What’s The Harm?

That’s often the fallback of woos when the lack of evidence for their claims is exposed – “what’s the harm?” The desperate last argument goes something like, “OK, maybe there’s no evidence for [brand of woo], but what’s the harm in believing it?” Of course, it’s a red herring - paint the skeptics as mean for arguing against their harmless woo, and they can escape having to admit their woo is nonsense.

Of course, woo does cause harm. Just ask Mark Klass or the parents of Shawn Hornbeck, for example. Or the police who are forced to waste time chasing the lame guesses of “psychics” such as Allison Dubois. Don’t forget the time wasted by the authorities looking for Elizabeth Smart’s dead body where the PsiTech fraudsters claimed it was buried.

So called “alternative medicine” might not harm people directly (homeopathy’s only water, after all), but when it causes people to adopt quackery in place of the real medicine that could save their lives, it does do harm.

As I’ve said before, all skeptics should have responses such as the above, ready.  The Skeptics' Dictionary has a What's the harm? archive that is worth consulting.  Now there is also a website called What’s The Harm? It aims to record the numerous instances where woo has actually verifiably caused harm. As they say, “2,427 people killed, 117,711 injured and over $115,461,902 in economic damages”. I think the $902 at the end is pretending a degree of accuracy that isn’t really there, but minor niggles notwithstanding, it’s a great resource.

The site is pretty new and is of course a work in progress. If you have any examples, the webmaster would love to hear from you. The strength and success of this site in my view, will be in submissions they receive from readers, so please consider sending them any cases that you are aware of. Please read their criteria, and check first that the case you’re submitting isn’t already there. Also, include citations to support your case – it is a skeptics’ site, after all. The webmaster has the following tips, if you feel like being proactive and searching for some additional cases with The Google:

Tip 1: Simply combining the name of some form of woo with the word "died" or "injured", often gets amazing results. For example, "naturopath died".

Tip 2: Use the archive search on Google News.  You can search older news at Google. There are tools there to limit the year as well.

Tip 3: Please check the site to see if I already have the case! No sense wasting your time on something I already have. However, if you find a link that is better than the link I'm using on a given story, feel free to send that in.

Tip 4: Pick a category I don't have many cases in. If you don't have a favorite form of woo that you would rather concentrate on, browse the whatstheharm.net topics list and pick a topic I have under 20 cases in. (There are a bunch). This makes it easier to avoid having to scroll through stories I already have while searching.

Tip 5: If you have non-web resources available, use them. Anybody have access to Lexis/Nexis or other non-public databases? Many news web sites cycle their stories very quickly. I've had some of my links go stale just in the four months I've been doing this. But those pay databases keep everything. I'm thinking the same search techniques that I mention above might work well there.

Given time I expect the number of cases included to be huge.

Of course, some woos will argue that, for example, real medicine can also cause harm, medical mistakes are made, wrong medications prescribed etc. That’s of course true, but real medicine also has a benefit and so there is a risk / reward trade off. Woo has no benefit and so there is no risk / reward trade off, only risk / risk. This site aims to quantify some of that risk, and certainly shows that woo does, in fact, cause harm.

Comments

[Dom]

I'm more interested in the ethical harm done by woo practitioners. Even if a brand of woo is completely safe, even if the woo-artist only treats terminally ill patients, even if real medicine has nothing it can do for the patient, there's still harm being done, isn't there?

On what basis can I claim harm is being done? False hope? Self interest on the part of the wooer? Disservice to truth?

I think it's an interesting question. I was confronted by it recently, when a family member suggested that there was no harm in giving a dying man one last glimmer of hope with psychic surgery.

[Bronze Dog]

I'd say the harm in those circumstances comes in the form of wasted time and money. Some people spend all of their time and money on false hope, rather than make arrangements for inheritance and giving closure to relationships.

Still more harm could come from setting a bad example. Accidental anecdotes could result from natural spontaneous remission followed by misattribution of cause.

[genewitch]

you read my mind. On the xkcd forums, someone said "i think my friend is joining a cult" and then said it was homeopathy. the argument was made "but it doesn't hurt anything"

Here, this should be a link to my reply, i quoted you, with link. I got a "hear hear" from a MOD of the board. I think case closed, skeptico. the point was proven (i hope everyone clicks through!)

xkcd forum post

See, you can change people's minds :-)

[genewitch]

also i back-linked them to this post, since it's on topic. Fair?

