>> ^jwray:

>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^blankfist:
Very sad. I've seen good people in my home state (NC is my home state) worry about receiving coverage. My brother sells insurance in that state. He even knows the system is fucked.
At some point we gave over our power to choose medical treatment to the insurance companies. Today our insurance plans are meal plans (meaning visits to preventive care is covered, such as pediatricians, OBGYNs, etc.) instead of catastrophic care (meaning emergency visits, unexpected health emergencies and hospitalization).
Nowadays doctors and dentists have raised their prices to offset the constant denials of coverage from insurance companies. Out of necessity they've raised their prices knowing the ins. companies will usually deny coverage.
For a year now I've tried to have a "gum graft" cleared through my insurance. After going back and forth, finally it was cleared. But a year ago when I made the request it would've cost me just my copay of $10. A year later they've raised my premium, modified my treatment meal plan and raised the copay, and now I owe a copay of $20 plus $238 of the treatment. I don't mind paying that much because I really need this done, but it's obvious they waited for the changed so they could save a couple hundred bucks.
And the treatment would'nt cost so much if the dentists (and doctors!) didn't require insurance. And they've raised prices mainly to subsidize the staff needed to handle the insurance companies (and the time spent going back and forth with the insurance companies). When's the last time you've ever heard a doctor or nurse give you dollar amount for your visit? Not often, because all we care about is the copay, right?

"At some point we gave over our power to choose medical treatment to the insurance companies."
I am terrified to ask this Blankfist, but what is the alternative? Presumably like this guy you can just not bother with insurance and choose medical treatment yourself based on what you can afford, right? Isn't any other alternative the evil machinations of Statists like me?
I am after all Canadian, and we truly have given over our power to choose medical treatment to the government. Though, it's a mixed bag up here where private hospitals and medicine is illegal and vehemently decried as inherently evil, while at the same time dental, chiropractic and optical medical treatments are all 100% private for profit enterprises and good luck getting the government to spend a dime on you if you need treatment in those fields.

Chiropractic is not a real medical field in the same way that homeopathy and voodoo aren't. If you have back problems, go to a real GP doctor and they can refer you to whatever kind of specialist you need (which is NOT a chiropractor).


Up here any physical therapy generally gets referred to or lumped in under chiropractors, and you've got a big fight on your hands to get the government to count it as a covered universal health care treatment. If you need any physical therapy from a major join injury, good luck to you. Despite the government refusal to allow the existence of any for profit hospitals, those for profit hospitals frequently don't provide the recovery therapy for many things that people end up doing without, or paying out of pocket for.

I guess my overall point is what is the alternative to the insurance companies? It basically amounts to some form of government intervention to either regulate, replace or ban them. None of which I can imagine being alternatives that Blankfist is willing to tolerate, let alone advocate for.

>> ^jwray:


Chiropractic is not a real medical field in the same way that homeopathy and voodoo aren't. If you have back problems, go to a real GP doctor and they can refer you to whatever kind of specialist you need (which is NOT a chiropractor).


In Australia they allowed the chiropractic profession to join the consortium of medical health professionals governed by our health body (AHPRA)

>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^blankfist:
Very sad. I've seen good people in my home state (NC is my home state) worry about receiving coverage. My brother sells insurance in that state. He even knows the system is fucked.
At some point we gave over our power to choose medical treatment to the insurance companies. Today our insurance plans are meal plans (meaning visits to preventive care is covered, such as pediatricians, OBGYNs, etc.) instead of catastrophic care (meaning emergency visits, unexpected health emergencies and hospitalization).
Nowadays doctors and dentists have raised their prices to offset the constant denials of coverage from insurance companies. Out of necessity they've raised their prices knowing the ins. companies will usually deny coverage.
For a year now I've tried to have a "gum graft" cleared through my insurance. After going back and forth, finally it was cleared. But a year ago when I made the request it would've cost me just my copay of $10. A year later they've raised my premium, modified my treatment meal plan and raised the copay, and now I owe a copay of $20 plus $238 of the treatment. I don't mind paying that much because I really need this done, but it's obvious they waited for the changed so they could save a couple hundred bucks.
And the treatment would'nt cost so much if the dentists (and doctors!) didn't require insurance. And they've raised prices mainly to subsidize the staff needed to handle the insurance companies (and the time spent going back and forth with the insurance companies). When's the last time you've ever heard a doctor or nurse give you dollar amount for your visit? Not often, because all we care about is the copay, right?

