Monthly Archives: July 2016
In part one and part two of this series of posts, we have discussed altogether six ‘tricks of the trade’:
TREAT A NON-EXISTING CONDITION
MAINTENANCE TREATMENT
IT MUST GET WORSE BEFORE IT GETS BETTER
THINK HOLISTICALLY
IT’S DUE TO THE POISONS YOUR DOCTOR GAVE YOU
A CURE TAKES A LONG TIME
Now it is time to disclose three more.
DETOX
Alternative therapies are hugely diverse, but they nevertheless have a few characteristics in common. One is that many of their practitioners try to persuade their patients that they are being poisoned. This sounds odd, however, it is true.
Most alternative therapists tell their patients sooner or later that they need to ‘detox’ and, as it happens, their type of treatment is ideally suited to achieve this aim. Detox is short for detoxification which, in real medicine, is the term used for weaning addicts off their drugs. In alternative medicine, it is used as a marketing slogan.
Yes, detox, as used in alternative medicine, is nothing but a marketing slogan. I have several reasons for this statement:
- The poisons in question are never accurately defined. Instead, we hear only vague terminologies such as metabolic waste products or environmental toxins. The reason for that lack of precision is simple: once the poison is named, we could be able to measure it and test the efficacy of the treatment in question in eliminating it from the body. But this is the last thing these ‘detoxers’ want because we would soon establish how bogus their claims are.
- None of the alternative therapies claimed to detox our body take any toxin from us; all they do take from us is our cash.
- Our body has powerful organs and mechanisms to detoxify (skin, lungs, kidneys, liver). These take care of all the toxins we undoubtedly are exposed to. If any of these organs fail, we do not need homeopathic globoli or detoxifying diets, or electric foot baths or any other charlatanry; in this case, we are more likely to need an A&E department’s intensive care.
My advice is, as soon as you hear the word ‘detox’ from a quack, ask for your money back and go home.
THE TEST OF TIME
Another thing that many alternative therapies have in common is their age. They have almost all been around for hundreds, if not thousands of years. To the enthusiasts of alternative medicine, this means that these interventions have ‘stood the test of time’; they argue that acupuncture, for instance, would not be around any more, if it were not effective. They tell their patients, write in books and argue in debates that the age of their therapy is like a badge of approval from millions of people before us, a badge that surely weighs more that modern scientific studies (which tend to cast doubt on the effectiveness of the treatments in question).
This line of thinking has always puzzled me. We are talking of TECHNOLOGIES, health technologies, in fact. Would we argue that a hot air balloon is an older technology that an aeroplane and therefore better suited for transporting people from A to B? The fact that acupuncture was developed thousands of years ago might just mean that it was invented by relatively ignorant people who understood too little about the human body to create a truly effective intervention. And the fact that blood-letting was used for centuries (and thus killed millions), might teach us a lesson about the true value of ‘the test of time’ in medicine.
My advice is to offer leeches, blood-letting and mercury cures to those who try to persuade you that the test of time has meaningful therapeutic implications.
TREATING THE ROOT CAUSE OF THE DISEASE
Alternative practitioners often claim that, in conventional medicine, doctors only treat the symptoms of their patients, whereas they treat the root causes of the illness. I have often wondered where this assumption and the fierce conviction with which it is so often expressed come from. I have to conclude that the explanations are quite simple.
- This notion is the mantra that is being taught over and over again during the practitioners’ training. It even constitutes a central message of most ‘textbooks’ for the aspiring alternative practitioner.
- More importantly in the context of this post, the notion is a clever sales-trick. It sounds profound and logical to many consumers who lean towards alternative medicine. Crucially, it kills two flies with one stroke: it denigrates conventional healthcare and, at the same time, elevates alternative medicine.
The idea that alternative practitioners treat the root causes is based on the practitioners’ understanding of aetiology. If a traditional acupuncturist, for instance, is convinced that all disease is the expression of an imbalance of life-forces, and that needling acupuncture points will re-balance these forces thus restoring health, he must automatically assume that he is treating the root causes of any condition. If a chiropractor believes that all diseases are due to ‘subluxations’ of the spine, it must seem logical to him that spinal ‘adjustment’ is synonymous with treating the root cause of whatever complaint his patient is suffering from.
