Is homeopathy (and other quackery in general) the religion of the left?

[FLAprogressive]

I say that because because the peddlers of these kinds of "treatments" seem to play into many of us on the left's skepticism of big pharma, offering a "safe alternative" to Big Bad Pharma. All while the grifters get rich off of people who choose not to look at the mountains of scientific evidence that prove that homeopathy/etc. is nothing but a "belief-based medicine" like faith healing and placebos.

And is it fair to call conservatives "anti-science" when we have many believers of a very "anti-science" philosophy within our ranks??

[KamaAina]

1. A fair amount of quackery is on the far right

you'd be amazed how many natural foods, and Dr. Bronner's soap, etc., are plastered with Bible verses.

Also, the Silicon Valley of nutritional supplements is -- Utah. The LDS Church, not known for its leftward leanings, maintains skepticism toward the medical profession.

[FLAprogressive]

2. I think the peddlers of it are on the fair right.....but their customer base is the left and some

on the far right. After all the grifters are rich.

[pickle juice]

4. Grifters will employ whatever kind of advertising works, they're equal opportunity

scammers.

[Maru Kitteh]

72. I do have a wing-nut BIL who wears a magic bracelet to protect himself from arthritis

He is a dumb-ass.

[Kali]

3. no

plenty of rightwingnuts believe the same shit

[FLAprogressive]

5. So it's the left and the far right united in an anti-science belief system?

[Mimosa]

6. This OP is * almost* flamebait *LOL*

People like pat Robertson and that Amway guy are on the right. I've known homeopathic doctors (real MDs) who lean left. The hope for miracle cures and longevity is beyond poltical orientations.

[FLAprogressive]

9. I think it's a legtimate question. The advertising is made to appeal to distrust of big pharma

[Mimosa]

11. FLAProgressive, both far left and far right distrust the big corporations

and government, for differing and possibly valid reasons. I get what you're saying. *Sorry if I went too far. ;) *

I know homeopathy is a total waste of time (from experience).

[pscot]

12. Distrust of Big Pharma

is pretty much universal in my experiance. Almost everyone over the age of 60 is taking some kind of regular medication, and it's expensive.

[aquart]

16. "Almost"?

[HuckleB]

42. Meanwhile...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x633106

[MineralMan]

7. I think quackery is beyond politics. Greed is the only motivator.

Selling what amounts to absolutely nothing to sick people takes chutzpah that is beyond anything politics has to offer.

[Smarmie Doofus]

8. Not to me. I wanna see the data. n/t

[Historic NY]

10. Snake oil salesman always have customers.,,,the internet is loaded with them

from pads for your feet to potions, lotions for fertility and financial stability. It isn't anti-science as much as its is manufacturer science....people will believe anything for a supposed cure..

[northoftheborder]

13. No, not in my opinion. non-partisan

[rucky]

14. There are dogmatic people on both sides.

But FYI, there are a lot of religion fundies who are heavy into homeopathy and don't trust doctors or pharma. A lot of them.

[AC_Mem]

15. I disagree completely

There are many remedies that are actually ancient in nature, that work for many people. There is also the unchartered territory of the human energy field. While we may not YET have ways to scientifically measure the effects of energy techniques (well, they are out there but are not yet accepted mainstream), the fact remains that alternative healing has helped many people, myself included.

I'm very logical, skeptical and seek information constantly, however there is a part of me that has always walked to a beat of my own drummer. I see a place for Western medicine and I also see the benefits of alternative medicine and energy techniques. I am not taking advantage of anyone when I share this information, I offer the information, let them try it for themselves to see if it benefits them. I have shown some die-hard skeptics results that they actually had to experience themselves to believe. And they have had positive results.

It is just as bad to not believe anything that you cannot absolutely "prove" as to believe everything blindly.

How in the world did man ever survive before the pharmaceutical companies or scientists told us what was real medicine? (sarcasm). Closing your mind to what was used to heal before modern medicine, and thinking that it can't still be effective just doesn't make sense to me.