"At some point we gave over our power to choose medical treatment to the insurance companies."
I am terrified to ask this Blankfist, but what is the alternative? Presumably like this guy you can just not bother with insurance and choose medical treatment yourself based on what you can afford, right? Isn't any other alternative the evil machinations of Statists like me?
I am after all Canadian, and we truly have given over our power to choose medical treatment to the government. Though, it's a mixed bag up here where private hospitals and medicine is illegal and vehemently decried as inherently evil, while at the same time dental, chiropractic and optical medical treatments are all 100% private for profit enterprises and good luck getting the government to spend a dime on you if you need treatment in those fields.


Chiropractic is not a real medical field in the same way that homeopathy and voodoo aren't. If you have back problems, go to a real GP doctor and they can refer you to whatever kind of specialist you need (which is NOT a chiropractor).

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Health, Homeopathy, Body, Boiron' to 'self link, ad, redacted, banned' - edited by Issykitty

As soon as a "doctor" recommends homeopathy, his credibility is shattered.

This is just another "scare story" that the news broadcasters use when they need to fill airtime.

I scanned the CDC document that they referenced (found via wiki). It seems to indicate that feeding infants and toddlers fluoridated water _may_ be harmful, but that a much greater source of fluoride is fluoride toothpaste.

A more rational response is to lower the fluoride levels slightly, while teaching people to reduce infant intake of fluoridated water. We are not being poisoned by our government, and the government has not "admitted that fluoridated water damages teeth."

This video has been seconded as a duplicate; transferring votes to the original video and killing this dupe - dupeof seconded with isdupe by Skeeve.

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Count-The-Mistakes-In-This-Homeopathy-Lecture.

Skeeve is correct.

This video has been nominated as a duplicate of this video by chicchorea. If this nomination is seconded with *isdupe, the video will be killed and its votes transferred to the original.

So wait...what I gathered from her lecture is that Homeopathy is like a bomb?

Dupe: http://videosift.com/video/Count-The-Mistakes-In-This-Homeopathy-Lecture

I was going to post this yesterday but then the sift was down so it's probably too late, but I had it saved so here it goes:

I don't think people should go out of their way to take offence to these kinds of videos. It's propaganda, and it would be interesting to some, but there is nothing new or particularly insightful here. If you don't fit the description of the video, you can probably safely move along. However, it describes many people.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Isn't there something inherently stupid about telling someone they're wrong about their beliefs because "no one knows"? Well then, how would you know dummy?

Some things are unknowable. People claiming the opposite are either liars or simply mistaken. Acknowledging (knowing) that this statement is true does not cause a contradiction.

>> ^shinyblurry:

I am a highly rational and logical person...

I don't mean to pick on this (at least not in a mean way), but if this is true you must have considered the massive amount of psychological delusions that humans make on a regular basis. People believe they have been visited by aliens. Even in the modern age many people in various countries believe they are following Gods on earth and believe they've witnessed miracles conducted by those man-gods. People (even presently) believe in witches, demonic possession, voodoo, astrology, homeopathy, dowsing, bigfoot, ghosts, etc, etc, etc.

Violent crime victims have been utterly surprised and ashamed when DNA evidence proved that their sworn and BELIEVED eyewitness accounts were misremembered and that people they were POSITIVE perpetrated the crimes against them indeed did not. Some people believe God tells them directly to kill others. Or that they themselves are the Messiah.

And generally speaking, the human mind has evolved to find patterns in noise: to interpret coincidence as cause and effect.

Given all of this, what is more likely: that all of these claims and beliefs are true? Or that just the ones we agree with are true? Or that perhaps few or none of these claims are true and they reveal the fragile nature of the human mind.

If we can accept the latter explanation, that we are limited machines with limited resources processing vast information in real time under great stress over decades of experiences... perhaps when we find ourselves seeing, remembering, or believing something unsupported by physical evidence, perhaps we should logically consider that we *should not* believe it.

Back to lurking...

and the answer is: because i work in the field, somewhere in the middle of alt treatment and mainstream treatment. i'm quite mainstream in many parts of the world, alt in others. it's really pretty stupid.
i work mostly with fairly severe spinal issues. i'm particularly fond of somatic theory, from a structural perspective, and i practice and teach manual therapy utilizing a neurological approach focusing on rotational distortion. On the whole, what is often dismissed as alternative in treatment turns out to be the most innovative, that pushes mainstream treatments into new and more effective territory. "Touching" a person was pretty out of style in the accepted medical practice until late, -- PT's are actually starting to get a clue.

i'm quite aware of the fluff that is out there, the weird, the barbaric, the hippy dippy, the downright stupid. both the alt side of things, as you might define it, and the mainstream side of things, often fall into these categories. There are however, powerful lobbies that make one form of treatment more acceptable than others.... Big pharma is insanely powerful, and insanely profitable... we're drugging our kids for fucks sake.
and lets put it this way, the profit margin is very small in what i do. it's just too time consuming and labor intensive.

