[lbo-talk] Doug Henwood's Critique of Gary Null

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Thu Mar 18 10:53:30 PST 2004


Jks:
>
> As far as I can tell, most medicine is by guess and by
> golly. It's an art, not a science. There has been a
> lot of progress in the last 100 or so years, but even
> so it is pretty much a matter of seeing what works.
> Medical doctors are also incredibly arrogant given how
> little they know.
>

I think that is an awful generalization - do you have any evidence that doctors are more arrogant than any other professional group, like computer programmers, engineers, lawyers, bus drivers, teachers, sociologists, or public servants? Based on my subjective observations bus drivers and computer programmers are more arrogant than doctors - but that means only my own personal experience.

As far as the judgment call in medical practice is concerned, again any profession involves a judgment call. In medicine, diagnostic procedures routinely involve judgment because many conditions have similar symptoms so the doctors diagnose by judging the probability of the condition that may cause these symptoms. That is they start with the most probable cause and treat it, and if it does not work, they examine the next most probable and so on. That looks to me like a very rational and scientific approach - especially when compared to quacks and some chiropractors who claim to "know" a priori with their patients.

I do not think that any sensible medical practitioner would reject a treatment that works based on pre-conceived notions - unlike many quacks and chiropractors who a priori dismiss conventional medicine. Even Barrett admits that chiropractic may have beneficial effects for certain ailments - he just rejects the notion that chiropractic is a panacea - as many quacks claim.


> There is nothing wrong with leaving a space for
> "alternative" medicine; au contraire, it is a good
> potential resource for ideas and techniques that one
> might not otherwise come across or develop. It's

I am 100% with you on that - but that is NOT the issue here. There is nothing wrong with people trying different things, as long as there is no fraud and deception with the intent to profit involved.

"Alternative" medicine is often a cover up for consumer fraud that has dire consequences for the victims. Would you also be inclined to argue that space should be left for other dangerous and fraudulently advertised consumer products - cars that do not meet safety standards, toys that can cause injury, food products linked to cancer?


> I am not sure that there is a particular association
> of "alternative medicine" and "the left." Maybe with
> the "counterculture," if that still exists, but maybe
> it does more than the left does.

There is certain type of people (I know a few of them personally) who often hand out around various left causes (social protest, labor organizing, etc.) who practice knee-jerk contumacy and instinctively reject anything that smacks of the existing institutional order. I think of it as a sort of affective or mental disorder rather than a bona fide political ideology. These folks hang out with the legitimate left because that given them an opportunity to practice their contumacy and give it an aura of legitimacy - so it looks like a legitimate political view rather than crackpot rant.

But I agree that is not much association between left and "alternative medicine." As I understand, socialist governments (e.g. in EE, Russia and China) generally promoted conventional medicine and public health - and treated "alternative medicine" as examples of dark age obscurantism. They tended to ignore it rather than actively fight it.

However, various forms of quackery started gaining popularity in EE in the 1980s and 1990s as a part of the backlash against socialism, return to religion, anti-abortion campaigns, etc. Some folks would flatly reject anything what government said, including public health authorities, and turn to various quacks for help (shameless self promotion - some of that is documented in my book _Civil Society and the professions in Eastern Europe_ especially ch. 4 and 7). Based on my observations, some medical doctors tried to incorporate alternative treatments into their practice, but much of this 'alternative" stuff was pure witchcraft and charlatanry.

Wojtek



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