I don't like quackwatch because, to them, ANY alternative treatment other than conventional Doc-In-A-White-Coat is innately evil. They have tons of stories posted by relatives of patients who died using alternative therapies rather than conventional ones. I'm sorry for their grief, but their relatives were adults, and that's what they chose. Should they have been forcibly hospitalized and medicated against their will? I don't want to see that either.
No, but maybe the people who, you know, LIED TO THEM FOR PROFIT should be stopped.
Not to mention the children who are harmed. A family in my city was prosecuted some years ago because they starved their infant daughter to death. All on the advice of a "nutritionalist/herbal expert", who quickly picked up his considerable wealth and skipped the country.
While there may be "legitimate research" going on in alternative medicine, remember that these people also campaign VERY heavily that their product should NOT be held to the same standards of proof, and even safety, as "conventional medicine".
After researching my own medical problems for many years now, I have encountered some of the most idiotic people, and cures, that I have ever seen in my life.
I have heard of, and been treated by, people in both 'alternative' and 'conventional' medicine who will lie and manipulate people for profit, and people on both sides who will lie and say they follow high standards when they do not, or complain when someone questions their level of standards.
This has made me rather paranoid
, so I check up on even the most innocent medications if I am going to use them or recommend them.
If I was to pick the group that I found the MOST helpful and honest, it would have to be alternative medicine. But I believe that neither side is better or worse, nor is any treatment automatically better or worse. It depends on whether sufficient research has been done to prove or disprove the claims that have been made.