Respectfully,
Annette

[EvolveOrConvolve]

17. "Before modern medicine"?

You mean back in 1850 when the infant mortality rate was 216 (out of 1000)? http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/haines.demography (it was about 5.7 in the year 2000)
Or back when a person born in 1850 had a life expectancy of just 38 years? http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html

Those things that you say were "used to heal before modern medicine" did an awful job of actually keeping people alive. Modern medicine works precisely because it throws out garbage that doesn't work - things like your "energy techniques" and "alternative medicine". You can chalk it up to some giant conspiracy if you want, but the numbers are not on your side.

Closing your mind to what was used to heal before modern medicine, and thinking that it can't still be effective just doesn't make sense to me.

You say that as if modern medicine has completely tossed out effective means of healing that were used before the advent of modern medicine. It hasn't, and the fact that you accuse science of doing so is a dishonest rhetorical device. If an ancient technique is effective, and is able to pass the rigors of the scientific method and modern testing protocols, the method will be used. I can think of various examples just off the top of my head. Can you?

[FLAprogressive]

18. +1

[Why Syzygy]

38. hmmmm..

Your link doesn't agree that the improvements in health were related ONE TINY BIT by the Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex.

To wit:
The mortality decline since the late nineteenth century seems to have been the result particularly of improvements in public health and sanitation, especially better water supplies and sewage disposal. The improving diet, clothing, and shelter of the American population over the period since about 1870 also played a role. Specific medical interventions beyond more general environmental public health measures were not statistically important until well into the twentieth century. It is difficult to disentangle the separate effects of these factors. But it is clear that much of the decline was due to rapid reductions in specific infectious and parasitic diseases, including tuberculosis, pneumonia, bronchitis, and gastro-intestinal infections, as well as such well-known lethal diseases as cholera, smallpox, diphtheria, and typhoid fever. Nineteenth-century cities were especially unhealthy places, particularly the largest ones. This began to change by about the 1890s, when the largest cities instituted new public works sanitation projects (such as piped water, sewer systems, filtration and chlorination of water) and public health administration.

Have the skeptics ever read the usual pharma study? Many are schemes for kick backs to the "researchers". Many, many more show NO statistical difference between the agent being tested and the PLACEBO group. Zilch. That's well known in the medical field.

[HuckleB]

41. Yes, the skeptics have read many studies.

However, if you want to claim that many studies are merely "schemes" for supposed kickbacks, then lets see the evidence of this proliferation. Also, when studies show that there no benefit vs. placebo, the treatment is not supposed to move forward. Granted, it has in some instances, when such research is ignored, and not published. However, if you're so worried about such research, why are you promoting quackery like homeopathy, where even the best research results equate to placebo?

Hello? Is anyone home?

[HuckleB]

20. If you were logical and skeptical, you would not have offered the logical fallacy you did.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-tradition.html

:eyes:

[Iwasthere]

23. I am astounded at the BIg Pharm lemmings in here

Big Pharma is drivin by money and greed. When they have to list 3 pages of side effects (and possible death is often one of them) well, you get the picture. I will never buy another food or pharamacy product that lists more than one ingredient on the back. Doctors are blinded and will only perform medicine that they know, if they didn't learn it from college or from Big Pharm companies, who they blindly also trust, they refuse to look at it. So much money is invested in the machine (radiation, Chemo, etc,..) that they have to keep feeding it. If a person comes in with a small lump that turns out to be cancer they LEAP on the Chemo fix. If you do any research at all you will see that chemo is VERY ineffective against breast cancer, yet they are poisoning people daily. They hold up Lance Armsrong as a chemo model. What they don't tell you is that Testicular cancer is one of the few that responds well to chemo. Lance also flew to Germany at the same time her was getting chemo and had heat therapy, a new method that really is working, no need to poison the body and create other cancers in other places. I will continue to see traditional docs if I break my arm but I do not trust them for my health. They only care after I get sick, not interested in preventing sickness. Get natural, grow your own if you can, organics all the way (and I have been a heavy meat eater my entire life).

