Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Alternative medicine that is ineffective is not harmless.

via Skeptico.

   I have never visited Orac's blog before. I was directed there today in time to help spread a very valuable piece of information. Alternative medicine that is ineffective is not harmless. Orac says it at least four times, but it bears repeating again and again. Alternative medicine that is ineffective is not harmless. Go read Orac's story about The Orange Man.
   I am reminded of  Lisa Melman, whose story we were told in the
ABC News Primetime Live special on faith healer "John of God." Lisa Melman is a Johannesburg, South Africa woman who was diagnosed with breast cancer. She has eshewed surgery and chemotherapy in favour of a visit to the Brazilian village of  Abadiania, where she underwent a "visible surgery." This "healer," John of God, who is not a medical doctor, took a pair of four inch, gauze tipped, steel forceps, dipped them in what he called holy water, shoved them all the way up her nostril and twisted them violently. She left bleeding. When she got back to Johannesburg, her doctor informed her that her breast cancer had not gone away due to something being stuck up her nose, and urged her again to consider surgery. She declined again. She will probably return to Abadiania. She will almost certainly die long before her time.
   So once again, everybody repeat after Orac: alternative medicine that is ineffective is not harmless. It doesn't matter whether it is prayer, therapeutic touch, reiki, crystal therapy, or homeopathy. Alternative medicine that is ineffective is not harmless.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would just add two qualifications: alternative medicine that is ineffective is not harmless IF 1) it is used instead of a proven therapy rather than in addition to it, OR 2) the alternative therapy is in itself likely to cause illness or injury. - Karen

Anonymous said...

That sort of invasive alternative medicine is most definitely NOT harmless.

I will, though, recount the fact that a co-worker of mine that had both arms ripped off in an industrial incident last summer credits much of his initial and continued healing to the fact that his wife is a highly trained reiki healer.  Which would lead one to believe, at least in this circumstance, that THAT alternative was not ineffective.

I've never personally been the recipient of alternative medicine, effective or otherwise, but I thought I'd share that.

Simon
http://simianfarmer.blogs.com

Anonymous said...


You can't just sum it up that all alternative medicines don't work.  I find that very few people seem to know about orthomolecular healing.  Your blood is tested for the levels of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, essential fatty acids, antioxidants, etc. to know exactly what your body needs and exactly how much.
I have taken numerous medications over a decade, and they have only made my problems worse - depleting and/or blocking the absorbsion of nutrients and hormones, as well as causing all sorts of wild side effects.  Alternative medicine never did that and was the only thing which cured my illness, something which medical doctors weren't able to do in over ten years.
Take, for example, my problems with lethargy.  The only thing a medical doctor tested my blood for was thyroid, which was normal.  So he had no explanation for why I was so tired all the time.  But he failed to test other possibilities which could lead to this like protein, iron, B12, and much more.  This is the problem with medical doctors.

Anonymous said...

How sad..

Anonymous said...

I saw that Primetime Live special also and while I know that there were people who walked away not being helped, the show seemed to imply that certain people were helped by this man.  Maybe what John of God gives people who are desperate is hope---even if it is a false hope (I'm not saying I agree with this--just trying to view things from their perspective.)