Court forcing 16 yr old with cancer into chemo

[Prudence]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

Ok, but again, how do you decide, lacking any real evidence one way or the other, which alternative methods are simply too wacky to consider and which are worth spending money on despite no real evidence one way or the other. Because no matter who whacked out a proposed treatment, I will be able to find you a person in a position of apparent authority who endorses it (just as I can find you PhD geologists who believ the earth is only 6,000 years old).

Well geeze, you can always find a wacked out person to endorse anything. I don't think that condemns alternative medicine any more than it condemns geology.

I think a great deal of common sense applies, as with anything else. Who do I trust? Well, Bastyr manages to have a whole little University that affiliates with reputable conventional medical and nursing schools, so that would be a start. Bastyr's website links to this recent article describing a current UW/Bastyr study on providing care to the dying. Sounds to me like an example of working on that "real evidence". Maybe it's because I worked in a health care school for so long, but I saw lots of "real" studies that involved alternative therapies. Whether light therapy calmed elderly demented patients. (If I recall correctly, it didn't.) Various ways to treat and manage fibromyalgia. I think my former boss lady is involved with some CAM research being done in Korea that might actually involve acupuncture. (Maybe with Seoul National University? I can't remember.)

I think you proceed the same way you proceed when checking out any specialist. Are they affiliated with reputable institutions? What does their CV look like? Are they currently involved in research? Same questions I asked myself when I checked out the bio of the specialist recommended for my brother's conventional treatment.

[Alex]

Then we're arguing the same side of the coin here.

Again, I am not saying there is no value in alternative medicine. Of course, once those values have been objectively determined they're not really "altnernative" any more. I'm not a big fan of the Bastyr University curriculum because while parts of naturopathy reek of common sense the core is still extremely quacky and the modern practitioners haven't done much to cleanse that taint (naturopathy grew out of Sebastian Kneipp's belief, back in the 1890s that soaking the Danube River cured tuberculosis and other original thinkers of the time, such as John Tilden who believed that the core of all illness was excrement spending too much time in the intestines. But I'll also admit to a personal bias against the school because of a woman I knew once who attended and also taught a UW extension course on how to talk to dolphins. A greater dingbat I've never known and yes it isn't fair to taint the whole institution because of her.)

But to the extent that they are engaging in valid research, that is great and I hope it helps them slowly scrape the silliness out of the field of naturopathy as, slowly, allopathy has mostly done.

Again, I don't mean this with any derogatory intent but in this thread tracilicious claimed more scientific support for acupuncture than exists and that homeopathy works for her but it turns out she didn't know what homeopathy is. When you look into alternative medicine it is great that you look into the ongoing research, CVs, and reputable sources. But in my experience (and yes, that is anecdotal) very few people I know who use them do so, instead relying on the reports of someone they know how says "it worked for me!"

Unless you're saying, and I don't think you are, that merely the fact that someone is studying it scientifically is reason to use an alternative treatment. That would be the equivelant of Pfizer putting the new heart drug on the market while they're still doing the clinical studies and seeking FDA approval.

On the original topic is worth noting that this kid and his family aren't saying that the alternative treatment in Mexico will help with chemo ralated nausea or pain management. They are claiming (presumably because the clinic told them that they have strong evidence of it) that the treatment will cure the cancer. I am willing to go out on a limb and guess that the Mexico clinic is not affiliated with a reputable institution, that the head of the clinic has probably been denied license to practice in the United States (if s/he'd even qualify), and that there is no clinical evidence of efficacy other than what the doctors tell the patients.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Prudence

Well geeze, you can always find a wacked out person to endorse anything. I don't think that condemns alternative medicine any more than it condemns geology.

On this one, my point wasn't that it condemns it, just that calls to authority don't necessarily endorse it. One of the tools of pseudoscientists is reliance on pedigree put to misuse.

The guy responsible for the whole face on Mars lunacy was also one of the most brilliant planetary scientists of the '60s. His claims (Richard Hoagland, by the way) are obviously beyond stupid but a lot of people buy into them simply because he has an impressive resume.

Having a wacko proponent is certainly not dispositive evidence. But neither is a string of letters after your name positive evidence.