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On August 06 2016 07:55 Nyxisto wrote:
No, alternative medicine is not an option instead of chemotherapy or any diseases that (western) medicine can't handle. That is absolutely ridiculous. There's also no 'balance' to be had in this discussion. To talk to a practionicer of the stuff about its effects makes as much as sense as talking to a Scientology member about Scientology. There's no legitimate alternative medicine community.
Yes, chemotherapy can ruin your quality of life, the advantage is of course that you continue to live.
Let's step away from chemo and think for a moment about something like back pain, does that change your opinion? Or do you really think there is nothing in the realm of "alternative medicine" that may work better than the typical xray and opiates most people get in the US?
also Yango's point about not being a total replacement.
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On August 06 2016 07:13 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2016 06:50 Mohdoo wrote:On August 06 2016 06:28 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 06 2016 06:15 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On August 06 2016 06:09 Dan HH wrote:I can't take the Greens seriously when they have this shit in their party platform We support the teaching, funding and practice of holistic health approaches and, as appropriate, the use of complementary and alternative therapies such as herbal medicines, homeopathy, naturopathy, traditional Chinese medicine and other healing approaches. http://www.gp.org/social_justice/#sjHealthCare I agree, and the three Jill Stein supporters who I have spoken to about this, all basically say the same thing: "Alternative medicine can possibly work so why not keep the option on the table?" To which I give them several studies rejecting that their results are anything more meaningful than simple placebo effect at best, and then I paraphrase Tim Minchin: Alternative medicine, by definition, has either not been proved to work or been proved not to work. Do you know what we call the stuff that actually works? Medicine. Tim Minchin's "Storm": + Show Spoiler + I wouldn't hate on placebo's, I'd take a chance at the placebo effect over no hope any day. Cannabis is still considered "homeopathy" by many in the medical field, so forgive me if I think they are often full of it, ignorant, or just flat out stupid for sake of their previous positions. Cannabis is not considered homeopathy by medical science. The mechanistic impacts of cannabis are well understood in a variety of ways. What you are saying is just straight up false. As for your earlier point regarding the safety of GMOs and pesticides, they are already shown to be safe to the extent that our technology allows for. Biological science is severely gimped compared to other realms of chemistry for both ethical and physical reasons. They still do incredible work, but as someone who specializes in electronic materials, it is amazing the biochemists get anything done. Stein asks that greater than the full extent of our scientific capability be used prior to ingestion. That isn't possible. We have shown it to be as safe as we can, but by definition we can not do better than that. Do you work in science? It really does not feel like it. You say and ask things that make it really clear you have a very limited grasp on this. But you still make a judgment. That's wrong. You should never comment on a technical topic you are not an expert in. I made an edit on my previous post about not being familiar with the term "homeopathy" as referring to a specific type of treatment, just heard it used as a synonym for "alternative medicine", if you replace it in the context it makes more sense.
It doesn't make sense because whether you mean homeopathic or alternative, the result is the same. Medical science views cannabis as medically sound. That is distinct from medical policy. The fact remains that Stein is advocating for a wildly different interpretation than science. You would not let a Republican get away with the gymnastics you're trying to pull here if the subject was climate change.
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United States43452 Posts
On August 06 2016 08:00 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2016 07:55 Nyxisto wrote:
No, alternative medicine is not an option instead of chemotherapy or any diseases that (western) medicine can't handle. That is absolutely ridiculous. There's also no 'balance' to be had in this discussion. To talk to a practionicer of the stuff about its effects makes as much as sense as talking to a Scientology member about Scientology. There's no legitimate alternative medicine community.
Yes, chemotherapy can ruin your quality of life, the advantage is of course that you continue to live. Let's step away from chemo and think for a moment about something like back pain, does that change your opinion? Or do you really think there is nothing in the realm of "alternative medicine" that may work better than the typical xray and opiates most people get in the US?
If it works better, great, test it, prove it, turn it into medicine.
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On August 06 2016 08:01 KwarK wrote:
If it works better, great, test it, prove it, turn it into medicine.
Pretty much this.
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On August 06 2016 07:58 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2016 07:55 Nyxisto wrote:
No, alternative medicine is not an option instead of chemotherapy or any diseases that (western) medicine can't handle. That is absolutely ridiculous. There's also no 'balance' to be had in this discussion. To talk to a practionicer of the stuff about its effects makes as much as sense as talking to a Scientology member about Scientology. There's no legitimate alternative medicine community. I never suggested that it's an alternative. In fact, I said exactly the opposite--that alternative medicine is never a replacement for western medicine and is a supplement to it. Legitimate alternative medicine practitioners recognize this and work within the framework of western medicine, not against it. Chemo drugs have some really shitty side effects, and the only western medicine solution is to reduce the dosage of the drug--which isn't really an option. Alternative medicine helps to make these peoples' lives a lot less shitty without having to adversely affect their western medicine therapy. They can stay on chemo and have less shitty lives. There are "alternative medicine" quacks that tell you to get off your chemo drugs and take some herbal bullshit instead but even the established alternative medicine community calls these people for what they are. The problem is that without proper licensing and vetting, the general public can't tell the difference.
