Essay talk:A Critique of Alternative Medicine

Lead

You could lead with "IT FUCKING KILLS PEOPLE!" Hipocrite (talk) 15:38, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, but that would scare off alties, and possibly undecided people. The point of this essay is to convert them to the one true faith. Screaming isn't going to help.--KreJ (talk) 15:45, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

You may want, like I do, consider psychiatry as an 'alternative medicine' including the fact that 'talk therapies' can cure a disease. Given that there are no biological markers, pathology or etiology in mental illness then all sorts of woo can be used. Clinical trials in psychiatry are based on simple checklists of how people feel and are of course subject to the placebo effect. Anti-depressants trials show little benefit over placebo. Since I do not believe that there is such a objective thing as a placebo effect http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1103319 then the methodology of psychiatric RCTs must be questioned. Psychiatry - despite all you may have been told has not progressed at all in the last 150 years. It is the equivalent still of collecting dubious symptoms (my chest hurts) and giving drugs (take this morphine it will make you feel better). Have you read Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre yet? Also the medicalisation of human behaviour (Alcoholism is a disease that psychiatrists can cure etc) is well explained here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicalization Psychiatry is a pseudoscientific 'religion' where sinful or deviant acts become medical diseases to be 'treated'. --Dirk Steele (talk) 17:09, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm afraid I haven't read much about psychiatry.--KreJ (talk) 17:35, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

That's okay neither has Dirk. Tmtoulouse (talk) 17:41, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Are you aware of what a wit you possess Tm? Dirk Steele (talk) 18:59, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

And you both lack commas. FAIL.--KreJ (talk) 19:07, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Behold, a systematic response to Dirk Steele, per this essay!

• Sentence 1: Conflationary Argument
• Sentence 2: Third Szaszian Argument
• Sentence 3: Third Szaszian Argument
• Sentence 4: No evidence for opinion
• Sentence 5: Opinion
• Sentence 6 and 7: Incorrect opinion, possibly needing its own listing in the essay
• Sentence 8: Question, and irrelevant.
• Sentence 9: Probably also warrants its own mention as well, but LSS, alcoholism meets the definition of a mental disorder, and we have brain scans to prove it
• Sentence 10: The Scientologist argument.

For a non-Scientologist, you sure like repeating their arguments.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 20:33, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Hamilton, I could destroy all of your 'systematic responses' but I really can't be bothered with your nonsense. If you want to argue against 'anti-psychiatry' you need to mention more than Szasz. Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry. I will not write further on or hijack this particular CAM thread. Dirk Steele (talk) 00:41, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Women Aren't Supposed to Fly: The Memoirs of a Female Flight Surgeon

Can anyone provide a citation for the exact pages in which those anecdotes occur? I don't have the book, and got the information from SkepDic.--Krej 15:26, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

definitions of 'natural'

Anyone thought to add a little about the philosophy of what is considered natural? Obviously scientists use the word nature, as in the laws of nature, as referring to anything that is possible in this universe. A chemical that can exist therefore must exist according to these laws. Even disease causing bacteria must be seen as natural. Those who support CAM medicine and herbal cures obviously have a different definition of the term 'natural'. I suppose that what they refer to is something that may not exist in 'nature' but is synthesised by human intervention. Even agriculture, not to mention houses and cities, would come under this umbrella. I think that this view is merely athropomorphic which is why the extinction of polar bears is intuitively 'wrong' but the extinction of the smallpox virus is 'right'. This view of 'nature' may be considered anti-nature or even 'supernatural' which is why its exponents are considered to be irrational. Anyway, I have not thought too much about this so I leave it to others with greater knowledge to expand. Dirk Steele (talk) 18:39, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

You're right. I've written a paragraph, but it's probably lacking.--Krej^talk 18:30, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Harriet Hall

Please clear this mess up. Did she say that a saline solution caused a man to actually have a vasectomy because of the placebo effect? If so she must really be mentally disordered. Dirk Steele (talk) 01:08, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Ah. Clarified. Ta. Dirk Steele (talk) 01:17, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean. The Skepdic article says this: "In her book ... Dr. Harriet Hall tells the story of a man who got a vasectomy without anesthesia because he was mistakenly injected with saline solution rather than lidocaine. ... the vasectomy victim didn't feel excruciating pain because he also was conditioned to get pain relief from certain injections.

