There are various alternative medicines available and they are freely practicing , sometimes without the regulatory authorities control.
Homeopathy is quackery. The only regulatory change is to eliminate it from the landscape. Unfortunately, US laws don't allow that right now.
Allopathy is such a loaded term and no one really knows what it means, especially in a modern context. if you can't define it, you can't regulate it.
As for other forms of CAM; most are still in a process of investigation, and some are quackery. Given the lack of scientific evidence to support their use, any regulation should include an acknowledgement that the process is not the primary method of treatment of disease or injury. Regulation should consist of consistent practices, a formalized education system, and licensure.
Nominating CAM as quackery is based on non scientific evidence. Chinese medicine has been around for over 5,000 years...many pharmaceuticals are plant, bacteria etc based, eg penicillin, statins, anticoagulants. It is important to keep an open mind because nature has much to offer us. How CAM is practised is another issue, just like any health practitioner professionalism, education is key. As for licensure, just look at Australia, we have AHPRA, which has much to improve if it is to 'protect the public'. If you are a doctor or a nurse , the mantra does not fit, if you are a Chinese Medicine Practitioner, the pursuit in the name of 'safety' lacks equivalent practice for western medicine. Naturopaths not licensed, dry needlers ditto, total nonsense. In short a sham.
Just because Chinese medicine has been around for thousands of years does NOT make it safe or effective medicine. Are you seriously claiming that powered white rhinoceros horn makes good medicine? Really? Really????
For it to be called medicine, it must be science based. That means it must pass muster in rigorous scientific trials. I don't have to prove they don't work. You have to prove they DO work. So yes, it is quite appropriate for me to dismiss CAM because there's no proof it works.
Penicllian, statins, and other pharmaceuticals underwent experimental trials to show they both worked and were safe for humans. And at least they highlight the risks. Bear gallbladder, OTOH, doesn't pass the laugh test: you can't show that it works, how it works, or what risks are associated with it.
Remember, just because something is "natural" doesn't make it safe, effective, or risk free.
Please tell me which CAM modalities pass that criteria. Most of them do NOT. So far as I am aware, chiropracty is effective for back pain and accupuncture is effective for nausea. That's about as far as any of these "alternate" modalities go as far as safety and efficacy.
You can act like a professional by putting on a lab coat, but unless you ARE a professional and can provide solid evidence that your treatments actually work, you are just putting lipstick on a pig.
Yes in many countries there is a separate process for regulating and licencing the professionals of the alternative medicines, but having said that unless it is evidence based medicine we cannot rely on their effectiveness and the patients cannot trust the practitioners and regulators alike.
This is the issue I have with CAM modalities. They remain mixed with a lot of non-scientific explanations that don't stand up to scrutiny when examined more closely.
I do think some of these modalities might reveal some value if subjected to vigorous study. The problem is, "traditional" practitioners seldom want to do that. I think that's in part because many of these providers are either deluded or scammers, but also because it would mean those modalities would become adjunct therapies as opposed to primary therapies as they purport to be now.
A lot of people are attracted to "traditional" or "Eastern medicine" because it is not "Western medicine." Of course, those terms are misnomoers; Western medicine is really just medicine because it is proven to work. Other forms of medicine can't really be called medicine because they are not proven to work. But people are attracted to them because medicine cannot offer them the answers they are looking for: a cure for cancer, a cure for their chronic pain, a cure for whatever is ailing them.
It doesn't help that conventional medicine is expensive and difficult for some people to access because of the misplaced priorities of our health care system, and our refusal as a society to help people find healthy coping mechanisms and community resources for the dying, the mentally ill, and the disabled.
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