And while the business side of things has thoroughly poisoned mainstream medicine, there tends to be more, but not necessarily all, of "alt" providers, who purposely shy away from it. we'd all be better off in a socialist medicine system that was not for profit. In every socialist system, some form of what i do is commonplace, mainstream, accepted science...goddamn common sense.
anyhoo..., would you like some figures on iatrogenic death?

I worked in an acupuncture clinic for a bit, mostly treating cancer and HIV. The acupuncture was most effective for treating nausea, pain, and other symptoms that came with the chemo.
In china it is combined with herbs to treat the cancer. I don't know the success rates. i know they take their acupuncture very seriously, and very scientifically... and western docs are starting to wake up to it.
For chronic pain issues (back, neck, pain) etc...i probably bat somewhere in 80-90%. That destroys mainstream. I'm an anomaly, but i shouldn't be. more talented people should be in this field. and being able to spot and work with spinal issues at young ages would save billions of dollars in lost labor, workers comp, SSI, medical expenses, drugs...a shit ton of pain and suffering.

foresight. preventative medicine.

>> ^FlowersInHisHair:

I'm not arguing for the sake of arguing, I'm arguing because you seem to think "alternative medicine" is superior to medicine. What point are you trying to make about chemotherapy, exactly? In many cases it's a very effective treatment. Do you know what the success rate of, say, acupuncture is for treating cancer? How about therapeutic touch? Or chakra realignment? Or ground turtle shell? Or homeopathy? Or vitamin megadosing? Or evening primrose oil supplements? Or magnetic wristbands? Nil. Nothing. No demonstrable effect. And there's a reason for that. There is no alternative to medicine. There's medicine, and there's "crap that doesn't work".
You're right that the major difference between scientific medicine and "alternative medicine" is the degree that it is run purely as profit generating business. Except that you have it completely the wrong way round. "Alternative medicine" has no chance of curing you, and costs money. Medicine has a chance of curing you, using products and medicines backed up by science, and costs money. I know which I'd rather go for. "Western medicine" (as you call it, though you should note that the practice of science-based medicine isn't limited to the Western world, thank goodness) is interested in cures because the effective interventions are the ones that get used, thereby generating income. It's only in the field of "alternative medicine" that "crap that doesn't work" can be sold for a profit without anyone ever questioning it. If a medical intervention or treatment doesn't work, the scientific method roots it out eventually, but tellingly there is no such self-regulatory framework in place when it comes to "alternative medicine", and the practitioners don't care.
Put it this way: if it were true that science-based medicine didn't "know their ass from a hole in the ground" when it comes to chronic pain then what the hell would make you think that the pseudoscientific bullshitfest that is "alternative medicine" would stand a chance at solving the problem?
>> ^criticalthud:
alright there. not really getting the gist of the statement, are you?
you're arguing for the sake of arguing.
do you know what the success rate of chemo is for curing cancer? pretty much the same as not having it
back surgery? the same
there's plenty of crap out there, and no "medicine" is immune from it. the one major difference between what is labeled as alt and what isn't is the degree that it is run purely as profit generating business. Do you get it? western medicine isn't necessarily interested in cures. doctors might be, but the biz side of it ain't. it's quick fix, in and out, write the latest scrip that has been peddled to you by big pharma, and do the treatments and tests that you are allowed to do by the insurance company.
western medicine doesn't know their ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to chronic pain, because treating something that typically has it's roots in the structure of the body isn't profitable.

I'm not arguing for the sake of arguing, I'm arguing because you seem to think "alternative medicine" is superior to medicine. What point are you trying to make about chemotherapy, exactly? In many cases it's a very effective treatment. Do you know what the success rate of, say, acupuncture is for treating cancer? How about therapeutic touch? Or chakra realignment? Or ground turtle shell? Or homeopathy? Or vitamin megadosing? Or evening primrose oil supplements? Or magnetic wristbands? Nil. Nothing. No demonstrable effect. And there's a reason for that. There is no alternative to medicine. There's medicine, and there's "crap that doesn't work".

