Anecdotal Medicine

Over and over I've hear the charge: Alternative healthcare is inferior to conventional medicine — or an outright danger to public health — because it relies on anecdotal reports, instead of hard science.  But the fact is: medicine is riddled through with the same kinds of anecdotes.  The only difference is in the power of the lobby and the toxicity of the products used.

The process in healthcare

Before a pharmaceutical drug can be brought to the market, it must go through an extensive process to obtain FDA approval.  This process is seriously flawed.  As has been seen repeatedly over the years, studies are all-too-often falsified, adverse drug reactions and deaths are covered over as being "statistically insignificant" and approvals are not based upon the safety of the drug but on the perceived balance of benefits to risks.  And all of this is overseen by people who're supposed to be looking out for our welfare, but all-too-often have a financial stake in the outcome.

The result is a healthcare system is that's actually the leading cause of death in America.

It only gets worse

To make matters worse, once one of these toxic pharmaceuticals is approved and brought to market, doctors have considerable latitude in how they administer them.  It's not uncommon for a drug to be approved for one use — backed by the supposed hard science of the approval process — and be used in several other ways.

How does this come about?

By anecdotal reports.  A doctor tries a drug for something other than what it was approved for, finds that it has the effect he was seeking, and tells his colleagues.  So they try it, too.

Pretty soon, standard practice means using this drug in a way not originally intended or approved by the FDA, without any hard science or studies on the long-term effect of such use.  It seems to work, so it's permitted to continue; but it's no more scientific than what is condemned in the alternative healthcare field.

Case studies and history of use

There are countless natural remedies on the market today.  Many of them have been in use for thousands of years, and have been demonstrated time and time again to be safe and effective.  (See the Risk relative to legal dietary supplements for a telling graphic on this.)  But, because of the lack of hard science — as conventional wisdom would call it — to back these reports, they are deemed "unproven".  This says nothing about their safety and effectiveness, only about the studies done with them — and, maybe more importantly, who has done the studies.  But, because these natural products are not "FDA-approved" (like Vioxx), people are advised to avoid them.

Pharmaceutical options are the safer bet, we're told.

Yet, pharmaceuticals are new substances.  They're untested by history (or history has shown them to have devastating effects on your health).  Case studies from their clinical use are limited, and serious adverse reactions — even deaths — are reported only about 5-20% of the time.  Though proven, to a point, in the approval process, their long-term effects are still largely unknown.

And when you add to this their unapproved uses, based on anecdotal reporting, the danger rises exponentially.

But the point here is this: While natural remedies may lack the scientific support associated with pharmaceuticals, their long use and countless case studies have demonstrated to any reasonable person that they are safe and effective.  There isn't a single pharmaceutical that can begin to match that record.

And yet, the therapeutic benefits of these remedies are dismissed — and their place in the market is threatened — because their value relies solely on anecdotal reports.

But, then we see pharmaceuticals, that are known to be dangerous, being used in ways that rely solely on anecdotal reports.  Their effectiveness is not proven, either by science or history.  But this is considered reliable by conventional medicine.

Is there any doubt that we need an alternative?