Alternative medicine

Press, 30 August 1988, Page 20

Alternative medicine

Sir, —Professor Beaven and Dr Denis Dutton (August 23) are highly critical of alternative methods of treatment such as homeopathy. Western medicine and the medical profession have status and prestige in our society, but under this cloak many questionable orthodox practices and procedures are performed. Medical misadventures are played down, drugs are often prescribed without due regard for short and long-term effects on patients’ health, and women’s bodies are exploited and used for research — all in the narrie of “scientific” medicine. To date,, orthodox “scientific” medicine has failed to provide treatment for longterm illnesses such as M.E. (myalgic encephalomyelitis) or post-viral syndrome. As a result, many sufferers have become frustrated with this situation. They have, instead, pursued alternative methods of treatment which can, at least, provide relief from the debilitating symptoms, enabling sufferers to cope with life on a daily basis. — Yours, etc., ANNE M. NY. August 23, 1988.

Sir, —No amount of Professor Beaven’s denigration of complementary medicines, or of their effectiveness, will gainsay the obvious need for health-care choices. If some conventional medical practitioners are feeling threatened then, perhaps, they are the ones who should be opening their minds to the real needs of their clients. Secondary and tertiary education has failed to teach many of them the sensitivity and communication skills necessary for healing patients. In many cases it has merely led to arrogance and closed-mindedness. If medicine is becoming too blinkered by technology to meet today’s needs, then it is time it broadened its view and looked more closely at what people find helpful. — Yours, etc., DENISE ANKER. August 23, 1988.

Sir, —As a medical practitioner of alternative therapies, I was disappointed to read Professor Beaven’s attack on non-ortho-dox treatments. Many alternative medical approaches have been embraced by orthodox medicine. Chinese acupuncture was ignored for 2000 years before gaining grudging acceptance. It has inspired research elucidating many of the puzzles of pain, and led the way into an understanding of living electromagnetic phenomena. A paper in the prestigious journal “Nature” (June 31, 1988) reports a series of scientific studies giving initial confirmation of the biological activity of vigorously shaken dilutions of an immunoglobulin, active in an experimental blood cell system. These dilutions were of a homeopathic order, being so high that there was negligible chance of there being a single molecule of the original immunoglobin in the preparations. Despite this degree of dilution, they continued to produce a cellular response. It is important that scientists explore inexplicable phenomena outside the current paradigm rather than dismissing them because they do not match preconceptions.— Yours, etc., TED PEARSON. August 24, 1988.