From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com (Steven B. Harris ) Subject: Re: Bee Sting Therapy (was Re: Australasian College of Natural Therapies) Date: 08 Aug 1995 Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative,sci.med In <400q3h$927@taco.cc.ncsu.edu> calvert@eos.ncsu.edu (Philip P Calvert) writes: >In article <3vu6h2$5lf@ixnews7.ix.netcom.com> sbharris@ix.netcom.com >(Steven B. Harris ) writes: >>>Danny Bielik PO Box 521 >>>Australasian College of Natural Therapies Broadway NSW 2007 >>>(02) 660 0555 Fax: (02) 660 2047 Australia >>>For information or a prospectus, mailto:info@acnt.edu.au >> >> >>Comment: Even your name pisses me off. As though there were orthodox >>physicians out here practicing "unatural therapy." As opposed to >>letting bees sting you, taking germanium pills, or letting somebody run >>8 gallons of water up your butt, all of which Mother Nature obviously >>intended as obvious and natural treatments for disease. <Shakes head >>in disbelief>. >> >> >> Steve Harris, M.D. > >While I can appreciate Dr. Harris' anger, I get the impression from his >comments that he takes a dim view of apitherapy ("bee sting therapy"). >In response, I would like to add the following quote: > > "Consider this the next time an uninformed doctor or friend calls >apitherapy 'quack medicine'. There is no scientific evidence that >apitherapy does not work! None. All the evidence in the scientific >literature point towards it being very effective. If he is speaking as a >scientist, he ought to be able to refer you to scientific literature that >supports his point (double-blind placebo controlled studies in the >scientific literature). He won't be able to do that because the only >studies about apitherapy are positive. That doesn't mean that apitherapy >does work. Only that it appears promising. Don't forget to add that we >agree that appropriate studies need to be done. What is slowing the >process down is lack of funds-- not the nature of the treatment. >Therefore, anyone who maintains that apitherapy is quackery is not >speaking as a scientist. He is only telling you his personal >(uninformed) opinion. The most he can reasonably say as a scientist is >'I haven't seen any impressive literature and I would be surprised if >apitherapy helps.' At that point, he might be open to review the >literature we have collected. Who knows, he might become the next in a >long line of pleasantly surprised doctors."-- Bradford Weeks, M.D. > >The above was taken from BeeWell, the quarterly newsletter of the >American Apitherapy Society, Inc., P.O. Box 74, North Hartland, VT 05052. Comment: naturally, you missed my point. It doesn't matter to me if bee sting therapy DOES work: I'm agnositic on the issue. This issue is whether or not you can tell whether something is "natural" and therefore good, just by thinking about it hard. Being stung by bees is unpleasant, and not something most people would think to allow done. It is painful. There is no doubt that at some level it is toxic (and that this varies dramatically from person to person-- ONE sting will be fatal to some people). I suspect that the number of children and adults killed by bee-stings in one way or another does not compare well at all with the number of people killed by the polio vaccine that some alternatives are going on and on about. The main differences here lie in who thought of a therapy, and who uses it-- not in its essential danger or discomfort or "naturalness". As I pointed out to somebody here not long ago, if lithium had not been accidentally discovered by Cade in the 1950s, it surely would not be part of mainstream medicine now-- there simply is no economic way to develop it. I'm sure that if that "alternative history" <g> had happened, and that if naturopaths were using lithium now on manic depressives, we'd have all kinds of hell. We'd have the FDA trying to put people in jail for using lithium. We'd have naturopaths damning orthodox doctors for failing to pay attention to a "natural cure," and so on. Instead of the way it is now, where orthodox doctors use lithium, and alternatives roll it right in with everything else when they talk about "toxic drugging" of the mentally ill. All of this is stupid, stupid, stupid! Harlan Ellison was right. Steve Harris, M.D. From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris) Subject: Re: alternative treatments for manic depression Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative,sci.med,sci.med.pharmacology In <19971027002100.TAA21194@ladder02.news.aol.com> marleenoet@aol.com (Marleenoet) writes: >>>Right. Lithium is a mineral, so you need to get it from some other source. > Your body can't manufacture minerals. > >Kristen asked: >>Just out of curiosity, does anyone know what (if any) side effects are >>possible from taking lithium? Does lithium exist in the bodies of those >>who are not manic-depressive already? In short, how does lithium work >>to treat manic-depression? The answer to the last is easy: nobody knows! Lithium exists in the body in tiny amounts, mostly as a result of drinking water, which may or may not have some in it. These doses from water are on the order of 1/1000th those used in lithium therapy. Even the highest lithium waters will not give 1/100th the dose used in therapy, even if drunk exclusively. Since even 1/10th the dose used in therapy is ineffective, there is absolutly NO reason to imagine that bipolar disorder can be treated with lithium as it naturally occurs, or that naturally occuring lithium or its absense has anything to do with the disorder. Lithium is here being used as a drug, not a nutrient. A similar example occurs with the vitamin niacin, which lowers cholesterol when taken in gram quantities. High cholesterol is not thereby a niacin deficiency, however. People who ARE niacin deficient don't get high cholesterol, for example. Steve Harris, M.D. |