Why do the Sceptics Slander, Insult & Spread Lies/Propaganda in the Alternative Medicine Section?

Question

Why do Sceptics of Alternative Medicine swamp the Yahoo Answers Alternative Medicine section, and insult, intimidate and perpetuate medical/pharmaceutical propaganda.

It's not like we are recommending these therapies, protocols or methods on the 'Medicine' section or any other conventional sub-section, if that were the case such slander would be justified.

Even when their base-less arguments are answered, they latch onto them even stronger, it is clear that they are not open to reasoning.

Are such people doing this out of ignorance, since they believe all of alternative medicine is quackery, as they are trained via QuackWatch and so they believe what they are doing is good, and spreading the truth, preventing people from wasting their hard-earned money on AM, or even 'saving their lives'; or is it something more? like deliberately slandering AM with mal-intent and full knowledge of the lies, deception and propaganda they spread? Or are there other reasons not mentioned here..

Answer 1

I've tried raising questions like this before. They don't last long because they get deleted very swiftly.

Amazingly people like David G (who had /maybe still has 2 accounts) can plant questions which are nothing short of Libelous and they stay on here.

I posted a question asking for suggestions to treat psoriatic arthritis inviting answers from all camps including allopathy. No one from that camp answered, not even "sorry we can't help here".

I seriously have to question whether these flamers actually know anything about healthcare or have any helpful advice. Do they exist to try and discredit inteligent people who can see the holes in the current medical model (every system of healthcare has short falls) and exercised their rights to choose?

Its nice to have a balance and to debate things but this page is becoming so trashed i'm getting to the point where I am 'Over it' as they say in New Zealand.

Quackwatch is not a reliable site. It is full of anecdote and has incorrect information regarding physiology which misleads people who don't know better. It's run by someone who lies repeatedly to prove his points and has had every case that he has taken to court thrown out. He's also been exposed in court as lying about his credentials.

Even convential medics are distancing themselves from him because they are starting to find him an embarasment.

As I have said repeatedly, I will support any initiative to centralise research funding and take drug testing out of the hands of the developers / manufacturers.

They can come to all health care providers and we can agree a testing model rather than continue to use the very flawed reductionist model of testing.

It might be appropriate to exclude all but one thing and claim that '1 thing affects everything' if you knew what all the other factors were. WE DON'T.

Even hard core scientists are waking up to the flaws in the model and looking for a better testing forum.

It is good to debate things but to say all anecdote is completely invalid and to write off absolubtely everyone who claims to have been helped by unconventional methods as deluded / stupid / It was placebo or all 3 isn't right.

Science is about discovery and finding answers. it isn't about oversimplifying things and claiming that anything we don't understand can't exist.

Edit:

Good post AzR. I don't agree with everything but it is well reasoned.

I will have to point out that there are a good few Anti Altmed posters who post far more offensively and with far less rational than Scorpion.

As an altmed therapist I really would welcome research provided the research model is appropriate.

The ACC in New Zealand have expressed an interest in doing a pilot study in the clinic I work in to measure the efficacy of treatment compared to physiotherapy by monitoring the number of treatments needed.

In the UK I proposed studies looking to see if there is a change in medication for patients in chronic pain after a course of Osteopathic treatment. This didn't go anywhere (partly why I moved to a country like New Zealand!).

A common misconception about altmed therapist is we don't like to be researched. We welcome being researched if the testing model is appropriate and the playing field is level.

Big puffy shoes, re your comment:"@OP, I never claimed that real medicine is 100% safe. The topic is alt med being unsafe/unhealthy/waste of money."

No form of medine practised in the western world kills or maimes a greater percentage of its patients than conventional medicine.

All drugs are toxic, thats how they work so they are potentially very unhealthy and there are many treatments available in conventional medicine which are ineffective and or a waste of money.

Generic versions of drugs can be purchased much more cheeply than branded drugs. That is just one example.

I have seen how health departments waste money and spend every penny of their budget before the end of the year to ensure that they get the same money next year.

There is a lot of waste in medicine, there is a lot of waste in altmed. That doesn't automatically make all medicine or all altmed rubbish.

If we look objectively and stop blindly defending dogma we can sort the wheat from the Chaff.

As altmed therapists we also want to get our patients better. it is in our interests to because people self refer often by word of mouth. If we can't get them better, they don't return for follow ups and don't tell their friends to come and see us. Our lists quickly die.

Answer 2

It's borne out of ignorance mate .....  people lash out when they are either afraid or don't understand something buddy .........  bullying in other words......... did you end up getting to read the link Alex posted the other night??

~ http://www.credentialwatch.org/inv/holis...