I don't have the book, so I can't provide a citation for it.--Krej^talk 18:30, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

mental shit

Ah but in China there is a mental illness Zou huo ru mo (走火入魔) or qigong deviation (氣功偏差): perception of uncontrolled flow of qi in the body. Acupuncture totally cures this affliction. So isn't it a valid scientific medical cure? ;-) Dirk Steele (talk) 01:32, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Faith healing

I read once about a (old?) woman with a broken back (or something) who went to some faith healer's show. (Could have been Peter Popoff.) The faith healer convinced her she was cured and she started walking around normally, but later she went to the doctor, who said she broke her back from the effort. Does anyone know this story? Maybe I've misremembered.--Krej^talk 00:45, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

essay?

I'm confused. How does this essay differ from an article?--Weirdstuff (talk) 13:57, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

I guess I thought it would be too much work to rework the alternative medicine article. Or something. If anyone wants to merge the essay with that article, feel free.--Krej^talk 14:11, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Besides, I notice that several articles link to essays.--Krej^talk 14:45, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh, yes, also, articles in the main namespace aren't public domain.--Krej^talk 14:59, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

So the difference is that essays can be placed in the public domain? And who decided to put this one in the pubic domain? Did all the contributing authors agree to it? Or did just one person decide? It seems to me that one person deciding that the work of others should be public domain is not a good idea.--Weirdstuff (talk) 20:24, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I'm the only author so far. I put that template to get other people to help, but so far no one has.--Krej^talk 20:42, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Then - if it's your personal public domain thing - wouldn't it be better to put just your name on it? Because I can't see the difference between "an essay which can be edited by everybody" and "an article" and putting a different copyright status on just that part of the site just confuses things further. Or is it your intention to create a sub-section of the site under a different copyright to the rest?--Weirdstuff (talk) 23:07, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, when I first thought of the essay, I figured it would be simpler to create a new work rather than rework the existing article. The licence used isn't really important; I'd prefer PD, but the CC licence used by RW is OK, too. Given the progress of the essay, and all the "to-do" sections, I think it would be better to finish the essay and incorporate it into the main article later.--Krej^talk 23:22, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

The alternative treament works, but for reasons other than expected

The section's title is misleading, the text implies that alternative treatments don't work. Actually, without controlled clinical trials it's impossible to know. Evidence Based Medicine is a relative newcomer (1992), which means the majority of treatments commonly used in medical practice aren't supported by placebo-controlled studies and are, in fact, Alternative Medicine. -- Brasov 199.233.236.248 (talk) 00:48, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

The first section of this essay is intended to show why anecdotes can be misleading. (It also used to be much longer, but I replaced much of it with a link to an external article instead.) Anyway, yeah, that title is awkward and clumsy. If you have any suggestions for a better one, please feel free to tell me.--Krej^talk 02:10, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Whoa there, cowboy. "Evidence-based Medicine" as a specific methodology was formally codified in 1992, agreed. However placebo-controlled studies have been in place since the era of modern medicine began - see this. It's a huge stretch of the imagination to dismiss huge amounts of modern medicine simply because they came about before some people drafted a particular methodology. VOX^HUMANA 03:15, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Flint's placebo experiment in 1863 was anecdotic, not standard medical practice. Randomization started only in 1948, remaining anecdotic for decades. Evidence-based medicine is a venture that was launched about a quarter century ago precisely because so little medical practice was based on sound evidence. There has been no appreciable improvement. -- Brasov 109.195.54.231 (talk) 18:00, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

A response to the idiotic garbage presented above

I know you are a crank, so I already regret discussing anything with you, but whatever.

Your claim that "so little medical practice was based on sound evidence" is utter, shameless, bollocks. The codification of EBM had little real impact on medical research practice, as it didn't say anything that wasn't already being done. Medical practices were being refined long before that time, and have continued to do so since. They will also always be subject to evaluation and improvement, because that is at the heart of the scientific method.

You are also trying to argue that because EBM was formally codified until 1992, (your words) "the majority of treatments commonly used in medical practice aren't supported by placebo-controlled studies".

Really? Name one.

The 1992 Evidence-based medicine methodology codified standard practice that had been around since 1948 and greatly tightened since the 1960's (due to the Thalidomide debacle - see Kefauver_Harris_Amendment). By the time I entered medical school in the late 80s, double-blind randomized trials were firmly embedded in the medical community as the bare minimum standard, and even then were often met with disapproval for not being rigorous enough.

It seems clear to me that you are pushing some absurd "all modern medicine is bad" agenda. No problem, you're not the first to go down that road. Thus I challenge you to present some evidence to support your statement, namely to identify a western pharmaceutical practice in current use that is not supported by a placebo-controlled study, as per your previous assertion. For my part, I'll present every drug introduced onto the market since 1965, (including those for which later evidence led to their withdrawal, as they were still introduced after an initial formal study).

