Complementary medicine strikes again

[Drooper]

Herbal medecine linked to death

Actually, the headline appears misleading given the content of the report. It seems more your typical case of medical neglect while in the care of a woowoo.

"Mr Krsteski was allowed to waste away and was not provided any professional traditional medical care when he complained of headaches, kidney pain, all-over aches and pains, and pain and numbness to three fingers," Det Snr Cnst Miller told the court.

Regulation be damned. "Complementary medicine" should have no regulation. Anyone who wants to "practice" should be exposed to the full force of criminal law in the event that they are found to be posing as a medical advisor or practitioner.

 

[Jono]

Reminds me very much of a man that used to live in my home town many years ago.
A woman died after an injection had hit her (don't know the english term) spinal nerve with a sort of tranquilizing shot.
The woman had a crooked spine that he was unaware of.

The man was an all-round physician though I was never sure he was a fully trained physician. He had a lot of odd ideas I remember that he executed in his work as a bohemian medicine man.

Also as he tried to help my mother's back pain once as a disc in her spine had gone wayward that after he "twicked" it into place she has suffered from a slightly crooked back. She is still today sore from it.

At the same time he did cure a lot of patients from ailments with his special ways though so could any sufficient recommendable physician.

In Sweden there is a saying, "it hurts to be stupid".

 

[Drooper]

At the same time he did cure a lot of patients from ailments with his special ways though so could any sufficient recommendable physician.

I expect that if I set myself up as a "healer" I could easily achieve a 50% success rate - with no knowledge (or genuine treatment) at all.

 

[jambo372]

People on here are always complaining about harm caused by alternative treatments. This can also happen with conventional medicine.

Eg I know someone who had motor neurone disease. She had it for a few years and was expected to die in the year 2000, she got the last rite and everything, they were certain she'd die. She was on several medications. When she was expected to die she decided to refuse all of the medication she had previously taken. Her family were worried about her refusing medication and thought this would certainly hasten her already fast approaching death ...

She actually made a massive improvement and stayed off the medication. She died in January this year.

 

[Bronze Dog]

People on here are always complaining about harm caused by alternative treatments. This can also happen with conventional medicine.

*anecdote snipped*

True, but evidence-based medicine has verifiable benefits beyond placebo. It has its risks, too. Quackery, however, has no benefits beyond placebo, and carries risks that range from negative harm (harm as a result of giving up useful medicine) to nothing to very real harm. As such, evidence-based medicine can make mistakes, but those are few compared with the benefits it provides. Quackery, however, by exposing people to risk without benefit, performs nothing but mistakes.

 

[jambo372]

True, but evidence-based medicine has verifiable benefits beyond placebo. It has its risks, too. Quackery, however, has no benefits beyond placebo, and carries risks that range from negative harm (harm as a result of giving up useful medicine) to nothing to very real harm. As such, evidence-based medicine can make mistakes, but those are few compared with the benefits it provides. Quackery, however, by exposing people to risk without benefit, performs nothing but mistakes.

There are sometimes benefits.
In homoepathy I think this is doubtful but herbalism ... certainly not.

eg Sceptics are to quick to label herbalism as quackery.

If you were alive years ago you'd probably have said that using Cinchona bark to treat malaria was quackery.

Also as I mentioned earlier - conventional medicine can be equally dangerous. The person I mentioned was getting plenty of side effects but no benefit whatsoever.

 

[Ashles]

People on here are always complaining about harm caused by alternative treatments. This can also happen with conventional medicine.

Eg I know someone who had motor neurone disease. She had it for a few years and was expected to die in the year 2000, she got the last rite and everything, they were certain she'd die. She was on several medications. When she was expected to die she decided to refuse all of the medication she had previously taken. Her family were worried about her refusing medication and thought this would certainly hasten her already fast approaching death ...

She actually made a massive improvement and stayed off the medication. She died in January this year.

Wow, you really do have an anecdotal story about everything don't you?

It's funny, conventional medication is obviously so evil and harmful, yet everyone ends up using it. Curious.

 

[Bronze Dog]

There are sometimes benefits.
In homoepathy I think this is doubtful but herbalism ... certainly not.

eg Sceptics are to quick to label herbalism as quackery.

If you were alive years ago you'd probably have said that using Cinchona bark to treat malaria was quackery.

Also as I mentioned earlier - conventional medicine can be equally dangerous. The person I mentioned was getting plenty of side effects but no benefit whatsoever.

