Posted by Larry Hoover on March 26, 2007, at 11:37:26
In reply to Re: correction, posted by Klavot on March 26, 2007, at 11:06:27
> > 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.Orthomolecular is not synonymous with megadose. Quite the contrary. First coined by Pauling, it was originally defined as "the right molecule, in the right dose". He later expanded the meaning to "the treatment of disease by the provision of the optimum molecular environment, especially the optimum concentrations of substances normally present in the human body" or as "the preservation of good health and the treatment of disease by varying the concentrations in the human body of substances that are normally present in the body and are required for health."
> 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.
Considering the proper definition of orthomolecular medicine, this then becomes a straw man argument. Millions of people would not be candidates for such treatment.
> 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.
Please permit us to reach different conclusions. Moreover, this dichotomy is really a false dilemma, as orthomolecular medicine does not exclude pharmaceuticals, and conventional medicine does not preclude the precepts of orthomolecular practise.
> 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.
Orthomolecular approaches are best seen as complimentary practises. It needn't be seen as an either/or proposition.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:744072
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20070320/msgs/744348.html