to wonder why dr's are so dismissive of "alternative" therapies?

[tialys]

For example - ds1 was a very difficult baby - he either cried or fed. He saw a cranial osteopath (as a last resort) when he was 5/6 months old. Within 2 days, he was a different baby. Dr's completely dismissed it as coincidence, as CO is completely untested and unresearched.
So 5 years down the line, it must have been another coincidence when ds2 underwent a similar miracle cure?

Another example - I've spent the last few months with terrible asthma - hospitalised 3 times, nothing the dr's did made any difference at all.
I've started having accupuncture (again as a last resort) and within 2 weeks, my asthma is better than it has been for years. Saw my dr, who said "ah good - looks like your steroid inhaler is finally doing its job" (I started it months before the astham attacks started ) and warned me away from charlatans like acupuncturists.

Why can't they accept that sometimes, alternative therapies can be more effective than giving more and more drugs to their patients?

People pick a different path because conventional medicine is more honest about these things than alt med? Strange logic.

Not really, Brux.

I mean, quite often people choose that path because other people say it worked for them. Quite often they have seen or experienced side effects of conventional medicine and seen good results with an alternative choice, such as people have written about here.

Interestingly, seeker disagrees with you completely. She says complementary medicine doesn't cause any problems because it doesn't do anything.

"but this rage about it -- I think a few people need a spot of Rescue Remedy grin"

I rage about anything that exploits the gullible or the desperate.

spidermama I just watched it and, IMO, Ben G comes across as articulate and down to earth.

Sigman comes across as a smooth-talking yet flakey band wagon jumper.

but Goldacre must stop wearing tank tops, they are very worrying.

Sigman is pretty much the poster boy for snake-oil salesmen in that clip, to be sure. I'm not sure that BG's deliberately artless look is helping much either, though. Some kind of middle ground perhaps?

"And herbal medicine has also been proven to be very effective."

Which herbal medicine? Some have been proven to be effective, some have been shown to be no better than placebo.

Herbal medicine has active ingredients - many of which are used in conventional medicine too. You can chew a piece of bark or you can take an aspirin - it's the same chemical!

When herbal medicine works, it becomes conventional medicine.

See above.

I am still raging (on behalf of short people everywhere) at people calling Goldacre an odious little man.

Pharmaceutical drugs on the list there, Seeker?

Gardner it was me and I'm five foot and a sneeze.

LOL Upandrunning.
I like Ben Goldacre but I also like Aric Sigman so am finding this thread very confusing.
I think they both came across well on the clip except I don't like either of their clothes.

Goldacre was attacking Greenfield for using her privileged position to make unfounded statements about the effect of TV and social networking - WITHOUT the benefits of any research in this area.

There is a bit of a difference.

"Homoeopathy explained:
this page"

You don't think that the former Director of the Royal Institution has a responsibility to avoid groundless speculation? I never claimed she'd said she had the final answer, just that she was making unfounded statements, something you're being careful to avoid denying.

Here she is, backpeddling a bit.

I can speculate that using homeopathy quite literally fills one's head with a coiled up elephant turd, because that's how it's users seem to act - to me. And it wouldn't mean very much.

But when a scientist of her position uses her position to get interviews with the DM, the Guardian et al, with basically an "I reckon" piece, then that has influence.

lolol

How about that for irony.

What the hell do you mean?

"Calling for research".

She's a research scientist specialising in the physiology of the brain, currently in post at Lincoln Coll in their department of synaptic pharmacology.

She should bloody well DO the research, then she can say what she wants about it.

Yeah that's certainly true. No-one's ever written anything critical about Dawkins, or his position, ever.

No wait! They totally have.

You're revving up for a good old blast of gender rage, aren't you dittany?