5 ms·

They let the homeopathy shit fly, not sure why they’d get involved in this. Nuke it all from orbit IMHO.

jiggawatts 5y ago
In an ideal world, all of the following should be flat out banned: Homeopathy. Crystal healing. Chiropractic. Herbal medicine. Chinese traditional medicine. Cupping. Acupuncture. However, this would upset a lot of people and reduce taxes collected, so... never going to happen.
- tartoran 5y ago
  While I know chiropractice is filled with quacks, some of it genuinely helps people. I’ve watched a series on youtube where people with very bad posture recover then are unrecognizablly much better after a few treatments and it’s quite authentic as well. I don’t think banning it would be a very productive endavor. Homeopathy is kindof a quack but placebo isn’t so if people swear by it let them be, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. The only solution is education. Who gets something out of education can get better odds but at the end of the day people will do what the believe is best for them. Covid conspiracy theories and the reluctance to vaccinate is a very good example on how stubborn people are. Spending resources to fight against that is not the best use of resources imo.
  - FastEatSlow 5y ago
    > While I know chiropractice is filled with quacks, some of it genuinely helps people That could be the Placebo effect, but my opinion is very much biased by my experience of quacks, it's sad to see older people fall for what quacks write. > The only solution is education. My friend's sister is a nurse, so I thought he'd be more educated about it. Turned out that he's terrified of it now from her stories about blood clots.
    - tartoran 5y ago
      Sure but not old people fall for it. Some are skeptical of quackery because they are either better educated or experienced enough to have the intuition they’re being led on. Others don’t and their gullibility will make them victims in many other areas. Education is the only possible help they could get. Banning whatever quacky things will only make them more desirable.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    Yes it's one thing to see a chiropractor for back pain or posture, quite another to believe that spinal adjustments can cure disease or infection.
  - meowface 5y ago
    Some of the techniques some chiropractors use are legitimate (whether or not the theories they believe about the techniques are), but the best thing to do is find a science-based physical therapist who also uses those techniques.
    - olau 5y ago
      I once went to a chiropractor with a bad lumbar. She started off x-raying my back to check if something was really bad (it wasn't), then did her little grappling knee chiropractor thing (which felt good), then proceeded to use an electric massage hammer to loosen up the muscles. After a couple of treatments, my back was back to normal. I found a stomach exercise program, and the extra training combined with much better awareness of the symptoms, which I think I got out of the whole affair, has kept me well since. I understand why you are saying what you are saying, I was there once too. But I think you're underestimating something. The chiropractor who treated me spent most of her time helping people with back pain. You could hear she had a pretty well-informed idea of what was wrong with my back, probably because she had seen hundreds of backs like mine before. And if you actually study what doctors and physical therapists are doing, a lot of it is 100% in the quack domain. For instance, they see one symptom and then immediately jump to a conclusion about it. I don't blame them. When I see people developing software, I can't say most of them are being very scientific either. Your therapist needs to have a good idea what's wrong with you, and effective means of getting to it. The actual theory they have in their mind is less important. I'm not religious or spiritual, but I believe my decision to go try the chiropractor was rational.
      - meowface 5y ago
        I'm sure there are plenty of ineffective doctors/therapists and plenty of effective chiropractors. I believe a genuinely scientific doctor wouldn't merely use heuristics and would use actual science and personal examination to determine the best way to treat someone's problem. I believe some who may who title themselves "chiropractor" possibly may be good at accurately diagnosing and resolving people's back issues, but with a chiropractor you take on additional risks, like risk that your chiropractor happens to be one of the many who believe all diseases stem from spinal problems and can be treated through spinal manipulation, along with many other pseudoscientific, untrue beliefs. It seems the best professional would be someone who titles themselves a doctor and attempts to be scientific and empirical, without believing anything about spinal issues causing all diseases, but who otherwise fits the description of the chiropractor you saw. It's true that someone with a false, unscientific theory may end up more effectively treating particular patients than someone else with a true, scientific theory, but someone who's both effective and has a true, scientific theory will surely be superior to the alternatives. I see no reason why a scientific doctor can't specialize in back pain, use x-rays, use the devices you mention, etc. I believe many do. Perhaps at that point it merely comes down to semantics of the title they use and the school they went to, but the pseudoscientific associations are so historically strong that it seems like it'd be a red flag that anyone would want to consider themselves a part of that profession in the first place. At the very least, you'd think they'd want to "fork" it and take the good parts and leave the bad parts. If I couldn't seem to find a doctor who meets those criteria I describe above, I'd possibly consider trying to find a chiropractor who seems to use a science-based approach, but only if I had no other choice.
