that does no more than placebo.

We traditionalists believe that testimony and pure anecdote is the POOREST form of "truth"...we believe that only after carefully controlled testing that is REPRODUCIBLE, can we support (or NOT support) claims made by the drug manufacturers.

If anyone tells you that all we do is conspire with "Big Pharma" to extract money from people - well, to be charitable, let me just say that you are dealing with a loon. Have you researched the dollar value of the "alternative market? lately? Those who claim that there is no money in alternative medicine is feeding you a line of bull.


The single biggest issue I have with the "alties" - especially those here is that they often tout having CURES for such conditions as Diabetes, Multiple Sclerosis, etc....yet when pressed, their answer is SILENCE. Why? Because there ARE NO CURES for those yet.......if there was, you can count on the fact that traditional medical practitioners would use it TODAY.

I am a traditional physician....and proud of it.

Water is wet, stones are hard, and so forth.

Mostly because alternative medicine is rarely tested, and when it is, usually not by FDA or scientific standards. It takes a lot of money to run a clinical trial so western medicine is more likely to have the funds to get rigorous testing.

However, do not lose hope! There are plenty of alternative medicines that have had proven clinical benefits. Many scientific journals in publish articles exploring the benefits of exercise, meditation, yoga, nutrition, and even prayer. The important part to remember is making sure the research comes from a valid source.

Well, you can be negative towards some of the Altmed people. In some cases there is really a reason for.
If you are negative towards all alternative medicine (so stated), it's because you are willing to show off your mental retardation.
This phenomenon also exists and the reason is not clear to me.

conventional medicine is ego (and profit) based. most alternatives acknowledge the abilities of nature, wether by releasing internal interference within the body to permit healing, or using natural substances to remedy deficiencies or treat illness with minimal adverse affects. conventional medicine disdains anything but what it claims to originate, and has no respect for the abilities of nature, which in effect, are it's enemy. the body's superior innate intelligence frequently saves the patient despite medical intervention by thwarting medicine's best attempts at imposing their crass "fixes" on the sick.

During any time in human history as new ideas are presented they are met with resistance. For example when some of the greatest scientist of the ages proposed new ideas about the universe and science they were threatened by the Vatican as heretics and imprisoned, tortured and even killed! Thank goodness this is just Yahoo and there is no killing or torture.
Any time a new idea is presented its put through its paces and when enough of a population accepts the idea it becomes the normal way of things. For example, it was believed the earth was flat because that is what people observed. Some people said that it was not flat and they were called crazy. As this idea spread and more people began to believe it it became common knowledge. This is called critical mass in that when enough people accept the idea then the rest of the population will accept it as truth.

So for the past 200 years or so medicine has had its doctrine and way of believing about health and the body. Now is a time when there are new ideas being presented and people are starting to look at them. It is my belief that the status quo is being challenged and there are many that are fighting against these new ideas. Some of them are good, some are bad and some are just downright mean and despicable people who have no ability to communicate other than spewing hate and rhetoric. We are approaching this "critical mass" and it is scary to the establishment that they may be losing some power and control. I remember the days when the family physician was looked at as a demi-god and their word was never questioned. Now, there are more people that are more educated and dont want to be drugged up. They are looking for more.

Now there are people out there who say and do things that are un-ethical. They say things that have no basis in reality. From the chiropractor who says that the adjustment can cure anything to the unqualified psuedo-practitioner who says that lights and sounds can cure your cancer. There are extremes in everything! That is where common sense comes into play. Any person who blindly follows another is just as culpable as the person leading. The parent who takes their kid off life saving insulin because the chiropractor or homeopath administered some treatment to correct their pancreas has to accept some responsibility! I love seeing how the skeppies bash chiro or osteopaths for them making claims that their treatments can cure anything. Those ideas are old and phasing out all by themselves. As the "old guard" of these professions retire and pass away they are passing the torch on to those who no longer make these claims. You would be hard pressed to find a US chiro tell you that an adjustment will cure them of organic diseases. What you will find is a profession that says that chiro care is part of an overall lifestyle that when implemented will allow a person to stay healthy with fewer drugs and less doctor visits.

It's part of their cult's "culture".
Keep in mind these people don't have any credibility.
Anyone whose purpose is to troll a site like this has a screw loose.

Oh they are just protecting their interests.
Thats business.