You're right that the major difference between scientific medicine and "alternative medicine" is the degree that it is run purely as profit generating business. Except that you have it completely the wrong way round. "Alternative medicine" has no chance of curing you, and costs money. Medicine has a chance of curing you, using products and medicines backed up by science, and costs money. I know which I'd rather go for. "Western medicine" (as you call it, though you should note that the practice of science-based medicine isn't limited to the Western world, thank goodness) is interested in cures because the effective interventions are the ones that get used, thereby generating income. It's only in the field of "alternative medicine" that "crap that doesn't work" can be sold for a profit without anyone ever questioning it. If a medical intervention or treatment doesn't work, the scientific method roots it out eventually, but tellingly there is no such self-regulatory framework in place when it comes to "alternative medicine", and the practitioners don't care.

Put it this way: if it were true that science-based medicine didn't "know their ass from a hole in the ground" when it comes to chronic pain then what the hell would make you think that the pseudoscientific bullshitfest that is "alternative medicine" would stand a chance at solving the problem?

>> ^criticalthud:

alright there. not really getting the gist of the statement, are you?
you're arguing for the sake of arguing.
do you know what the success rate of chemo is for curing cancer? pretty much the same as not having it
back surgery? the same
there's plenty of crap out there, and no "medicine" is immune from it. the one major difference between what is labeled as alt and what isn't is the degree that it is run purely as profit generating business. Do you get it? western medicine isn't necessarily interested in cures. doctors might be, but the biz side of it ain't. it's quick fix, in and out, write the latest scrip that has been peddled to you by big pharma, and do the treatments and tests that you are allowed to do by the insurance company.
western medicine doesn't know their ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to chronic pain, because treating something that typically has it's roots in the structure of the body isn't profitable.

Homeopathy!

indeed.

Much of my work is on somatic theory.
Chiropractic, as an osteopathy derivative, has some solid basis in that they look at nerve compression at the spine, and while it is certainly true that decompressing innervation at the spine can help with other problems, such as GI issues and asthma, in a technique sense they are only focusing on one aspect of distortion - that of restriction at the spine. However, once there is a distortion at the spine (the bottom of the brain) it becomes a whole body pattern and issue...which requires far more time, patience, and attention to detail than merely popping a facet joint. It requires the type of time and patience that is non-existent in most of western medicine, or chiropractic. The body is a seamless whole.

It's very hard to make a lot of money doing this work.
But a chiro can pop 10 people an hour. A western doc can write 40 scrips an hour.

Massage is typically working by accident. It helps, but it is premised on a muscular approach, which is incredibly misleading. Muscles may dominate the body in terms of size, but they are a reactive system, not a controlling system, and the lowest man on the totem pole in terms of the hierarchy of survival mechanisms. Physical therapy is also stuck on the muscular approach to the body. In fact, this approach typically dominates western thought when it comes to somatic/structural distortion/pain. And most people go to hospitals with essentially somatic complaints. See where i'm going with this?

Harrington rods for scoliosis should one day be properly viewed as barbaric.


In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
A friend of mine had scoliosis, at least I think that what she had, I never heard the proper medical term for it. She had it corrected by doctors inserting some metal rods by her spine, so now her back is all stiff - I'm a little vague on the details since it's a while since I heard the story.

In any case, I agree that we must also heavily scrutinize the medical system, since companies go where the profits are, and if there are no profits to be had, then that kind of medicine is discarded and abandoned. This is what has happened with many potential cancer treatments, since there is less profit in un-patentable formulas than those that can be patented.

If your methods actually do work consistently then it would certainly stand up to scientific standards, it must be replicable and verifiable and that's basically it. The problem is that often it works like "magic" and heals some, but not all with what appears to be the same illness. This is due to a lack of understanding of what is actually wrong with a patient.

The back and nervous system is notoriously hard to "fix" since few people understand it very well and each person is unique (to some extent).

Some "alternative" medicines are perinormal - they work, but we don't know it yet. They are essentially medicines, but we have not determined precisely how and why they help. "Home remedies" are really a proto-version of alternative medicines in this way, in that someone once used it and it worked. Others, like homeopathy, are demonstrably false and are indeed scams. The make wild claims based on nothing but superstition and humbug.

Prayer is also not medicine. If you get bitten by a snake and pray for the venom to leave your body, you die.

The court of public opinion is highly subjective and cannot be trusted to make reliable judgments. This is why the scientific method exists - to eliminate the need for "he said, she said".