  - jiggawatts 5y ago
    People say the same kind of thing about all of the others. "Traditional herbal medicine does help some people." isn't a good argument if it doesn't help most people and is downright harmful in a significant fraction of the cases.
    - tartoran 5y ago
      That last statement is also true for western medicine. Im not equating the two in no way btw but farmaceutucals have had their bad apples and caused lots of harm as well (definitely more good than harm, im not questioning that part). I wouldn’t personally reach out for chinese herb conctions but if some people swear by it let them have it.
      - jiggawatts 5y ago
        The problem is that some people swear by pangolin scales and rhino ivory.
- dunco 5y ago
  I used to have a similar outlook, but I have moderated it in recent years. These things should be regulated, but not banned. You should have hardcore warnings on them (like on aus cigarrettes for example) that state clearly that studies have shown these ingredients or procedures have been shown to be no different from placebo for whatever, or have low quality/few studies. I think you should even have QR codes that link to a page that summarizes the evidence for them and links to the primary source. vitamins etc should also be clearly separated from actual medicine in pharmacies. In the case of cigarretts in Australia, this strategy has been proven to be more effective than the comparable strategy of banning marijuana (more kids in aus have tried marijuana than cigarettes now) Banning these things can have several negative effects that probably harm the project of getting society to move away from this type of quackery. Firstly you cannot stop people from wanting these things by banning them, so you will create a black market for them which is less safe, and also opens up a funding stream for nefarious actors. Secondly, we should not close our minds to the fact that at some time in the future, it is a virtual guarantee that there will be some useful compound in, for example, some chinese medicine herb. if we snuff out all these practices, we deny ourselves one avenue for finding out about these compounds that we might otherwise simply not come across. Third, banning stuff gives ammo to conspiracy theorists: "they are banning it because they don't want you to have it because they know it works and doctors will be out of business" Go ahead and ban stuff that endangers near extinct animals, or maybe something that genuinely causes serious acute harm to a user, but generally I think its better to inform and regulate, rather than ban. You think you would be helping people but they don't want your help and they think you're trying to hurt them. Give them the info to work it out instead. Also, if some small girl wants to play an imaginary witch game with crystals, but all they crystals are banned, thats pretty sad to me. Chiropractors should not be able to call themselves Drs. though. should straight up be a crime.
  - noduerme 5y ago
    Agreed on all points (especially about chiropractors calling themselves doctors). One major driving force behind quackery seems to be the ability to assert that it's banned because it works so well it would put pharma out of business. But as we've seen from the dire warnings and non-banning of Ivermectin, these things can now burst into mass poisonings in a matter of days, much faster than any regulatory body let alone public messaging campaign can keep up.
- sgtnoodle 5y ago
  It's semantics, but I hope that you mean that, in an ideal world, those things wouldn't exist. There's nothing ideal to me about living in a global totalitarian nanny state. It's also not completely black and white. For example, the "science" behind homeopathy is absurd, and the medication is literally just water. That doesn't mean it can't be effective at treating someone's malady as a placebo, though. Little children with a sore throat may refuse to nap until they get "medicine". Many adults also struggle with accepting inaction as the best course of action. If paying someone to stab them with little needles lowers their blood pressure during a stressful time, then perhaps it was worth it?
- rajup 5y ago
  Agree with most of those, but I think herbal medicine may have some merits and should not be flat out banned. I mean tons of modern day medicine is plant derived...
- LocalH 5y ago
  At least two of those are not the quackery that you think they are, but rather should be a tool in the toolbox. Why should we throw out the historical knowledge behind natural medicine entirely?
  - jiggawatts 5y ago
    You'll find that if you do a survey, other people will also say some of them are not bullshit, but they won't agree with you on which two those are. That's the problem.
- alasdair_ 5y ago
  >Acupuncture Acupuncture is FDA approved for the treatment of certain types of chronic pain (and, I believe, asthma). It's not entirely bullshit.
  - jiggawatts 5y ago
    "Not entirely bullshit" treatments are my favourite kind of treatments -- far superior to the "mostly proven" treatments those quack doctors keep trying to force onto an unsuspecting public.
