Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Garbles18 · 01-04-2003, 09:54 PM

This letter was printed in my local paper and since I don't know much about this stuff, I wondered if anyone here had any comments on how to respond to it

:

Quote:

It's 'alternative' only in that people care for themselves

By Rick Miller, For the Journal and Courier

In a Dec. 19 guest column, Irwin Tessman, a professor of biology at Purdue University, asked if alternative medicine is really medicine. I would like to provide one answer.

Alternative, also called complementary, holistic or natural medicine seeks to achieve and maintain total health of the whole person, thus preventing disease and achieving a long and healthy life. If disease does occur despite this, then natural approaches are used that harness the human body's powerful capacity to heal itself.

Current orthodox, also called allopathic, medicine focuses on diagnosing and treating disease, with little or no apparent effort expended on preventing illness. It accomplishes this primarily by using synthetic patent drugs (in controlled dosages so that their inherent toxicity and harmful side effects are minimized), other chemicals and surgery. It is usually directed only to the particular area that is most directly affected, such as a cancerous tumor, blocked coronary artery, etc., and does not address the root causes of the problem or the whole body as a system. Current orthodox medicine thus treats the symptoms of disease while ignoring the underlying causes.

A few facts demonstrate the obvious problems with this approach. 1. Doctors are the third leading cause of death in America, at 250,000 people per year (heart disease and cancer are numbers 1 and 2; 2. Hospitals are the fourth largest cause of death, followed closely by side effects of properly prescribed prescription drugs. The source of these statistics is a study and article by the American Medical Association.

Yes, you may say, but isn't our health better? No. Despite the United States spending the most on medical care of any nation on earth, we rank 12th out of 13 nations surveyed for 16 health indicators, according to a recent study.

I am puzzled by Tessman's statement that alternative medicine's remedies are almost by definition unproven, because otherwise, traditional medicine would accept them. This defies both history and human nature. Independent and out-of-the-box thinkers are usually ignored at best and persecuted at worst. From those who claimed the Earth is round and rotates around the sun, to the doctor who recommended washing hands before performing surgery, new and cutting edge ideas do not gain immediate acceptance and are often fiercely resisted.

Peer-reviewed, double-blind scientific studies do exist for many aspects of health-promoting and disease-preventing medicine, which Tessman calls alternative. The Life Extension Foundation (www.lef.org) is a good resource for this. For the most part, these studies are ignored or discredited when they achieve results contrary to traditional medical orthodoxy.

For example, the controlled carbohydrate diet, such as Atkins, has been shown to reduce weight and improve cholesterol profiles, blood chemistry and other heart disease risk factors. On the other hand, the large majority of traditional medical treatments are "unproven" in that there are no scientific studies to show their safety or effectiveness. Isn't it a double standard to expect proof from one, but not the other?

I believe that our current medical paradigm has failed us miserably. The epidemic of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and autoimmune disorders, as well as the generally low state of health of millions of Americans, attest to this. The system is collapsing under its own weight from flawed basic assumptions, economic conflicts of interests, stifling of innovation, outrageously high costs and poor results.

People are starting to realize that they themselves are responsible for their own health, and should take measures to achieve and maintain health naturally and treat any problems that may occur naturally first. If enough of us do this while we still have the freedom of choice to do so, then traditional allopathic medicine will have to accept and acknowledge this eventually, vastly improving both our physical and economic health.

DamagedGoods · 01-04-2003, 11:07 PM

I'm sure others will have better things to say than I, but here's the things that jump out at me:

Quote:

1. Doctors are the third leading cause of death in America, at 250,000 people per year (heart disease and cancer are numbers 1 and 2; 2. Hospitals are the fourth largest cause of death, followed closely by side effects of properly prescribed prescription drugs. The source of these statistics is a study and article by the American Medical Association.

I have a hard time believing that the AMA study really said that doctors and hospitals are the #3 and #4 killers. I'd be willing to bet there's some kind of spin put on those statistics, like the "hospitals cause death" really being "x% of people die while in a hospital." And when was the last time you heard about vast numbers of people dying from properly dosed prescription drugs?

I note that the actual article and study are not cited; it would be interesting to see them (if they even exist).

Quote:

Independent and out-of-the-box thinkers are usually ignored at best and persecuted at worst. From those who claimed the Earth is round and rotates around the sun, to the doctor who recommended washing hands before performing surgery, new and cutting edge ideas do not gain immediate acceptance and are often fiercely resisted.

Big red flag for me here: people trying to compare themselves to Galileo, Copernicus, da Vinci or some other person that was 'persecuted' for revolutionary ideas. Reminds me a lot of Richard C. Hoagland; maybe these folks could get an interview with Art Bell (if he hadn't retired again). Just having ideas that aren't widely accepted does not make you right; it may just mean that you have a persecution complex.

