Complementary, Alternative, or Integrative Health: What’s In a Name?

MSEsperanza

MSEsperanza

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
THE US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health:
Complementary, Alternative, or Integrative Health: What’s In a Name?

https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/complementary-alternative-or-integrative-health-whats-in-a-name
The use of integrative approaches to health and wellness has grown within care settings across the United States. Researchers are currently exploring the potential benefits of integrative health in a variety of situations, including pain management for military personnel and veterans, relief of symptoms in cancer patients and survivors, and programs to promote healthy behaviors.
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Types of Complementary Health Approaches
Complementary health approaches include natural products and mind and body practices.
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I think this is a development that's observable not only in the US.

Edzard Ernst's take on this:

https://edzardernst.com/2020/09/so-called-alternative-medicine-how-shall-we-call-it/

And in in this article about the International Congress on Integrative Medicine & Health in Las Vegas in 2016 he asks:
  • Why are we allowing quackery to make such a spectacular come-back?
  • Why is hardly anyone voicing strong objections?
  • Is it not our ethical duty to do something about it and try to prevent the worse?
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https://edzardernst.com/2016/05/int...most-colossal-deceptions-in-healthcare-today/


(Would appreciate suggestions on tags for the thread. @Sly Saint )
 
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Here's an example of a study from a renowned University Hospital in Germany:

Kass B, Icke K, Witt CM, Reinhold T. Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of treatment with additional enrollment to a homeopathic integrated care contract in Germany. BMC Health Serv Res. 2020 Sep 15;20(1):872. doi: 10.1186/s12913-020-05706-4. PMID: 32933511 ,
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32933511/

They applied bad methodology to find results that they interprete as somehow positive and thus justify more research to "confirm our findings".

Again, a succinct quote from Edzard Ernst:
Normally, I find newly published studies by conducting Medline searches. This one, I found because the insurance company in question [...] is already using it for their advertising. No wonder – this is not a scientific study but a clever marketing coup!

The results of this 'study' were clear, even before the first patient was recruited.
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What does this remind me of?
 
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@Milo, perhaps my wording is an example of how difficult it is to translate idioms into another language.

Now amended to not promote potential misunderstandings.
 
  • Why are we allowing quackery to make such a spectacular come-back?
  • Why is hardly anyone voicing strong objections?
  • Is it not our ethical duty to do something about it and try to prevent the worse?
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The NHS in England (I'm not sure about other parts of the UK) is promoting counselling and cheap "therapy" in the form of CBT as a cure-all, is refusing to do lots of testing, is removing pain relief in many cases, is promoting acupuncture, and is removing lots of treatments from prescription that have been available for decades, so people in the UK are being pushed (deliberately) into the arms of quacks and private medicine.

I am not sure what the ultimate plan is... Let every quack make lots of money anyhow they want because it brings in taxes? Once the NHS has become nothing but a skeleton service for acute injury or illness, start making lots of alternatives illegal to push more and more people into the private medical sector because it is so profitable? Make it mandatory for everyone to have insurance?

For the first two bullet points above the answer is the same... There are profits to be made.

As for the third bullet point I'm never quite sure what being ethical actually means to the medical profession and subsidiary professions. Lots of things have been said and done to all sorts of people I've known during my life that I assume were considered ethical but to me they just appeared to be torture.
 
MSEsperanza said:
THE US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health:
Complementary, Alternative, or Integrative Health: What’s In a Name?

https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/complementary-alternative-or-integrative-health-whats-in-a-name




I think this is a development that's observable not only in the US.

Edzard Ernst's take on this:

https://edzardernst.com/2020/09/so-called-alternative-medicine-how-shall-we-call-it/

And in in this article about the International Congress on Integrative Medicine & Health in Las Vegas in 2016 he asks:

https://edzardernst.com/2016/05/int...most-colossal-deceptions-in-healthcare-today/


(Would appreciate suggestions on tags for the thread. @Sly Saint )
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Proponents of this approach often talk about how their stuff is beneficial with people who have other diseases, even though they rely on the same process that they use to claim it "works" with us, one we know to be fundamentally flawed. Cancer is a common one, even though the substance is obviously very different.

But we have served as clear examples of what happens when this treatment model is used exclusively, rather than in addition to standard care. It is clearly a total failure, unambiguously so. We can state for a fact that by itself it does not provide benefits, does enormous harm and impairs progress.

It's very rare to be able to test something with all other things being equal. No one would ever consent to using this treatment model exclusively on cancer patients, as an alternative to oncology and competent medical care. With us, the BPS/MUS/FND approach has been thoroughly tested in terms of what it itself brings when nothing else is put to use.

So the opposite conclusion is far more likely, that it actually does not provide anything substantial when used in addition to standard medical care, that it is competent medical care that likely explains any benefits observed from this treatment model. We are living proof of this.
 
I have noticed rather a lot of psychotherapists turning up on Radio 4 programmes, and it's worried me somewhat. Perhaps even more worrying is the polite way that people ask them questions, etc., as if there's no question that they know what they're talking about...
 
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