[FLAprogressive]

24. So there aren't a lot of scam artists driven by money and greed trying to make $ off of homeopathy?

[Iwasthere]

25. You don't worry about my money, I can take care of myself

The poor family that is paying most of their paychecks for Big Pharm garbage that costs pennies to make and yet they get away with a crime by charging $100s for it. FDA is complicit , worse they are profiting

[FLAprogressive]

26. OK, fine, just ignore the question. You can't admit that there are people profiting bigtime off of

homeopathy....because homeopathy is portrayed as the "underdog" in some kind of "David v. Goliath" fight.

[Why Syzygy]

37. Where? Who?

Which homeopathic practitioners are "profiting bigtime"? Sometimes my HP doesn't even charge me. At all. She certainly isn't getting wealthy from it. When I offer my experience with it, I have never charged anyone money!

Gosh. I wish that was the road to riches you seem to think it is. It just isn't.

Post some links to someone who practices homeopathy for "bigtime" profits.

[HuckleB]

40. First, your anecdote is meaningless, as it is unable to be verified.

Second, http://www.homeopathic.org/content/boiron-shares-leap-on-very-strong-profit-growth ... Are you seriously pretending that people are not profiting from this baseless treatment?

This is a scam of the worst kind.

[Tumbulu]

44. a scam of the worst kind?????

a little overreaction, I would say.

[HuckleB]

48. Of course you would.

However, it's not an overreaction by any actual means.

[HuckleB]

36. Oh, goodie.

How many baseless cliches can you shove into one post?

:rofl:

[Confusious]

28. what was used to heal before modern medicine

Anything that used to heal before "modern medicine" is now "modern medicine" (Aspirin anyone?) with the chicken bones, incense, chanting and bullcrap thrown out.

[LeftishBrit]

30. 'How in the world did man ever survive before the pharmaceutical companies and scientists told us

what was real medicine?'

A high proportion didn't.

[Tumbulu]

43. I make these points with less eloquence here

often and so far the main people who post here have closed minds.

They absolutely believe that if they do not understand how it can work that it cannot work.

I remain amazed that they call themselves scientists.

I thought that science was about trying to figure out how things work not insist that something cannot work because they cannot understand it. That sounds a lot more like the fundies to me.

[Silent3]

55. Science can and will accept medicines where it isn't understood how...

...they work.

They just have to prove they work first. however, and then a search for the mechanism by which they work can begin.

Much of what falls under the rubric of "alternative medicine" can't meet the challenge of proving its effectiveness, however. You don't have to know HOW something works to be able to tell IF it works.

I thought that science was about trying to figure out how things work not insist that something cannot work because they cannot understand it.

So how exactly does this straw man relate to anything in the real world about the quite legitimate skepticism regarding homeopathy and many other "alternative" treatments? For a long time know one knew how aspirin worked, but it was still accepted as a scientifically proven pain reliever because trials vs. a placebo showed that it worked better than a placebo.

[HuckleB]

19. No, it's a non-political religion.

People believe in homeopathy across the political spectrum.

[notesdev]

21. No, global warming is the religion of the left

The way its followers worship scientific fraud as science, in complete ignorance of the prerequisites for any endeavor to be considered scientific, is stunningly alike to the way so many Christians are willing to kill in the name of the "Prince of Peace".

The flames that are sure to follow will also be familiar, as will the fact that true believers just can't help themselves.

[Why Syzygy]

39. Bingo n/t

[flyingfysh]

22. Did you ever look at Wacko Nut Daily?

They peddle all kinds of anti-cancer (and similar) nonsense.

[provis99]

27. Rush Limbaugh advertises this quack medicine.

I would say that itself is proof it is not a left wing thing.

[HuckleB]

60. It's just a scam thing.

[LeftishBrit]

29. Not specific to the left

Firstly,although I consider homeopathic medicines a waste of money, I would only consider homeopathy as 'a religion' or 'anti-science' if it is accompanied by a rejection of so-called 'conventional' medicine.

