Author: Erik Fraunberger, M.Sc.
“The Natural Way”, “Treat Tennis Elbow Using Alternative Medicine”, “Can Homeopathy Cure Male Infertility?”
These are a few of the thousands of search results you will find when using the terms “natural”, “safe”, and “alternative medicine”. On the surface, these articles sound completely innocuous with little cause for concern. This is most likely true of the remedies that they offer; however their efficacy is still up for debate.
Let me be clear: I think there is a place for alternative medicine in healthcare. Conventional or Western medicine is not perfect. No academic or healthcare professional has ever claimed this to be the case. However, does this warrant the generation of a counter culturesque movement in the direction of non-Western medicine? While I humbly suggest ‘no’, that is clearly not the case for a large number of individuals who feel otherwise. The flow of money speaks to this very clearly: Americans are estimated to spend upwards of $34 billion dollars on alternative medicine every year. Given the large impact that alternative medicine has on the wallets and health of its users, it is important to critically evaluate its’ claims and find out which such things are harmless, harmful or anywhere in between.
A large portion of alternative medicine is based on the practices of 80% of the world who has little access to what we consider conventional medicine. This commonly involves interventions such as herbal remedies, meditation, and acupuncture. Often, these treatments are resorted to after Western medicine has failed or, in some more popular and contentious cases, as a first line of treatment in the face of illness. Without delving into each technique or treatment now, I would like to offer the following view for your consideration: it is not the therapies or treatments themselves that are dangerous per se (although this can be the case), it is the anti-conventional/Western medicine mindset that is generated by allowing these practices to continue under the guise of an individual’s right to choose that is dangerous.
Once again, I am not suggesting that all alternative medicine is inherently useless. After all, humans have managed to make use of the natural world to treat disease long before Big Pharma. In fact, many of our currently prescribed drugs are derived from plant based sources such as willow bark and sea anemones. What is most disturbing, however, is the widespread adoption of these alternative practices despite a lack of rigorous scientific research or even despite rigorous scientific research to the contrary. While it may be tempting to propose that little harm can be done by taking advantage of the placebo effect – receiving positive benefits from a treatment based upon your own beliefs and not objective evidence – is this really what we should be basing our healthcare decisions on? Do we want to take our chances and hope that a prescription works based on positive thinking alone and not repeatedly validated evidence?
I recognize that I have opened up many avenues for future discussion that I hope you will join me for; some of which you may feel uncomfortable with since it challenges your beliefs and way of thinking. If this is true, then I consider myself off to a good start! Until next time, I will compromise and leave you with a statement that we can all agree with: we must do more to dedicate more time to the research and understanding of the efficacy and safety of alternative medicine in a systematic and unbiased way. In other words, let’s do our best together to sort out the bunk from the brilliance that is hiding amidst the wide scope of alternative medicine!