    - alasdair_ 5y ago
      Doctors can, and do, prescribe medications for off-label uses even if there is no proof that they work. Using acupuncture for an off-label use is the same thing.
kybernetyk 5y ago
It’s far worse: Homeopathic therapy is paid for by the German health insurance system. That’s how far this bullshit goes. Public money is spent on quackery. And you can’t vote with your wallet as health insurance is mandatory here.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

In an ideal world, all of the following should be flat out banned: Homeopathy. Crystal healing. Chiropractic. Herbal medicine. Chinese traditional medicine. Cupping. Acupuncture. However, this would upset a lot of people and reduce taxes collected, so... never going to happen.

tartoran 5y ago
While I know chiropractice is filled with quacks, some of it genuinely helps people. I’ve watched a series on youtube where people with very bad posture recover then are unrecognizablly much better after a few treatments and it’s quite authentic as well. I don’t think banning it would be a very productive endavor. Homeopathy is kindof a quack but placebo isn’t so if people swear by it let them be, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. The only solution is education. Who gets something out of education can get better odds but at the end of the day people will do what the believe is best for them. Covid conspiracy theories and the reluctance to vaccinate is a very good example on how stubborn people are. Spending resources to fight against that is not the best use of resources imo.
- FastEatSlow 5y ago
  > While I know chiropractice is filled with quacks, some of it genuinely helps people That could be the Placebo effect, but my opinion is very much biased by my experience of quacks, it's sad to see older people fall for what quacks write. > The only solution is education. My friend's sister is a nurse, so I thought he'd be more educated about it. Turned out that he's terrified of it now from her stories about blood clots.
  - tartoran 5y ago
    Sure but not old people fall for it. Some are skeptical of quackery because they are either better educated or experienced enough to have the intuition they’re being led on. Others don’t and their gullibility will make them victims in many other areas. Education is the only possible help they could get. Banning whatever quacky things will only make them more desirable.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Yes it's one thing to see a chiropractor for back pain or posture, quite another to believe that spinal adjustments can cure disease or infection.
- meowface 5y ago
  Some of the techniques some chiropractors use are legitimate (whether or not the theories they believe about the techniques are), but the best thing to do is find a science-based physical therapist who also uses those techniques.
  - olau 5y ago
    I once went to a chiropractor with a bad lumbar. She started off x-raying my back to check if something was really bad (it wasn't), then did her little grappling knee chiropractor thing (which felt good), then proceeded to use an electric massage hammer to loosen up the muscles. After a couple of treatments, my back was back to normal. I found a stomach exercise program, and the extra training combined with much better awareness of the symptoms, which I think I got out of the whole affair, has kept me well since. I understand why you are saying what you are saying, I was there once too. But I think you're underestimating something. The chiropractor who treated me spent most of her time helping people with back pain. You could hear she had a pretty well-informed idea of what was wrong with my back, probably because she had seen hundreds of backs like mine before. And if you actually study what doctors and physical therapists are doing, a lot of it is 100% in the quack domain. For instance, they see one symptom and then immediately jump to a conclusion about it. I don't blame them. When I see people developing software, I can't say most of them are being very scientific either. Your therapist needs to have a good idea what's wrong with you, and effective means of getting to it. The actual theory they have in their mind is less important. I'm not religious or spiritual, but I believe my decision to go try the chiropractor was rational.
    - meowface 5y ago
      I'm sure there are plenty of ineffective doctors/therapists and plenty of effective chiropractors. I believe a genuinely scientific doctor wouldn't merely use heuristics and would use actual science and personal examination to determine the best way to treat someone's problem. I believe some who may who title themselves "chiropractor" possibly may be good at accurately diagnosing and resolving people's back issues, but with a chiropractor you take on additional risks, like risk that your chiropractor happens to be one of the many who believe all diseases stem from spinal problems and can be treated through spinal manipulation, along with many other pseudoscientific, untrue beliefs. It seems the best professional would be someone who titles themselves a doctor and attempts to be scientific and empirical, without believing anything about spinal issues causing all diseases, but who otherwise fits the description of the chiropractor you saw. It's true that someone with a false, unscientific theory may end up more effectively treating particular patients than someone else with a true, scientific theory, but someone who's both effective and has a true, scientific theory will surely be superior to the alternatives. I see no reason why a scientific doctor can't specialize in back pain, use x-rays, use the devices you mention, etc. I believe many do. Perhaps at that point it merely comes down to semantics of the title they use and the school they went to, but the pseudoscientific associations are so historically strong that it seems like it'd be a red flag that anyone would want to consider themselves a part of that profession in the first place. At the very least, you'd think they'd want to "fork" it and take the good parts and leave the bad parts. If I couldn't seem to find a doctor who meets those criteria I describe above, I'd possibly consider trying to find a chiropractor who seems to use a science-based approach, but only if I had no other choice.