[Atheist]

Hello hello.
Would like to contact the webmaster of "whats the harm", but couldn't find any mail address, how do we get in touch with him/her?

I agree with Dom, I think the biggest harm is the degradation of the ability to think when allow ourselves to fall into these not-so-critical things.
To stop thinking critically is to make yourself vulnerable to abuse, both in terms of health, money, morals etc.

Something I think about a lot is why so many people are prone to believing in God, an after life etc.
Is it some mechanism that evolved in humans so that we would be better at coping with traumas? For example, imagine someone you really love dies. It must be hard to move on with the knowledge that you will never meet them again. I wonder whether I will begin believing in an afterlife when someone really close to me dies.

I still believe that it is mostly harmful to believe in something just because you want it to be true real badly, even though it may help people cope once in a while. But it fascinates me to see so many (sometimes very intelligent) people doing this. Could it be an evolutionary trait or something?

p.s. excuse the bad English, its not my first language.

[Skeptico]

webmaster AT whatstheharm.net

[debbyo]

Atheist says “I wonder whether I will begin believing in an afterlife when someone really close to me dies.”

I always wondered too. Then my young brother died. All my family suddenly started talking about god and heaven and that we would see him again when we die. My mother dragged us all to people who could speak to the dead. And I sat mute listening to messages supposedly from my brother, while my family cried with joy. It was the hardest time of my life, not only because of the death but because, no matter how alone I felt in the grieving (because I thought he was really gone so could not be comforted by their beliefs), I could not bring myself to protest in the midst of such grief. I couldn’t do it. But I still didn’t believe - as much as I wanted to. I did comfort myself with the truth that our loved ones continue to live as long as we remember them. And perhaps longer. Through the effects their character had on people who effect others and so on. Not much comfort to the dead I suppose. But an incentive to live a good life.

[junglelove]

"So called “alternative medicine” might not harm people directly (homeopathy’s only water, after all), but when it causes people to adopt quackery in place of the real medicine that could save their lives, it does do harm."

Alternative therapies such as chiropractic and structural integration have tangible, real benefits. Why must all alternative medicine be condemned?

Also, as I'm sure many of you know conventional medicines are frequently procured from nature and come from the same places that alternative medicines do.

A large part of (specifically so called first world countries) society looks at health care in "I have this problem, so I'll take this pill." The pill in turn, treats the symptom and not the cause. For example, patients with scoliosis will often have a steel rod surgically placed next to their spine so as to keep it straight (brilliant "real medicine" if you ask me...) Of course, this fixes the issue, but also impedes the lateral, flexion, and extension movements of the spine. However, the "woo" structural integrator would be able to address and solve the problem by integrating the skeletal and fascial systems of the body.

So I got a little bit off topic, and I'm sorry about that, but not really. I am too a skeptic, but I'm instantly skeptical when something is entirely dismissed.

[Skeptico]

Skeptico replies to junglelove

Re: Alternative therapies such as chiropractic and structural integration have tangible, real benefits. Why must all alternative medicine be condemned?

Evidence that it does please, for anything but mild back problems.

Re: Also, as I'm sure many of you know conventional medicines are frequently procured from nature and come from the same places that alternative medicines do.

So what?

Re: A large part of (specifically so called first world countries) society looks at health care in "I have this problem, so I'll take this pill." The pill in turn, treats the symptom and not the cause.

At least it treats something. Unlike alternative treatments that do nothing.

Re: For example, patients with scoliosis will often have a steel rod surgically placed next to their spine so as to keep it straight (brilliant "real medicine" if you ask me...) Of course, this fixes the issue, but also impedes the lateral, flexion, and extension movements of the spine. However, the "woo" structural integrator would be able to address and solve the problem by integrating the skeletal and fascial systems of the body.

Again, evidence please.

[Jimmy_Blue]

Alternative therapies such as chiropractic and structural integration have tangible, real benefits.

I'd like to add to Skeptico's call for evidence with a call for you to let us know the mechanisms by which they work. How, exactly, do you align the body in/with a gravitational field? Which gravitational field?

Just give us the mechanisms and proofs for intelligent energy, chi, body-gravity realignment, spinal subluxation, kinesiology and their specific effects on illness, pain and mobility and you'll have the beginnings of a point about the two alternative medicines you refer to.

