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Stop Press:
Date
10-jan-2004
Story
The Cutting Edge: The Alternative Fix
Author
SBS TV - Australia
Main Condition/ Disease
Alternative Medicine
Source
SBS; Tuesday, 6 January at 8.30pm;http://www.sbs.com.au/whatson/index.php3?id=480
Summary
A program about modern medicine 'cashing in' on so-called alternative medicines/therapies which 'apparently' have no scientific basis!
My response to SBS:
Your article (http://www.sbs.com.au/whatson/index.php3?id=480) seems to conclude that alternative medicines/therapies have no validity, one comment being: “Despite the lack of positive evidence”.
My experience and research have shown the contrary to be the case for chiropractic. There is overwhelming and growing evidence that chiropractic not only works but is effective for countless conditions. What your article emphasises is the ignorance, lack of understanding and political agenda that mainstream medicine tends to have toward alternative therapies. I’m concerned they only see it as a way of cashing in, and adding to their own armoury rather than bringing in the ‘alternative experts’ into the patient management process.
Chiropractic for instance has been around since 1895 and daily I see amazing benefits for people with all kinds of problems. I myself was ‘saved’ by chiropractic despite insistence from MDs that chiropractic was dangerous and couldn’t help me. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I was so motivated after my treatment that I built a website www.upcspine.com to help introduce people to what I have found out. It’s time mainstream medicine got off their high horse and conceded that they don’t know everything and bring other practitioners into the process. The day they do that will be of huge benefit to the human race. Alas, I think money will take priority as evidenced by the statement: “Despite the lack of positive evidence, some of the nation’s leading hospitals and medical centres have embraced lucrative alternative therapies, offering them alongside more traditional treatments.” – If I can find the evidence why can’t doctors? Answer: they are locked into the wrong medical model …… they are not taught (allowed) to think outside a rigid, controlled structured.
Worthwhile looking at this from a MD:
The chiropractic profession has actually accumulated a greater number of scientific trials than the medical profession has for many of the more common treatments rendered by medical doctors. According to David M. Edy, M.D., Ph.D., professor of health policy and management with Duke University, North Carolina, only 15 percent of all medical interventions are supported by solid scientific evidence.
Paul G. Shekelle, M.D., MPH, of the RAND Corporation made the following statement on ABC's 20/20,
"There are considerably more randomized controlled trials which show benefit of this (chiropractic) than there are for many, many other things which physicians and neurosurgeons do all the time."
This may be the source - Smith, R. Where is the wisdom. BMJ 1991; 303(Oct 5): 798-799.
Only about 15% of medical interventions are supported by solid scientific evidence according to David Edy (Cardiothoracic surgeon & prof of health policy & management - Duke University, also holds a degree in Mathematics). Only 1% of articles in med journals are scientifically sound & many treatments have never been assessed at all. Often the evidence available contradicted current practice: ex: of 17 RCTs on lidocaine prophylactically in Ps w chest pain, 16 showed no effect & 1 showed a positive result - yet the practice was to give lidocaine. The weakness of scientific evidence underlying medical practice is one of the causes of wide variations in medical
practice. The evidence on effectiveness is poor, but the info needed - by purchasers - to choose among different treatments is almost never available.
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