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

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

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LOL. Good one.

In reply to this comment by criticalthud:
I avoid this situation by not having kids