A question for you + an interesting website
This site would be a God-send for most people on here. Very helpful...I'm not sure why most, if not all of the Zone, wants alternative medicine held to a lower scientific standard than conventional medicine. Deny that statement if you want, but when you pooh-pooh double-blind studies, adequate control groups, etc, that is what you are essentially saying. I know one argument that is used is that these types of studies aren't carried out on alternative remedies because there's no profit in them for mainstream medicine, thus they ignore potentially helpful treatments. Here's my question: Given unlimited monetary resources, totally unbiased scientists, the highest-tech equipment in the world, perfect experimental design; in other words, the perfect study: would you submit your favorite alternative remedy to be tested?
As someone associated with the health field (not a doctor), I can say with confidence that I would have no problem with you doing that. Why? Because I would have confidence that those studies would show the truth, whatever the consequences. Every drug a doctor uses goes through (literally) years of testing before it is released to the public. Why should a doctor recommend an herb to a patient when he knows nothing scientific about it, when there is a proven drug that is safe, efficacious, etc, and this has been borne out by years of close scrutiny?
My feeling is that most of these hypothetical studies would show the alternative remedies to be useless, and quite possibly a couple might actually show some effective action, better than some current drugs on the market. One more question: Why do I get the feeling that most Zone members would be against the idea of purification of whatever compound was found to be the active ingredient in the herb, and massive prescription and selling of the compound? If I am wrong about this, please correct me, but I don't think I am. It seems as if you are happy to remain "alternative" and not "conventional," and would be against one of your treatments actually coming into broad over-the-counter or prescription use. Which, if you are truly concerned about appropriate treating of illness, is a travesty. Please tell me your thoughts. I posted below an except from the website I mentioned.
http://www.altmedconsult.com/
Before you Believe Anything you Read
About Alternative Medicine, Read this:
I once took alternative medicine on faith. For decades, I practiced it on patients and myself and my family, and assumed that pretty much all of it worked. Then I learned about double-blind studies, and it was like a tornado blowing down a house of cards. I discovered that I, like most people who love alternative medicine, had made a huge (though understandable) mistake.
I had thought it was possible to know whether a treatment worked by trying it. I had also thought I could trust tradition, anecdote, and authority. I now see otherwise. The insights of the double-blind trial have cut through my wishful thinking and idealism, and turned me into a hard-nosed skeptic. Show me the double-blind studies, and I'll pay attention. Otherwise, so far as I'm concerned, it's little more than hot air.
Warning: This isn't an easy subject. But if you read this through, and think about it, you will never look at alternative medicine (or any form of medicine) the same way again.