Alex F posted a link the other night in regards to "Quackwatch" and it gave us an acid little piece of prose written by Stephen Barrett M.D.............. his remarks weren't even logical .......  anyway, somebody posted an answer to Alex's question stating that Stephen Barrett M.D. head of the AMA was actually dying in his early 50's ....... maybe that statement is true, maybe it isn't ......  food for thought though.

peace 2 u

Answer 3

i like to think the best of people so i think it is in sincere ignorance that they come on here to 'save people' from alt med.

they could instead be helping out in the real Medicine section or Health section (some do, some don't) where i reckon they would be more likely to help people in giving people the medical info that they are looking for.. but i guess that's a harder/more boring option for them.

which makes me think that they also come on here as it gives them a high to criticise us alt med people and look down on us..

and then it could also be some kind of psychological repression since they have some inner guilt at all the needless conventional med treatments they inflict on their patients so they come on here to convince themselves that there isn't a better alternative

Answer 4

It depends  on which alternative medicines are duscussed.  I've been a part of traditional medicine for almost 20 years to some extent or other.  I've seen one physician quit as an ER attending to start a holisitic medicine practice.  

Most medical professionals have respect for alternative medicine (I love my chiropractor), but any legitimate treatment, traditional or alternative, should stand up to scientific, statistical study.  Many alternative therapies do not, though certainly some will.  Unfortunately, many desperately ill patients seek "alternative" therapies instead of proven medical treatments, believing the hype.

Answer 5

This question seems to have taken on more of a discussion aspect than a straight Q/A,

But Lightning has well reasoned points. There's a lot of petty squabling, and neither side is helped by ravings such that Scorpion is noted for.

There are areas where conventional medicine really really sucks. I mean, abysmally sucks. Notable is with psychosomatic symptoms. Patients with anxiety disorders are notorious for being somatically focused. When they get uncontrolled anxiety, they start hurting everywhere. Pain management is another area, and these are areas where alternative treatments have provided a good deal of worthwhile material, for lack of a better term.

And as for anecdotal evidence, you're absolutely right. We can't ignore it. We shouldn't ignore it, I don't know how many folks you encounter in the research end of medicine and biotech, but we -die- for anecdotal. It's a hint that something useful is down a path. Anecdotal evidence let to investigations of niacin, Omega 3s, now quite useful addons for some people. Traditional chinese medicine led researchers to a plant that might prove an incredibly safe male birth control pill. But we simply cannot treat individual self-reporting and self diagnosis and uses it as a basis for a wide-spread medical practice, but we can use them to investigate with rigid, objective eyes and find out what is actually happening.

I think a lot of the bitterness tends to come when people from alternative medical circles try to step into areas that are conventional areas and try to surplant well documented, well supported treatment protocols with things that are frequently.... less than credible. Make a post on the infectious disease forum with the symptom 'fatigue' and you'll get six people popping up ranting about 'chronic lyme disease' and the need to buy a rife machine. We pretty well know how lyme disease works these days. And Rife machines are based on violating some pretty important principals in other sciences. Another post on here, from a woman who just utterly screamed anxiety disorder with every sentence she posted was absolutely convinced she had lyme disease, to the point where six negative tests had failed to convince her. The homeopathic principals as well, are very well discarded, they violate fundamental properties of physics and biochemistry. To see someone use those for minor aches and pains, for the flu, that's not so bad. To have someone insist that they shouldn't treat their staph infection with antibiotics because of some conspiratorially covered up secret about the evils of antibiotics, and should instead take this water that remembers how hot cayenne pepper was... That's galling, and to a conventional medical standpoint, it's brutally unethical to advance something like that - that sort of ethical compass is something that I've seen in nearly all the doctors I've met.

And that is not exclusive to the alternative medical practice. In conventional systems there are practices that have been pushed forward by marketing that do a fair bit of harm, or supplant better treatment. The one I see almost daily is the misuse of atypical antipsychotic drugs for psychiatric problems we have -MUCH- better, and much safer medications. The use of atypicals in bipolar disorders is poorly supported by evidence. They work, but poorly, but they are taking the place of longstanding effective drugs like lithium, lamotrigine and topamax - drugs that should be tried first. This is contemptible, and I predict it will decrease greatly with the new marketing regulations this past month, and the expiration of patents on most of these drugs within a year or two. Scorpion, among others, have a reputation on this site for attacking longstanding medical practices with language that seethes of unmedicated mania and anxiety/paranoia  for the sake of things like rife machines and enemas. That is provocation to most people who have an understanding of science, physiology and medicine the way doctors do.

I concur with Lightning on the idea of taking a measure of drug development away from companies. It would eliminate some horrible things (Eli Lily), but at the same time such actions are fairly contemptuous to the idea of how America works, at least to a goodly chunk of the population. Harsher punishments for abuse and deception and strict ethical oversight, not just at the experimental level, but at the managerial level would be much more practical.

Answer 6

It's as simple as yin and yang. The world is full of balance: dark/light, conservative, liberal, conventional/"alternative," and within these categories closed or open people and minds. Dark is fear-based, light is love-based, dark suppresses, light frees.

Answer 7

They slander what they don't understand.

Answer 8

Ridicule is the best medicine?

Most alt med is based upon pseudoscience and has no clear mechanism of working.  I like speak the truth.

@OP, I never claimed that real medicine is 100% safe.  The topic is alt med being unsafe/unhealthy/waste of money.