It is smart to be weary of the medicinal industry, I'll grant you that, but your doctor is not an arm of that - he (or she) is a healer, that is their goal. I am deeply troubled when certain doctors are influenced by incentives that go against the patient's best interest - it does happen, medicinal firms offering bonuses if you use their products even though they're inferior and so on. But the fact remains that this inferior product has still gone through channels which ensure that it does work, alternative medicine does not.

It is absolutely imperative that people are not deceived to believe that some treatments do more than they think, like when chiropractic offers treatments to non-musceloskeletal problems like ADHD or asthma. It may help your back, fair enough, I've cracked my own back and I think it helps, because it feels good - chocolate feels good too, but it doesn't help my health.

The second such a snake oil salesman does not want to stand up to proper scrutiny is when he has revealed himself to be a fraud. Because if his method is disproved, then he cannot fake it anymore.

I do not doubt that massage therapy does offer relief and helps with muscle problems, I could also believe that chiropractic helps with joint pain, muscle pain or some skeletal problems - but they must be studied and analysed properly and not just pretend like it works, we must know WHY it works.

In reply to this comment by criticalthud:
Some great insights.
My difficulty is in the gross generalizations that are taking place.
I do what some people call "alternative" medicine. I don't necessarily take exception to that title given the state of western medicine.
Growing up with a scoliosis I searched for different approaches to fix the problem, and eventually ended up practicing and teaching manual therapy from a neurological model of the body, focusing on rotational distortion. It is essentially cutting edge, and i can do things with a spine that would make a western neurosurgeon question his approach.

However I may not stand up to scrutiny by western standards, since I essentially view the body in a much different manner, and certainly work with it in a much different manner.
Tomorrow however, may be a different story, as it has been with acupuncture, massage, osteopathy, non-freudian psychology, or any number of treatments that have made their way into the mainstream. Scrutiny is often the court of public opinion, although this court of opinion is greatly effected by what we have been brought up to believe and who we automatically give status and credibility to.

I think it is essential that all practitioners of the healing arts, including western medicine, realize that our actual knowledge of the human body, it's functions, and it's abilities, is very small. And it is exceedingly important to keep those doors to possibilities open.

At the same time, it is incumbent upon us to heavily scrutinize the current accepted treatments which are more often than not inadequate, reliant upon drugs, or are barbaric in nature. At the same time we must heavily scrutinize an overall system which is premised on the industry making a profit, which lends itself to indefinitely treating symptoms rather than preventative medicine.

In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
Scientific method.

"Alternative" medicine wants to do the same thing as Intelligent Design, it wants to take the easy road. ID wants to be in the class room without having sufficient evidence to support its claim. Alternative medicine wants to be sold and used to heal sick people. The latter is fine and even admirable, if it works, but there is insufficient evidence to support the claims that alternative medicine makes.

If you buy a service from me that I cannot provide, then you have been scammed and my claim was bunk. This is what alternative medicine does.

Defining alternative, it's medicine that hasn't gone through thorough scrutiny and does not stand up to it. It is medicine that doesn't work.

Pick your poison: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_medicine Homeopathy, Chiropractic, energy therapy, crystals all that stuff.

Regarding massage and acupuncture, I'm in a more relaxed approach, because they don't promise magical solutions. Massage works at healing muscle pain, certainly, and it certainly relaxing. Acupuncture, I don't have sufficient knowledge about to make a definitive judgment about. Naturally, I'm skeptical, because as far as I know, it has not been tested to the proper extent that it should to be called medicine. When I read about more details of it "Qi" and whatnot - I get more skeptical.

It may work, but it should be tested experimentally, before making claims of healing.

People are allowed to use their money as they want, but these things should damn well not be able to call themselves medicine. Relaxation, sure, therapy, perhaps, healing - no.

In reply to this comment by criticalthud:
would you care to define alternative? do you mean non-american, non-western?
does acupuncture stand up to western scrutiny? how about manual therapy? who's scrutiny are you talking about? Tell me how you measure what people FEEL with a machine, or a bloodtest.
how well does typical western medicine deal with back pain? - drugs, drugs, more drugs?
how about a scoliosis? neurological strain patterns? any chronic pain issue?
western medicine, relies on over-drugging it's patients, treating each as a number. What and how they practice is often completely controlled by insurance companies.
perhaps your statement doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
sure there is crap out there, but lets not pretend that western medicine is immune. far from it, it's peddling a good portion of the stinkiest garbage.



In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
Alternative medicine is bunk. Like alternative math or alternative reason.

If there was any truth to it, it would stand up to scrutiny and it would be used as proper treatment. Homeopathy especially is downright fraud.

*debunked