Salvation Is At Hand!

[oneplusme]

A quango is to be established to regulate "alternative therapists". They can even be struck off the (voluntary) national register for incompetence.

I can't help but wonder how one could possibly be an incompetent homeopath. Actually giving people medicines? Still, now we need no longer fear that our ear-candlers will be unable to identify the

Comments

[tinyastronomer]

I think you might be being a little too skeptical here. There are different levels of alternative therapy, which are pretty hard to distinguish between, and I assume this covers them all (though the article is not clear). I think that most scientists can agree that homeopathy is placebo (though a big fat placebo that works is not to be sneezed at, ahem). At the other end of the scale, not many people would argue against the benefits of massage... but what about the stuff in the middle? Things like aromatherapy and acupuncture are going to have actual chemical or mechanical effects on the human body, and who are you to say that they can't be beneficial for health? I'm not arguing that they should be available on the NHS, or anything like that, but some small level of consumer protection so that people don't get poisoned or anything while they spend their own money on trying some of these therapies seems reasonable.

[oneplusme]

I'm not the one saying they're not beneficial - the total lack of clinical evidence is what says they aren't beneficial. Yes, placebos can be a good and useful thing, but I'd submit that we can produce them much more cheaply than, for example, funding a Royal Homeopathic "Hospital".

Fundamentally, yes, it's a free country, and people have to be free to spend their money on whatever they particularly feel like doing to (or having done to) themselves within rather broad limits. However, the practitioners of such things should absolutely not be allowed to claim non-existent medical benefits for their products and services.

[tinyastronomer]

I agree with the last part. No advertising should be allowed to claim things which are not true. In almost all cases, though, complementary therapies are sold by patient testimonies, and people can interpret those as they will.

Hang on... which therapies do clinical evidence state are not benficial? How far are you going here? Massage, Yoga, Pilates, Alexander Technique? I'm prepared to believe that ear candles and modern homeopathic treatments have 0 effect, but I think the complementary therapy umbrella covers a lot of things which clearly are beneficial.

[oneplusme]

Yoga and Pilates seem generally to be advanced as forms of exercise, which is entirely reasonable; massage as a form of relaxation. No problem.

My issue is with those who claim that diseases can be cured by mystical means which strangely disappear whenever tested under proper experimental conditions. If someone comes up with a technique - acupuncture, intercessory prayer, or whatever - then it should be tested the same way as any other drug or clinical technique. If it produces results then great! Let's find out how it works. If it doesn't, rather than continuing to claim that Evil Masculine Western Materialist Science is conspiring against its proponents, we should do as we do for anything else - give it up as a bad job and try something elseIt's not so much the pseudo-spiritual baggage that I object to (although it grates on me, people can do what they like in the privacy of their own homes) as the vast waste of time, effort, money and brainpower that it all represents. Instead of exploring new things which at least have a

[pm215]

I think it would be useful to have enough regulation to ensure that all alternative therapists can identify actual serious stuff and insist that the patient goes to a real doctor (ie that they know the limits of their placebo).

[oneplusme]

Surely it would be simpler to merely suggest people talk to an actual doctor in the first place? Eliminate one useless level of indirection.

[tinyastronomer]

Hmmm... I think electrobadger might be right. The problem here is simply semantics. If they were called "complementary therapies" rather than "alternative therapies", ie something to supplement actually seeing a doctor, something to deal with minor problems, stress-related problems, etc, would you actually have a problem with it? The only issues are in cases of people who might actually think these therapies can be used to treat serious illnesses. Please note that I do not subscribe to the notion that these things should be available on the NHS or through any institution claiming to be medical.

I do think that a lot of people suffer from stress-related disorders of various types, and that some of these therapies can be useful in dealing with minor afflications relating to stress... which can, if not addressed, grow into more major ailments.

[oneplusme]

Stress, depression, and psychological issues in general are a far trickier area. It really doesn't seem that we actually understand the basics of many of these things terribly well at present. With mental conditions one might well intuitively expect that the patient's belief in the treatment could well be at least as significant as the method itself.

In the end, though, scientific technique is the one tool we have with which to approach the issue. So no, I don't object to trying such things. We should absolutely test them to see if they work.

My objection, as I indicated above, is really the continuance of things which are known to be worthless, and the refusal to subject others to rigorous testing (or to accept the results thereof when they turn out negative).