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

[YourAmplePlumPoster]

I have a friend I've known all my life. He first of all refused to have the Covid vaccine and then refused treatment for his prostate cancer and said he was going to treat it with homeopathic medicine. Result was that it spread to his hip bone. Luckily he started chemo and it's worked. What is wrong with these people?

I do not believe herbal medicines work effectively in any way. I admit I have used them and found them to not work. Especially dangerous are the loons who persuade the mentally ill to go off their meds. I have a son with schizophrenia who was persuaded to go off his meds by one such individual. The result was that he jumped off a building and permantly injured himself. People who do this deserve a special kind of hell.

Was that the BBC article about Paloma Shermani. Absolutely tragic and needless death. Her brothers must be in such pain over it. She also had non-Hodgkins and had a high chance of living of she had undergone chemo but instead opted for the "Gershon Protocol" which is absolutely horseshit. horseshit would have about the same effectiveness as juices and coffee enemas

Recently a friend rubbished statins 'because they cause cancer'. That was a new one for me, but then she's an anti-vaxxer. I'm for taking all the vaccines and medicines doctors recommend for me.

All the herbal medicines that were effective have been scientifically studied, the active ingredients discovered and are now part of modern medicine.
That's where aspirin, digitalis etc came from. What's left is the useless placebo effect herbs and the dangerous ones. You're much safer buying a bottle of witch Hazel and a pack of aspirin that making yourself a cup of willow bark tea

My son had NHL too. 12 weeks of chemotherapy and he was in remission.

It’s such a shame.

Correction. Except Xanax for backpain. I took one pill and could not think straight for three days. Returned them to the pharmacy.

Yeah it’s harmful, but it’s also an effective way of removing the hard of thinking from the gene pool, so all good. Where it becomes problematic is when parents and family members are making that choice for their kids and dependents.

My partner refused chemo because his "alternative" friends convinced him to instead have oxygen therapy, a macrobiotic diet and a very expensive tree bark from South America. He died.

Yes that was the documentary.

Yes of course he did. Because the alt medicine is absolute rubbish. But where does this rubbish come from? It appears to be either leftist or the lunatic far right. One of the rare occasions when loony lefties and far right loons are in agreement.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crenzwyvpn1o

Didn't see Panorama but this article was a shocker. Poor young woman.

About time these people are sued.

The internet is making it easy for the nutters to get in touch with each other. In the past if a single conspiracy theorist tried to spout their nonsense over the Christmas dinner table or at work or in the pub, the sane people with them could have got them to shut up or just ignored them. Now the CT looks for like-minded credulous people on social media, searches for blogs, puts content on YouTube, Instagram, Tiktok etc and not only gets followers but may be able to make a living out of it.

I've had triple positive breast cancer, and chemo, then surgery, and now Herceptin have saved my life.

The algorithms on Instagram have presented me with a huge range of cancer grifters and nonsense 'cures' 😕

I would just say that my oncologist recommended acupuncture for my lingering chemo side effects, and also sage tablets. But medicine saved my life. That documentary is so sad.

YABU. It's not a threat to "society" only to certain gullible individuals.

Frankly, the gene pool is probably better off without them.

[Edited to add if it was not for modern medicines and surgery, I would have died years ago. Consequently my sympathy for "anti-vaxxers" etc is non-existent.]

I have heard many bad things about statins but not that one. Having said that the research about statins as wonder drug is probably why so many people don't trust modern drugs

Depends really. I looked up all sorts of alternative medicines for my dad but he was already terminal by that point (same cancer as your friend) I was just desperate to do anything to help because conventional medicine had failed and basically abandoned him at this point. They also say you can watch and wait with prostate cancer so it completely depends on what your friends prognosis was. If he has cancer in his bones chemo won't have cured that because it's stage IV. Conventional medicine doesn't always work either and it's your friends choice. I don't think calling people who use it all sorts of names whilst they're going through cancer etc. is particularly helpful.

I am beginning to see the paradigm between the far left and the far right. Both of them are conspiracy theorists about Western medicine. Western medicine is just the best asset we could hope for.

In the case of my friend he lives in the Czech Republic where they have this proton zapping machine and he got that. It's a very advanced treatment for cancer and he got it.

I sincerely hope you are recovering.

I mean it’s their own fault why so many of these stupid people die. I can’t remember the case but there was a woman in America that started a cult, saying she could cure cancer and was Jesus reborn she ended up getting cancer and died. Her body was found mumified.

YABU.

Surely it's up to people themselves whether they want conventional treatment or not?

An exception to this might be where a child has a high chance of survival, but the parents refuse life-saving treatment. In that situation, it is wise to get the courts involved.

I think you are very judgemental in how you are coming across. A special place in hell for the "loon" who persuaded your son off his meds is an awful thing to think or say about someone who was probably as mentally ill as he was.

There was a BBC article recently about a young woman whose mother heavily influenced her to refuse chemo, resulting in the woman's death when her cancer had an 80% chance of cure with chemo. This mother's two sons are now estranged from her, and angry. She's an online influencer and former NHS nurse.

Western medicine is amazing. All my family are fully vaxxed and I have lots of loved ones who wouldn't be here if it weren't for the miracle of modern medicine. We have come to take it for granted.

That said, for some there is an over reliance on it. There have been lots of studies on the overuse and misuse of antibiotics. Sometimes diet and exercise is the answer. Also while many herbal remedies are placebos, placebos work and genuinely can improve health outcomes (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK513296/) so as long as they are being used for things that won't kill you, like the common cold then I'm all for it.

I know some people who are very anti modern medicine and I don't believe calling them nutters, patronising them, calling them stupid is helpful. They are listening to deeply persuasive people who skillfully play on fears and warp facts. There absolutely have been terrible things with modern medicine ie Thalidomide. We've also had the infected blood scandal, we know doctors in America were bribed to prescribe addictive opioids off label as pain killers leading to addiction and ODs and we know doctors often ignore women's pain and perform treatments without appropriate pain killers.

Now, many people in my family are in the medical professional, I see the amazing work they do and as I said I thank god on my knees for western medicine but there have been scandals so dismissing and belittling people who are opposed won't do any good. Listening to why they feel this way and compassionate communication is the way forward.

I've lost a couple of previously very sensible, highly educated and intelligent friends to medical conspiracy. I'm pretty disturbed by how rapidly this has spread.

Oh and the most senior health official in the US (RFK) has also just fired all the scientists from the vaccine advisory board, replacing them with tin hat types. So this sort of shit is about to get a lot worse.

I don't know what the solution is but science needs to fight back, big time.