Otherwise what you meant in that statement is that rubbing people makes them feel better. Well, duh.

Why must all alternative medicine be condemned?

Because all alternative medicine is, as far as we can tell so far, bunk. That's why it is alternative medicine and not medicine.

Also, as I'm sure many of you know conventional medicines are frequently procured from nature and come from the same places that alternative medicines do.

Hardly a ground breaking revelation or an endorsement of alternative medicine. Of course, arsenic, cyanide, and any number of poisonous plants are also procured from nature and come from the same places that alternative medicines do.

A large part of (specifically so called first world countries) society looks at health care in "I have this problem, so I'll take this pill."

Damn this tired old canard pisses me off.

What you mean is that the US medical system, in your biased opinion, thinks that way. The European health care systems don't. China certainly doesn't. India certainly doesn't. Africans don't. In fact, most of the world doesn't think the way you describe. Try a different woo cliche.

The pill in turn, treats the symptom and not the cause. For example, patients with scoliosis will often have a steel rod surgically placed next to their spine so as to keep it straight (brilliant "real medicine" if you ask me...)

I'm sorry, are we talking about pills or implants? Regardless, this is another boring woo canard. Does penicillin treat the cause or the symptom? Antibiotics? How about quinine?

However, the "woo" structural integrator would be able to address and solve the problem by integrating the skeletal and fascial systems of the body.

So you'll have evidence of this and proof of the mechanism by which this works, won't you? And proof that it works more effectively and consistently than the current medical treatments?

I am too a skeptic, but I'm instantly skeptical when something is entirely dismissed.

Apparently you seem to have some other definition of skeptic that nobody else uses. One that means "If I doubt the people who demand stringent standards of evidence, reason and logic, that makes me a skeptic."

So, you're instantly skeptical when I entirely dismiss the idea that the moon is made of cheese? That the Earth is the centre of the universe? When I entirely dismiss the existence of Unicorns, Leprechauns, Satyrs, dragons, Thor, Zues, Beholders, Ambuls, the Chaos god Nurgle?

That doesn't make you a skeptic. It makes you an idiot.

[Bronze Dog]

The reason I don't endorse "alternative medicine," better referred to as quackery, is the same reason why I don't have a car powered by the Steorn alleged perpetual motion machine.

Quackery doesn't work under strict test protocols.

Steorn doesn't work under strict test protocols.

Why would I trust something in the field if it doesn't work under basic test conditions?

[junglelove]

Jimmy-

"What you mean is that the US medical system, in your biased opinion, thinks that way. The European health care systems don't. China certainly doesn't. India certainly doesn't. Africans don't. In fact, most of the world doesn't think the way you describe. Try a different woo cliche."

I'm not sure how this comment proves me wrong, however in any case, I would say here that you're right. The examples you give however are of regions or countries that include the alternative therapies you detest into their health care systems.

"So, you're instantly skeptical when I entirely dismiss the idea that the moon is made of cheese? That the Earth is the centre of the universe? When I entirely dismiss the existence of Unicorns, Leprechauns, Satyrs, dragons, Thor, Zues, Beholders, Ambuls, the Chaos god Nurgle?"

These examples can't even be compared to something like alternative medicine which includes numerous modalities which have not yet been tested. Unfortunately, not all alternative therapies can even be tested. But we can research evidence on the existence of unicorns.
---

I appreciate the need for hard scientific proof. I think it's favorable and useful, but it is true that alternative therapies are rarely tested under scientific test conditions. Why? I'm sure you'd say because it's bunk to begin with, and I might say because those who fund such testing are invested in conventional medicine, but this isn't the intent of my argument.

In my knowledge of alternative medicine, the realm's ultimate goal is to bring responsibility of one's personal health, back to the individual and away from the doctor. You might respond by saying "Duh, we already know that, we don't need alternative medicine to tell us." However, many people have shifted their health into the hands of their doctors.

I believe that health care needs to be a balance between preventative/alternative medicine as well as conventional medicine. There is a place for both. I've seen miraculous recoveries in health due to both and see no reason to relegate a large part of humanity as idiots simply because they have seen or experienced benefits offered by alternative care.

http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH?d=dmt
Content&c=362156&p=~br,IHW|~st,24479
|~r,WSIHW000|~b,*|

this link is a bit about structural integration. note the limited studies.

http://www.foxvalleyrolfing.com
/clients/46887/965241_sta.gif

before and after images of SI work.

