On Wed, 22 Aug 2001 16:47:28 -0700 "Lawrence" <lawrence at krubner.com>
writes:
> > Please elaborate. Do you mean to say that alternative medicine is
> > primitivistic clap trap or what?
> > Joanna Bujes
>
> I don't think it's one or the other, either/or. However, wouldn't
> you agree
> that there is sometimes an anti-science bias in new age/alternative
> med
> circles?
As in many such controversies, there is truth to be found on both sides. There is much to be said for the critique of conventional medicine that is offered by the advocates of alternative medicine for the reasons cited by Lawrence. The pressure to maximize profits often leads to pharmaceutical companies to ignore herbs that are know to be efficacious because there is little or no profits to be made, in attempting to get these medications approved for sale by the FDA as validated medications. There are strong pressures to ignore or downplay the preventive side of medicine for similar reasons.
On the other hand, it is also evident that many of the enthusiasts for alternative medicine (including some of those who are themselves MDs) seem to have little appreciation for and/or knowledge of the scientific method. All sorts of claims are accepted on the basis of anecdotal evidence. And they ignore the mounds of carefully accumulated evidence concerning the efficacy of modern medical interventions. Also, and perhaps most importantly, alternative medicine advocates seem to have great difficulty in drawing distinctions between scientific medicine, per se, and the distorted forms in which it often exists within capitalist societies. In this respect, the critique of modern medicine which is offered by many advocates of alternative medicine mirrors the critiques that romantic critics of industrialism have been offering for the past couple hundred years. And like the romantic critics of industrialism, there seems to be a failure to appreciate the extent to which the inadequacies of modern medicine like the inadequacies of existing industrial societies are due to the distortions that capitalism imposes upon it.
Jim F.
>Or, if not anti-science, at least anti the scientific
> establishment? I'm not saying there isn't some warrant for it,
> sometimes the
> scientific establishment is wrong. Vaccines have been given out that
> have
> harmed children. Drugs have been approved that were dangerous. Herbs
> of
> known usefulness (garlic keeps down cholesterol) are unrated by the
> FDA.
>
> I have a lot of friends who are waaaaay into the alternative
> medicine scene.
> They take herbs for whatever ails them. They denounce "allopathic"
> medicine
> for being interventionist and Western. A few years ago I got bit by
> a tick
> and came down with Lyme Disease. My friends told me not to take
> antibiotics,
> to take lots of vitamins instead, antibiotics, they said, could
> kill. I took
> the antibiotics and had no side effects.
>
> I agree that alternative medicine is here to stay, that it has some
> useful
> insights, and that it has an anti-science bias.
>
> --lk
>
>
>
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