Should we stop carrying out tests medicine and treatments (alternative or otherwise) for value?
Best Answer: No - medical science does not work that way. Effective medicines are developed through rigorous trialling and trials. If some natural chemical is shown to have an effect it should be tested too - active ingredients involve to be isolated, purified, synthesized - what ever is required to produce a valid and sustainable product. However I don't see any reason to persist with studies that continually show no efficacy beyond placebo, or are implausible and contained by some cases break the laws of physics, ie: homeopathy, acupuncture. It is very important to weed out the drivel from the real medicine, people's health is at risk. I'm sure you are aware of the homeopath within Australia who has just been convicted of manslaughter for treating his 9 month aged baby with homeopathy for eczema. He rejected real medication and the baby subsequently died a horrible (preventable) death. How can anyone make an informed declaration about the health of their families minus supporting data? And what would we skeptics have to do with our time?
What are some simple home remedies to diminish...
Scientific carrying out tests is important. The article points out that not all of the studies showed negative results, so near is supporting evidence for certain aspects of alternative medicine. If a product, or therapy, proves out to be precarious, then scientific testing might turn out to be especially beneficial. The article does leave out some important and pertinent facts and questions. Scientific conducting tests does not provide absolutes. Often times the conclusions and results of research are later overturned as better tests are preformed, more advanced technology is developed, and experimental understanding expands. The article talks about 2.5 billion spent, I believe, over the ultimate ten years on alternative medicine study. It does not tell us how much money was spent on standard medical research that resulted within negative results. The article is also vague as to what percentage of studies resulted in gloomy results. Scientific research is a great tool, but it does have its limitations and flaws. Response to Edit: Skeptics often bring up the size of positive studies into alt medicine to contradict the positive results. In this case, the relative size of the studies prevent conclusiveness that would halt further study. The funding for individual conventional medicine is often funded into the 10's of millions, except 100's of millions, of dollars for incredibly large multiple studies before effectiveness is determined.Is it safe and sound to stop so...
An interesting sound out. You said "Can you ever do enough studies to prove an alternative medicine is no better than placebo?" From the Merck Manual 18th edition:"In some studies, placebo relieves the disorder in > 50% of the patients, making demonstration of the involved drug's efficacy difficult." In other words, pharmaceuticals are often not much better than a placebo either. Of course Alternative Medicine should be studied--how else do you discover anything about it? At the terrifically least, we want to know that it is relatively safe (no substance or therapy is 100% safe), or if it is not, to regulate sale to those with the training to use them properly. Case in point: Ma Huang/Ephedra, used in Traditional Chinese Medicine for thousands of years for acute URI and breathing difficulties (e.g. Asthma) next to great success. However, there are strict guidelines in traditional text about how to safely prepare it, how much to use and how often. Now along comes an underinformed layman who learn that it is a metabolic stimulant as well, and before you can blink it's marketed as a weight-loss supplement--an impression TCM practitioners find appalling. There's also the matter of how and when the herb is gathered. Ginko Biloba is known to TCM practitioners to assist next to mental function to a degree, but is actually considered fairly tenancy. Further, the Chinese value the Ginko nut as a food. In order to derive the most benefit from the leaves, they must be harvested impulsive in the season and used fresh. Since harvesting early kill the nut harvest, most farmers won't do it. Instead, they wait, harvest the nuts, and go the old dried late-season (and now medically worthless) leaves to supplement companies who perhaps don't know better (or don't care), who later freeze-dry or process the leaves to the point of total inefficacy. There is also the matter of the standard for the success of the treatment being base on Western medical principals, which are not always compatible with Traditional models. For example, what conventional medicine refers to as the "adjectives cold" could be defined as one of at least a half-dozen illnesses in TCM. A TCM practitioner would NOT prescribe the same herb for all these conditions--but since scientific protocol requires consistency, tests of TCM cold remedies are almost other standardized, using the same herbs in adjectives cases. TCM practitioners are never surprised when these tests come back inconclusive or negative--they weren't done with the underlying remedial model in mind. Also, many CAM therapies are preventive (purportedly) within nature. Meaning the only true test is to see if regular use prevents an infection or condition from arising many years later. It is very difficult (and expensive) to do such long-term studies, as I'm sure you know (which is why we didn't find out that Fen-Phen cause heart problems until AFTER it went on the market), and even more difficult to make the herb/supplement/therapy the lone independent variable surrounded by such studies. This is not to say that all so-called Alternative Therapies have merit--some may not. And we SHOULD subject them to irrefutable scrutiny. But the basis of that scrutiny and the results gathered need to be, capably, scrutinized. Oh, and $2.5 Billion over 10 years is a drop in the bucket, really. $250 million a year? That's barely satisfactory to scratch the surface of traditional medicines. I'm not surprised they haven't found anything yet.how to relate if its certainly weed...?
That's funny, I'm a medical marijuana long-suffering and I get better results than I do w/ pills. Have you even TRIED alternative medicine at all?Related Questions...
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