Quote:

I believe that our current medical paradigm has failed us miserably. The epidemic of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and autoimmune disorders, as well as the generally low state of health of millions of Americans, attest to this.

Yeah, our epidemic of obesity is caused by problems in our medical system. It couldn't have much to do with the fact that food is readily available and that many people no longer have physically demanding jobs. Nah, couldn't be that.

Aren't there many effective methods in 'orthodox' medicine to control diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease and autoimmune disease? "Losing weight, getting in shape and eating healthy foods" isn't exclusive to alternative medicine - my 'allopathic' doctor has no problem giving me advice like that and did so when my total cholesterol was over 500. He even had me try to control it with diet before we tried statins...imagine that.

Quote:

The system is collapsing under its own weight from flawed basic assumptions, economic conflicts of interests, stifling of innovation, outrageously high costs and poor results.

I think here the writer is trying to transfer failures of the US health care system onto the scientific method or 'allopathic medicine' itself. I agree that there are many flaws in the health care system, but they are caused by bureaucracy and bad policies, not by the lack of 'alternative' medical treatments.

And I'm sure the writer couldn't list very many of those 'flawed basic assumptions.' If he could, I'd be interested in seeing what they are.

Quote:

If enough of us do this while we still have the freedom of choice to do so, then traditional allopathic medicine will have to accept and acknowledge this eventually, vastly improving both our physical and economic health.

Yes, hurry and write your congressman about alternative medicine before the Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations and the Bilderburgers send black helicopters to force you to accept 'traditional' medicine. They would do that because they're trying to suppress the wonders of alternative medicine. And - of course - the alternative medicine doctors are here to save the day and lead us all back to the lives of perfect health our ancestors enjoyed before the advent of science.

Wow, that's enough sarcasm outta me for today.

thebeave · 01-05-2003, 06:35 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Garbles18
This letter was printed in my local paper and since I don't know much about this stuff, I wondered if anyone here had any comments on how to respond to it :

That article in your paper was quite possibly the most reckless, misguided piece of nonsense I've ever read. I wouldn't even know where to begin debunking that piece of shit.

If you are interested in reading more about conventional versus alternative medicine, there's a really good website that I frequently use. Try Quackwatch Home Page . There are many articles there of a general nature regarding alternative medicine, and specific articles regarding popular alternative medicine treatments. Enjoy!

Garbles18 · 01-05-2003, 10:47 AM

Thank you for your help, guys. I will see if I can come up with a decent response for it. If anyone has any other comments, please let me know.

Response to DamagedGoods:

The fact that you can't corner people into providing references is a bad thing about the local paper. I can point out that she doesn't provide any resources other than the lef.com link, but since the paper will only print one letter a month we can't exactly have a decent argument. I have to keep my response to below 250 words so I have to choose my argument wisely.

Response to thebeave:

I will use the link in my letter as a good reference. I had been to that site a long time ago from reading James Randi's web site but I had forgot about it until you mentioned it. I agree that the letter was a piece of shit and hopefully I can respond well.

scigirl · 01-05-2003, 10:55 AM

Here's some data I found:

http://www.whale.to/drugs/iat.html

Quote:

ADVERSE DRUG REACTIONS MAY CAUSE OVER 100,000 DEATHS AMONG HOSPITALIZED PATIENTS EACH YEAR

CHICAGO-Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) in U.S. hospitals
may be responsible for more than 100,000 deaths nationwide each year, making it one of the leading causes of death, according to an article in the April 14 issue of The Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA).

The authors estimated that 2,216,000 hospital patients
experienced a serious ADR and 106,000 deaths were caused by ADRs in the United States. This could account for 4.6 percent of all causes of recorded death in 1994, making these reactions between the fourth and sixth leading cause of death.

In an accompanying editorial in the April 15 JAMA, David
W. Bates, M.D., M.Sc., of Partners Healthcare Systems, and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Mass., cautions that there are several concerns about the way the study was done, although the authors adhered to the generally accepted criteria for meta-analyses. "First, an inherent limitation of meta-analysis is that combining the results of small, heterogeneous studies does not necessarily bring one closer to truth, particularly if the processes used to identify and to validate the presence of the events were heterogeneous. Second, the hospitals studied are
probably not representative of hospitals at large. Such studies are more likely to be conducted in academic, tertiary care hospitals; these hospitals have sicker patients, and these patients have more ADRs. Another issue is whether the sites of care sampled within the institutions were representative of the institutions."

Dr. Bates adds: "Nonetheless, these data are important,
and even if the true incidence of ADRs is somewhat lower than that reported ... it is still high, and much higher than generally recognized."

