Alternative Medicine

There are a lot of things that are prevalent in society today that I find appalling.  For example, almost half of Americans believe that Astrology works, and Rick Santorum, one of the leading Republican candidates for president of the United States, is in favor of theocracy (though he probably doesn't know there's a word for it, and he probably couldn't even spell it). But there's a problem I find more immediately disturbing - yes, even more disturbing than people not wanted the gubbermint's grabby hands in their healthcare because they love their Medicare too much (I know, it melts my brain, too).  I'm talking about "alternative medicine". 

There are so many reasons why I find the concept of alternative medicine stupid and/or dangerous, so I'll just stick to the biggest 3. 

First, and perhaps the most important, it doesn't work.  It doesn't.  Homeopathy, a common form of alternative medicine, works by the principle of dilution.  That is, a homeopath takes a medicinal herb or substance that often aren't even medicinal at all, puts it into a bowl, mashes it up and then dilutes it with water.  For some reason this is supposed to work better than real, undiluted medicine because... there's more substance in a homeopathic treatment?  It doesn't make sense.  There's also a thing called Faith Healing, where a preacherman asks god to cure people of illnesses of all kinds, from the flu to cancer to allergies (I'll deal with this again later).  People who experience these treatments often claim they feel better afterwards, and indeed, some people do get better. 

The explanations for these are numerous, but one is the placebo effect.  Basically, the placebo effect is when you get better just because you think you should.  These same results can be replicated by telling someone they're getting medicine, but really, they just got a sugar pill.  And no one thinks sugar pills should be a form of alternative medicine.  Also contributing to the rate of recovery after a faith healing or homeopathic session is the simple fact that people get better on their own.  It does happen!  All the time.  The effects of these treatments are almost never immediate.  They take affect the morning after a treatment, or two mornings after - and then the patient arbitrarily attributes their recovery to the alternative "medicine" they were treated with.  So, basically, alternative medicine doesn't work. 

Another thing that's wrong with alternative medicine - specifically chiropractic - is that it can kill, cripple or maim people.  Yeah, no joke.  Not only does it indirectly kill people by fooling them into thinking their problems are fixed, spinal manipulation can actually directly result in paralysis or death.  In one case, an infant boy was brought to a chiropractor after his parents noticed that he seemed to be constantly tilting his head.  The chiropractor popped the boy's neck and sent him on his way.  The next day, the boy was completely limp.  His parents returned him to the chiropractor, who performed the same procedure again.  The next day, the boy was paralyzed from the waste down, after the two chiropractic procedures ruptured a tumor that ran down the length of his spine - the real cause of his head-tilting - which caused severe nerve damage.  The chiropractor refuses to admit his treatment caused this problem, stating only that this could have been avoided by having the boy brought to his office sooner. 

There's also a type of alternative medical treatment called Ayurveda, which involved the ingestion of herbs or plants... that often contain up to 20% lead, arsenic or mercury.  Need I say more?  No, I don't, because we all know how dangerous those chemicals are.

Finally, and perhaps most appalling of all, is that many forms of alternative medicine is covered by Medicare.  Yes, that's right.  You can have your dangerous, valueless, and potentially deadly "medical" treatments paid for by the American taxpayers.  Yes, your tax money helps pay for people to have their nervous systems broken, their allergies cured (but only until they actually eat those peanuts) and their bodies pumped full of arsenic and mercury.  These treatments are scientifically proven to be not only unhelpful but dangerous!  Why are they covered by Medicare?  No, forget that!  Why are they even legal? 

...Maybe scientific illiteracy is a much larger problem than we realize...