From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com> Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative,talk.politics.medicine,sci.med Subject: Re: Welcome to the town of Allopath Date: 22 Jun 2005 16:51:29 -0700 Message-ID: <1119484289.681703.262090@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> Ilena Rose wrote: > Note: The full text of today's feature (a fable about health) is > being included in this email. You can also view the fable online at: > http://www.newstarget.com/008674.html > > > Welcome to the town of Allopath > > There once was a town called Allopath. It had many people, streets > and cars, but due to budget limitations, there were no stop signs or > traffic lights anywhere in Allopath. COMMENT: Somebody doesn't know what a "fable" is. Hint: you need animals. If I were writing an allegorical story, I would have a town (Carville) which has stoplights and stopsigns, for these prevent car-on-car damage and everyone agrees to them. Another name for them is "Criminal and tort laws" and they are a part of prevention, but generally only vaguely relate to health care. Cartown's real problem is all the cars which just start running badly after a few 10's of thousands of miles, all by themselves, without ever having an "accident" which involves another car. There are a number of auto garages in town to take care of these, and all have different philosophies about why cars quit running well. There are the homeo-fixers. These folks look at symptoms but don't know much about motors. If a car starts making black smoke at the tailpipe, the homeo-mechanics will treat the problem by putting just a drop of oil in the tank, since they've noticed that putting a quart of oil in the gas causes black smoke, and their philosophy is that a little bit of oil-- a teeny tiny drop-- will do just the opposite. People disagree about whether or not their practice helps. There are naturo-fixers. Their philosophy is that a car will run practically forever if you give it enough good pure air and good pure special gasoline with the right stuff in it. The naturo-fixers sell a lot of gas filters and special gas, and special gas-additives. Dozens of them. People swear by their gas additives they get from the naturo-fixers. Of course, these don't work nearly as well when the car is making black smoke. There are the chiro-fixers, who think all things wrong with cars can be traced to improper wheel alignment. They don't know much about motors either, but can tell you everything about castor and camber and tire weights. And sometimes they do seem to fix a car which is making funny noises in the front end. People swear by them also. Finally come the cut, slash and burn mechanical mechanics, or just mechanics for short. They change oil often, and are well-known to be in the pocket of Big Q-Lubarama. They're always taking apart motors and getting greasy. They talk a lot about how things work. They're well-known for pulling out an alternator without looking at "the whole car." They're always arguing with the other fixers. "Just clean the plugs or replace them." they say. "You wouldn't have dirty plugs with the right gas additive," say the naturofixers. "Just rotate or replace the tires." "You wouldn't have improper tire wear at all if you had them propertly aligned," say the chiro-fixers. "The black smoke is from a blown head gasket." "A whaaaa...?" say the homeos. And so things go on and on in the town of Carville. Everybody has his own philsophy, and his favorite fixers, particularly when the car is running only slight funny. But strangely, the mechanics are the last resort of just about everybody. SBH From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com> Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative,talk.politics.medicine,sci.med Subject: Re: Welcome to the town of Allopath Date: 23 Jun 2005 13:03:45 -0700 Message-ID: <1119553690.926112.89920@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> >>It is, of course, rather self-evident that main-stream, allopathic medicine is predominantly symptom focused. << COMMENT: Is THAT why doctors waste so much time looking at your temperature, blood pressure, pulse, oximetry, cholesterol, electrolytes, liver enzymes, blood counts, and so on? Do tell. Sheesh, if people aren't here complaining that drug companies and doctor shills are treating numbers and diseases that don't really exist, they're complaining that doctors only focus on symptoms. Make up your minds. SBH From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com> Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative,talk.politics.medicine,sci.med Subject: Re: Welcome to the town of Allopath Date: 23 Jun 2005 14:32:10 -0700 Message-ID: <1119562330.932170.120760@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> In article <1119499343.299880.156...@z14g=AD2000cwz.googlegroups.com>, Tim Campbell <timc...@sbcglobal.net> wrote: >Steve Harris wrote: >>But strangely, the mechanics are the last resort of just about >everybody. >...which, if the other fixers are effectively carrying out their >preventive activities, is as it should be. >>A very, very large "if." COMMENT: Indeed. I'm compared it to the idea that if you have the right gas additives, your spark plugs will never wear out and in general your engine won't age. As I've said before, for all the carping I get that doctors don't do enough prevention teaching, I have point that *nobody* does much prevention TEACHING. Teaching per se does not pay, because people will not pay for information, and you'll starve that way no matter what kind of health care you do. Alternative practitioners don't spend their time TEACHING, they spend it selling something else. Homeopaths sell homopathics. Herbalists sell herbs. Chiropractors manipulate spines. TCM people stick in needles and sell herbs. You'll have a hard time getting past any naturopath or chiropractor without being sold a bottle of some supplement. All of which they profit from DIRECTLY--- so how's that for a conflict of interest problem, and a problem with bias? All while complaining that MD's MIGHT get more free pens or something if they write a prescription for a particular drug vs some other. Hey, alternative folks: before talking about the splinter in the MD eye, try that log in your own. SBH |