So adverse drug reactions do tend to kill a lot of people.

Here's a site from the CDC that lists

10 leading causes of death, US.

scigirl

Undercurrent · 01-05-2003, 11:01 AM

Excuse me while I put in my licks.

Quote:

Alternative, also called complementary, holistic or natural medicine seeks to achieve and maintain total health of the whole person, thus preventing disease and achieving a long and healthy life.

Obviously, "conventional" medicine has no such goals. That is why, under the care of conventional medicine, human lifespans have dropped so dramatically, and no diseases have been eradicated.

Quote:

If disease does occur despite this, then natural approaches are used that harness the human body's powerful capacity to heal itself.

If the human body really prosessed such a great capacity to heal itself, it would not need alternative medical practicioners to "harness" it. That being said, anyone who believes that conventional medical techniques don't rely on the body's ability to heal itself (to some degree) is grossly mistaken. Stiches aren't put in to hold a wound together forever, just to hold tissue in place while the body exercises its "capacity to heal itself."

Quote:

Current orthodox, also called allopathic,

The term "allopathic" is one coined by homeopathic medicine pushers. The word describes medicine where something that causes the opposite a symptom is used to treat a symptom (as opposed to "homeopathic" which describes using something that causes the same symptom to treat a symptom.)

Real medicine uses no such simplisitic methodology to discover treatments. It's just a strawman.

Quote:

medicine focuses on diagnosing and treating disease, with little or no apparent effort expended on preventing illness.

Outright lie. Doctors have been perscribing diet and exercise as a means to prevent illness for time immemorial.

Quote:

It accomplishes this primarily by using synthetic patent drugs (in controlled dosages so that their inherent toxicity and harmful side effects are minimized), other chemicals and surgery. It is usually directed only to the particular area that is most directly affected, such as a cancerous tumor, blocked coronary artery, etc., and does not address the root causes of the problem or the whole body as a system. Current orthodox medicine thus treats the symptoms of disease while ignoring the underlying causes.

Also a lie. If you are at risk of a heart attack, the "underlying cause" is a nearly blocked coronary artery. Unblocking the artery is treating the underlying cause. If you are dying of cancer, the underlying cause is the tumor. Removing the tumor is treating cause. And, in fact, the diet and exercise descibed above is even moreso treating the underlying cause, by preventing the blockage or tumor in the first place.

A great many AMers, on the other hand, ignore the discovered root causes of disease in favour of completely debunked beliefs of ancient peoples from exotic (to westerners) lands about what causes disease. Treating "causes" like interruption in the flow of chi, or an "imbalance" in your chakra system is not treating cause at all.

Quote:

A few facts demonstrate the obvious problems with this approach. 1. Doctors are the third leading cause of death in America, at 250,000 people per year (heart disease and cancer are numbers 1 and 2; 2. Hospitals are the fourth largest cause of death, followed closely by side effects of properly prescribed prescription drugs. The source of these statistics is a study and article by the American Medical Association.

Refer back to DamagedGoods opinion of these stats. It would be good to find the original article they refer to. I'd bet you a coke it says nothing of the sort.

Quote:

Yes, you may say, but isn't our health better? No. Despite the United States spending the most on medical care of any nation on earth, we rank 12th out of 13 nations surveyed for 16 health indicators, according to a recent study.

Also would be good to find the study cited. Undercurrent's bet: The other 12 nations are first-world nations where western medicine is practiced, albeit with a different, potentially more effective, delivery system (universal health care, e.g.).

Quote:

I am puzzled by Tessman's statement that alternative medicine's remedies are almost by definition unproven, because otherwise, traditional medicine would accept them.

Tessman was being nice. A good fraction of them are tested and proven in the negative.

Quote:

This defies both history and human nature. Independent and out-of-the-box thinkers are usually ignored at best and persecuted at worst. From those who claimed the Earth is round and rotates around the sun, to the doctor who recommended washing hands before performing surgery, new and cutting edge ideas do not gain immediate acceptance and are often fiercely resisted.

:boohoo: :boohoo: :boohoo:

New and cutting-edge ideas with no or negative value put foreward by quacks, also do not gain immediate acceptance and are fiercely resisted.

Quote:

For example, the controlled carbohydrate diet, such as Atkins, has been shown to reduce weight and improve cholesterol profiles, blood chemistry and other heart disease risk factors. On the other hand, the large majority of traditional medical treatments are "unproven" in that there are no scientific studies to show their safety or effectiveness. Isn't it a double standard to expect proof from one, but not the other?

That's quite the accusation the letter makes. Odd of the author not to mention any examples of "unproven" traditional medicine techniques. I'd call the author on this bluff.

