Cult Medicine and the Evil, Middle class
October 26th 2009 12:40
The problem with complementary and holistic medicine is that the people who administer it are often starry eyed cult members who lack sufficient objectivity. Before you tempeh chomping fun runners screech in horror, or if you’re a pill popping pharmacy type, caw in emphatic agreement, I am not saying that holistic medicine is rubbish. In fact, there is ample evidence to suggest that special diets, acupuncture, osteopathy and meditation are excellent treatments for stress, pain and lifestyle diseases. Unfortunately, the treatment is often delivered with a manipulative lecture, from a convert with more religious zeal than a Mormon after her first door knock success.
C Lander, controversial blog author in Stuff White People Like seeks to explain the popularity of holistic medicine in his post number #59, “Because of a rather shady history, white people do not trust the pharmaceutical industry.” He’s got a point. Allopathic (modern, i.e. hospitals and GP stuff, sometimes narrowly called Western) medicine does not always treat the whole patient and traditionally, has been fraught with prejudice. An example is Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). Doctors first used a derivative from the amniotic fluid of cattle to in 1929 to ameliorate symptoms and also stop women losing their femininity. This escalated to the widespread prescription for menopausal drugs with research funded by biased (and patriarchal) pharmaceutical companies, citing benefits such as keeping one’s husband faithful as well as relieving hot flushes. “If oestrogen deficiency’s a disease, all men have it!” Dr. Susan Love famously declared as the women around the world suddenly switched to herbal options when HRT’s dangers hit headlines around the world in 2002.
Modern medicine is not been perfect. However, rejecting all notions of evil “Western” medicine in a dangerous cult-like dedication landed Thomas Sam, 42, and his wife Manju, 37, jail sentences for manslaughter of their eczema-stricken daughter in May 2002.
Thomas Sam, a homeopath, refused any other modality to treat his infant daughter’s eczema. Instead of taking her to a specialist, he took her to India for homeopathic treatment. Upon returning, he still hesitated, before the ninth day, the couple took their daughter to the Sydney Children's Hospital at Randwick. Baby Gloria was described as "incredibly sick" with a "massive eroded rash" and "grossly malnourished". She was given morphine for the pain and treatment for the melting corneas of her eyes, however it was too late and Gloria died.
Pharmaceutical medicine stems from homeopathy and most pharmaceutical medicines are actually concentrated plant compounds and not chemicals as many people assume. Common sense prevails that if problem such as eczema is severe, a specialist doctor should be consulted. Homeopathy could be great for mild conditions and in conjunction with traditional treatment but an extreme devotion to a modality in spite of all the signs it is not working, is madness and in the eczema stricken girl’s case, murderous.
Osteopathy students at Lismore learn that businesswomen often are out in a particular back bone and pelvis from the way they stand. This piece of information could be potentially useful in identifying maladies in clients. However, the university’s reasoning for the cause this problem has no foundation, to the extent of being ridiculous, belonging on the horoscope pages of a magazine as far as scientific credibility is concerned. The lecturer used the common postural patterns and problems of corporate women as evidence that women are not ‘natural’ managers, that is, an authoritive stance is not their natural way, inferring perhaps that women are naturally nurturing and cooperative and should stand, say open armed and loving. How about a likelier explanation: any manager position would involve a high level of stress, and as women managers have wider hips than males, they might have a different manifestation of their muscular tensions?
The notion that the East is deep and spiritual and the West is ego-centred and materialist and evil ruins credibility of a number of health magazine articles. Even the ones with concrete scientific facts seem to let ideology get in the way of letting the facts do the work. It is this sloppy journalism and field work that will seek to undermine situations and funding for complementary medicines that are actually of some merit. It is this used car salesman-like promises of a cure of allergies, HIV and cancer that preys on the sick whom are willing to try any cure that undermines the moderate, practical and probable methodologies which might be of great use to a wider proportion of the population if properly examined.
As Neo-Darwinist zoologist Richard Dawkins put it: “There is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn’t work.”
C Lander, controversial blog author in Stuff White People Like seeks to explain the popularity of holistic medicine in his post number #59, “Because of a rather shady history, white people do not trust the pharmaceutical industry.” He’s got a point. Allopathic (modern, i.e. hospitals and GP stuff, sometimes narrowly called Western) medicine does not always treat the whole patient and traditionally, has been fraught with prejudice. An example is Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). Doctors first used a derivative from the amniotic fluid of cattle to in 1929 to ameliorate symptoms and also stop women losing their femininity. This escalated to the widespread prescription for menopausal drugs with research funded by biased (and patriarchal) pharmaceutical companies, citing benefits such as keeping one’s husband faithful as well as relieving hot flushes. “If oestrogen deficiency’s a disease, all men have it!” Dr. Susan Love famously declared as the women around the world suddenly switched to herbal options when HRT’s dangers hit headlines around the world in 2002.
Modern medicine is not been perfect. However, rejecting all notions of evil “Western” medicine in a dangerous cult-like dedication landed Thomas Sam, 42, and his wife Manju, 37, jail sentences for manslaughter of their eczema-stricken daughter in May 2002.
Thomas Sam, a homeopath, refused any other modality to treat his infant daughter’s eczema. Instead of taking her to a specialist, he took her to India for homeopathic treatment. Upon returning, he still hesitated, before the ninth day, the couple took their daughter to the Sydney Children's Hospital at Randwick. Baby Gloria was described as "incredibly sick" with a "massive eroded rash" and "grossly malnourished". She was given morphine for the pain and treatment for the melting corneas of her eyes, however it was too late and Gloria died.
Pharmaceutical medicine stems from homeopathy and most pharmaceutical medicines are actually concentrated plant compounds and not chemicals as many people assume. Common sense prevails that if problem such as eczema is severe, a specialist doctor should be consulted. Homeopathy could be great for mild conditions and in conjunction with traditional treatment but an extreme devotion to a modality in spite of all the signs it is not working, is madness and in the eczema stricken girl’s case, murderous.
Osteopathy students at Lismore learn that businesswomen often are out in a particular back bone and pelvis from the way they stand. This piece of information could be potentially useful in identifying maladies in clients. However, the university’s reasoning for the cause this problem has no foundation, to the extent of being ridiculous, belonging on the horoscope pages of a magazine as far as scientific credibility is concerned. The lecturer used the common postural patterns and problems of corporate women as evidence that women are not ‘natural’ managers, that is, an authoritive stance is not their natural way, inferring perhaps that women are naturally nurturing and cooperative and should stand, say open armed and loving. How about a likelier explanation: any manager position would involve a high level of stress, and as women managers have wider hips than males, they might have a different manifestation of their muscular tensions?
The notion that the East is deep and spiritual and the West is ego-centred and materialist and evil ruins credibility of a number of health magazine articles. Even the ones with concrete scientific facts seem to let ideology get in the way of letting the facts do the work. It is this sloppy journalism and field work that will seek to undermine situations and funding for complementary medicines that are actually of some merit. It is this used car salesman-like promises of a cure of allergies, HIV and cancer that preys on the sick whom are willing to try any cure that undermines the moderate, practical and probable methodologies which might be of great use to a wider proportion of the population if properly examined.
As Neo-Darwinist zoologist Richard Dawkins put it: “There is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn’t work.”
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