These are concepts that are deeply engrained into the minds of alternative practitioners. And they have one embarrassing feature in common: they are false! Some practitioners surely must know that; yet I have so far not met one who therefore would have stopped using it. The reason must be that, as a trick of the trade to increase his cash flow, it is invaluable.
My advice is to use your abilities for critical thinking, explain to the practitioner who tells you that he is going to treat the root causes of your condition that he is a quack, and look for a proper physician.
In part one, we have dealt with three common tricks used by quacks to convince the public to consult them and to keep coming back for more. It has been pointed out to me that some of these tricks are used not just by alternative practitioners but also by real physicians. This is, of course, absolutely true. A quack can be defined as “a person who dishonestly claims to have special knowledge and skill in some field, typically medicine.” Therefore real doctors can be real quacks, of course. I happen to have an interest mainly in alternative medicine; that’s why I write about these type of quacks (if it helps keeping you blood pressure within the limits of normal, I can tell you that I occasionally also published about quackery in mainstream medicine, for instance here).
Anyway, now it is time to continue this series of posts by discussing three further common deceptions used by quacks.
A CURE TAKES A LONG TIME
Imagine a scenario where, even after, several therapy sessions, a patient’s condition has not improved. Let’s assume the problem is back pain, and that it has not improved a bit despite the treatments and the money spent on it. Surely, many patients in such a situation are sooner or later going to give up. They will have had enough! And this is, of course, a serious threat to the practitioner’s cash flow.
Luckily, there is a popular ploy to minimize the risk: the practitioner merely has to explain that the patient’s condition has been going on for a very long time (if, in the above scenario, this were not the case, the practitioner would explain that the pain might be relatively recent but the underlying condition is chronic). This means that a cure will also have to take a very long time – after all, Rome was not built in one day!
This plea to carry on with the ineffective treatments despite any improvement of symptoms is usually not justifiable on medical grounds. It is, however, entirely justifiable on the basis of financial considerations of the practitioners. They rely on their patients’ regular payments and will therefore think of all sorts of means to achieve this aim.
Take my advice and see a clinician who can help you within a reasonable and predictable amount of time.
IT’S DUE TO THE POISONS YOUR DOCTOR GAVE YOU
In the pursuit of a healthy cash-flow, almost all means seem to be allowed – even the fabrication of the bogus notion that the reasons for the patient’s problem were the poisonous drugs prescribed by her doctor who, of course, is in cahoots with BIG PHARMA. Alternative medicine thrives on conspiracy theories, and the one of the evil ‘medical mafia’ is one of the all-time favourites. It enables scrupulous practitioners to instil a good dose of fear into the minds of their patients, a fear that minimises the risk of them returning to real medicine.
My advice is that alternative practitioners who habitually use this or any other conspiracy theory should be avoided at all costs.
THINK HOLISTICALLY
The notion that alternative medicine takes care of the whole person is a most attractive and powerful ploy. Never mind that nothing could be further from being holistic than, for instance, diagnosing conditions by looking at a patient’s iris (iridology), or focussing on her spine (chiropractic, osteopathy), or massaging the soles of her feet (reflexology). And never mind that any type of good conventional medicine is by definition holistic. What counts is the label, and ‘holistic’ is a most desirable one, indeed. Nothing sells quackery better than holism.
Most alternative practitioners call themselves holistic and they rub the holism into the minds of their patients whenever and however they can. This insistence on holism has the added advantage that they have seemingly plausible excuses for their therapeutic failures.
Imagine a patient consulting a practitioner with depression and, even after prolonged treatment, her condition is unchanged. Even in such a situation, the holistic practitioner does not need to despair: he will point out that he never treats diagnostic labels but always the whole person. Therefore, the patient’s depression might not have changed, but surely other issues have improved… and, if the patient introspects a little, she might find that her appetite has improved, that her indigestion is better, or that her tennis elbow is less painful (some things always change given enough time). The holism of quacks may be a false pretence, but its benefits for the practitioner are obvious.
