Medical Genius thenoseknows asked this question but then blocks those of us who would answer in the negative. Since I'm not nutters like the alties who like to create multiple accounts, I couldn't work around that block. I then decided to just ask the same question but this time open it for everyone including Medical Genius thenoseknows and all his ilk.
Ready, set, go!
dave
Favorite Answer
The "Conspiracy Theory" is the last great refuge for the scientifically illiterate alties!
When their treatments are shown to be fake, their outrageous claims without validity, their monumentally ludicrous theories without substance, then they all retreat into the grubby paranoia of the unjustifiably persecuted:
"Oh woe are we! For shadowy forces suppress our truths (in all corners of the globe, on every level, constantly, without any breach of secrecy) and seek to suppress our great knowledge!"
When in fact all we have are a group of educationally-challenged crackpots who bring this paranoia onto themselves through a combination of taking art instead of science at school and being unquestionably gullible.
Anonymous
I was in clinical practice for over forty years. I kept up with developments all during that time. Still, I am no medical genius. I do realize, however, that there's no such thing as "alternative" medicine. There are only two kinds - medicine that works, and medicine that does not work. Proving that a substance or a technique is curative is a damn complex and demanding process - for many good reasons. When a proponent refuses the input of doubters, that's evidence enough for me that he or she is either lying or seriously misinformed.
JLI
Absolutely not. Even studies showing positive effects of CAM get published in high profile conventional magazines. I even remember one acupuncture study published in Journal of the American Medical Association (Doesn't get much higher than that), where the editors accepted the authors conclusion that sham acupuncture and real acupuncture were equally effective as treatment of patients suffering from migraine:
"Acupuncture was no more effective than sham acupuncture....although both interventions........ indicates that point location and other aspects considered relevant for acupuncture did not make a difference".
There is no way that acceptance of changing a placebo control group into a treatment (intervention) group in a high profile conventional medicine magazine can be part of a defamatory conspiracy towards alternative medicine.
Edit to add.
@ Fight the system...
You really don't have to be afraid of me. I am just a pathologist, and because of that I am causing loss of income to pharmaceutical companies on a daily basis (by issuing reports on evidenced basis saying that their drugs will not work - except for producing ugly side effects). Now please explain how a system that accepts positive results from altie studies, and even accepts changing of a placebo group into an intervention group is part of a defamatory conspiracy.
?
Not really a conspiracy. It's out in the open. Hello I am Angelhil, Alternative medicine does not have any value or medicinal effect.
I AM hoping that an end will be put to government funded alternative medicine. It's in the open
@ fight the system. "angel has no brain". . . No I'm . Um isn't.
?
There are individuals who demand a higher standard of evidence and plausibility for what should be considered medicine. If certain aspects of alt med are "defamed" along the way, it's merely a consequence and not the goal of these higher standards.