Comments on: The alternative, complementary, and integrative health obsession with toxins

By: JinTX

JinTX — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:35:03 +0000

On another note: It would be laughable, if not so sad, to see a doc mock the concept of “toxins” – because I have seen what PRESCRIBED TOXINS have done to my mother during a 5 year pharmapalooza festival hosted by her family doc. 26 different medications which worked against each other, damaging her liver, kidneys, and heart, resulting in 6 near-death hospitalizations.

I do know there are quacks out there selling stuff like “colonic cleansing”, etc – but my TCM docs don’t push that. They do push for diets and lifestyles which are heart/kidney/liver healthy.
Shouldn’t ALL doctors promote that?

By: JinTX

JinTX — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:26:43 +0000

I agree with EKB – this unfair, broad criticism creates hostility and contributes to the lack of trust many patients have in their physicians. I see a well educated TCM doc for chronic back and neck problems. The acupuncture treatments have enabled me to endure the physical therapy needed to imrove my health. This was not a voodoo/placebo effect, it has worked better than any drug. It actually cured a 3 year bout with vertigo which my family doc had said was something I would probably live with.
The Air Force has been studying this treatment for vertigo, and even pain relief, for some time now.
(I guess once western docs do some trials, it is no longer so “woo” – like the Percutaneous Ankle Nerve Stimulation? )

My TCM doc works to complement the treatments recommended by my spine doc, and is more educated (based on course work, studies, articles and his instruction hours) than many of the docs I’ve seen over the years. I refuse to see a doc who belittles me. I’m not an uneducated fool. This superior attitude is a contributing factor to the frustration many experience with the current health care in this country. I hear docs mocking patients who get their medical advice online. I am able to access, read and understand the same text books and journals they subscribe to. We have a fairly educated population in this country, and those docs who cannot appreciate that will be relegated to the social medical programs where they can treat those who have no qualms being at another’s mercy.

By: EKB

EKB — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:42:01 +0000

Amy Tutuer’s response to alternative medicine and related beliefs is way too black-and-white. Instead of helping people to seek care from physicians, it creates even more hostility, kind of like Richard Dawkins does in his fundamentalist atheist attack on religion. Mainstream medicine has to acknowledge that it bears some significant responsibility for the flight to alternatives, from the difficulty and expense of obtaining it for many to the corruption in relations between doctors and drug companies that has been publicized to the fact that today medicine often appears to be a commodity offered to consumers and thus “sold” sometimes for more than it’s worth, to its impersonality, to the unaccountability of many who practice. to the fact that some doctors like Amy Tutuer seem to show no respect for patients’ cultures and beliefs. And sometimes alternative medicines are all a person can afford.

Of course mainstream medicine has a foundation in science that is much stronger than that of alternative medicine. But that foundation is not what a lot of people see or can afford.

By: taffe

taffe — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 04:45:24 +0000

where have you been. Global warming, fish full of mercury, acid rain, smog, processed food, synthetic pesticide (poisonous chemical from second world war). polluted rivers, lakes and oceans. Environmental science is not science.?

By: Paynehertz

Paynehertz — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 01:49:27 +0000

There I was thinking lead poisoning in children was something to be concerned about. Exposure to high levels of mercury in fish is fine, but opiates are one of the primary causes of disease.

The stuff you can learn from doctors, if you just listen.

By: Diane J Standiford

Diane J Standiford — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 02:18:12 +0000

Toxic world we live and die in. Maybe the moon is next.

By: Undiagnosed

Undiagnosed — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 01:32:10 +0000

“A fundamental premise held by believers in “alternative” health is that we are swimming in a world of “toxins” and those “toxins” are causing disease. Like most premises in “alternative” health it has no basis in scientific fact; makes intuitive sense only if you are ignorant of medicine, science and statistics; and speaks to primitive fears and impulses.”

Science:

Proceedings of the Summit on Environmental Challenges to Reproductive Health and Fertility: Executive Summary

Tracey J. Woodruff, PhD, MPH, Alison Carlson, Jackie M. Schwartz, MPH, and Linda C. Giudice, PhD, MD

“Approximately 87,000 chemical substances are registered for use in commerce in the US, with ubiquitous human exposures to environmental contaminants in air, water, food and consumer products. Exposures during critical windows of susceptibility may result in adverse effects with lifelong and even intergenerational health impacts. Effects can include impaired development and function of the reproductive tract and permanently altered gene expression, leading to metabolic and hormonal disorders, reduced fertility and fecundity and illnesses such as testicular, prostate, uterine and cervical cancers later in life.”

So were not swimming in a world of toxins?

After the death of a friend, I decided I would update my will to dispose of my body in the most earth friendly way. During my research, I found the human body too contaminated for an ocean buriel.

By: Danimal

Danimal — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:57:27 +0000

That’s one thing that gets me about all these toxins we’re surrounded with — if they’re actually there, shouldn’t they be quantifiable? Or at least named? The only “toxin” I’ve heard the alt-medders complain about are Thimerosol and aluminum in vaccines.

I mean, if toxins really are all around us, why hasn’t Mythbusters done a show on them?