As a consumer, I want all of the possible alternatives open to me as
possible.

I think alternative medicine has a lot to offer, but I agree that there
is a lot of ineffective, expensive alternative treatments going on.

Based on my experience here is how not to get burned if you want to try
alternative medicine:

1.  Get a real diagnosis from an allopathic or osteopathic MD.  If it
is more than a short term issue get two such opinions.

2. Ask your alternative medicine practitioner  for a time frame when
you can expect to see results.  Many of them will hesitate, sometimes
with good reasons.  Fair enough,  ask them to give you an padded
estimate.  If they don't give you any estimate at all leave.   If you
don't see any results in that time frame, leave.

3.  If your issue is a long term one, research it.  Find out what is
known to work and what is known not to work.

Number 1 will prevent these people from treating a problem that doesn't
exist, or treating the wrong problem.

Number 2 will prevent them from making you into a medicine chest of
supplements.  Many of them will keep throwing new supplements and new
treatments at you as results don't happen without any knowledge of why
these things might help you.

There is one big human health factor that the FDA (and most
bureaucrats for that matter) refuse to accept - the placebo
effect. The continual evidence that it does indeed provide
a great deal of relief, even cure, to many people is ignored
by them.

As a scientist who looks for facts, not pre-conceived dogma,
I submit that this failure of regulators is an excellent
reason to ensure that alternative strategies that harness
human hope remain viable. Just because no non-placebo
evidence can be found for an effect does not mean that it
has no effect whatsoever on real people.

Alternative medicine is for people, not test tubes.

You know what? If the allopaths were actually able to successfully heal
and care for people, and their ailments, this would not be an issue.
Would it?

In the absence of anything useful in allopathy, the only alternative is
alternative. Whose fault is that?

TC

"inexpensive sugar pills and liquids etc. at a few cents a dose
should do the trick and we don't need the $30 billion
"alternative" industry to push the exotic herbs etc."

True only in a test tube. Unfortunately, human beings must
believe that the treatment will work. If they know that it is
only sugar, it won't evoke the placebo effect. The "snake oil"
and high price are essential parts of any effect the product will
have.

"I don't think treatments with no non-placebo evidence of working
should be supported."

"Alternative" means that it is NOT officially supported.
We're talking here about individual choices made by individual
people, usually by people for whom conventional treatments
haven't worked very well. We're seeing FDA and FDIA (the Canadian
equivalent of the FDA) efforts to suppress everything they don't
believe in, to legal prohibition of a scientific fact, the
placebo effect.

"[we should be] studying the placebo effect directly, learning
how to augment and control it. Since it is always a factor in
clinical studies that means it is a huge untapped resource."

True again. There are in fact lots of studies around showing how
powerful the effect can be, so many that any conventional
clinical study must demonstrate that it has taken strict measures
to eliminate it.

One of the biggest barriers to effectively using it clinically is
that of patient trust. A patient must trust their doctor, and if
the doctor is viewed as deceiving them by prescribing a placebo,
this strikes at the heart of patient trust and is therefore
vigorously opposed by all medical licensing authorities.

Treatment of real human beings is not black and white, all or
nothing. The area with which I'm most familiar is severe
allergies and related respiratory sensitivities. If you know that
just walking down the street can suddenly and without warning
land you at death's door, you are going to be one scared and
anxious person. That anxiety stress magnifies the physical trauma
involved. Autohypnosis techniques such as NAET do not cure
anything directly, but they can greatly reduce anxiety stress,
and therefore alleviate real physical symptoms. Yet, because a
test tube doesn't respond to hypnosis methods, our licensing
authorities severely discipline any doctor who uses them. NAET
and similar techniques are therefore restricted to the patient-
funded "alternative" delivery system - no insurance or medicare.

There are lots of people with little-understood food reaction and
absorption problems. We need to ensure that there remains an
effective means of enabling the placebo effect to be used by
these people. At the moment, the only viable way seems to be
"alternative medicine". We don't ban surgery because it sometimes
doesn't work. We shouldn't ban other techniques that sometimes
work and sometimes don't either.