Michael Sylvester wrote:
> And since placebos have been shown to be effective,why do
> people still remain obstinate and obdurate that scientific
> methodolgy is the only way to go. Maybe European medicine
> is the better approach: they combine pharmacology with
> alernative medicine.
A few points, Michael:
1. Europeans use the scientific method just as much as the US does--it
was invented there!
2. The use of alternative medicine isn't necessarily in conflict with the
scientific method any more than the use of, for example, Reality Therapy
is in conflict with the principles of neuropsychology. Alternative
medicine involves the use of tools (in the case of European approaches,
primarily herbal treatments) that, while not patentable as medicines
(herbal remedies cannot be patented), none-the-less have frequently proven
themselves through both double-blind research and extensive case studies.
In the US, more limitations exist on physicians as to their approaches, in
large part because of the nature of our pharmaceutical system (i.e., it
costs an enormous amount of money to gain FDA approval for a medicine, and
no pharmaceutical firm is going to pay that amount to research an herbal
remedy that it can't patent), and in large part because our physicians
don't know enough about alternative practices to intelligently prescribe
them. The use of them _is_ growing, however. There's an organization
called ACAM (The American College for Advancement in Medicine) that
promotes greater alternative medical training for physicians (see their
web page at: http://www.acam.org/index.html), as well as several other
organizations that do essentially the same thing.
3. In the US, many forms of "alternative medicine" are little more than
new-age frauds or absurdities. Unlike Europe, where "alternative medicine"
refers to legitimate medical practices outside the traditional
pharmaceutical/surgical approaches (i.e., TCM [Traditional Chinese
Medicine], Herbal treatments, nutritional medicine, etc., all of which
have demonstrated effectiveness in some areas), in the US anything from
"aromatherapy" to "ozonation" is considered alternative medicine. Some of
the practices _are_ valid and useful (herbals, for example, provide many
of the benefits of prescription drugs often at a far lower price and with
fewer [if any] side effects, while nutritional medicine is a common sense
approach to health that promotes a sound and reasonable nutritional
balance in the body), but others are completely absurd. Would _you_, for
example, submit to dozens of daily bee stings in order to treat
depression? Or would you consider drinking urine mixed with rhubarb a
reasonable response to a headache? In Europe, such practices are seldom
even considered rational. Here in the US, they are "state-of-the-art" in
the new age circles!
4. Alternative treatments are not placebos. If they were, the results
from double-blind research would be very different.
Rick
--
Rick Adams
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Department of Social Sciences
Jackson Community College, Jackson, MI
"... and the only measure of your worth and your deeds
will be the love you leave behind when you're gone."
Fred Small, J.D., "Everything Possible"