[Skeptico]

Skeptico replies to junglelove

Re: These examples can't even be compared to something like alternative medicine which includes numerous modalities which have not yet been tested. Unfortunately, not all alternative therapies can even be tested.

Then how do you know they work?

And how were they originally derived?

Re: I appreciate the need for hard scientific proof. I think it's favorable and useful, but it is true that alternative therapies are rarely tested under scientific test conditions.

Wrong. They are frequently tested under scientific test conditions. The trouble is, they usually fail the tests.

Re: I believe that health care needs to be a balance between preventative/alternative medicine as well as conventional medicine.

You make two errors here:

1) You’re equivocating by implying preventative and alternative medicines are the same, and that “conventional” is not preventative. This is dishonest nonsense. Any “conventional” doctor will advise you to lose weight, stop smoking etc, all of which are preventative. Likewise vaccines are the definition of preventative. “Alternatives" for the most part do not work, so they cannot be preventative.

2) There is no such thing as “conventional” and “alternative” medicine. There are medicines where there is evidence that they work and medicines where there is NO evidence that they work and/or evidence that they don’t work.

Re: I've seen miraculous recoveries in health due to both and see no reason to relegate a large part of humanity as idiots simply because they have seen or experienced benefits offered by alternative care.

No, you think you have seen such things. People like you who think they have seen these things are not necessarily idiots, but they have been fooled.

Oh, and I note the lack of studies in your links. Nothing to support your earlier claims, as I had asked you to do.

[JC]

"I might say because those who fund such testing are invested in conventional medicine, but this isn't the intent of my argument."

Anyone can fund a test.

OK, it isn't cheap, but if you have the money it is pretty easy. Big Alt-Medicine isn't as big as Big Pharma, but they aren't short of cash. For some reason they don't choose to spend that money on high quality scientific research. I wonder why...

[Bronze Dog]

For some reason they don't choose to spend that money on high quality scientific research. I wonder why...

I wonder why they're always campaigning for more special exceptions that let them avoid all the sorts of tests we require for the pharmaceutical companies... who are making a pretty penny by branching out into quackery, since it's so much cheaper to promote products that don't require testing.

[Jimmy_Blue]

junglelove:

I'm not sure how this comment proves me wrong, however in any case, I would say here that you're right.

It shows you're wrong because you claimed that:

A large part of (specifically so called first world countries) society looks at health care in "I have this problem, so I'll take this pill."

I showed that actually a large part of society does not look at health care in the way you claim.

The examples you give however are of regions or countries that include the alternative therapies you detest into their health care systems.

Really? Because this claim would contradict your earlier claim that specifically so called first world countries think about health care in terms of pills and problems.

Why is it that proponents of woo can't make an argument without contradicting themselves or other fans of woo?

Now, please elucidate on what you mean by include the alternative therapies you detest into their health care systems.

Do you mean simply that alternative medicine is legal and practiced? - well that would include the USA, again contradicting your statement about pills and problems.

Do you mean that it is funded by national health care systems? - well perhaps you need to look at how the national health care systems (particularly in Europe) are designed and what they are required to provide.

Furthermore, you will need to show that these health care systems (again particularly those of Europe) use alternative medicine with the same regularity, purpose, efficacy, funding and standards as conventional medicine. On top of that, you will need to recognise that there is a movement in at least the British NHS to stop funding and including alternative medicines.

NHS trust stops homeopathy funds
Doctors renew drive to ban NHS homeopathy

Are you saying that alternative medicine makes a healthcare system better? Really?

Life expectancy, all figures from the WHO website:

USA
Life expectancy at birth m/f (years): 75/80
Healthy life expectancy at birth m/f (years, 2002): 67/71
Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 8
Probability of dying between 15 and 60 years m/f (per 1 000 population): 137/81

United Kingdom
Life expectancy at birth m/f (years): 77/81
Healthy life expectancy at birth m/f (years, 2002): 69/72
Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 6
Probability of dying between 15 and 60 years m/f (per 1 000 population): 101/62

France
Life expectancy at birth m/f (years): 77/84
Healthy life expectancy at birth m/f (years, 2002): 69/75
Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 5
Probability of dying between 15 and 60 years m/f (per 1 000 population): 128/58

Portugal
Life expectancy at birth m/f (years): 75/81
Healthy life expectancy at birth m/f (years, 2002): 67/72
Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 5
Probability of dying between 15 and 60 years m/f (per 1 000 population): 139/59

