The Alternative Medicine Racket: How the Feds Fund Quacks

[lpetrich]

I have a theory on alternative medicine. I think it's practitioners talk more with patients than regular doctors. Patients feel more validated. And that's just the secret of why so many still like them. In regular medicine doctors just don't have the time to talk to patients, which doesn't add confidence in the patients and lots of placebo potential for healing is lost. The human contact dimension can't be understated. It's important. If doctors just did that I'm sure alt meds would just go away. But doctors won't because they don't have the time. So it'll stick around

I myself have long speculated about the bedside-manner question.

But has anyone here ever experienced alternative-medicine practitioners in action?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

How is that equivalent to this bullshit below, in any way, shape or form?

You seem to take for granted what hellacious medicine existed over the past few centuries to get to where we are today. What is wrong with checking long standing treatment therapies to see if they are worth supporting or not?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I have a theory on alternative medicine. I think it's practitioners talk more with patients than regular doctors. Patients feel more validated. And that's just the secret of why so many still like them. In regular medicine doctors just don't have the time to talk to patients, which doesn't add confidence in the patients and lots of placebo potential for healing is lost. The human contact dimension can't be understated. It's important. If doctors just did that I'm sure alt meds would just go away. But doctors won't because they don't have the time. So it'll stick around

I myself have long speculated about the bedside-manner question.

But has anyone here ever experienced alternative-medicine practitioners in action?

Only anecdotally. My cousin has Lyme Disease and is desperate to find treatment. His mother was telling me that one guy had a certain method of treatment that seemed absurd, but appeared to help. However, the treatment wasn't covered by insurance, as most of these options aren't.

The big trouble is that alternative medicine if it is completely unknown, becomes impossible to ensure the safety of the public. Therefore, having studies to root out how something is supposed to work and its efficiency is required in order to know whether they should be supported / regulated or spoken against and let the doctors know that studies have shown X, Y, and Z to be full of garbage.

I think some people take for granted what we know today as if it was always so obvious. Science, engineering, and medicine has taken a lot of trial and error.

 

[ksen]

So what is Axulus' beef this time? That the government is spending money to find out if certain treatments work or not?

Isn't that what we're supposed to do in order to weed out the bad treatments from the good treatments?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So what is Axulus' beef this time? That the government is spending money to find out if certain treatments work or not?

Isn't that what we're supposed to do in order to weed out the bad treatments from the good treatments?

Apparently it is just as bad to shill for snake oil as it is to study science.

 

[ksen]

Huh, so what's his alternative plan?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Huh, so what's his alternative plan?

Assume that knowledge is just there for the taking without any research?

 

[whichphilosophy]

I have a theory on alternative medicine. I think it's practitioners talk more with patients than regular doctors. Patients feel more validated. And that's just the secret of why so many still like them. In regular medicine doctors just don't have the time to talk to patients, which doesn't add confidence in the patients and lots of placebo potential for healing is lost. The human contact dimension can't be understated. It's important. If doctors just did that I'm sure alt meds would just go away. But doctors won't because they don't have the time. So it'll stick around

I myself have long speculated about the bedside-manner question.

But has anyone here ever experienced alternative-medicine practitioners in action?

http://www.nhs.uk/news/2013/03March/Pages/97-percent-of-GPs-admit-prescribing-placebos.aspx


Survey finds 97% of GPs prescribe placebos






Thursday March 21 2013


Placebos include sugar pills and water injections

"Most family doctors have given a placebo to at least one of their patients," BBC News reports.

The news is based on a large survey of UK GPs. For the purpose of the study, placebos were put into one of two categories:
•pure placebos – treatments containing no active ingredients, such as sugar pills
•impure placebos – treatments that contain active ingredients but are not recommended for the condition being treated, such as antibiotics for flu

The survey found that 97% of doctors admitted to giving an impure placebo at some point during their career, while 10% had given pure placebos.

The survey found that more than 1% of GPs used pure placebos at least once a week, and more than three-quarters (77%) used impure placebos at least once a week. Most doctors said placebos were ethical in some circumstances.

Placebos are often used in the control group in trials looking at the effectiveness of treatments. It is widely recognised that they can result in an improvement in a patient’s condition – a phenomenon known as the placebo effect.

However, there is an ongoing and vigorous debate about whether using placebos in normal medical practice is ethical. END OF QUOTE

I guess if the Placebo is working then just increase the doseage.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Placebos were a big deal in France too as people were starting to become over-medicated. Please don't ask me to cite this, I read about it years ago.

With the American Marketing system, they could probably convince people to use Sugar Pills. "I always feel better after taking Sucebo." "They are the safest pill on the market!" And people would buy them. And even when told what they were, they'd say they'd still buy them.