Sure the placebo effect can help you, even if you know that you're taking placebos. But that is not 'greatly' going to improve your life when you're on chemotherapy. It's at best very marginally going to improve your life, which doesn't amount to much if you're suffering from cancer.
The risk on the other hand is, as KwarK pointed out, that the proponents of alternative medicine confuse the population and convince people to do stuff that is harmful to their health. Not to mention the already existing billion dollar scam industry that makes money off people who actually buy the snake oil.
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The people who are selling placebos are quacks and legitimate western and eastern physicians both know it. For their part, the legitimate practitioners that also practice alongside western medicine don't like the fact that these people are giving a bad name to their practice either. But there's a ton of untested stuff that's slowly starting to get tested through collaborations between the western and eastern medical communities.
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Canada11385 Posts
traditional Chinese medicine
I believe in the ancient and traditional Chinese medicine of variolation 
...except I prefer the modern variant of this ancient practice.
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My opinion on alternative medicine: The fact that some medicines called "alternative" are efficient is not an argument against "scientific" or western medicine at all. The fact that the theraputic effect of cleaning wounds was discovered (and used in rites) long before anyone could understand "scientifically" why it helped doesnt take anything away from the scientific method. Nor does it make cleaning wounds something other than scientific medicine. Any working "alternative" medicine is actually real, scientific, or "western" medicine, with the only exception that it was invented by accident. + Show Spoiler +like penicillin 
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On August 06 2016 08:01 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2016 08:00 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 06 2016 07:55 Nyxisto wrote:
No, alternative medicine is not an option instead of chemotherapy or any diseases that (western) medicine can't handle. That is absolutely ridiculous. There's also no 'balance' to be had in this discussion. To talk to a practionicer of the stuff about its effects makes as much as sense as talking to a Scientology member about Scientology. There's no legitimate alternative medicine community.
Yes, chemotherapy can ruin your quality of life, the advantage is of course that you continue to live. Let's step away from chemo and think for a moment about something like back pain, does that change your opinion? Or do you really think there is nothing in the realm of "alternative medicine" that may work better than the typical xray and opiates most people get in the US? If it works better, great, test it, prove it, turn it into medicine.
To both your and Moh's point, sometimes that's easier said than done. Like the medical industry and medical science aren't always aligned. That's why I used the cannabis example in the first place.
Point being that sometimes medicine isn't considered "medicine" not because it's not "medicine", but because people don't want it to be seen as medicine. Cannabis is just one we can follow pretty well along it's path to becoming medicine (even if Hillary doesn't believe it yet).
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On August 06 2016 08:07 TheYango wrote:
The people who are selling placebos are quacks and legitimate western and eastern physicians both know it. For their part, the legitimate practitioners that also practice alongside western medicine don't like the fact that these people are giving a bad name to their practice either. But there's a ton of untested stuff that's slowly starting to get tested through collaborations between the western and eastern medical communities.
Out of curiosity, what are some of the new untested things that you're referring to? I'm just curious, because I worry that many proponents of "untested stuff" don't realize that those have already been tested and refuted and fall squarely into the placebo/ fake treatment category that those proponents "know" to dismiss (e.g., a friend of mine earlier today told me he thought that "the jury is still out there" for homeopathy, which is absolutely false, and I know another person who thinks that healing crystals haven't been refuted yet).
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On August 06 2016 08:10 Elroi wrote:My opinion on alternative medicine: The fact that some medicines called "alternative" are efficient is not an argument against "scientific" or western medicine at all. The fact that the theraputic effect of cleaning wounds was discovered (and used in rites) long before anyone could understand "scientifically" why it helped doesnt take anything away from the scientific method. Nor does it make cleaning wounds something other than scientific medicine. Any working "alternative" medicine is actually real, scientific, or "western" medicine, with the only exception that it was invented by accident. + Show Spoiler +like penicillin
the fact that "it works" can only be discovered through the scientific method, that's why doctors 200 years ago were as likely to kill you as they were to cure you. Of course Western medicine doesn't make medicine work, it validates that it works. Which is all that really matters.
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On August 06 2016 08:11 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2016 08:01 KwarK wrote:On August 06 2016 08:00 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 06 2016 07:55 Nyxisto wrote:
No, alternative medicine is not an option instead of chemotherapy or any diseases that (western) medicine can't handle. That is absolutely ridiculous. There's also no 'balance' to be had in this discussion. To talk to a practionicer of the stuff about its effects makes as much as sense as talking to a Scientology member about Scientology. There's no legitimate alternative medicine community.
