Posted by Klavot on March 26, 2007, at 11:06:27
In reply to Re: correction » Squiggles, posted by Larry Hoover on March 26, 2007, at 8:52:26
> With respect to your assertions vis a vis morbidities associated with the two realms, standard and alternative medicines, there is no comparison at all. I know of no deaths attributed to anything but intentional overdose associated with any alternative product, except those cases associated with contaminants arising from the greed of fast-buck operators (e.g. kava kava products with hepatic toxins, the contaminated tryptophan from the early 90's). Contrast the latter with Internet drug sellers, if you want a valid comparison. A woman just died in B.C. from Internet anxiety meds. Mainstream alternative medicine is safer than mainstream medical science, IMHO, and by a great margin. Consider the withdrawal of Serzone due to fulminant liver failure. Yet, that is still listed as a side effect, rather than a toxic effect. Semantics influence the comprehension and interpretation of the event. We allow pharmaceutical drugs to have side effects, yet we assert toxic effects to nutrients. That's bias, plain and simple.
Perhaps there are very few sequelae and mortalities in orthomolecular medicine simply because very few people actually use true megadose quantities of micronutrients. If millions of people had to start taking intravenous Vitamin C at doses of 150 g / day, as some orthomolecular therapists advocate, I suspect things might be different.
I agree that orthodox treatments have more side-effects and carry greater risks than alternative treatments. But this argument does not factor the greater efficacy of orthodox medicine. I believe that given two populations, one of which uses exclusively orthodox medicine and the other using exclusively alternative medicine, the population using orthodox medicine would have a far superior health profile. It is misleading to suggest that alternative medicine is safer than orthodox medicine. It's like saying vitamin C has fewer side-effects than chemotherapy and then trying to demonise chemotherapy for having so many side-effects. Yet it is the cancer patient receiving chemotherapy who has the greater likelihood of survival, rather than the patient opting for Vitamin C supplementation.
Klavot
poster:Klavot
thread:744072
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20070320/msgs/744336.html