Talk:Alternative medicine/Archive 1
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I am removing the following claims, because they are all totally untrue: Mainstream medicine typically relies on expensive Synthetic drugs or surgery to treat illnesses. Alternative approaches look to the whole person and ellimenate the cause of an illness itself by trusting in our bodies own abilities, through thousands of years of genetic adaptation, to heal itself, for example by replacing the ravages of modern diets and degenerative chemicals with natural foods and treatments.
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Mainstream science-based medicine typicallydoes not rely on expensive drugs; rather, most of modern day medicine is based on very cheap treatements, including sterilization of medical instruments, and cleaning water supplies, to kill bacteria. The vast majority of people whose lives have been saved by science-based medicine were saved at a very low costs, due to changes caused by the germ theory of disease. Further, most conventional drugs developed using the scientific method are very cheap, including epinephrine inhalers, Albuterol, aspirin, ibuprofen, penicillin, etc. Also, modern medical science teaches that most people can drastically improve their nuhealth through excercise, and proper nutrition. (The discovery of the role of vitmains and minerals is part of traditional science, not alternative medicin.) Finally, purveyors of alternative medicine most certainly do not preach that the body can health itself; they hold that one needs to undergo certain expensive forms of treatments. The above paragraph is totally untrue; these kinds of things are most often stated by alternative medicine capitalists who spread these stories in order to bring in new customers and increase their profit margin. RK
- It was badly written, anyway. -- goatasaur
Dear RK, Thank you for your note and explination. I write the above which you plead should be deleted. While we can argue about the meaning of terms, I think there is a definate distinction that needs to be drawn out in addition to the "scientific" and "un-scientific" distinction. That distinction is between preventioin and treatment.
Today the money seems to be chasing treatments not prevention. And the pharmeticutical industry plays a major role. My doctor is clueless on prevention. She also has no time to discuss how to stay healthy. She can only make time under our broken system to discuss how to treat acute illnesses. Even certain cronic conditions get second rate attention. Alternative medicine hold the key to solving these problems. Granted not all alternitive medicne is scientific, works or safe. But there is a lot to be learned from others. The American a/k/a "scientific" or "conventional" system is broken; please admit we can do better. Its too expensive and we have rampant heart disease, cancer and degenerative brain diseases that did not exist even a few hundred years ago. The present form of "scientific" medicine does not address the root causes of these difficult to treat diseases which are new. I can drop the part about expensive snenthetic drugs and surgery but I won't drop the dinsinction between prevention and treatment. Conventinal medicine is not focused nearly enough at all on prevention.
I would like to add that your description had VERY LITTLE to do with Alternative Therapy. The title that would have been logical to put your article under would be "Skeptics view of Alternative Health". This is your prejudice, and is not an addition to the development or explanation of alternative medicine to laypeopAn equivalent would be writing under 'The Pope', and article about how Pagans view him. Sorry, that does not educate me about 'the Pope', but about Pagans.
Eric Vigo
Moved from Alternative medicines (please integrate here):
Alternative medicine refers to health care practices which do not take place under the established controls of conventional medicine. Alternative practitioners may or may not have licenses or special training, whereas conventional health care practitioners, by law, must be trained and licensed.
Alternative medicines may or may not be reviewed and regulated for safety by governments, whereas conventional medications are not released for public use until they have been thoroughly studied, and then, when placed on the market, are subject to government control.
The general term "alternative medicine" may include everything from practices such as acupuncture and homeopathy, which involve study and expertise, to less discliplined practices such as herbal therapy, aromatherapy, and claimed paranormal techniques such as Reiki.
Public interest in alternative medicine, in the industrial world, is signficant. The public's interest in alternative medicine arises from a lack of confidence in traditional medical practice. Since traditional medicine is still in a relatively early stage of development and is not yet able to treat many diseases and injuries, some turn to alternative medicine in the hope that cures which can't be found through traditional medicine might somehow be found in an herb or some sort of mystical practice.
Many people become alternative medical practitioners, on the other hand, because of the relative ease of getting into some of the fields, thereby obtaining the social status and the financial potential associated with the healing arts without going through the difficulty, time and expense of training and getting credentials in traditional medicine.
Alternative treatments may sometimes have a beneficial effect, occasionally by their direct, sometimes inadvertant action on the body - even though this action is rarely accurately understood either by practitioner or patient - and more often by placebo effect. They may also sometimes be harmful, most commonly when they distract a patient from seeking conventional medical care in cases in which conventional care is known to be effective.
See also alternative medicine