I've encounted this kind of thinking


Originally Posted by Pineal
If the alternative medicine is supported by conventional scientific research, should we post about it in another forum?
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James R. - If it's supported by scientific research then it's probably standard medicine rather than alternative medicine.

over and over, and really, people should know better.

Let's take a very non-controversial way this belief of Jame's R's is irrational.

Many alternative medicine treatments are not patentable. It costs millions of dollars to pass through the FDA processes and no pharmaceutical company is going to invest in that process and in the marketing of an alternative medicine product that any other company can immediately start making.

Pharmaceutical companies do not want, for example, herbal remedies to be taken seriously and there is a reason they are behind many of the current restriction legislations coming into force in the US and Europe in relation to herbal medicines.

They are products that compete with theirs.

The educated, rational class in both Europe and the US are not quite in contact with reality, somehow thinking that industry is guided by the scientific method in the production of medicine.

The problem is that "alternative medicine' covers so many things.

There are real alternative medicines that actually work, like making a tea from White Willow bark as a substitude for asprin or using vinegar to treat athelets foot.

Then there are absurd things like homeopathic medicine, iridology, and healing touch therapy.

Most alternative medicine turns out to be little more than just the classic snake oil.

Pharmacies have the advantage of controlling concentrations and purity. Other than that, I'd just as soon be treated by an Amazonian medicine man.

Snake oil, by the way, really works.

One of the antihistamines I take is not an antihistamine at all...it's a supplement I take in megadose format. The ENT docs look at me crazy when I tell them this stuff not only works for allergies, what research has been done shows that it is a mast cell stabilizer, like singulair.

This about sums it up. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0W7Jbc_Vhw&list=FL-8s6-qWh1Lf2BK1TAEtaKQ&index=14&feature=plpp_video)

This about sums it up. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0W7Jbc_Vhw&list=FL-8s6-qWh1Lf2BK1TAEtaKQ&index=14&feature=plpp_video)Except he's wrong. But I am sure it sums up the 'thinking' of many. There is scads of evidence for many alternative treatments, but they are not patentable.

Why do people conflate the behavior of organizations and corporations with scientific methodology?

Why this faith in these things?