The rejection of conventional medicine seems to me generally more right-wing than left-wing. True, the suspicion of Big Pharma and of its pernicious role in American healthcare plays into it (but could people please take it in that not everywhere is America, and that countries with single-payer healthcare also use 'conventional' medicine?) And there is perhaps also some association with the Green, back-to-nature movement. But many of the organizations that are strongly anti-conventional-medicine or anti-vaccination in particular are very right-wing; and in fact what bothers me most here is that some on the left are tempted by these organizations and their propaganda to quote and use some very right-wing memes.

The anti-conventional-medicine (and even just anti-vaccination) groups and individuals tend to express the following right-wing attitudes:

(1) Traditional is better than modern. What was good enough for our ancestors is good enough for us! We should not do anything in medicine that wasn't used by Great-Great-Grandmother at the turn of the last century (who died at 45 after producing 8 children, of whom 5 lived to grow up). Newfangled inventions are to be distrusted!

(2) Despite all that is (rightfully) said against the profit motive when it comes to Big Pharma, alternative-medicine practitioners should have the right to conduct their businesses and advertise and sell their products without any legal interference whatsoever. With regard to alternative medicines, basic consumer protection is an infringement of freedom!

(3) Ideology trumps need. People should die rather than take medicines that might give a profit to Big Pharma (just like the Christian Right's view that they should die rather than take advantage of stem cell research).

(4) People's health is entirely their personal responsibility, and the use of conventional medicine saps such responsibility and leads to a wimpish society with a 'culture of dependency' on vaccines, drugs and surgery. (Very similar to the Economic Right's argument that welfare saps personal responsibility and leads to a 'culture of dependency' on benefits.)

(5) Evolution has provided us with the immune systems that we need, and relying on artificial vaccines and drugs is going against nature. It is actually desirable that people with weak immune systems should perish, as this weeds them out of the gene pool and selects for toughness in future generations!

(6- and perhaps most pervasive). Government is to be distrusted. Government involvement in providing healthcare is at best wasteful and at worst tyrannical: a threat to the rights of a free people. In the more extreme forms of this, only 'sheeple' 'trust their government' with regard to healthcare, and they risk all manner of evils: death camps; 'marshal law'; deliberate culling of the population through toxic vaccines; government microchipping people; etc. 'Obamacare' is to be ferociously resisted.

Much of the anti-coventional medicine and anti-vaccine literature, including quite a lot that gets quoted here, is replete with such right-wing views. The frequency with which Ron Paul is cited approvingly gives some clue.

[SidDithers]

31. I don't thnk it's a left / right issue...

but belief in the efficacy of homeopathy and other quackeries, without supporting evidence or in the face of contradindicative evidence, is definately like religious belief. :thumbsup:


Sid

[CanSocDem]

32. The way I see it....

...is that supporting modern medicine is anti-human in that it doesn't acknowledge the body's ability to heal itself.

Dehumanization begins early in corporate society. Schools, churches, homes and communities all work to control what are considered the baser instincts of man. Without social and intellectual rules, society, as it is now, wouldn't exist.

So you decide how much institutionalization you can take before you lose your 'humanity'...that is, if you have any idea left as to the nature of 'humanity'. Schools are inhumane, hospitals are inhumane as are most institutions in a corporate society.

Progressive-ism is believing in the worth of all living things.

Fear and loathing aren't natural human characteristics.

.

[HuckleB]

33. In other words, you believe in fiction.

Got it.

If you are against fear and loathing, why are you promoting it?

[CanSocDem]

34. You're the one afraid of...

...dying from a horrible disease. I loathe your fear.

Got that?

.

[HuckleB]

35. Is that your final response?

:rofl:

[LeftishBrit]

47. So no one should be afraid of dying of horrible diseases? Because it's God's will, or in your case

I suppose, nature's will.

What else should no one be afraid of?

Poverty? Starvation? Persecution? Everyone should just accept whatever hardship and misery is thrown at them, and no one should do anything to relieve people's suffering because that's 'anti-human'?

[CanSocDem]

50. Being only left-'ish', I understand your confusion.

For starters, whether you understand it or not, having respect for "all living things" is fundamental to a progressive society because it eliminates the petty value systems, the corporate interests use to fragment the peoples voice.

