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NHS approves use of quack medicine
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
well this isnt the story itself, but basically the NHS will fund prescriptions for magnetic bracelet things despite the fact it's unproven they even have an effect
which has a link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4582282.stm
bloody idiots
oh and its a waste of money imo :banghead:
which has a link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4582282.stm
bloody idiots
oh and its a waste of money imo :banghead:
0
Comments
To undermine such stuff for those who benefit from it without also explaining the process and what else they can do is flat out cruel.
If someone really believes in rubbish, and you take it away from them, what are you leaving them with, if no known drug is effective?
Pretty much every medical student is ahown how belief can override physiology in some way, be it someone sneezing at flowers that are plastic or cancer patients "spontaneously" recovering. Some people can even go to the dentist and need no anaesthetic, they feel what they want to and no more, no less.
And don't forget, according to science, no one should take aspirin, because they don't always work. Some people who take aspirin drop dead.
you cant operate an honest medical system with placebos thoguh since it relies upon deception
Hehehe. Sillyness. More money wasted.
If someone feels better, whether it is proven to have an effect or not, why not have it? After all if it is improving someones health what is the problem? Even if it only psychological health and not physiological.
Placebos are proven to work, and I imagine they are in use; the fact that they are not spoken of being used means the deception is working....
Honesty < helping people to get well.
Apart from that, you're wrong, some people get well even though they know they have placebos. How fucked up is that?
I don't care. I just want healthy, happy people.
because it promotes bad business and gives money to peopel for doing nothing when there are people trying to honestly help people for the good of everyone and not defraud people of their money - that's why
faith doesnt justify funding quacks imo
One is quack medicine - which can sometimes work, because belief moves mountains and the other is who pays for the installation of that belief.
I am in favour of quack medicine if it works, because it works when nothing else does.
I am in favour of the NHS because theft < keeping people alive.
I can see why you'd be less than thrilled paying for stuff that you have no idea will work.
'Nuff said.
Yup. The NHS is a valuable thing. It should exist... you shouldn't have to pay for life... so its a lose situation either way. You pay for a saftey net you may never use... or you have nothing there if you need it. I'd go for the first.
If quack medicine works, and sometimes it does (They have given people "tablets" that were nothing, and they got better)... then fair enough.
Sorry, who says that they will?
The story says nothing about it so where did you get that information?
Homeopathy anyone?
The problem is that the same strong belief in the placebo that provides relief too often leads to people believing that only the alternative therapy works and rejecting normal, evidence-based medicine.
There'd be no point in yanking the last shreds of hope away from terminally ill patients, but I think the more irresponsible practitioners of alternative therapies should be cracked down on hard and there's no way the NHS should pay for any of it, that'd set a dangerous precedent that'd lead to fat paycheques for life for every crystal-waving charlatan within a thousand miles.
That's true. Theres also the problem the other way, with a total rejection of anything that hasn't been "Dr." approved. Neither's good imo.
Having someone on pills forever and persuading them to not look for alternatives to a lifetime of drugs is both self serving and wrong.
I agree. But theres a problem. Let's take crystal wavers, for example. Apparently certain crystals "emit" a certain frequency that can be beneficial to people. This is the commonly held belief by those who use them and ther clients.
The fact that it's utter, utter bollocks because light bounces and the eye removes all except an objects colour to make sense of it really is neither here nor there. For some people it still works because they believe it will and are totally ignorant of how the eye works.
Rather oddly, paying for it on the NHS would give it more credence and make it more likely to work, because it's a hypnotic effect as much as a placebo.
should we pay those african charm people that advertise around my area who claim they can cure cancer?
Exactly. If there are methods that are shown to work better then they should be used first. If you have an otherwise totally hopeless case, wheres the harm in trying some voodoo? At least your not just giving up.
"I'm sorry Mrs. Parkinson, my scientific journal says your as good as dead, let's just go pick a coffin right now and save you the heartache of trying to hold onto life." Try and beat any serious illness with that kind of attitude.
"I'm sorry Mrs Jones, we couldn't afford a new radiography machine to treat your cancer, we used the budget up paying the voodoo lady".
That's why you go with what works most often.
Which means the NHS should be handing out placebo's by the bucketful, because they always work.
and im not suggesting we do this do this either just so you know, i think many doctors are too willing to hand out pills for nothing however in some situations its necessery
if people believe too much in quack medicine you could have situation in nigeria, where families split their HIV retroviral drugs amongst their family instead of the person prescribed them, taking them solely which by the way makes the drugs 100% ineffective, and makes the virus far more dangerous and resistant to drugs
lets not forget the local 'witchdoctors' who tell them to have sex with a baby to cure them :mad: which actually happens a lot in a few parts of sub saharan africa
Agreed. It's worth remembering that on occasion, today's quack medicine is tomorrow's accepted doctrine, and today's accepted doctrine is tomorrow's quackery.
Leeches anyone? Maybe some mercury in your shoes? How about a full frontal lobotomy for your hallucinations? How about we seperate your two hemispheres with a commissurotomy to "fix" that schizophrenia?
And so on. Perhaps there should be a debate about what actually constitutes "quack" medicine. The stage hypnosis employed by the baptist screamers in the deep south of the US does actually "cure" some of those who get slapped on the forehead. Testify!
maggots are used by the NHS i know about, mainly because they do only eat dead tissue so can be used to do exactly that, but thats a proven clinical benefit
and i haven't denied some doctors act according to social mantra at the time, as can be seen in the field of psychiatry, which personally in my opinion is a load of quack most of the time, since most of their patients need to learn to deal with how they feel and accept that noone feels great and that there is only so much drugs can do, such as give a person dampened emotions (as anti-depressants do) so they can start to make some changes in their lifestyle and how they think to improve themselves since it is 'their' brain
strangely enough these people had 'pioneering' treatments liek the lobotomies gave fantastic research results in what parts of the brain control what functions
show me someone who was cured by the way by those weird southern usa people
Yup. Exactly. Proven benefit.
Do you mean "no one feels great all the time"?
Oh yeah, the objective appraisal of the disaster that was lead to some good things, but let's not make the mistake of saying that meant it was a good thing in itself. A lot of what happens in the brain is also the result of people surviving accidents as well.
What am I? Google?
well i cant find any indepednantly verified claims!
You won't find anything disproving them either.
You wouldn't get a peer review within a hundred fucking miles of a revivalist preachers tent, and it's not because it might not work either!
It's because the idea of investigating "quack" remedies is in itself laughable to a certain mindset. There are few genuinely open minds about the issue. On the one hand you have those who make their living out of it who are never going to admit it's all bullshit, for two main reasons -
1) Unconscious competence. Some people naturally have very good "cold reading" skills but mistake this for psychic ability. Some people are naturally hypnotic.
2) Those who know they are fraudsters don't like it when you go poking about their little discipline.
And in the established medical profession, it's all dismissed as quackery out of hand, with no further investigation needed.
www.quackwatch.com