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**Pheboasmabs** · 01-03-2011, 04:45 AM

1. We keep a fair number of treatments that don't work or are of, at best, marginal benefit - I'm not referring to research protocols here but "standard" accepted therapies.

I'm not saying we should keep those things. If the data says they don't work, then those things shouldn't be "standard accepted therapies." Just because a thing is conventional doesn't make it good.

2. False concepts have a way of disappearing with time. Although there may be no currently known basis for some aspects of Eastern medicine (I would avoid here diseases that seem to require surgical treatment) it is fairly difficult to ignore ideas which have survived thousands of years. Ignore them? I'm not saying to ignore them. I'm saying that their efficacy should be tested (which has already been done in many cases) and if they're not effective, they should be discarded (which is the hard part for people who would rather their treatments have a certain mystical flavor than that they make a patient better). If we substitute "discard" for "ignore" in your sentence though? I find it very easy to discard ideas which have survived thousands of years. I can name a few we're well rid of (or would be well rid of) if you can't think of any off the top of your head, but I bet you can do that without my help.

3. You might be quite shocked at the number of medical treatments which are used daily and which have VERY little hard scientific data to back them up - they are often based almost wholly on the opinion of a few well-known and very vocal experts (who are paid handsomely for their "opinions"). Oh, I wouldn't be shocked at all. It should not surprise you given what I said in my last post that I am aware of these people and that I think they're opportunistic psychopaths who are eager to prey on the sick and the desperate to make a profit. It's why I don't buy Airborne or use magnets or reiki to treat my migraines; it's not merely that those things are ineffective, it's that I would be giving paychecks to people who specialize in defrauding sick people.

My point is, assuming that Western medicine is solidly based on hard scientific data is a false assumption - and assuming that any medical treatment not based on hard scientific data is simply wrong and invalid is also a shaky assumption. What is "Western medicine" anyway? I heard this line from Ayurveda "doctors" in India when we interviewed them about it, this whole "our medicine is different from Western medicine" schtick (which, as an aside, it isn't; it's just out of date because we discarded humorism a very long time ago, and Ayurveda practitioners haven't). I don't see why evidence-based medicine would or should be any different depending on its culture of origin, nor should it be subject to different standards of proof. I get that a lot of people have this burning desire to obtain the Mysteries of the Orient or whatever, but pharmacokinetics is pharmacokinetics whether you're in Nigeria or Nebraska or Laos.

01-03-2011, 04:45 AM	#8
Pheboasmabs Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 448 Senior Member	1. We keep a fair number of treatments that don't work or are of, at best, marginal benefit - I'm not referring to research protocols here but "standard" accepted therapies. I'm not saying we should keep those things. If the data says they don't work, then those things shouldn't be "standard accepted therapies." Just because a thing is conventional doesn't make it good. 2. False concepts have a way of disappearing with time. Although there may be no currently known basis for some aspects of Eastern medicine (I would avoid here diseases that seem to require surgical treatment) it is fairly difficult to ignore ideas which have survived thousands of years. Ignore them? I'm not saying to ignore them. I'm saying that their efficacy should be tested (which has already been done in many cases) and if they're not effective, they should be discarded (which is the hard part for people who would rather their treatments have a certain mystical flavor than that they make a patient better). If we substitute "discard" for "ignore" in your sentence though? I find it very easy to discard ideas which have survived thousands of years. I can name a few we're well rid of (or would be well rid of) if you can't think of any off the top of your head, but I bet you can do that without my help. 3. You might be quite shocked at the number of medical treatments which are used daily and which have VERY little hard scientific data to back them up - they are often based almost wholly on the opinion of a few well-known and very vocal experts (who are paid handsomely for their "opinions"). Oh, I wouldn't be shocked at all. It should not surprise you given what I said in my last post that I am aware of these people and that I think they're opportunistic psychopaths who are eager to prey on the sick and the desperate to make a profit. It's why I don't buy Airborne or use magnets or reiki to treat my migraines; it's not merely that those things are ineffective, it's that I would be giving paychecks to people who specialize in defrauding sick people. My point is, assuming that Western medicine is solidly based on hard scientific data is a false assumption - and assuming that any medical treatment not based on hard scientific data is simply wrong and invalid is also a shaky assumption. What is "Western medicine" anyway? I heard this line from Ayurveda "doctors" in India when we interviewed them about it, this whole "our medicine is different from Western medicine" schtick (which, as an aside, it isn't; it's just out of date because we discarded humorism a very long time ago, and Ayurveda practitioners haven't). I don't see why evidence-based medicine would or should be any different depending on its culture of origin, nor should it be subject to different standards of proof. I get that a lot of people have this burning desire to obtain the Mysteries of the Orient or whatever, but pharmacokinetics is pharmacokinetics whether you're in Nigeria or Nebraska or Laos.
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