It is inhumane to replace "poverty" with corporate servitude and "starvation" with unhealthy industrial meat products. That still sound "libertarian" to you....??

It's also 'anti-human' to ignore public health in favour of medical science.

"Everyone should just accept whatever hardship and misery is thrown at them, and no one should do anything to relieve people's suffering because that's 'anti-human'?"

Like I said earlier, when you decide you have had enough "institutionalization", you will begin to fight for the human interest.

.

[LeftishBrit]

51. You can have both public health and medical science!

Preventive care and sanitation and adequate nutrition are of utmost importance; but even with these, some people will get ill, and need treatment.

And in any case, demanding that people rely on their bodies to heal themselves is also against the principle of active provision of public health measures!

'It is inhumane to replace "poverty" with corporate servitude and "starvation" with unhealthy industrial meat products. That still sound "libertarian" to you....??'

I don't know whether 'libertarian' is the right term, but if you are actually demanding that people should prefer starvation to eating meat, it is terrifyingly harsh and ideological: not very different from the sort of ideologies that demand that people should die rather than benefit from stem cell research.


(Incidentally, the choice of 'leftish' in my username was not to imply limits to the leftism, but because I was not affiliated to a specific political party; the British Labour Party, my natural home, being uninhabitable due to Blairism at the time when I joined DU in 2004.)

[CanSocDem]

52. "Public health"...

...and "medical science" are really not that compatible. In the USA, it's one or the other.

"Preventive care and sanitation and adequate nutrition are of utmost importance;..."

...And are totally missing in this free-market economy. In a humane society, these elements would be universal.

"...demanding that people rely on their bodies to heal themselves..."
"...demanding that people should prefer starvation to eating meat..."

I'm making no demands of "people"....other than wishing they would wise up. If anything, the science fundies are demanding MY compliance. They go so far as to attempt to subvert my human abilities(that I was born with).

I see my posts as a public service in the pursuit of public health.


.

[LeftishBrit]

53. Do you think Scandinavia doesn't use modern medicine?

Or communist countries if it comes to that?

In a free-market economy, it's not 'one or the other'. It's both if you're rich, and neither if you're poor. We should be fighting against all systems which force poor people to choose between food and medical care - indeed, a system that allows such poverty in the first place - rather than accepting a free-market economy, and then bickering over *which* basic human rights should be denied to people, under the assumption that it's necessary to choose between them.

Whether you are 'demanding' or not, you are basically saying that people should rely on their own bodies to heal themselves, and that those who can't should just go to hell. Another version of the free-market view that catering to weakness just encourages it, and that the weakest should go to the wall!

[CanSocDem]

54. Here's what I really said:

"...is that supporting modern medicine is anti-human in that it doesn't acknowledge the body's ability to heal itself."

Not this....

"... you are basically saying that people should rely on their own bodies to heal themselves, and that those who can't should just go to hell."

I would, however, like people to take back control of their bodies from the industrial ruling class. To the free market practitioners in the medical industry, the 'people' are a source of income, that's all. They have no interest in universal public health practices because that would put them out of a very lucrative business and challenge a fundamental myth of capitalism.

There is also a fundamental myth of medicine waiting to be exposed.

.

[HuckleB]

59. No matter how much you spin your BS, you're still doing nothing but pushing scam artists.

And THAT IS DESPICABLE!

[LeftishBrit]

46. 'Supporting modern medicine is anti-human in that it doesn't acknowledge the body's ability to heal

itself'

'Supporting welfare and a social safety net is anti-human in that it doesn't acknowledge people's ability to be enterprising and help themselves.'

'Supporting universal healthcare is anti-human in that it doesn't acknowledge people's freedom to look after their own health without depending on the government'.

I don't see any difference between the above three statements. All horribly right-wing and all equivalent. Fuck the poor! Fuck the weak! And in the case of your statement, fuck the sick! The idea seems to be that one only respects humans if one is prepared to throw them to sink or swim; if they sink, presumably they don't meet your definition of humanity!

