My recent post and discussion with Tony Isaacs regarding the merits of oleander as a treatment for pancreatic cancer has started me thinking a bit about so called "alternative medicines." Perhaps I was a bit harsh if not mean. So, here it is short and sweet without the ad hominem. I don't believe there is such a thing as an "alternative" medicine or therapy. Treatments either work or they don't. If they work, then they're medicine. If they don't, then I guess they're an "alternative."
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against flower extracts, bark tannins, seed oil, eye of newt, or any other purported remedy. I just want to know if it works or not. Give me a double blind study that shows a statistically significant difference between treatment and placebo and I'll tell you if it's medicine or not. Then show me several groups that repeat the treatment with similar results and I'll believe it.
But, I'll hedge my stance a bit. I don't even really have a problem with unproven treatments for common ailments. I'm talking about things like echinacea. I may not believe echinacea works, but I certainly don't believe anyone should stop using it if they believe it to work. Shoot, I even take "airborne" when I feel a sniffle coming on (even though I feel somewhat superstitious about it). There's no data to support the notion that vitamin C, zinc or anything else will boost your immune system to stave off the beginnings of a cold... but it's probably not going to hurt you. It's just not medicine.
I draw the line when these so called "alternatives" claim to treat terminal disease. At best, it's nothing more than a false hope. At worst, promoting an "alternative" directs patients away from proven treatments that will either lengthen lives or cure disease. This goes beyond silly and becomes dangerous.
Finally, when someone suggests that pharmaceutical companies are withholding "alternative" cures to continue selling half baked, sub-optimal remedies to needy patients... well, I'm offended. Lets' just say that I didn't embark on a lifelong career in science to get rich.
So that's it. Medicine either works or it's an "alternative." If you want to eat flowers to cure your ailments then go right ahead. Just don't lie about the efficacy of ingesting flower soup. If it works, then show me the data. As for me, you can keep the alternatives. I'll take the medicine.
3 comments:
I will agree that when something works it can be appropriately called medicine. The problem comes when the FDA arbitrarily decides that only medicines which have spent up to a billion dollars to go through the FDA trial process can be called medicine or can even be allowed to advertise any health benefits.
So, given that, I would suggest that you have two forms of "medicine" - FDA approved medicine and medicine that is not approved by the FDA but nevertheless works, though you cannot call it "medicine" according to the FDA.
Mankind looked to nature first for at least 6,000 years for our medicines. Now, since plants cannot be patented no one can afford the FDA trial process and so natural healing is locked out of being called "medicine". Many feel that is by design, and it surely did not help us with Vioxx did it?
One thing it does do is protect the Big Pharma empire from competition that is often safer, more effective and far less expensive - and it enables the agency we think is supposed to protect us, the FDA, to go after Washington cherry growers for daring to claim health benefits and to raid the makers of Bitter Melon tea when they dared post links to several hundred PubMed studies proving the benefits of bitter melon for high blood pressure and diabetes.
In any given year, although hundreds of millions of people take supplements world wide, there are no more than a tiny handful of deaths attributed to those supplements. In the US alone, but the AMA's own admission, we have around 106,000 deaths annually from properly prescribed and administered FDA approved medications.
I have no doubt that you are an honorable person with good intentions regarding your career in science. There are lots of good people in science, medicine and even the FDA who are honorable people with good intentions. At the top though, it is a different story.
Mainstream medicine is a trillion dollar plus empire which is extremely profit oriented and whose only marketplace is our bodies. You cannot maintain and increase profits if you cure anything. Better by far to manage symptoms with side-effect laden drugs that lead to other conditions and still more drugs, create new conditions, begin drugging our children at an ever earlier age, and creating more and more vaccines along with hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising to us and our doctors.
What have we seen the last half century - cures or more drugs which manage symptoms and have side effects that lead to even more drugs? It is a good model for profits and a horrible one for humanity.
That is why a good friend of mine (and several others I know) who is an MD with over 30 years experience has used a nature first approach for the past 20 years: he found that he was not curing anyone, just managing symptoms and making them sicker in the long run. It was a great way to build up a practice with repeat customers who were never cured, but he really wanted to cure people and now he does.
As he and I were discussing recently, the science of today is often the quackery of tomorrow, but nature has never been a quack. If so, exactly when did God become a quack and science become God?
I invite you to read:
http://www.tbyil.com/Managed_Illness.htm
to understand how homeopathic and natural healing have been systematically replaced with mainstream medicine and lab-created compounds not found in nature.
It was never about healing - it was and still is about profits.
May your journey be as enlightening as mine has been.
Best regards,
Tony Isaacs
Thanks for the comments Tony,
you said:
"So, given that, I would suggest that you have two forms of "medicine" - FDA approved medicine and medicine that is not approved by the FDA but nevertheless works, though you cannot call it "medicine" according to the FDA."
I will agree with you that a treatment may work even if it is not approved by the FDA. But, I think you missed one very important statement I made about double blind study that shows a statistical difference between treatment and placebo. The huge problem with unapproved treatments (like oleandrin) is that you don't know if it works. You have anecdotal stories about it working for someone. I don't care if the FDA or some other reputable body approves a treatment, but the experiment has to be done before you know.
From there, you went off into a lot of unfounded claims about drug companies and history vs pharma, plats are good, synthesized chemicals are bad, etc. You know just enough about medicine to be very dangerous, but not enough to put together an intelligent opinion. You obviously have no idea how drug development is done. People like me come up with the ideas and do the experiments. There's no smoke filled rooms of people in 3 piece suits conspiring to keep people dying of cancer. If I can propose a project and show it will work, then we can sell a drug. That's it.
As for all your claims about ancient plants and "natural healing," all I have to say to you is show me the data. You make the claims, you show the data. If you say oleander tea cures pancreatic cancer, then show me the data. I'd be happy to start a project on the topic if I saw compelling data. But, I don't see it. If you continue steering people away from "modern" medicine towards unproven beliefs, then you are helping people die.
One of the lamest arguments that Isaacs come up with is the "6000" years schtick. Guess what, bright guy? Science is only 300 years old, genetics 50 years old, molecular biology even younger. Yet in that short time we've accomplished far more that all your soup-for-cancer, coffee enema, lamb embryo pushing crow ever have.
Nature has never been a quack, but those pushing flower soup for cancer sure are.
Corinthian
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