It is also very true that negative trials are seldom reported (it in all forms of medicine) and many even shelved before any results are finalized. It would be easy to make the semantic leap and say this is is not science but that is where things get tricky. Many people are skeptical of science rightly (and this is the root of quackery) because even clinical trials are intimately jnfluenced by marketing.
To me it is interesting to see what happens when some herbal remedy does poorly at trial. The nutriceutical pushers do not change their marketing or claims at all (like echinacea). Some remedies pass out of favor but it is hard to tell if people are influenced by the science or the faddishness of health claims.
I think we are in agreement that one would not want to throw out newer or different approaches to care and cure. It is interesting though to see the overreaction to say everything outside of the allopathic center is "quackery" on this list. (For the record, the amount of quackery under the loose name "alternative" is much much higher than standard medicine but there is a lot of quackery in regular medicine as well and there have been some alternative therapies that have been rigorously found to be of benefit).
If you ask me though, the biggest quackery is the notion that copays/coinsurance modify consumer demand so that people only get the health care they need and never ever put themselves at risk because of perceived financial difficulties. Even poor people. Certainly many more people have died and suffered because of the false application of economic ideology than misapplying false claims from the margins of medicine.
Jim
----Original Message----- From: Doug Henwood Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Doug Henwood's Critique of Gary Null
Miles Jackson wrote:
>Oops. Clinical trials have demonstrated that acup. is
>an effective therapy for chronic pain and improves the range of
>motion in arthritis patients, compared to "placebo" treatments.
>Again, I think it's useful if we base our judgments about
>medical therapies on rigorous data, not common sense.
I completely agree with this. I'd like to see rigorous trials of alternative therapies, but as far as I know, there have been very few. Am I wrong? And if I'm not wrong, why have there been so few trials?
Doug
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