Cinchona bark, if I remember correctly from NPR, passed a double-blind control study about its efficacy, therefore it has evidence, therefore it's evidence-based medicine and not quackery. Any herb that can pass a double-blind control test is evidence-based medicine. It doesn't matter if you label it "herbalism" or not. To my knowledge, however, most herbs used by herbalists fail their double-blind control studies. In some cases, they were never subjected to those tests at all.

True: Conventional medicine can be dangerous under certain circumstances. Life is a gamble, and some people just get shafted by the laws of probability. The difference between evidence-based medicine and quackery is the difference between a card-counting blackjack player and a player who bets and asks for hits on a random basis. The card counter studies the game, its rules, and how the laws of probability work. The random player doesn't.

 

[Mojo]

To my knowledge, however, most herbs used by herbalists fail their double-blind control studies.

If they are proven to be effective they rapidly pass into orthodox medicine (usually by identification and isolation of the active chemical, so that an accurately controlled dosage can be given so as to provide a therapeutic benefit while minimising side-effects). Alternative medicine is, almost by definition, left using the stuff which hasn't or can't be shown to be effective.

 

[Psi Baba]

There are sometimes benefits.
In homoepathy I think this is doubtful but herbalism ... certainly not.

eg Sceptics are to quick to label herbalism as quackery.

As Mojo already pointed out, herbs can be potentially useful medicine, if properly tested and analyzed. The quackery comes in when practitioners make claims with no scientific basis and when they distribute primitive, unrefined remedies. That's the quackery. Want to chew on willow bark for your headache because it's "natural"? Go ahead, but the salicylic acid without the benifit of acetylation will play hell with your stomach lining.

 

[jambo372]

As Mojo already pointed out, herbs can be potentially useful medicine, if properly tested and analyzed. The quackery comes in when practitioners make claims with no scientific basis and when they distribute primitive, unrefined remedies. That's the quackery. Want to chew on willow bark for your headache because it's "natural"? Go ahead, but the salicylic acid without the benifit of acetylation will play hell with your stomach lining.

So ...
They're always accusing herbalists of 'quackery' despite many of their treatments never having been tested. They don't know that they don't work ... in the cases of several herbs there has been no clinical or in vitro trials to test whether or not they work but people on here are always squealing about quackery.

I never said I wanted to chew on a piece of willow bark. Even if I did, Aspirin tablets play havoc with my stomach so it wouldn't make any difference to me.

 

[Bronze Dog]

So ...
They're always accusing herbalists of 'quackery' despite many of their treatments never having been tested. They don't know that they don't work ...

There was a time they didn't know small doses of mercuric chloride didn't work. Deadly poison in large doses. Prescribed as a drug. As a result, the life expectancy of people who could afford "doctors" back then was lower than people who couldn't. That's why you have to know it works before you allow it to become a common practice.

Here's a general rule: If you don't know it works, test it under proper conditions. If you haven't tested it yet, don't use it. That's what evidence-based medicine is all about.

 

[Bronze Dog]

Rhetorical question: Do you buy cars from online websites before test driving them?

 

[jambo372]

What if you were dying and current conventional medicine couldn't do anything ?

eg You were alive before the advent of Quinine and other anti-malarial medications. You were dying of malaria.

You hear that certain Indian herbalists of the time are using Cinchona bark to treat malaria and people claim to have been cured by it. This however, is not proven by double blind trials.

Would you risk it and have a chance of surviving ? Or would you just leave it and die ? You have nothing to lose in this scenario.

 

[Bronze Dog]

What if you were dying and current conventional medicine couldn't do anything ?

eg You were alive before the advent of Quinine and other anti-malarial medications. You were dying of malaria.

You hear that certain Indian herbalists of the time are using Cinchona bark to treat malaria and people claim to have been cured by it. This however, is not proven by double blind trials.

Would you risk it and have a chance of surviving ? Or would you just leave it and die ? You have nothing to lose in this scenario.

Under those desperate circumstances, I might do so. However, I'm not desperate at the moment, so can think clearly: I'd research the matter, or at least find someone trustworthy to look on the matter. The problem is, without any research, that bark could very well be a deadly poison that would accelerate my malaria, and thus deprive me of my chance at saying good-bye to my family and find some last moments of peace. It could also be completely ineffective and deprive me of the money I'd rather give to them than waste on an ineffective treatment.

To me, "you have nothing to lose" is nothing but a buzz phrase used by frauds to get people to bet their life savings on a placebo, rather than give them to their family.

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/harmquack.html

Edit to add: If the doctors using that bark were conducting a double-blind control test, and medical theory suggested it might work, then I'd sign up. Quacks, however, are seldom interested in conducting such studies.