China
Life expectancy at birth m/f (years): 71/74
Healthy life expectancy at birth m/f (years, 2002): 63/65
Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 27
Probability of dying between 15 and 60 years m/f (per 1 000 population): 155/98

India
Life expectancy at birth m/f (years): 62/64
Healthy life expectancy at birth m/f (years, 2002): 53/54
Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 74
Probability of dying between 15 and 60 years m/f (per 1 000 population): 280/207

South Africa
Life expectancy at birth m/f (years): 50/52
Healthy life expectancy at birth m/f (years, 2002): 43/45
Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 68
Probability of dying between 15 and 60 years m/f (per 1 000 population): 598/532

Egypt
Life expectancy at birth m/f (years): 66/70
Healthy life expectancy at birth m/f (years, 2002): 58/60
Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 33
Probability of dying between 15 and 60 years m/f (per 1 000 population): 237/155

Nigeria
Life expectancy at birth m/f (years): 47/48
Healthy life expectancy at birth m/f (years, 2002): 41/42
Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 194
Probability of dying between 15 and 60 years m/f (per 1 000 population): 461/421

Malawi
Life expectancy at birth m/f (years): 47/46
Healthy life expectancy at birth m/f (years, 2002): 35/35
Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births): 125
Probability of dying between 15 and 60 years m/f (per 1 000 population): 599/602

Want me to go on?

These examples can't even be compared to something like alternative medicine which includes numerous modalities which have not yet been tested.

Comparing them to alternative medicine is not what I was trying to do, don't change the subject. You stated: I'm instantly skeptical when something is entirely dismissed. Don't try and equivocate now that you realise how ridiculous your original statement was.

Unfortunately, not all alternative therapies can even be tested. But we can research evidence on the existence of unicorns.

Why, don't the effects of alternative therapies exist? Are you actually saying that people don't get better from alternative therapy? Then why use it? If there is an effect, it can be tested. Did you ever have a science lesson, ever? If you can research the evidence for something which does not exist, why can't we test alternative therapies?

You really are tying yourself in knots.

I appreciate the need for hard scientific proof.

Obviously not.

I think it's favorable and useful, but it is true that alternative therapies are rarely tested under scientific test conditions.

Really? Try doing a search on PubMed, then come back and reassert this claim. Just because you don't like the results, doesn't mean there were no, or few, tests.

I'm sure you'd say because it's bunk to begin with, and I might say because those who fund such testing are invested in conventional medicine, but this isn't the intent of my argument.

Actually I'd say something like:

Really? Try doing a search on PubMed, then come back and reassert this claim. Just because you don't like the results, doesn't mean there were no, or few, tests.

And then I might add something like:

But despite your claim that the research isn't funded because of Big Pharma (how original) there still seems to be a veritable shit load of said research being done. Now, just to really prove your woo credentials, contradict your claim that there is no research because it would have to be funded by Big Pharma by saying all the research is biased by Big Pharma funding it. Go on.

In my knowledge of alternative medicine, the realm's ultimate goal is to bring responsibility of one's personal health, back to the individual and away from the doctor.

What a brilliant idea. People with no fucking idea what they are talking about should make life or death decisions. Wow. How could I not be confident in alternative medicine?

However, many people have shifted their health into the hands of their doctors.

I know, its a crazy idea to let people who know what they are doing give you advice, treatment and help. It's just insane.

When I want to fly, I design, build and fly the plane myself or I let people who claim they can make me fly by channelling energy get me where I need to go. It's so conventional to leave it to aircraft designers, aeronautical engineers and pilots.

Let me re-iterate the unanswered questions:

How, exactly, do you align the body in/with a gravitational field? Which gravitational field - the one generated by the table or bed the patient is lying on? The one generated by the person administering the treatment? The one from the sun? The earth? The super massive blackhole at the centre of the galaxy? Phobos? Europa?

Just give us the mechanisms and proofs for intelligent energy, chi, body-gravity realignment, spinal subluxation, kinesiology and their specific effects on illness, pain and mobility and you'll have the beginnings of a point about the two alternative medicines you refer to.

Does penicillin treat the cause or the symptom? Antibiotics? How about quinine?

So you'll have evidence of this (SI) and proof of the mechanism by which this works, won't you? And proof that it works more effectively and consistently than the current medical treatments?