Quote:

I believe that our current medical paradigm has failed us miserably. The epidemic of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and autoimmune disorders, as well as the generally low state of health of millions of Americans, attest to this. The system is collapsing under its own weight from flawed basic assumptions, economic conflicts of interests, stifling of innovation, outrageously high costs and poor results.

And the whole "living to be 80" thing is just chopped liver. While I have no particular love for the american health care delivery system, this person sounds, basically, spoiled rotten. So many people just can't remember that having all your kids and (your wife/you) survive childbirth and expecting to live to your retirement age used to be luxuries.

Quote:

People are starting to realize that they themselves are responsible for their own health, and should take measures to achieve and maintain health naturally and treat any problems that may occur naturally first.

Good for them. Doctors have been telling us to do this for decades. Eat right, exercise, moderate your drinking, don't take stupid risks of injury, and you won't be needing to deal with the meaner parts of the scientific medical system so much.

m.

DamagedGoods · 01-05-2003, 01:05 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by scigirl
Here's some data I found:

http://www.whale.to/drugs/iat.html

So adverse drug reactions do tend to kill a lot of people.

Although I agree that the extrapolation of 100k deaths per year may be somewhat flawed because it could be based on studies done in hospitals that traditionally have higher loss rates, I can agree that the deaths due to ADR's is higher than I originally thought.

Still, deaths due to ADR as a standalone statistic isn't really germane to the argument of the letter presented by Garbles18. Perhaps, if a study were done in which a statistically significant number of people were treated with 'alternative' medicine and another group treated with 'traditional' medicine, and it was shown that, given equally serious conditions in both groups, alternative medicine fared better, I might give them some credence. But, to my knowledge, no such study has been done (then again, I am not a doctor or medical researcher, so please school me if I am wrong). Often, when I hear or see someone trying to push alternative medicine, their 'evidence' turns out to be anecdotes, not hard studies where they have to directly compete with traditional medicine.

So, yes, a lot of people die in the care of doctors, in hospitals, and because they got the wrong medicine or because they had a reaction to a properly prescribed medicine. And it's terrible when it happens. But I'd be willing to bet that many more would die if doctors worried about fixing somebody's chi or chakra, or adjusting their spine instead of getting them a heart bypass or medicine to control their high blood pressure or cholesterol.

Man, I've really turned into super-run-on-sentence-man today.

Quote:

Here's a site from the CDC that lists

10 leading causes of death, US.

I couldn't get that link to work, by the way.

scigirl · 01-05-2003, 03:47 PM

Weird that link won't work for me now either.

Here's another one:

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/releases/01f...9mortality.htm

Quote:

In 1999 a total of 19,102 persons died of drug-induced causes, which includes not only deaths from dependent and nondependent use of drugs, but also poisoning from medically prescribed and other drugs. This does not include deaths from accidents, homicides, or other causes indirectly related to drug use.

This is significantly lower than the 100,000 number from that other study. Hmm....

scigirl

Mad Kally · 01-05-2003, 03:56 PM

Hello garbles,
How can anyone take seriously a site which sells products like these?

Thanks to thebeave for posting the quackwatch link.

DamagedGoods · 01-05-2003, 03:59 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by scigirl
This is significantly lower than the 100,000 number from that other study. Hmm....

Unless I'm wrong, the section you quoted means that deaths due to prescribed legal drugs is only a portion of that 19,102 deaths. "Drug use" appears to include use/abuse of legal and illegal drugs, so the actual number of deaths due to prescription drugs is nowhere near 100k - probably even below 10k.

Somehow I found it difficult to accept that tens of thousands of people were dying every year from normally prescribed drugs. I suspect if that were really the case, it would have been a major news item a long time ago.

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01-05-2003, 10:47 AM	#4
Garbles18 Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Lafayette, IN Posts: 43	Thank you for your help, guys. I will see if I can come up with a decent response for it. If anyone has any other comments, please let me know. Response to DamagedGoods: The fact that you can't corner people into providing references is a bad thing about the local paper. I can point out that she doesn't provide any resources other than the lef.com link, but since the paper will only print one letter a month we can't exactly have a decent argument. I have to keep my response to below 250 words so I have to choose my argument wisely. Response to thebeave: I will use the link in my letter as a good reference. I had been to that site a long time ago from reading James Randi's web site but I had forgot about it until you mentioned it. I agree that the letter was a piece of shit and hopefully I can respond well.

01-05-2003, 03:56 PM	#9
Mad Kally Banned Join Date: May 2001 Location: LALA Land in California Posts: 3,764	Hello garbles, How can anyone take seriously a site which sells products like these? Thanks to thebeave for posting the quackwatch link.

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