No I don't, and especially not to the same scale as the pharmacological establishment in the USA...for one thing many alternative medicines/practices are either cheap or free compared to what I've paid for brand pharmaceuticals, which are often marked up 1000s of % in terms of price and have a massive list of side effects. In comparison instance many herbal medicines can be grown in a garden by anybody, for nothing. Sure some can be harmful, but most aren't. There are a gazillion different herbal remedies you can put in tea or crush into powder for useful effects. They have been used for thousands of years in some parts of the world and there is of course medical study to support why they work at all... And yes I believe alternative practices are USUALLY harmless because as far as I know there is no great number of people dying, getting hurt, or getting sick from using alternative therapies of any kind. In fact they are often used as a last resort by many people who have exhausted other medical options, and are sometimes effective where more modern practices have failed. To compare the misguided folks who ONLY pursue alternative medicine and throw out the modern...it's just as foolish and arrogant I think as to pursue only modern and throw out everything traditional.
Part of it is just the fact that people tend to feel better when important people in white coats tell them "Hey, here's something that will make you feel better!"
Traditional products that work (like aspirin), tend to get refined, packaged up and sold at ridiculous prices by big pharma. If Glaxo haven't found a way to make a profit from it, it's because they don't think they can get approval to sell it as a medical treatment.
Which is weird because they can get approval for all sorts of dangerous combinations they'll later have to take off the market, and that's just the case with medicine. I'm all for some form of regulated medicine but let's face it, a lot of garbage gets through the process, and a lot of potentially good medicines gets the short end, not because of the science but because of as said, the politics. Money and Politics can ruin just about anything that could potentially benefit mankind, as long as somebody has a buck to make. What about past issues of radiation overdosing, or botched surgery? There is a whole industry of insurance devoted to medical malpractice because doctors screw up and hurt/kill people every day. Look at Joan Rivers! Her doctor was messing with his cell phone in the OR!!!! Science didn't save Joan Rivers, her doctor did her in. Does acupuncture or the "dry needle" require malpractice insurance? I don't know but if not, it kind of suggests nobody thinks it's necessary. How about alternative therapies to stress medication...muscle massages and meditation instead of Xanax? Again where did science come to say that taking some private company's product was so much better than something free and simple you can do without getting charged a co-pay or visiting Rite-Aid? I think healing and medicines are all around us in many forms, they don't all have to come with a label and a big price tag from a private company. That's my point I think...why should modern medicine always require your credit card? I think the medical industry has us all in a big mousetrap...pay to play.
There's a difference between effective and safe. Those dangerous drugs that get recalled are all effective. They do whatever it is they were designed to do - they just do other things that they weren't supposed to do. The majority of traditional remedies don't do anything. So in that sense, they're safe, just not effective. This has nothing to do with anything. Try to keep focussed - there's probably a pill you can take to help with that.
I disagree that the majority of traditional remedies don't do anything. Otherwise, they wouldn't be remedies at all. What you said might be true for some quacks, but not the whole range of "traditional remedies". Most traditional remedies were first noted because they had a positive effect...it's not all "mumbo jumbo". Are you trying to be funny?
But the placebo effect is a positive effect. And where traditional remedies do show a positive effect, there is almost always a modern medicine that has a greater one. Strawberrys will thin the blood, but they wont do it half as well as Warfarin. Certain foods have anti-biotic properties, but I'd always sooner have a dose of penicillin. Yes, but it's 5:30 in the morning, so my aim is a little off.
Yup. And some people react better to someone banging a drum and telling them their soul is being cleansed (they spent a whole 4 hours learning how to cleanse souls at their local spa, so they must be a legit shaman, eh?).
You realise Joan Rivers lived to be 81 right? You know...the kind of age that modern medicine makes common place but without it is pretty rare?
Money spent on something that doesn't work (homeopathy) is not cheap it is wasted. Alternative physical practices (accupuncture) are no cheaper than conventional and the "big league" medicines have no alternative solutions. I can get any number of over the counter meds for a dollar (paracetemol, ibuprofen, antihistamines) and they are all cheaper than the "natural" alternatives So unless you mean "food and exercise" (the least prescribed and best medicine for general regulatory health) I call "shash" on this statement
That's not true though. Diet and exercise is by far the most common medical advice given out by the NHS, doctors and government health bodies. It's just no bugger listens and takes that advice!
Right, I just wanted to do a reality check with you. The acupuncture org that I studied with and the school where I did TCM studies did do treatment on Ah shi points and look at some problems within the musculo-tendinous meridians etc.. this is NOT what dry needling is about. Both needling of trigger points and needling hyper-aesthetic bands in to muscle to try and reduce tightness were developed off the ideas of western doctors. The TCM people that experienced Dry Needling (as taught by Dr Chan Gunn) said it was nothing like what they ever did. To be honest this can be exceptionally painful for some people and it is not applied the same way as acupuncture. If someone says it is acupuncture then it would be incorrect although I am sure that it could probably be linked via the idea that all ah shi points are blockages of chi and need to be needled. But that is not how medical people see it (and rarely how TCM people might treat it). Dry needling has not been the reason acupuncture gets a bad name in spite of what you say. Patients that come in who have been scarified (skin damage on purpose as part of treatment) , burnt from moxa applications, had other needle related injuries etc did not get these from medical practitioners (at least not for the most part). There are far more TCM people doing these things so it would be unlikely to be caused by anyone other than a TCM person. SO you think because something has been around longer it deserves more respect? Like trepanning? or blood letting? or taking prescriptions(herbal) that are partly poisonous or might damage your immune system? All these things are part of the history of ''complimentary'' or ''''alternative'' medicine. You know that before vaccinations a lot of people died from preventable conditions and now some in this complimentary camp would like to see us going back to that sort of approach today. Really before you suggest things are all the fault of someone then you should at least check your information. Perhaps some of it is true where you are but it is not universal and it is not even close in many places to the way you describe it. LFD
really? REALLY? Oddly enough I have never had any mention of this form of treatment in any visit to my GP. Maybe we are a bit behind the times (thick?) in the Midlands! LFD
Probably because you are one of the few people that is actually in shape and does exercise? But you'd have to be blind and deaf to miss all of the government initiatives and NHS advice on dieting and exercise. There are probably multiple leaflets and posters available at your GP's surgery. There are adverts on all the time (TV and other media). There're regular initiatives in schools to get kids up and moving and watching what they eat. The NHS offers totally free couch to 5k exercise regimes and countless other resources. So much of the public output of the NHS is about preventative measures (watch your weight, exercise, don't smoke, moderate alcohol) that it makes a mockery of the old alternative treatment canard "western medicine treats the symptoms not the cause". I've a feeling that such advice is so ubiquitous that it's become background noise you've become deaf to it maybe? You've never heard of having "5 a day"? 30 minutes of exercise 3 times a week? Cutting down on smoking?
Raptors have feather's not hair. Although they tend towards being a bit filamenty so maybe you're onto something?
That is a good complement to my compliment, I'll implement this document whenever I say what I meant.
when you put it that way... :' D Haven't had a TV for +10 years but do see the other stuff sprinkled about in different places... if I take your message as govt programs rather than direct intervention (doctors etc never really give me advice on anything other than which meds to take when I'm infected or broken) Oddly enough I have always thought that a balanced diet and avoiding excessive use of stimulants of any type just made basic sense... don't smoke, only drink bitter and single malt :' D Deaf.. to anything any government says... YUP I'm a conservative libertarian socialist!! The sad thing is that whenever you have an election we all lose, you end up with a government! LFD