Yes, chemotherapy can ruin your quality of life, the advantage is of course that you continue to live. Let's step away from chemo and think for a moment about something like back pain, does that change your opinion? Or do you really think there is nothing in the realm of "alternative medicine" that may work better than the typical xray and opiates most people get in the US? If it works better, great, test it, prove it, turn it into medicine. To both your and Moh's point, sometimes that's easier said than done. Like the medical industry and medical science aren't always aligned. That's why I used the cannabis example in the first place. Point being that sometimes medicine isn't considered "medicine" not because it's not "medicine", but because people don't want it to be seen as medicine. Cannabis is just one we can follow pretty well along it's path to becoming medicine (even if Hillary doesn't believe it yet).
And that's a fine point, but that's not the original point you were making- that cannabis is either homeopathic or that it's considered "alternative medicine". Both of those original points are false.
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On August 06 2016 07:46 TheYango wrote:
For the last two years, I've worked as a research assistant for a practicing physician who is also a licensed acupuncturist and who does research on the efficacy of alternative medicine. Having interacted with both "western" and "eastern" physicians regarding this, I'd like to think I have a somewhat balanced perspective from both sides on this.
From the western medical community, there isn't some blanket rejection of alternative medicine. At a basic level, there is an understanding that these treatments have some amount of efficacy, that is simply not well understood. Physicians recognize that with proper research, it's very reasonable for some of these treatments to enter the mainstream once we have a more reasonable understanding of why they work and what they do.
In places where alternative medicine is more developed (notably China), there is likewise a similar understanding in the eastern medical community that to establish legitimacy, they need to be scientific. Traditional Chinese medicine practictioners have collaborated with western physicians in conducting clinical trials, and for the most part, the "legitimate" alternative medicine community is fairly onboard with making their practice more rigorous and more scientific.
From both sides, the belief is that these two modes of practice can come together and augment one another. Alternative medicine, while not always able to treat disease, often greatly improves quality of life where modern medical care can result in very poor life quality after treating severe diseases (e.g. patients in chemotherapy). It is also an option open to people with diseases that western medicine is simply incapable of managing thus far.
There are two problems which arise, and both come from outside the established alternative medicine community. First is that many people who come to alternative medicine do so because of an irrational rejection of western medicine. This is not something that legitimate alternative medicine practitioners condone--alternative medicine is seen as a counterpart to western medicine, not as a replacement. Second is that the vetting process for practitioners of alternative medicine is very poor, so the field is rampant with unlicensed quacks, many of whom try to cultivate peoples' irrational mistrust of western medicine for the sake of making a quick buck. It's these people that both the western and alternative medical communities have a problem with. Within the "legitimate" alternative medicine community, they largely see eye to eye with their physician counterparts.
We do have a reasonable understanding of how they work. Like most alternative medicine, accupuncture doesn't pass control groups (fake acupuncture) in efficiency. When using blunt needles in random places on blindfolded patients has the same results as the real deal, there's no misunderstanding in play, it's a placebo.
The problem is that placebos do help but are not used in standard medicine (other than in research) because it's seen as unethical to deceive patientis, even if deceiving them might be the only thing that can help them with a specific issue. And I agree with that, even though it means making some people flock to alternative medicine and distrust standard medicine, I think the flipside would create much more mistrust.
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On August 06 2016 08:11 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2016 08:01 KwarK wrote:On August 06 2016 08:00 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 06 2016 07:55 Nyxisto wrote:
No, alternative medicine is not an option instead of chemotherapy or any diseases that (western) medicine can't handle. That is absolutely ridiculous. There's also no 'balance' to be had in this discussion. To talk to a practionicer of the stuff about its effects makes as much as sense as talking to a Scientology member about Scientology. There's no legitimate alternative medicine community.
Yes, chemotherapy can ruin your quality of life, the advantage is of course that you continue to live. Let's step away from chemo and think for a moment about something like back pain, does that change your opinion? Or do you really think there is nothing in the realm of "alternative medicine" that may work better than the typical xray and opiates most people get in the US? If it works better, great, test it, prove it, turn it into medicine. To both your and Moh's point, sometimes that's easier said than done. Like the medical industry and medical science aren't always aligned. That's why I used the cannabis example in the first place. Point being that sometimes medicine isn't considered "medicine" not because it's not "medicine", but because people don't want it to be seen as medicine. Cannabis is just one we can follow pretty well along it's path to becoming medicine (even if Hillary doesn't believe it yet).
Whether the industry is on board or not, lots of research still takes place. The pharmaceutical industry and pharmaceutical research are not the same. An enormous amount of fundamental, science for the sake of science medical work is done by universities. The funding does not always come from the industry. Im not sure what I can say to convince you that nothing goes unchecked. No solution goes ignored for any reason other than lack of resources. Everything that looks promising gets investigated because the stakes are incredibly high.