'Progressive-ism is believing in the worth of all living things'


No, that is one of those vague statements that can mean anything, and frankly reminds me of the slogans of the 'pro-life' movement. Progressivism means wanting to change society in the direction of reducing suffering; making life easier and more tolerable for everyone, even if that means a reduction in privilege for the already wealthy, healthy and 'successful'.

Your comments sound right-libertarian rather than progressive.

[Tumbulu]

45. I think that your belief that homeopathy does not work

has a religious element to it.

And your attack of people who find that it does work for them is upsetting and counterproductive.

[trotsky]

49. No, not at all.

Considering how many right-wing sources are quoted in support of anti-science.

[Warpy]

56. Hardly. That sort of general nuttiness transcends political boundaries

and, in fact, most of the nuttiest ones I've known (and I've worked in a health food store) were conservative Christians.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

57. Ever had an immediate family member treated to death by the "approved

method"? I have. There is much to learn about strengthening the body's natural defense mechanisms, some choose to, some choose not to. It's a free country.... sertov.

[Orrex]

58. Every have a family member "cured" by homeopathy?

No, you haven't.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

62. Your answer to everything that isn't a synthetic chemical solution is homeopathy,

sorry but mine isn't, never has been, never will. Homeopathy this, homeopathy that, as if that was the basis for all natural medicinal cures. Piffle is all this amounts to.

http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=coenzyme+Q10

[Orrex]

64. You did read the subject line of the OP, didn't you?

As I recall, it seemed to have something to do with homeopathy.

And when that scandalously unregulated industry uses the word "homeopathy" indiscriminately, then I refuse to be criticized for embracing that hugely profitable industry's terminology.

Piffle is right, and it's a tireless machine for wringing money out of the credulous and the desperate.

[cleanhippie]

66. No one has. Homeopathy doesnt "cure" anything.

[Orrex]

67. Glad to see that we're on the same page!

[slackmaster]

61. Yes, and I've seen lives that should have been let go extended for needless suffering

Half of all doctors are below average, and most doctors are highly motivated to administer diagnoses and treatments that they can make money from while ignoring conditions that they can't treat.

[BuddhaGirl]

63. +1

My beloved FIL is an example of that :cry:

[Name removed]

65. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LeftishBrit]

68. Half of any group are below average - including half of homeopaths

As regards your first point: it's a serious one, and I have elderly relatives seriously worried about being put through that when their time comes. But the problem is IMO more with the legal system and the pernicious political influence of the 'pro-life movement' (bad enough in the UK and probably 50 times worse in the USA!) than with modern medicine as such.

'most doctors are highly motivated to administer diagnoses and treatments that they can make money from while ignoring conditions that they can't treat.'

This is a risk of profit-driven medical systems, but much less so in countries with government-funded healthcare. But although the administration and delivery of medicine is very different, and IMO much better, in countries with so-called 'socialized medicine' than in the USA, the basics of medical treatment are pretty much the same. Sweden and Norway and (so far, though there are serious threats to change our system!) the UK practice modern medicine just the same way as the USA; they are just much better at ensuring that everyone has access to it, and that more funding goes directly to medical care rather than to the insurance companies.

[slackmaster]

69. Thanks for your thoughtful reply

:hi:

[slackmaster]

70. It's certainly not a religion and support of it is not confined to the left.

The pushing of homeopathic "medicine" is one more way of victimizing people who are desperate or just plain gullible enough to be taken in by an obvious fraud.

I just heard an ad on the radio for some supposed treatment for tinnitus. As soon as I heard the word "homeopathic" my scam detector went to red.

And is it fair to call conservatives "anti-science" when we have many believers of a very "anti-science" philosophy within our ranks??

People who fail to understand science or never learned to think critically fall across all parts of the political spectrum.

[Maru Kitteh]

71. Repubes are anti-science by legislation which screws everyone. The church of woo usually only hurts

itself, although the vulnerable and children are sometimes casualties, which is as despicable as it is unfortunate.