 

[Ashles]

You hear that certain Indian herbalists of the time are using Cinchona bark to treat malaria and people claim to have been cured by it. This however, is not proven by double blind trials.

Of course if Indian herbalists of the time acted like scientists and tried to find out which of their many herbal remedies had an actual effect, and which didn't, just think how many more lives could be saved.

 

[Chris Haynes]

Plants have been investigated for centuries for various things, including healing. Some research centers even had gardens for medicinal plants like this:
http://nnlm.gov/pnr/uwmhg/

Even now there is research on finding out if and how herbal medicine works: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_24145.html

There is even more information here: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/herbalmedicine.html

Also, just because it is "herbal" or "natural" does not mean it is necesarily good. You do NOT want to be making tea with these:
http://nnlm.gov/pnr/uwmhg/display.html?FILE=mhg97061017.jpg&SP_ID=d-purp or
http://nnlm.gov/pnr/uwmhg/display.html?FILE=mhg94020.gif&SP_ID=r-commun (actually mucking around with this bring "homeland security" to your door)... or

(by the way, follow the PubMed links given on many of the plants, it shows some interesting research).

Now here is where alt-med really fails:
http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2427218
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_2429229
http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2429234

(taken from comment on http://oracknows.blogspot.com/2005/04/tragic-story.html )

 

[H3LL]

As I understand it Jambo is saying that if it was used for generations by short-lived, uneducated, illiterate, ill-informed, superstitious people for generations it is OK for a supposedly educated person living in Scotland to take in it's original formulation.

None of that silly technology or testing needed. "If it's good enough for medieval villagers, it's good enough for me!"

Alexander the Great allegedly didn't do so well. Poisoned to death by uncontrolled doses from a natural herb.

I rarely see a skeptic that condemns the components of herbal medicine, as stated clearly above by Bronze Dog and Psi Baba. Much modern medicine is derived from either extracting or synthesising active ingredients from natural herbs and compounds. It is the uncontrolled administration and practices of herbalist that draws the criticism.

Asimov mentioned that the words that drive science forward are not "Eureka!", but "That's funny?" Discovering that some people claim that X herb removes Y symptoms should automatically lead to: What is the active component? What is removing symptom Y? How much is needed? Are other components of the herb dangerous/important? What is the best dose? Is it safe? Does it work? etc. etc....

Why an educated person would believe that the medicine, testing and practices used in the past by a uneducated population with a known shorter life-span than at present would be considered evidence to repeat their methods today escapes me.

Finally. Some time ago I was using an antihistamine drug which has been removed from the market as its side-effects were worse than the benefit.

Jambo, name me medicinal herbs that has been removed from the market for the same reasons.

 

[jambo372]

As I understand it Jambo is saying that if it was used for generations by short-lived, uneducated, illiterate, ill-informed, superstitious people for generations it is OK for a supposedly educated person living in Scotland to take in it's original formulation.

None of that silly technology or testing needed. "If it's good enough for medieval villagers, it's good enough for me!"

Alexander the Great allegedly didn't do so well. Poisoned to death by uncontrolled doses from a natural herb.

I rarely see a skeptic that condemns the components of herbal medicine, as stated clearly above by Bronze Dog and Psi Baba. Much modern medicine is derived from either extracting or synthesising active ingredients from natural herbs and compounds. It is the uncontrolled administration and practices of herbalist that draws the criticism.

Asimov mentioned that the words that drive science forward are not "Eureka!", but "That's funny?" Discovering that some people claim that X herb removes Y symptoms should automatically lead to: What is the active component? What is removing symptom Y? How much is needed? Are other components of the herb dangerous/important? What is the best dose? Is it safe? Does it work? etc. etc....

Why an educated person would believe that the medicine, testing and practices used in the past by a uneducated population with a known shorter life-span than at present would be considered evidence to repeat their methods today escapes me.

Finally. Some time ago I was using an antihistamine drug which has been removed from the market as its side-effects were worse than the benefit.

Jambo, name me medicinal herbs that has been removed from the market for the same reasons.

How can you remove herbs from the market ?

You grow them yourself. Just because a herb is banned it doesn't mean it isn't used eg Cannabis and Magic Mushrooms are illegal but everybody takes them anyway because they're so easy to come by.

 

[Bronze Dog]

How can you remove herbs from the market ?

You grow them yourself. Just because a herb is banned it doesn't mean it isn't used eg Cannabis and Magic Mushrooms are illegal but everybody takes them anyway because they're so easy to come by.

People should also stop using cell phones when they're driving. I don't know how to enforce that. That, however, doesn't stop the "should" from being true. Herbs that haven't been tested shouldn't be on the market as medicine.