medical professionals who believe that healthcare should be based on treatments validated by science view the very term “integrative medicine” as a path to introduce unproven or disproven therapies into medicine. UC Irvine has hewed very close to that line in relation to an earlier gift from the Samuelis, which was used to fund a center at the university that actually offered homeopathy to patients. (The mention of homeopathy disappeared from one of the college’s web page after I asked about it; but a naturopath on the staff is still promoting homeopathy under the UC Irvine imprimatur even now.)
yeah. Read the whole thing. It's quackery.
When I got an "Audiodigest" tape pushing this nonsense I actually complained (and apparently other docs did too, because they emailed me back thanking me for my 'opinion').
Hopefully this will get a "headsup" from the NYTimes Health editor who tend to push this trendy pseudoscience.
and not noted in the article: These practitioners tend to attract a cerain type of person who is open to these magical ideas.
placebo, suggestion, and hypnosis do work on 30 percent of people:
about the same percentage of people who test high or moderately high on the neurological test for ability to be hypnotized.
The "art" of medicine is in the sympathy that we docs bring to our care, and in the "laying on" of hands: because the comfort and sympathy helps even when we can't "help".
But notice that this type of "medicine" tends to stress New Age ideas like "meditation" or similar scams like Reiki, yoga or acupuncture? (the last two are included because they often stress the religious aspects on patients.. yes you can do yoga exercises for back pain, but if the teacher starts talking about awakening your kudalini point you know it's religion).
This is religion: and what disturbs me is that we docs are not supposed to push our religious beliefs on people.
When I did stress control or advise folks on coping, I took my patient's belief system into consideration.
Quiet Bible study, saying the rosary, spending an hour in "Eucharistic adoration", doing art or music, having a "Sing" or traditional ceremony or having the local prayer group pray over you all are ways that people integrate their souls, minds and bodies in times of stress and illness.
But these aren't part of the curriculum. I wonder why (/sarcasm).
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awhile back I referred to the "Black Legend" of Spanish atrocities.
TeaAtTrianon links to a post at CountingStars with the facts that the legend ignores.
and of course, the epidemics, not atrocities,, that killed people were not deliberately spread by the Spanish soldiers who, like everyone in those days, had little knowledge of how disease is spread. (athough the British, not the Spanish, gave gifts of smallpox infested blankets).
Remember that in 1512, when the first news of mistreatment of the Indians, King Fernando II signed the Laws of Burgos that considered Indians “free men” and the obligation to pay them a fair wage for their work. In 1542 the Emperor Carlos V dictated the New Laws, which expressly prohibited the submission of Indians to slavery and forced labor. To this we must add that between the Spanish population and the Indians there was a great miscegenation, even among the nobles. On the contrary, in British North America, the miscegenation between colonists and Indians was almost non-existent, and the Indians were robbed of their lands and confined to reservations, which did not occur in Spanish America. (Read more.)
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letter in LATIMES:
This country has no use for John Kelly's nostalgia
because respecting those who die to defend civilians from terrorists is soooo yesterday.
As I pointed out a few days ago: Often patients and their families are angry and upset, so they mis hear what you are trying to say, and turn their anger on you, the healer, not on the disease or cause of the death (in this case, some very bad terrorists who attack local civilians in the area).
AnneAlthouse points out that
If we make it too hard to talk to a person in dire circumstances, a lot of people will play it safe and not speak at all.
From "Half Empty" by David Rakoff (who was facing the cancer treatment of amputation of his left arm and shoulder):
But here’s the point I want to make about the stuff people say. Unless someone looks you in the eye and hisses, “You fucking asshole, I can’t wait until you die of this,” people are really trying their best. Just like being happy and sad, you will find yourself on both sides of the equation many times over your lifetime, either saying or hearing the wrong thing. Let’s all give each other a pass, shall we?
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eu plans to ban another weedkiller because it might cause cancer.
Chemicals often have subtle adverse effects. But banning them might cause more problems.
Is there an alternative that is cost effective, or will it result in higher food cost and less food available, both of which will cause poor people to starve?
so how many will die of malnutrition related disease vs how many will die (at a much older age) of cancer? CNN report here says they found 800 cases that might be associated with the chemical... the number of people dying of poverty related malnutrition because there is enough food around, but they can't afford to buy it?
it is sort of like the massive arsenic poisoning of Bangladesh: They dug deep wells to eliminate cholera and other causes of diarrhea that killed thousands every year, but the ground water has arsenic and that is the major problem.
but by eliminating diarrhea, a major cause of death in small children, it means moms are now willing to use birth control and have more kids, and since they have fewer kids, they can afford to send them to school... and Bangladesh is slowly eliminating poverty.
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great books podcast of the week: The Gulag Archipelago
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Instapundit links to
NYTimes the Long War on Polio.
it is still going on, ,and remember: the Taliban and other Islamicist types kill those trying to wipe it out. Not because they want the kids to die but because they read "anti vaccine" articles in the UK Guardian etc and believe the non scientific Hollywood types that push these ideas.
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