Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Prince Charles’s ideas about medicine may seriously harm your health
http://health.spectator.co.uk/prince-charless-ideas-about-medicine-may-seriously-harm-your-health/"We tend to think of alternative medicine as a colourful array of therapeutic methods. However, this ignores the fact that alternative practitioners also use a range of diagnostic tools which would bewilder every conventional physician. These alternative diagnostic methods have grown out of the different traditions of alternative medicine and are therefore are extremely diverse. Yet they have in common that they have either not been validated or, in case they have been tested, they have been found to be invalid.
Non-validated diagnostic methods run an unacceptably high risk of producing false positive or false negative diagnoses; with invalid methods, the risk turns into certainty. A false positive diagnosis is a diagnosis that the patient in question is, in fact, not suffering from. Such a scenario is, of course, a most welcome ‘carte blanche’ for every charlatan; it enables him or her to cash in on treating something that is not even there. A false negative diagnosis is much more dangerous; it means missing an existing disease, and that might even threaten the patient’s life.
In addition to false positive and false negative diagnoses, we also encounter invented diagnoses. By this term I mean conditions that are pure fantasy and have been invented by practitioners mostly in order to keep the cash flowing into their bank accounts. Chiropractors, for instance, go on about ‘subluxations’ which are a complete myth, and acupuncturists speak of yin or yang deficiencies which have no basis in reality.
More than 20 years ago, I published a review evaluating the evidence for or against alternative diagnostic techniques entitled ‘Which craft is witchcraft?’. Its conclusions are as true today as they were then: ‘…alternative’ diagnostic methods may seriously threaten the safety and health of patients submitted to them. Orthodox doctors should be aware of the problem and inform their patients accordingly.
..."
----------------------------------------------------
15 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Against snake oil scam artists.
While I've had numerous subs in my ribcage and my spine is growing another spine (big bone spurs), the majority of my dislocations have been in my shoulders, elbows, fingers, knees, hips and feet - never my vertebrae.
When I was younger and my joints were far more unstable, I was fortunate to know "old school" bone crackers who merely put my joint back in place and did not claim I could be cured of anything by spine manipulation. That may be why I don't hate them the way I do homeopaths; unlike homeopaths, I think it's possible that some few chiros are doing some few people some good. That number may be counted on both hands; my faith is not great 
In the largest sense, I do agree with you.
Yikes!