Come on, you woos aren't even trying anymore.

[junglelove]

This was enriching.

Honestly, the personal evidence I have of SI is simply in the results that recipients of the 10 series have claimed. Stories and photos of the amazing changes they have seen in their bodies. (Such work deals with aligning the body to its most efficient state by lengthening fascia and equalizing the tension in opposing muscle groups, among other things. http://www.rolf.org/about/index.htm) Clearly you want scientific proof, and there is very little. So since you all are so good at finding it, go for it if you think it's worth your time.

In terms of shifting responsibility to the individual from the doctor... I didn't mean to imply all responsibility. I meant some. You (Jimmy_Blue) conveniently omitted the following statement I made: "I believe that health care needs to be a balance between preventative/alternative medicine as well as conventional medicine." If you believe that an individual can't take responsibility for taking care of their body without a doctor, then I really don't know what to say. Of course, we need doctors in situations in which one has no clue, but I wouldn't go to the doctor for a simple cold. Some of us may though, I surely can't speak for everyone.

Either way, my intention was never to change anyone's mind, or have my own changed. I was just wondering why all alternative medicine was deemed quackery, and now I know. Would love to continue this online debate, but I honestly don't have the time.

Thanks skeptics. Sincerely.

[Jimmy_Blue]

junglelove:

This was enriching.

In what sense? You have clearly learned nothing and accepted nothing from what we have said.

Honestly, the personal evidence I have of SI is simply in the results that recipients of the 10 series have claimed.

Personal anecdotes based on subjective claims from self-deluded people are good enough for you then?

Such work deals with aligning the body to its most efficient state by lengthening fascia and equalizing the tension in opposing muscle groups, among other things.

Again, what exactly does this mean? What is the most efficient state? Why does your definition appear to differ from others?

I meant some. You (Jimmy_Blue) conveniently omitted the following statement I made: "I believe that health care needs to be a balance between preventative/alternative medicine as well as conventional medicine."

I omitted it because it contradicts/clashes with your earlier statements. Thanks for calling attention to it though.

If you believe that an individual can't take responsibility for taking care of their body without a doctor, then I really don't know what to say.

We live in a society where people are more unfit than they have ever been because of personal choices the individual makes. We have never before in the history of human society had more health information available to us, and yet individuals are more obese, lazy and unfit than they have ever been in human history. However, we live longer because of modern conventional medicine. Because of doctors, nurses etc.

You tell me junglelove, when people sue McDonalds because they became obese from eating McDonalds, who is taking responsibility for their own health? And who warned of the dangers of eating McDonalds?

Regardless of all this though, where did I say that I believed individual's need doctors to take care of their body? Look up the definition of a strawman argument before answering.

Of course, we need doctors in situations in which one has no clue, but I wouldn't go to the doctor for a simple cold. Some of us may though, I surely can't speak for everyone.

What does this have to do with anything?

Either way, my intention was never to change anyone's mind, or have my own changed.

My emphasis added. You admit you had no intention of changing your mind, but you claim you are a skeptic. And woos have the cheek to call us close minded.

Would love to continue this online debate, but I honestly don't have the time.

In other words, I don't want to have to think in depth about what I believe and to defend it rationally, so I'll just continue to delude myself because it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. I don't want to change my mind.

[Skeptico]

Skeptico replies to junglelove

Re: Clearly you want scientific proof, and there is very little.

Not proof, no. Just evidence. But you don’t have any.

Re: So since you all are so good at finding it, go for it if you think it's worth your time.

Your claim. You back it up. It’s not our job to validate your claims.

Re: You (Jimmy_Blue) conveniently omitted the following statement I made: "I believe that health care needs to be a balance between preventative/alternative medicine as well as conventional medicine."

And you (junglelove), conveniently ignored my complete rebuttal of your statement. It was here. Just after I wrote “You make two errors here:”

As you ignored my questions:

1) If not all alternative therapies can even be tested then how do you know they work?

2) And how were they originally derived?

And I’ll now add, from the other points you ignored:

3) Alternative therapies are frequently tested under scientific test conditions. The trouble is, they usually fail the tests. Why do you think that is?

4) Aren’t “conventional” doctors’ advice such as lose weight, stop smoking etc – aren’t these preventative? Likewise, aren’t vaccines preventative?

5) If you have no evidence that “alternatives" work, how can you claim they are preventative?