In article <
[email protected]>,
[email protected] (soft-eng) wrote:
>
[email protected] (Mark) wrote in message
> news:<
[email protected]>...
>
> > Wrong again, babycakes. EOM doesn't care who thought it up first, only that it can be verified
> > and replicated. St. John's Wort and feverfew are just two of the "alt" remedies that
> > conventional docs are willing to explore suggesting to their patients because solid evidence
> > (chiefly from the German Commission E) suggests a useful role. I myself have suggested alfalfa
> > tea to breastfeeding Moms who are having trouble keeping their milk production up; I based my
> > decision on several good studies I have read after finding them on the NLM's website...and I
> > didn't lose a wink of sleep weeping over Big Pharma's loss of revenue by having my patients'
> > Mommies using herbal remedies instead of pills.
>
> That's commendable.
>
> Professionals of course can't say "this will help you" if there is no clear proof it will.
Good of you to recognize that. Too bad all too many alties refuse to acknowledge this principle.
> But there is another simple common sense logic "is it going to hurt me?"
It depends on what you mean by "hurt." If you choose a "remedy" with "no clear proof it will help"
over one that does have proof it will help, then, yes, even very benign treatments can "hurt" you by
keeping you from effective treatment.
> Coconuts are known to humankind for a VERY long time. It is 100% certain that they do not cause
> toxic reactions.
Wrong. Very wrong. There is a small percentage of people who can have life-threatening anaphylactic
reactions to coconuts. Such allergic reactions are much less common than, say, peanut allergies, but
they do exist. Even though they are fairly rare, they disprove your contention that it is "100%
certain" that coconuts "do not cause toxic reactions."
> (Well, no double-blind studies exist, however for those who can accept reasonable logic, this is a
> valid conclusion.)
Not necessarily, since you can't even get your information right.
> As such, someone suffering from AIDS has nothing to lose, and possibly something to gain, by doing
> a trial on themselves, and eating coconuts for a period of time.
Not if he or she forgoes protease inhibitors and antiretroviral drugs that have proven efficacy
and have lead to four-fold or more increase in expected survival for patients suffering from full-
blown AIDS.
> The logic has been put forth, according to which, someone eating coconuts for AIDS is forced to
> stop using other brands of therapy. That's nonsense. There is nothing forcing a patient to stop
> conventional medicine when eating coconuts. So it's possible that such "logic" comes from people
> subconsciously fearful that the alternative medicine might _succeed_.
I doubt most doctors would be too concerned if patient decided to eat lots of coconuts (assuming
there is no evidence existing to say that something in coconuts interfered with conventional
therapy), as long as that patient didn't forgo his regular therapy for cancer, AIDS, or whatever.
(Some herbal remedies interact with drugs, such as the ginseng/warfarin interaction, etc.) However,
we know that there are always a number of patients who DO forgo conventional therapy in favor of
such unknown and unproven "treatments." One of the memories of residency that most stands out to me
is of a patient who had an early stage rectal cancer that would have had a high probability of cure
with surgery and radiation, who instead opted for coffee enemas and megadoses of carrot juice. He
came back a year later, his skin yellowish-orange, and his tumor much more advanced, so that anal
sphincter-sparing surgery was no longer possible. At the very best, he bought himself a permanent
colostomy through his decision; at the worst, his faith in alternative medicine cost him his life. I
don't know which, because the last time I saw him was only a couple of months before the end of my
residency and my move to another city.
--
Orac |"A statement of fact cannot be insolent."
|
|"If you cannot listen to the answers, why do you inconvenience me with questions?"