- jiggawatts 5y ago
  People say the same kind of thing about all of the others. "Traditional herbal medicine does help some people." isn't a good argument if it doesn't help most people and is downright harmful in a significant fraction of the cases.
  - tartoran 5y ago
    That last statement is also true for western medicine. Im not equating the two in no way btw but farmaceutucals have had their bad apples and caused lots of harm as well (definitely more good than harm, im not questioning that part). I wouldn’t personally reach out for chinese herb conctions but if some people swear by it let them have it.
    - jiggawatts 5y ago
      The problem is that some people swear by pangolin scales and rhino ivory.
dunco 5y ago
I used to have a similar outlook, but I have moderated it in recent years. These things should be regulated, but not banned. You should have hardcore warnings on them (like on aus cigarrettes for example) that state clearly that studies have shown these ingredients or procedures have been shown to be no different from placebo for whatever, or have low quality/few studies. I think you should even have QR codes that link to a page that summarizes the evidence for them and links to the primary source. vitamins etc should also be clearly separated from actual medicine in pharmacies. In the case of cigarretts in Australia, this strategy has been proven to be more effective than the comparable strategy of banning marijuana (more kids in aus have tried marijuana than cigarettes now) Banning these things can have several negative effects that probably harm the project of getting society to move away from this type of quackery. Firstly you cannot stop people from wanting these things by banning them, so you will create a black market for them which is less safe, and also opens up a funding stream for nefarious actors. Secondly, we should not close our minds to the fact that at some time in the future, it is a virtual guarantee that there will be some useful compound in, for example, some chinese medicine herb. if we snuff out all these practices, we deny ourselves one avenue for finding out about these compounds that we might otherwise simply not come across. Third, banning stuff gives ammo to conspiracy theorists: "they are banning it because they don't want you to have it because they know it works and doctors will be out of business" Go ahead and ban stuff that endangers near extinct animals, or maybe something that genuinely causes serious acute harm to a user, but generally I think its better to inform and regulate, rather than ban. You think you would be helping people but they don't want your help and they think you're trying to hurt them. Give them the info to work it out instead. Also, if some small girl wants to play an imaginary witch game with crystals, but all they crystals are banned, thats pretty sad to me. Chiropractors should not be able to call themselves Drs. though. should straight up be a crime.
- noduerme 5y ago
  Agreed on all points (especially about chiropractors calling themselves doctors). One major driving force behind quackery seems to be the ability to assert that it's banned because it works so well it would put pharma out of business. But as we've seen from the dire warnings and non-banning of Ivermectin, these things can now burst into mass poisonings in a matter of days, much faster than any regulatory body let alone public messaging campaign can keep up.
sgtnoodle 5y ago
It's semantics, but I hope that you mean that, in an ideal world, those things wouldn't exist. There's nothing ideal to me about living in a global totalitarian nanny state. It's also not completely black and white. For example, the "science" behind homeopathy is absurd, and the medication is literally just water. That doesn't mean it can't be effective at treating someone's malady as a placebo, though. Little children with a sore throat may refuse to nap until they get "medicine". Many adults also struggle with accepting inaction as the best course of action. If paying someone to stab them with little needles lowers their blood pressure during a stressful time, then perhaps it was worth it?
rajup 5y ago
Agree with most of those, but I think herbal medicine may have some merits and should not be flat out banned. I mean tons of modern day medicine is plant derived...
LocalH 5y ago
At least two of those are not the quackery that you think they are, but rather should be a tool in the toolbox. Why should we throw out the historical knowledge behind natural medicine entirely?
- jiggawatts 5y ago
  You'll find that if you do a survey, other people will also say some of them are not bullshit, but they won't agree with you on which two those are. That's the problem.
alasdair_ 5y ago
>Acupuncture Acupuncture is FDA approved for the treatment of certain types of chronic pain (and, I believe, asthma). It's not entirely bullshit.
- jiggawatts 5y ago
  "Not entirely bullshit" treatments are my favourite kind of treatments -- far superior to the "mostly proven" treatments those quack doctors keep trying to force onto an unsuspecting public.
  - alasdair_ 5y ago
    Doctors can, and do, prescribe medications for off-label uses even if there is no proof that they work. Using acupuncture for an off-label use is the same thing.

kybernetyk 5y ago

It’s far worse: Homeopathic therapy is paid for by the German health insurance system. That’s how far this bullshit goes. Public money is spent on quackery. And you can’t vote with your wallet as health insurance is mandatory here.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]