 

[Derec]

On a little bit lighter note:
Homeopathy conference ends in chaos after delegates take hallucinogenic drug
I guess they forgot to dilute it first.

 

[bilby]

On a little bit lighter note:
Homeopathy conference ends in chaos after delegates take hallucinogenic drug
I guess they forgot to dilute it first.

Or perhaps they diluted it too much, rendering it viscously potent?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Eating a healthy and healing diet is a form of alternative medicine in the US. The problem is that with conventional medicine there isn't any money in being healthy. Most doctors therefore are nutritional idiots. They can fix us when we blow a hole most of the time, but they don't talk to us about how to stay healthy without medications and procedures. This is why the application of conventional medicine is the third leading cause of death in the US.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Well in socialist Sweden patients have little power. Science and science advisors only have an influence on treatment. It's positives and negatives with this system. But you can't blame Big Pharma for a shit in Sweden. They have no power and no leverage.

Doctors still don't have time for patients though. So we've got the same problems with alt med.

What do you mean, patients have little power?

Do they have the power to get a second opinion? Do they have the power to refuse treatment?

Yes, patients have the power to get a second opinion. Costs next to nothing actually. And yes, they have the power to refuse treatment. But a doctor has nothing to lose if you don't want treatment from them. A doctor has zero incentive to kiss any patients ass. I'd say it's impossible to demand a certain type of treatment if all the doctors you meet make the judgement you don't need it. They have their own quality reviews of course. Doctors can get fired or reprimanded. But patients have no say in this.

We do have private hospitals here as well, that you can go to, if you don't like the socialist care. There's no loss of money to go this route either, since the socialist money goes wherever the patient goes. But few do. The socialist health care works quite well.

When it comes to health care socialism is quite good. The problem is of course that patients don't have the qualifications to judge the value of their own treatment. A free market system has no way of managing this.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I myself have long speculated about the bedside-manner question.

But has anyone here ever experienced alternative-medicine practitioners in action?

http://www.nhs.uk/news/2013/03March/Pages/97-percent-of-GPs-admit-prescribing-placebos.aspx


Survey finds 97% of GPs prescribe placebos






Thursday March 21 2013


Placebos include sugar pills and water injections

"Most family doctors have given a placebo to at least one of their patients," BBC News reports.

The news is based on a large survey of UK GPs. For the purpose of the study, placebos were put into one of two categories:
•pure placebos – treatments containing no active ingredients, such as sugar pills
•impure placebos – treatments that contain active ingredients but are not recommended for the condition being treated, such as antibiotics for flu

The survey found that 97% of doctors admitted to giving an impure placebo at some point during their career, while 10% had given pure placebos.

The survey found that more than 1% of GPs used pure placebos at least once a week, and more than three-quarters (77%) used impure placebos at least once a week. Most doctors said placebos were ethical in some circumstances.

Placebos are often used in the control group in trials looking at the effectiveness of treatments. It is widely recognised that they can result in an improvement in a patient’s condition – a phenomenon known as the placebo effect.

However, there is an ongoing and vigorous debate about whether using placebos in normal medical practice is ethical. END OF QUOTE

I guess if the Placebo is working then just increase the doseage.

Last time I was in hospital I was in horrendous pain. When I got discharged the doctors told me that about 1/3 of my morphine injections were actual morphine. The rest was water/placebo. In my case the placebo worked just as well as the real stuff. Annecdote

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

http://www.nhs.uk/news/2013/03March/Pages/97-percent-of-GPs-admit-prescribing-placebos.aspx


Survey finds 97% of GPs prescribe placebos






Thursday March 21 2013


Placebos include sugar pills and water injections

"Most family doctors have given a placebo to at least one of their patients," BBC News reports.

The news is based on a large survey of UK GPs. For the purpose of the study, placebos were put into one of two categories:
•pure placebos – treatments containing no active ingredients, such as sugar pills
•impure placebos – treatments that contain active ingredients but are not recommended for the condition being treated, such as antibiotics for flu

The survey found that 97% of doctors admitted to giving an impure placebo at some point during their career, while 10% had given pure placebos.

The survey found that more than 1% of GPs used pure placebos at least once a week, and more than three-quarters (77%) used impure placebos at least once a week. Most doctors said placebos were ethical in some circumstances.

Placebos are often used in the control group in trials looking at the effectiveness of treatments. It is widely recognised that they can result in an improvement in a patient’s condition – a phenomenon known as the placebo effect.

However, there is an ongoing and vigorous debate about whether using placebos in normal medical practice is ethical. END OF QUOTE

I guess if the Placebo is working then just increase the doseage.