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On August 06 2016 08:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2016 08:11 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 06 2016 08:01 KwarK wrote:On August 06 2016 08:00 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 06 2016 07:55 Nyxisto wrote:
No, alternative medicine is not an option instead of chemotherapy or any diseases that (western) medicine can't handle. That is absolutely ridiculous. There's also no 'balance' to be had in this discussion. To talk to a practionicer of the stuff about its effects makes as much as sense as talking to a Scientology member about Scientology. There's no legitimate alternative medicine community.
Yes, chemotherapy can ruin your quality of life, the advantage is of course that you continue to live. Let's step away from chemo and think for a moment about something like back pain, does that change your opinion? Or do you really think there is nothing in the realm of "alternative medicine" that may work better than the typical xray and opiates most people get in the US? If it works better, great, test it, prove it, turn it into medicine. To both your and Moh's point, sometimes that's easier said than done. Like the medical industry and medical science aren't always aligned. That's why I used the cannabis example in the first place. Point being that sometimes medicine isn't considered "medicine" not because it's not "medicine", but because people don't want it to be seen as medicine. Cannabis is just one we can follow pretty well along it's path to becoming medicine (even if Hillary doesn't believe it yet). And that's a fine point, but that's not the original point you were making- that cannabis is either homeopathic or that it's considered "alternative medicine".
When do you think cannabis went from being "alternative medicine" to being "medicine"?
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The problem is that placebos do help but are not used in standard medicine (other than in research) because it's seen as unethical to deceive patientis, even if deceiving them might be the only thing that can help them with a specific issue.
That's not entirely true. Not every patient reacts to placebos.
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On August 06 2016 08:17 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2016 08:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On August 06 2016 08:11 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 06 2016 08:01 KwarK wrote:On August 06 2016 08:00 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 06 2016 07:55 Nyxisto wrote:
No, alternative medicine is not an option instead of chemotherapy or any diseases that (western) medicine can't handle. That is absolutely ridiculous. There's also no 'balance' to be had in this discussion. To talk to a practionicer of the stuff about its effects makes as much as sense as talking to a Scientology member about Scientology. There's no legitimate alternative medicine community.
Yes, chemotherapy can ruin your quality of life, the advantage is of course that you continue to live. Let's step away from chemo and think for a moment about something like back pain, does that change your opinion? Or do you really think there is nothing in the realm of "alternative medicine" that may work better than the typical xray and opiates most people get in the US? If it works better, great, test it, prove it, turn it into medicine. To both your and Moh's point, sometimes that's easier said than done. Like the medical industry and medical science aren't always aligned. That's why I used the cannabis example in the first place. Point being that sometimes medicine isn't considered "medicine" not because it's not "medicine", but because people don't want it to be seen as medicine. Cannabis is just one we can follow pretty well along it's path to becoming medicine (even if Hillary doesn't believe it yet). And that's a fine point, but that's not the original point you were making- that cannabis is either homeopathic or that it's considered "alternative medicine". When do you think cannabis went from being "alternative medicine" to being "medicine"?
When it was legalized for medical use in several US states, I would guess.
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On August 06 2016 08:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Out of curiosity, what are some of the new untested things that you're referring to? I'm just curious, because I worry that many proponents of "untested stuff" don't realize that those have already been tested and refuted and fall squarely into the placebo/ fake treatment category that those proponents "know" to dismiss (e.g., a friend of mine earlier today told me he thought that "the jury is still out there" for homeopathy, which is absolutely false, and I know another person who thinks that healing crystals haven't been refuted yet).
A lot of it's in the realm of herbal stuff that's always been codified in traditional Chinese medicine, but hasn't really gotten testing under rigorous western scientific standards. There's a good review paper about how the Chinese TCM community has been doing its part to try and modernize, but I can't seem to find it at the moment.
The big problem that made a lot of this really slow despite starting several decades ago is that trial quality conducted in China is pretty poor and only recently did Chinese researchers accept that they have to collaborate abroad to get really conclusive data.
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My dad does some work with Chinese scientists on the effectiveness of traditional medicine (kind of as a hobby). He's had to do a lot of work to get them to design experiments properly and not rig it in favor of whatever they're testing, lol.
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On August 06 2016 08:26 ticklishmusic wrote:
My dad does some work with Chinese scientists on the effectiveness of traditional medicine (kind of as a hobby). He's had to do a lot of work to get them to design experiments properly and not rig it in favor of whatever they're testing, lol.
My boss was always absolutely paranoid whenever he received data from his Chinese collaborators and had RAs triple-check everything to make sure we hadn't been sent fake data.
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EPT
