Alternative Medicine, Alternative Facts
Alternative medicine has gained popularity amongst those who don’t believe their doctors really care about them. However, in a 2013 article by Liz Szabo In USA Today, Paul Offit, author of Do You Believe in Magic? The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine, shares the real story behind the trend. Szabo offers no external citations, implying that the source of her facts is solely the book, but Offit is a Doctor and the chief of the division of infectious diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, lending him credibility.
Alternative medicine is simply any form of healthcare not sanctioned by an official doctor, and ranges from herbal remedies and special exercises to dietary supplements and invasive medical procedures. 50% of Americans use some form of alternative medicine, and 10% use it on their children. Some of these treatments do provide beneficial health effects: for example, Tai Chi can help increase balance for those with Parkinson’s, and listening to favorite music increases the general well-being of intensive care patients.
Most of the supplements and medical procedures, however, are not worth the risk. Alternative medicine acts as a big business, trying to maximize profit and minimize regulation. Less than one third of alternative therapies have the safety data to back them up, and the FDA is not even required to approve supplements. The result is an overwhelming amount of dietary supplements that are either expensive placebos or contain drugs used to treat other conditions, sometimes drugs that have been discontinued due to their deadly side effects.
In addition to supplements, popular alternative treatments include intravenous antibiotics, which can unnecessarily increase the body’s resistance, infusing the blood with hydrogen peroxide, and chelation, a treatment usually reserved for treating heavy metal poisoning. These treatments have been used for everything from Alzheimer’s to lung cancer. One troubling example the article describes (without citation) is a 5 year old autistic boy, who was killed from an intensive chelation treatment (a tragedy made worse when one considers that autism shouldn’t require “treatment” anyway).
Why turn to alternative medicine at all, given the risks? Proponents say that doctors’ advice can’t be readily trusted, since they only spend a few minutes in the doorway and then move on to the next patient without even addressing emotional or spiritual concerns. As one advocate put it, if a placebo provides aid to people in need, who cares?
I agree with Offit, who claims that these pro-alternative medicine arguments are dangerous given the information available. Not only does the alternative medicine business fully understand the dubious nature of their treatments, but it makes more money the more people it deceives. A dependence on these alternative remedies can result in cases such as the 12 year old girl who was hospitalized for “chronic lyme disease,” a scientifically unproven illness, but who had real symptoms. It turned out that her mother made her take 80 dietary supplements per day, which were almost certainly the cause of her poor health.
Alternative medicine can be enticing for those who don’t trust doctors, who are hypochondriacs seeking relief for non-issues, or simply those who feel inadequately served by our healthcare system. The irony is that following these procedures can cause the very pain the patient is afraid of, leading to more procedures, and creating a vicious cycle. It would be in everyone’s best interests if the FDA were to approve supplements and treatments before they were released to the public. That way, actually healthy alternatives such as Tai Chi and meditation would still be readily available, and the snake-oil salesmen would be given a taste of their own alternative medicine.
