The
better we conventional doctors handle a problem, the less you’ll read about
“alternative” treatments. Your local health food store doesn’t sell an herbal
remedy for appendicitis. Don’t laugh. Until a century ago victims died after
weeks of agony. Then we discovered that snipping off the appendix (something
any bright high school student can do) cured it. This is one of many genuine
medical miracles we take for granted. Some of us remember the herpes panic of
the late seventies. The AIDS panic that followed overshadowed it, but Time
magazine and Newsweek published cover stories on herpes, and the New York Times
described it as the twentieth century bubonic plague. Alternative remedies were
everywhere, not a few sold by entrepreneurial doctors. Then a good drug
appeared, and the market for herpes cures dried up.
On
the other hand, doctors don’t do so well treating obesity, arthritis, aging, or
senility. If you want a superb treatment that conventional doctors ignore,
check the internet or a bookstore. You’ll find plenty.
Many
alternative healers are M.D.’s like me. They have names like Deepak Chopra and
Andrew Weil and Mehmet Oz. They agree that scientific medicine has much to
offer but insist that it is merely one of many routes to healing.
They
assert that it’s equally important to tap our spiritual energies, maintain a
healthy optimism, promote natural healing with balanced and pure nutrients
available through their web sites, and keep an open mind to cures wrought by
eastern religion, nonwestern medicine, and pioneering researchers ignored by
the establishment.
It
is my belief that this is not true and that they are quacks. In my opinion (my
lawyer insists that I add this). But as someone convinced that science is the
road to truth, I’m obligated to present evidence. So….
I
write an obscure blog. Weil, Oz, and Chopra write bestsellers. My books never
sold much (I’ve written five, all commercially published). There are no ads on
my blog. Weil, Oz, and Chopra have plenty. They sell wonderful stuff on their
web sites. They appear on TV all the time. No one asks for Doctor O.
It
doesn’t look good for me.
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