Shadow Minister

'Real medicine' doesn't exist. There is conventional or Western medicine that has benefits and shortfalls. There is alternative or complimentary medicine with advantages and disadvantages.

There is also freedom of choice. People choosing ANY form of therapy do so at own risk and must take the greater part of responsibility for the outcome - short of incompetence/negligence/misrepresentation by the Practitioner, regardless of the type of treatment.

In best scenarios there's clear cut diagnosis. Western medicine is way out front here. After that it's a case of weighing up options and evidence for what you consider the best outcome.

In many cases best and ONLY outcome is NOT going to be cure. It will be relief of symptoms, pain control, slowing disease progress and buying time, hopefully quality time.

Chemotherapy is far less of a saviour than you claim. It's an effective agent against many forms of cancer, while producing side effects ranging from mildly unpleasant to occasionally fatal. Mostly though, there is net benefit. However since chemo is often used in late stage or palliative treatment a great many people will not be saved but rather succumb to the disease.

Most 'seriously ill' people who turn to alternative medicine have been given little or no hope by conventional practitioners. I find stories of claims made by some 'healers' to be able to cure the incurable disturbing but what has the patient got to lose - other than their savings? Maybe a "No Win, No Pay" law needs to apply to these folks. There is a small minority who completely reject conventional medicine, occasionally to their detriment. Once again - choice and responsibility. Sometimes the outcome is good - better than western medicine could achieve.

Either which way both fields of medicine have their place. I have a conventional medicine background but life experience, an open mind, eyes and ears has taught me much more. I don't mind saying there are scenarios where I would think seriously about pursuing the 'alternative' course. Next post I tell a story of the death of 2 good friends ..... cont.

Two good friends died of cancer in past 6 years. One, male, 50 diagnosed with invasive lung cancer. Surgeons wouldn't operate as it had infiltrated pericardium and aorta. Palliative treatment was offered with life expectancy 6 - 12 months. Then he found a specialist willing to have a go.

Survived surgery to remove the diseased lung then Chemo and radium. Convalescence was very painful and protracted, Overall for the next 20 months he functioned at 20-40% capacity. The cancer reappeared in his brain and he underwent another surgery and further radium which left him an invalid. Cancer spread to the other lung and he died 7 months after that second surgery.

Friend #2, female, 54, stage 4 breast cancer. Offered chemo as palliative option. Life expectancy without treatment 3-6 months, with Chemo 12-18. After researching her options she decided on 'alternative", embarking on a strict organic vegetarian diet and 'snake oil' medicines under some old German Naturopath. At 6 months she looked and felt very good. Scans showed marked decrease in some tumours and several small ones were undetectable. Susan continued her regime and over another 18 months there was further regression of the cancer. During this time, she felt well and functioned 100%, including spending 4 months travelling overseas. Around this 2 yr mark the cancer returned quite aggressively. She considered chemo but decided side effects were not worth any extra time it might buy. At this stage she still felt well. Further 'natural' potions failed to halt progress and she began to deteriorate, eventually passing away after a relatively short period of major debilitation - less than 3 weeks.

Comparing quantity and quality of life given that both had recieved almost identical prognosis, I ask myself what course I would choose in a similar situation. Both survived similar lengths of time, Susan a couple of months longer, but quality compared with Charles was chalk and cheese. He spent 2 years 3 months living less than half a life. She spent her last 2 years 5 months living large.

No right or wrong answers!

John, Have you heard of the Chester Wilks trial? The AMA had violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act, and had engaged in an unlawful conspiracy in restraint of trade "to contain and eliminate the chiropractic profession." (Wilk v. American Medical Ass'n, 671 F. Supp. 1465, N.D. Ill. 1987). The judge found the "AMA had entered into a long history of illegal behavior" issuing a permanent injunction against the AMA under Section 16 of the Clayton Act to prevent such future behavior.

How about we adopt Richard Dawkins philosophy that "there is no alternative medicine, there is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't work."Perhaps we can set about to find out why it works, rather than denying it does without investigation. I acknowledge that you & your colleagues see patients that have had poor care from pursuing "alternative" care; however we see the disatisfied end products of the medical system which offers no help or worse, causes iatrogenic illness and death by the thousands each year.

If you want a level playing field, it must be level for all modalities. It seems all other practices must be held up to biomedical paradigm, which therein lies the problem…who made this the right and only way to practice healthcare; the exclusive basis for knowledge and practice? How did therapies that are the most widely used in the world such as botanical medicine (herbs) and acupuncture that has been available for thousands of years become the “alternative”. The playing field for research is not even in terms of dollars spent, however there are practices that work and have evidence and those that work and don’t yet have evidence, but let us not discard those in the latter category. Let us be sure too that a restriction of trade mentality is not creeping in.

Yes we have different paradigms, both have significant shortfalls and strengths - but can we get the focus off bashing each others professions and instead put the energy effort and money into helping people with their health, after all that is why we all do what we do

It is a good thing that our mechanics are better at their job than are our doctors, otherwise most of us would be walking everywhere. Granted mechanics can pull more bits out of their "patient" & still have it work when put back together, but they don't have the huge array of expensive machines to look inside their patient, while it is still working, if badly, that doctors have

I have not had a single doctor do anything useful for my back. They have ordered scans, X rays & such, but offered no help but pain relief.

On the other hand I have had only one chiropractor do anything good for it either, but for me he was like a miracle worker. So that's chiropractor one, doctors nil.

But then the cardiologists have treated me for a number of heart attacks so well, that, apart from the now minor operation of opening up a near blocked with a stent, they had me fixed in minutes.

Doctors one Chiropractors one.

So I guess it boils down to choosing the right ailment, one that the profession actually know something about.

I am a business person...no leaning to or hobbyhorse about western or alternative medicine. A few degrees and very good at research.
The FSM has taken me and colleagues with no interest in this area, in one step to totally opposing the FSM ! The arrogance that this group of academic medics show in inferring they own truth and knowledge in this knowledge economy is astounding. Who do they think they are? We pay for your salaries, departments, conferences and all the trappings out of our taxes-and you think you can tell Universities what is true knowledge and what isn't. What unbelievable arrogance. Like a new Inquisition?
Even a cursory search of papers into problems with medical research and western medicine and evidence based medicine show you radically need to get your own house in order. You also need to accept that science research is not just your interpretation of it- medical research mainly uses pseudo scientific research compared to real science disciplines ! It ignore heaps of variables related to life. There are also many other paradigms of researching evidence.
This group is a danger to the freedom of Universities to choose what they teach.Imagine one branch of Psych or Physics saying another branch cannot be taught in a University....or maybe you want to ban next Theology or Islamic Studies..or even aboriginal studies.... because of lack of (your type of) evidence... And don't say you are protecting consumers-what a laugh....consumers are already voting with their feet in terms of choices about Medicine and health. The consumer fundamentally has lost trust in many areas of Western medicine...they see it as a "sell out" in medical research to the careers of academics on one hand and BigPharm on the other. Thats your problem. But please don't claim you are scientists doing this, because we don't want science to be tarnished with your approach.

Dear John,
So it must be about time for mental health and depression to now be classed the same as alternative or complementary medicine then? Since scientific research show less side-effects and better treatment outcomes from a well known magnesium supplement. When some of the usual SSRI tablets are proven to increase suicide risks and according to science they often fail to work for many patients at all.
How is this based on science? Or is this the real nonsense?
Wasting money on unproven science & failed treatments does need to stop, but a patient should have the right to choose whatever treatment they decide on based on the facts both positive and negative I think it is called informed consent?