To say that the "alternative medicine" and conspiracy theorists about Western medicine are dangerous to society?

Complementary medicine can be both ineffective and dangerous. It can have no effect on the illness it purports to treat while at the same time it can contain harmful substances (some Chinese “medicines” contain unregulated steroids, for example), or be a harmful substance itself (such as Kava kava), or can cause interactions with conventional medicines (St John’s wort).

And it’s not true that natural substances can’t be patented. If the active can be extracted and synthesised into a medicine of course it can be patented. Paclitaxel, made from yew bark extracts originally, was patented as Taxol.

The immunocompromised rely on other folks being vaccinated. It's called herd immunity and helps keep them safe, and in some instances, alive.

There is a lot of misconception and misinformation about the purpose of vaccines, how they work, and what they do.

They are a wonderful thing. Especially when those of us who can get vaccinated do so.

YANBU - while recognising there are many things wrong with mainstream medicine like misogyny, racism etc that stops people from receiving fair treatment, yeah, people who push others, often vulnerable ones, to turn down effective, safe, proven treatments are scumbags in my book.

There is a place for 'Complementary Medicine' - 'treatments' and practitioners who do no harm, can help ease pain with massage, essential oils and specially trained to flag up issues to 'regular' medical practitioners

When these practitioners go above and beyond their scope and training, taking gullible and vulnerable patients with them, that's when they deserve punishment

The problem is the Internet

Instead of creating access to reams of high quality, science backed, scientific and medical research, every idiot in every village fell for scam artists

Unfortunately there’s not much you can do about it. If he’s advertising unproven treatments and claiming they cure cancer that is illegal under the cancer act. There’s nothing actually stopping people from setting up a practice and telling people not to use conventional cancer treatments and use unproven treatments instead.

I said it “wasn’t a western tradition” which originally it wasn’t, as it originated from the east. Just because we use it in the west now doesn’t mean we can claim we started the practice.

He definitely isn't a doctor, he runs an alternative health practice. I've been so busy with caring for my relative to do much about him but I'm going to look into it.

Everything starts somewhere, but you said that massage was not part of western tradition when plainly it is.

Anti-vaxxers are a threat to society.

Sorry didn't mean to quote you there

There was a woman at my workplace has been heavily peddling vitamin supplements, clearly a pyramid scheme. Dodgy af.

I’m fairly blunt if anyone asks my opinion. I think that NICE is probably one of the greatest developments we have in this country from the last 25 years and the scientific method is a wonderful thing. I’m involved in a very minor healthcare research project and what it takes now to run a proper research project (several levels above what I’m doing) is inspiring. When people write stuff like ‘For mental health though alternative treatments and therapies seem to be far more effective than anything the NHS can offer’ I just want to hit something because ‘mental health’ is not a definable condition and ‘alternative treatments and therapies’ could include practically anything and what you end up with is someone with an active psychotic condition believing these vague statements apply to them, refusing their medication which is challenging to take, and killing themselves with a huge impact on everyone around them, like my late Dh. So fuck that. I’m open to better research on psychosis and will be delighted if something ‘natural’ turns out to be more effective than the cocktail my Dh was on until he stopped them, but eg mindfulness gave him a relapse and research has shown it makes symptoms worse in a lot of severe conditions.

Yes I found that a few sessions of osteopathy at the right time did more for my inflamed neck than physiotherapy, but tbh the stats probably show that it was more the timing than the technique involved.

Certainly I think people like the ‘Natural Nurse’ kill a lot of human beings, not just her daughter. I’d prefer her not to be in jail with a lot of vulnerable women but I’d like her toxic nonsense shut down somehow.

From history, duh. Massage practice originated from China and India. Any decent history book will tell you that.

Firstly, that won’t happen unless there’s money in it like there is big pharma. Secondly, the point is, where does the policing stop? First it’s thoughts about medicine, then what. Branded a conspiracy theorist for thinking anything that’s against the grain or mass media. Shunned, outcast, ridiculed for thinking something that isn’t the ‘norm’. We’ve been here before.

I would rather call it modern medicine than western medicine as many quack theories - homeopathy for one- are also western in origin. Post pandemic, I am not surprised that many have fallen into a conspiracist mindset - it is a coping mechanism and we have just undergone a collective trauma with historic global shutdowns. There was a lot of fear, panic, misinformation etc to deal with. I'd cut people some slack. There were also a lot of educated people who fell into a fair bit of scientism and went along with questionable breaches of civil liberty.

But does he realise now it’s spread it’s not curable?

Same - on the bbc news site. Her mum was that ‘nurse’ all over social media during lockdown.

When we’re learning more and more about UPF, microplastics, the effects of chemical fertilisers/crop sprays it seems a little pedantic to pick up on people worrying about chemicals in food - we should all be concerned about artificial chemicals that have made it into our food chain, we still don’t really know what they’re doing to us.

Where on earth do you get that from?

Massage was used by Romans and Greeks.

Have a look at universal medicine, they are an active cult in the UK practising a load of harmful nonsense

Is he an actual doctor Dora56? Or a registered health professional of any sort? If so their registering body is a good place to start.

This subject is very close to my heart as I have just gone through this with a family member.

I actually wanted to contact a journalist because the quack they saw is in my opinion very very dangerous.

I have recordings of the consultation and he advised them to not start any chemo or radiotherapy.
To take his special drugs (which were worming tablets), an assortment of other vitamins, vitamin injections (£120 a time) and a keto diet.

I begged and pleaded with them to go down the medical route and at first they refused. The tablets that they were taking damaged their liver and the oncologist told them to stop taking everything that the quack prescribed.

They eventually had radiotherapy and the tumour has gone. Just going through chemo now but should hopefully make a full recovery.

They believed everything this quack told them, how the Drs are all in on it and only give chemo to make money. Baring in mind he drives around in a Bentley !

This has caused my family so much stress and heartache. I can kind of understand how people are sucked in because they are desperate. My family member is very intelligent and wanted to believe this man could make it all go away.

I would like to get his practice shut down but I'm not sure where to start?

It's all good and well to #bekind about these people until they start infiltrating the US government and setting policy on behalf of some 340 million people. And influencing health policy across the world.

So thanks but no thanks, I'd rather have evidence based medicine which can save lives even if it hurts the feelings of a few people who can't read or think.

Plenty of natural products that people take as supplements are prescribed by doctors such as folic acid, vitamins, iron and Calicum are used to prevent illnesses.