So there IS a rigorous evidence based medicine framework in place and has been for many decades. Next - all processes are subject to failings, there have been unintended errors in the past and no doubt there will be errors made in the future. There have been sporadic cases of medical fraud as well, which will no doubt occur again. This is a business and wherever money can be made, fraud will be attempted.

This does not invalidate medical research as a whole. "Quality" is a continuum, not a dichotomy, and the vast majority of medical research yields a net benefit.

Your main thesis concerning "alternative medicine" seems to be "validation by equivalent inadequacy" - the assertion that modern medicine isn't really tested anyway, and as alternative medicine is just as inadequate, it thus represents a viable alternative.

As noted above, your argument depends on the assertion that "modern medicine isn't really tested properly", and thus (also as noted above), you'll need some hard evidence to back up that ridiculous claim. Also, an isolated case where the testing was later proved to be inadequate isn't sufficient either, you'll need to back up your claim that "the majority of treatments commonly used in medical practice aren't supported by placebo-controlled studies" to win on this count.

Finally I'll assert that there simply is no such thing as "Alternative medicine". There is only "medicine that works" and "useless or dangerous stuff". Any "alternative" practice that actually works is rapidly be absorbed into the standard medical canon.

Claiming that things like "eat healthy" or "manage your stress" are somehow exclusively "alternative medical practices" is likewise garbage, these things are standard medical advice for which there is clinical proof of efficacy.

So unless you have something tangible to say, and can do something other than hand-waving and spouting "Evil pharma boogeyman" nonsense, take it somewhere else.

VOX^HUMANA 04:07, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Double standards.

Since "placebos" are biologically inert substances, they're on a different league than biologically active pharma products with nasty side effects. I don't see why more stringent standards for the latter is double standards, it just seems common sense. -- Brasov 109.195.54.231 (talk) 17:07, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Herbs/supplements are not inert. Tobacco is a herb. Now, homeopathy, on the other hand...--Krej^talk 17:11, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Then you shouldn't call them "placebos". You could still rationally claim "unproven efficacy", but by acknowledging their biological activity you leave open the possibility of them actually doing what they're claim to do. Trials would be needed. Anecdotal evidence is enough for Big Pharma to justify clinical trials, even to force meds upon children when placebo-controlled studies are lacking (cancer chemo and AIDS meds). -- Brasov 109.195.54.231 (talk) 17:33, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Most of CAM is, indeed, a placebo, and the odds of a given supplement pill actually working for the conditions it's used for are quite slim, so I feel quite comfortable using the words "Big Placebo".

What is "natural"?

Like any other concept, the classification "natural" is fuzzy at the edges. Regarding chemicals, "natural" implies a substance that has co-evolved with the biosphere and therefore unlikely to cause unintended catastrophic consequences. Counter-example: DDT. Regarding medicine, "natural" would mean anything that will favour, rather than block, the healing reactions the human body has evolved. Example: cold water to help fever. Counterexample: antipyrethics to suppress it. -- Brasov 109.195.54.231 (talk) 17:27, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

1. Deadly nightshade has "co-evolved".
2. Go to Uganda with your "body-supporting" potions and see what happens.--Krej^talk 18:49, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

1. Nightshade will not cause cause unintended catastrophic consequences to the biosphere, which was my definition of natural in the context of a chemical.
2. You know as much about Ugandan potions as you do about Tel Aviv's paedophilia

It's cognitive dissonance to promote protection of the rainforest based on its potential for new drug discoveries and, in the same breath, deny the effectiveness of herbal potions evolutionarily selected (generations of trial and error) by the peoples that dwell in such forests. Do you work for Big Pharma? -- Brasov 166.70.207.2 (talk) 21:10, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Your comment is so nonsensical it is in the region of not even wrong. The fact a potion gets used traditionally makes it a potential candidate for scientific investigation, nothing more. It may not be effective, it may have dangerous side-effects, it may be inferior to an existing treatment developed elsewhere. If it is good and passes formal testing (which HAS happened in the past), it will be accepted into modern medical treatment, eg. aspirin. Declaring it to be "good" just because some primitive people with a poor life expectancy used it is utterly ludicrous. And none of that has anything to do with the fact that there are environmental and scientific reasons to protect a rainforest. And I love the "Big Pharma" quip at the end - a classic tactic of the ignorant: "if you have no reasoning, declare a conspiracy".

As for your original statement - it is full of ignorance and woo. Eg. "cold water to help fever". Um, no. Cold water does not help fever, it can merely alleviate some of the discomfort. Bubonic plague, curare and ricin have all "co-evolved with the biosphere" and are quite lethal to humans. Mother Nature does not "love all life", it is quite ambivalent and often openly hostile. You have made an utter fool of yourself I'm afraid. VOX^HUMANA 21:27, 6 February 2013 (UTC)