Re: (Fwd) Re: guidelines/ethics

Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@calweb.com)
Sat, 28 Dec 1996 20:26:50 -0800 (PST)

> >> Obviously, you misunderstood. I was referring to good science, while
> >> medicine does not qualify as science at all.
> >
> >Am I missing sarcasm here, or do you really think there is some
> >connection between that slander and reality? I think the /millions/
> >of lives saved by good, rational, science in medicine over the
> >last few decades, despite the public's continued fascination with
> >mystical bullshit like astrology, homeopathy, and "alternative"
> >medicines are more than sufficient evidence.
>
> While I agree with you in general, the medical establishment in the US
> is clealy more obviously interested in self-protection than science.
> Its outright rejection, without cause, of chiropractic, deep-tissue
> massage, accupuncture and chinese herbal medicine is evidence of
> this. I name these "alternative medicines" because I have greatly
> benefitted from them personally. I am very fortunate to have an MD
> who is also an accupuncturist and who does not scoff at every medical
> technique that does not use surgery or patented drugs.

If you could show me some responsible valid double-blind studies
that show the effectiveness of chiropractic, massage, accupuncture,
or herbal medicine (apart from those herbs used to manufacture known
drugs like ephedrine), then there would not be a single doctor in
the "establishment" that would "suppress" them. Quite the contrary,
they would be joyously recommending the new methods, ust as there
are many doctors extolling the virtues of medical marijuana today
despite serious government threats against them. "Alternative
medicine" is just a euphemism for unproven medicine. Responsible
doctors have no choice but to disapprove. If they recommended such
therapies without proof, they would be risking their patients' lives
on nothing more substantial than anecdotes and mystical nonsense.
They would be culpaple murderers. Homeopaths, herbalists, and
chiropractors who treat, say, cancer patients and advise them against
proven therapies like chemotherapy and radiation are responsible for
thousands of deaths no less than if they had pulled a trigger. If
a person wishes to use experimental therapies himself for his own
reasons and under his own advice and responsibility, I would not
stand in his way--I have no love of the FDA--but for a professional
to actually recommend them on faith is at best willful fraud.

The old canards about supression of alternatives to bolster the
finances of the establishment is hollow rhetoric spouted by these
charlatans because they can't talk about proof. Open your eyes:
the plain facts are that 20 years ago, leukemia and breast cancer
were death sentences. Now, most survive. This didn't happen
because of herbalists; it happened because of radiation and chemo,
and because doctors held themselves to the standards of /science/,
not the new-age hippy feelgood bullshit of the popular press.

If I sound harsh, it is with reason. I cannot stand idly by and
allow the genocide of gullible sick people by snake-oil salesmen
without expressing my moral revulsion. I love life, and my moral
standards spring from that love of life, and I revile those who
would destroy it.