My advice: take holism from quacks with a pinch of salt.
We were recently informed that Americans spend more than US$ 30 billion per year on alternative medicine. This is a tidy sum by anyone’s standards, and we may well ask:
Why do so many people opt for alternative medicine?
The enthusiasts claim, of course, that this is because alternative medicine is effective and safe. As there is precious little data to support this claim, it is probably not the true answer. There must be other reasons, and I could name several. For instance, it could be due to consumers being conned by charlatans.
During the 25 years or so that I have been researching alternative medicine, I got the impression that there are certain ‘tricks of the trade’ which alternative practitioners use in order to convince the often all too gullible public. In this series of posts, I will present some of them.
Here are the first three:
TREAT A NON-EXISTING CONDITION
There is nothing better for committing a health fraud than to treat a condition that the patient in question does not have. Many alternative practitioners have made a true cult of this handy option. Go to a chiropractor and you will in all likelihood receive a diagnosis of ‘subluxation’. See a TCM practitioner and you might be diagnosed suffering from ‘chi deficiency’ or ‘chi blockage’ etc.
Each branch of alternative practitioners seem to have created their very own diagnoses, and they have one thing in common: they are figments of their imaginations. To arrive at such diagnoses, the practitioner would often use diagnostic techniques which have either been found to lack validity, or which have never been validated at all. Many practitioners appreciate all of this, of course, but it would be foolish of them to admit it – after all, these diagnoses earn them the bulk of their living!
The beauty of a non-existing diagnosis is that the practitioner can treat it, and treat it and treat it…until the client has run out of money or patience. Then, one day, the practitioner can proudly announce to his patient “you are completely healthy now”. This happens to be true, of course, because the patient has been healthy all along.
My advice for preventing to get fleeced in this way: make sure that the diagnosis given by an alternative practitioner firstly exists at all in the realm of real medicine and secondly is correct; if necessary ask a real healthcare professional.
MAINTENANCE TREATMENT
As I just stated, practitioners like to treat and treat and treat conditions which simply do not exist. When – for whatever reason – this strategy fails, the next ‘trick of the trade’ is often to convince the patient of the necessity of ‘maintenance’ treatment. This term describes the regular treatment of an individual who is entirely healthy but who, according to the practitioner, needs regular treatments in order not to fall ill in future. The best example here is chiropractic.
Many chiropractors proclaim that maintenance treatment is necessary for keeping a person’s spine aligned – and only a well-serviced spine will keep all of our body’s systems working perfectly. It is like with a car: if you don’t service it regularly, it will sooner or later break down. You don’t want this to happen to your body, do you? To many ‘worried well’, this sounds so convincing that they actually fall for this scam. It goes without saying that the value of maintenance treatment is unproven.
My advice is to start running as soon as a practitioner mentions maintenance treatments.
IT MUST GET WORSE BEFORE IT GETS BETTER
Many patients fail to experience an improvement of their condition or even feel worse after receiving alternative treatments. Practitioners of alternative medicine love to tell these patients that this is normal because things have to get worse before they get better. They tend to call this a ‘healing crisis’. Like so many notions of alternative practitioners, the healing crisis is a phenomenon for which no or very little compelling evidence was ever produced.
Imagine a patient with moderately severe symptoms consulting a practitioner and receiving treatment. There are only three things that can happen to her:
- she can get better,
- she might experience no change at all,
- or she might get worse.
In the first scenario, the practitioner would obviously claim that his therapy is responsible for the improvement. In the second scenario, he might say that, without his therapy, things would have deteriorated. In the third scenario, he would tell his patient that the healing crisis is the reason for her experience. In other words, the myth of the healing crisis is little more than a ‘trick of the trade’ to make even these patients continue supporting the practitioner’s livelihood.
My advice: when you hear the term ‘healing crisis’, go and find a real doctor to help you with your condition.
