I see you have not addressed at all the alleged Snopes connection.
I prefer to use sources like JAMA, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, and other medical journals, personally.
The "double-blind study" is one of about 45 different kinds of scientific studies used, and approved for use, within the scientific community. It was designed for, and is usually restricted to, testing new dangerous drugs for the claims drug companies wish to make about their new laboratory produced products. Generally, in this type of study, you give half of the group the new pill, and the other half gets a sugar pill that looks just like the original. This type of study simply does not apply to new research. Never has, never will.
This would come as a big surprise to everyone running a double-blind test right now. . .
My major objection to "alternative medicine" is that first of all its proponents typically rabidly deny any usefullness of traditional medicine at all, and secondly that there is no proof that any of these "cures" work. Sometimes they hit on something real, and this is then noticed, tested, and taken into the mainstream (like the use of artemisinin for malaria treatment).
There is also the assumption that because most of these treatments are "natural," they are safe. This is definitely naive. Only a couple of weeks ago I was reading about deaths in cancer patients due to hypercalcemia caused by multivitamins or shark cartilege supplement. If it weren't for practitioners of traditional medicine noticing these deaths and reporting on them, more cancer patients would be killing themselves "naturally."
"I see you have not addressed at all the alleged Snopes connection. "
I dont know what you mean by this statement. Is it that Snopes is run by big pharma, or is it that snopes calls Codex an urban legend? If you read the whole snopes piece it does admit that this is a power grab by the docs who plan to use prescription power to dispense vitamins and minerals.
YOu said
"My major objection to "alternative medicine" is that first of all its proponents typically rabidly deny any usefullness of traditional medicine at all"
That is definitely not me. I think of the C-section as the greatest medical invention of the 20th century. I know that it saves lives and that this surgery is a gift from God. However, I do not believe that the rates our world is currently experiencing, 25%, 30%, 50% in some countries is normal or good.
"secondly that there is no proof that any of these "cures" work"
This is such an obviously ignorant statement, I really don't know how to respond. When those of us into alternative healing claim cure, the pharma companies yell "anecdote" as if our cures and healing have no validity because it was not double blind studied.
The mayo clinic web site has an exellent overview of alternative healing modalities and this article also helps to explain why it is difficult to claim "proof" of efficacy. Here is the link
http://www.mayoclinic.com/invoke.cfm?id=PN00001
I have all the "proof" I need based on what is not happening in my life on any given day. This focus on prevention is where I have put 90% of my energies.
For example. In researching how to prevent Psychosis in myself post partum, I researched various healing modalities and found the Aryuveda Mother baby program, which in it's literature claimed that if I did this protocol after birth I could "prevent" post partum psychosis. This was the only healing protocol that made this claim, and as noted in the Mayo clinic article, Aryuveda is based on 6,000 years of history in India.
Here is a link to a web site
http://www.sacredwindow.com/index.html
Based on my research and the hope that this protocol sounded like it was based in common sense and prevention, we hired an Aryadoula to come take care of me for six weeks after the birth of our fifth baby.
This care included a 90 minutes massage five times a week, infusions of herbs, and the doula brought me five ounces of wheat grass every day as well as hot vegetarian foods which were cooked using aryuvedic principles. In the six weeks after our birth I had 35 massages, and ate the foods, drank the teas, and enjoyed eating the meals.
Guess what? No psychosis, no depression, no breast infections, and no problem healing after the painful and difficult birth of my child.
The stats for a repeat psychosis are not good. A new mother has a 1 in 1000 chance of experiencing a psychosis after birth, if she has that happen her stats go to 1 in 6 of it happening again. Those odds, coupled with the fact that Andrea Yates had just killed her five kids in a psychotic rage upped the emotion of this decision to a very high degree. My husband and I had no problem shelling out the $6,000.00 for this lush care if it meant we could prevent that happening.
That's right, we paid that money out of pocket for a sound alternative healing protocol that is based on thousands of years of practice. Since it was about our only cost during the pregnancy, and because it worked, we feel gratified for the experience.
I know several women right now who have been given anti-depressants while pregnant in order to "prevent" a post partum emotional illness. This is not only bad medicine, it is bad science. Why any doctor would assume that giving mothers LSD during pregnancy would prevent a depression or psychosis is simply insane thinking and practice.
WHen I compare this thrice daily dose of toxic chemicals to my lush daily massage and use of herbals and healing nutritious food, and think that people like you call what I have done quackery and hold up that chemical saturation of the mothers brain as "sound medical science". It is at that point that we really have nothing to discuss.
Jenny