There is medicine or medical science. Any alternative is not medicine or medical science. Claiming there is alternative medicine is like saying there is alternative mathematics, alternative physics, alternative chemistry, alternative geology, etc.
“‘Alternative medicine,’ I begin, ‘has either not been proved to work or been proved not to work. Do you know what they call medicine that’s been proved to work? Medicine.’”
Tim Minchin
Complimentary medicine can help alleviate anxiety I’ve found, largely through the placebo effect from “receiving treatment” most likely.
I have a solution to the gun injury and death problem.
If you own a gun without a license and insurance and get shot, you don’t get health care.
You can choose between owning an unregistered gun or have health care against gun injury. Can’t have both.
“Alternative medicine has either not been proved to work or been proved not to work.
Do you know what they call medicine that’s been proved to work?
Medicine.”
What a great quote for a conversation starting tee-shirt… if your idea of a conversation is being called an idiot by someone who’s reason for calling you an idiot proves they’re an idiot.
I don’t know what “alternative medicine” is but if the statement is made that integrative medicine that incorporates the wide use of natural agents found primarily in plants has not been proven then those holding such views are uninformed. Go to pubmed.gov and you’ll find hundreds and hundreds of accredited studies (not surveys) validating the efficacy of plant based extracts that have been clearly shown to ameliorate a wide variety of human ailments.
@ Widdershins
Excellent cartoon!
Genus, the term “alternative medicine” is used to cover a wide range of things including herbal remedies, aromatherapy, prayer, crystals, remedies made using “water memory” (which is not a real thing) and homemade concoctions which can include actual poisons. The latest “alternative medicine” I’ve heard of making the rounds on Facebook is to force autistic kids to drink industrial bleach to “cure” their autism.
The term generally refers to products sold or pushed by the snake oil industry and general a-holes on the Internet who think it’s funny to tell people to make their kids drink industrial bleach. This term is used by the snake oil salesman’s choice. It allows them to use the word “medicine” without making any legally actionable claims. Yes, there are home remedies and herbal remedies which can treat a variety of ailments. Alternative medicine, however, is something people are pushing as an “alternative” to “medicine”, in some cases for serious ailments such as cancer. Generally the claim is made that it is “better” than the pharmaceutical alternative, usually by someone who just happens to sell the exact miracle product.
There are various “branches” of alternative medicines. There is holistic medicine, aromatherapy, homeopathy, etc. They all work, not on unproven science, but on a total and complete lack of any scientific study whatsoever. One such treatment uses “water memory”, the belief that water has some magical properties to “remember” the good things it has come into contact with and carry the benefits of those things while not remembering that before it was in the medicine bottle it was piss in a sewage treatment plant. The idea is that you can put some “good thing” into water and tap the container, causing the “good” to be copied to the water. You then double the water and tap again. Then again. Then again. By the time you’re done you are selling a $10 vial of water with a dropper in it which NO detectable amount of the “active ingredient” with the claim that all the tapping made the water “remember” that good stuff. They’re selling water as medicine, essentially.
That’s “alternative medicine” in a nutshell. That’s the “industry” side of it, anyway. There’s also the word of mouth “pot will cure anything” alternative medicine. But at least with pot there is ample anecdotal evidence to support some of the claims. Most alternative medicine doesn’t even have that much support.
In response to Mr. Widdershin,
I don’t know anyone in their right mind who would ever advise the ingestion of chlorine (bleach) which is deadly to all forms of life but to take the example of autism or other neurological conditions a good idea might be to begin a program using agents that slowly pull heavy metals from a child’s body like the high levels of copper found in children with behavioral problems, agents that abound in nature like chlorella, medicinal mushrooms, tumeric, milk thistle, resveratrol, olive leaf extract, oil of oregano, and dozens and dozens more plant based extracts that have been clearly shown to halt and reverse disease conditions.
I treated my own case of Squamous cell carcinoma and have the before and after pictures to prove how effective natural agents can be. I service pools and one day while pouring acid into one , a drop of muriatic acid splashed on my face beneath my eye. I remembered it clearly. Within 6 months a squamous cell carcinoma bud emerged in the same spot because the acid , a single drop of it that landed there months before had the effect of turning the underlying tissues acidic and that is an open invitation to cancer. I was servicing another pool afterward and the homeowner (a doctor) became alarmed when he saw it and instantly knew what it was. I told him I was not concerned and he though I was being very foolish. For some time I didn’t bother with it because I knew my diet being nearly pristine and including a wide variety of plant based supplements would not permit metastasis yet it would also not be enough to eradicate the carcinoma. I treated it with a product called curaderm 44 and within 6 weeks it completely disappeared and to this day over 4 years later it’s still gone. I showed the before and after pictures to the doctor who urged me to get treatment and he was dumbfounded. He still is.
Many stories of this type have occurred (google “The Incurables”)
I have enormous respect for what modern medicine can do especially diagnostic and trauma medicine. Hospitals and their working medical teams save live lives everyday in this country, but allopathic medicine is way behind the learning curve in the ever advancing field of nutritional science. The National Institute of Health maintains a free to the public website that posts every accredited study on every accepted form of therapy including nutritional.
It’s no mystery why plant based organic compounds are effective in treating certain conditions. Humans and our prehuman ancestors co-evolved with plants for hundreds of millions of years. Our gut bacteria is exhibit A. All who suffer from chronic degenerative conditions should fully utilize nature’s powerful store of plant based compounds to first enhance, repair and fully potentiate their indolent immune systems. It’s easy to poke fun at “snake oil salesmen” and they are a fraudulent side show but that’s just half of the story and by far the least important half.
As always I thank the Center for Inquiry for enabling my views to be expressed on this valuable First Amendment platform.