“When orthodox medicine has nothing more to offer” is the title of an article by Dr Elizabeth Thompson, a UK medical homeopath. The article was written years ago, but it is still an excellent example for disclosing the dangerously false and deeply unethical reasoning used by many alternative practitioners. The notion that all sorts of disproven treatments like homeopathy are justified when orthodox medicine has nothing more to offer is so very prevalent that I decided to do this post analysing it.
In the following, you see the most relevant sections of Dr Thompson’s original article (in normal print) and my brief comments (in brackets and in bold):
…Some people come when conventional treatments can no longer offer them anything to save their lives. This is a frightening time for them and although the homeopathic approach may not offer a cure at this late stage of their illness (Is she implying that, in some cases, homeopathy can cure cancer?), it can often offer hope of a different kind. (Surely, one does not need homeopathy for giving patients hope). Sometimes it helps people to outlive the prognosis given to them by months or even years. (A prognosis is not a precise time of death; it is based on statistics and therefore depicts a likelihood, not a certainty. Thus patients outlive their prognosis all the time regardless of treatments.) Sometimes it helps them need less (less than what? there is no control group and therefore the statement seems nonsensical) in the way of conventional medicine including pain killers and offers them continuing support despite progressive disease (is she trying to say that in conventional medicine patients with progressive disease do not get continuing support?).
As a doctor working in both conventional and complementary cancer care I have learned the importance of integrating these two perspectives (the integration of unproven therapies into EBM can only render the latter less effective). Ideally the doctor practising homeopathy would work as an integral part of a much wider team which would include family members, nurses, general practitioners, oncologists, surgeons, palliative physicians and other complementary therapists (the concept of a multi-disciplinary team for cancer is one from conventional medicine where it has long been routine). It is disappointing sometimes to see that other healthcare professionals can be unsupportive of a person’s desire to use complementary therapies and for some people the knowledge that the team is not working together can cause doubt and insecurity (for the majority of patients, however, it might be reassuring to know that their oncology-team is evidence-based).
Some patients come at the beginning of their diagnosis wanting to support their bodies with gentler (homeopathic remedies are not gentler, they are ineffective) approaches and help themselves recover from some difficult and powerful treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy (Why are they being told that alternative therapies are effective in achieving these aims when there is no good evidence to show that this is true? Isn’t that unethical?). As well as using homeopathic medicines (no good evidence of effectiveness!!!), the GHH also has experience in using Mistletoe which is given by injection and has been shown to stimulate the group of white cells whose numbers can be depleted during chemotherapy and radiotherapy (also no good evidence that it works clinically!!!).
Other patients come when they have finished most of their treatments but may still not be feeling well despite being given the all clear by their doctors (same again: no good evidence!!!)…
One wonderful aspect of the homeopathic approach is that it can be a very important opportunity to help someone re-evaluate their life and their health (We don’t need to prescribe placebos for that, this aim is better reached by employing a clinical psychologist).
Sometimes hurts in the past have never been healed and sitting with someone as they describe difficult experiences can be itself therapeutic. Combining this therapeutic listening time with substances from nature that gently stimulate the body’s own healing potential (where is the evidence for that claim?) can be an approach that through patient demand and research (what research?) we can demonstrate is really worth offering to many more people…
END OF QUOTE
This text shows in an exemplary fashion how desperate patients can be convinced to make dramatically wrong choices. If you read Dr Thompson’s text without my comments, it probably sounds fairly reasonable to many people. I can understand why patients and carers end up thinking that homeopathy or other disproven therapies are reasonable options WHEN ORTHODOX MEDICINE HAS NOTHING MORE TO OFFER.
But the claim of homeopaths and others that mainstream medicine has, in certain cases, nothing more to offer is demonstrably wrong. Supportive and palliative care are established and important parts of conventional medicine. To deny this fact amounts to a lie! The implied scenario where a patient is told by her oncology team: “sorry but we cannot do anything else for you”, does quite simply not exist. The argument is nothing else but a straw-man – and a vicious one at that.
Moreover, the subsequent argument of homeopaths, “as ‘they’ have given you up, we now offer you our effective homeopathic remedies”, is not supported by good evidence. In other words, one lie is added to another. To call this unethical, would be the understatement of the year, I think.