Last time I was in hospital I was in horrendous pain. When I got discharged the doctors told me that about 1/3 of my morphine injections were actual morphine. The rest was water/placebo. In my case the placebo worked just as well as the real stuff. Annecdote

I'm assuming the actual morphine doses would have been strong enough to last to the next morphine dose?

 

[DrZoidberg]

Last time I was in hospital I was in horrendous pain. When I got discharged the doctors told me that about 1/3 of my morphine injections were actual morphine. The rest was water/placebo. In my case the placebo worked just as well as the real stuff. Annecdote

I'm assuming the actual morphine doses would have been strong enough to last to the next morphine dose?

I was there for about 24 hours and I was dosed pretty high all the time. So I'm not entirely sure. I was pretty fucked up.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I'm assuming the actual morphine doses would have been strong enough to last to the next morphine dose?

I was there for about 24 hours and I was dosed pretty high all the time. So I'm not entirely sure. I was pretty fucked up.

My presumption is that they aren't going to screw you out of treatment. Rather there is a sense of not being treated if you aren't getting a pill or shot every x hours. So the actual shots are meant to treat your pain physically and the additional sugar shots are to treat your pain mentally.

 

[untermensche]

What do you mean, patients have little power?

Do they have the power to get a second opinion? Do they have the power to refuse treatment?

Yes, patients have the power to get a second opinion. Costs next to nothing actually. And yes, they have the power to refuse treatment. But a doctor has nothing to lose if you don't want treatment from them. A doctor has zero incentive to kiss any patients ass. I'd say it's impossible to demand a certain type of treatment if all the doctors you meet make the judgement you don't need it. They have their own quality reviews of course. Doctors can get fired or reprimanded. But patients have no say in this.

We do have private hospitals here as well, that you can go to, if you don't like the socialist care. There's no loss of money to go this route either, since the socialist money goes wherever the patient goes. But few do. The socialist health care works quite well.

When it comes to health care socialism is quite good. The problem is of course that patients don't have the qualifications to judge the value of their own treatment. A free market system has no way of managing this.

There are going to be some problems inherent to the practice of modern medicine, no matter how the insurance is handled. No health system will ever achieve 100% satisfaction. Some people are nuts and doctors can't help them. Some legitimate ailments will be missed. We don't know everything yet. We don't understand auto-immune diseases very well for instance. To treat them we just knock out the immune system a little, which has consequences.

We have to be careful to discriminate which are problems inherent to the practice of modern medicine and which are problems due to an insurance system.

 

[Axulus]

So what is Axulus' beef this time? That the government is spending money to find out if certain treatments work or not?

Isn't that what we're supposed to do in order to weed out the bad treatments from the good treatments?

How does funding dozens of alternative medicine centers at medical schools accomplish that?

On what scientific grounds have these therapies and "treatments" merited the spending of billions of dollars to study them, studies which have so far found zero such treatments that are safe and efficacious?

Should the governmemt spend billions to study ufos, psychic powers, esp, ghosts, dowsing rods, faith healing, astrology, oujia boards and fund dozens of centers at universities because you just never know if there is something to any of these? My sister has claimed to see a ghost, after all.

The defence of those on this board for wasting money on quackery is mind boggling. Is it fine to waste billions and mislead the public about the efficacy of alternative medicine and scare them about scientific medicine because its the government doing it, and the government is full of nothing but saints and angels in your mind?

 

[ksen]

So what is Axulus' beef this time? That the government is spending money to find out if certain treatments work or not?

Isn't that what we're supposed to do in order to weed out the bad treatments from the good treatments?

How is funding dozens of alternative medicine centers at medical schools accomplish that?

"Funding alternative medical centers." Is that like funding a hospital? What does that mean?

On what scientific grounds have these therapies and "treatments" merited the spending of billions of dollars to study them, studies which have so far found zero such treatments that are safe and efficacious.

On what scientific grounds do any therapies and "treatments" merit having money spent on them to study their efficacy?

Should the governmemt spend billions to study ufos, psychic powers, esp, ghosts, dowsing rods, faith healing, astrology, oujia boards and fund dozens of centers at universities because you just never know if there is something to any of these? My sister has claimed to see a ghost, after all.

What do those have to do with protecting people from false medical claims that could end up killing them?

The defence of those on this board for wasting money on quackery is mind boggling. Is it fine to waste billions and mislead the public about the efficacy of alternative medicine and scare them about scientific medicine because its the government doing it, and the government is full of nothing but saints and angels in your mind?

Where is the government misleading people about the efficacy of alternative medicines?