Alternative Medicine Issues Heating Up
For over a week, I have been trying to generate awareness concerning the effects of big pharma on cancer therapy. But, the current media frenzy over alternative medicine keeps distracting me from the pharmaceutical institutional issues. Of course, both issues are interrelated. I’m assuming all the print and electronic media hype about alternative medicine stems from the Farrah Fawcett trips to Germany and the Daniel Houser flight to Mexico with his mother. Both of these stories were magnets for journalists from every news room. So, I’ll, once again, take a detour from big pharma to address the latest alternative medicine topic.
Yesterday’s news featured new warnings about nutritional supplements and natural treatments, especially chelation. Stories highlighted, yet again, the fact that natural, alternative medical products and practices are not regulated by the government and are insufficiently tested. Examples were given of how certain uses of unconventional medicines could interfere with “bona fide” conventional treatments. Without consultation with a physician, natural, non-prescription remedies can be overdosed or dangerously mixed with prescription drugs. Some news releases suggested that the results of over $2.5 billion spent over several years of testing showed no appreciable benefits from alternative medicines with the possible exception of acupuncture. The federal government’s $30 million study of chelation, a popular detoxification process, has been halted over a concern that study participants may not have been fully informed of the risks involved. It seems that June is the media’s month to highlight the evils of anything in the alternative medicine category.
Of course, it wouldn’t take much of a research project to prove that conventional medicines have had a plethora of failures in development, some of which have caused loss of lives. The amount spent on conventional drug development is hundreds of billions of dollars more than that for alternative medicines. And the failures, warnings, injuries, and deaths are comparatively greater for conventional medicines than alternative medicines. However, my point is not to support or defend alternative medicine. I acknowledge the ”quackery” aspect of some of the alternative products and practices. But let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.
The whole issue of conventional versus alternative medicine is further justification for integrative medicine. As it applies to cancer treatment, let’s agree that opting for alternative therapies exclusively can be very risky. However, many alternative products and practices can be of extraordinary advantage when tested for use as a complement to conventional therapy and applied under the care of an experienced integrative oncologist. Integrative oncology enhances the effectiveness of conventional therapy while reducing the suffering and shortening the duration of the process. Why can’t we have a media frenzy over the positives of integrative oncology? It is the answer to winning the cancer war! Perhaps it is just not newsworthy.