Alternative Medicine FAQ
Ethics
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Assuming for the sake of argument that, at worst, most alternative treatments do not in and of themselves cause any direct harm, is it ethical to recommend them? This is not the sort of question usually asked, since most people focus simply on whether or not the alternative treatments are effective. Yet it is an exceedingly important question.
If recommending alternative treatments is not ethical, even when they are relatively harmless, then the case against them is much stronger. Many claim that when you weigh the possible benefits of alternative medicines (curing an illness) against the possible harms (usually, nothing direct), then there is a sound ethical and medical case for recommending and using them.
However, Lewis Vaughn has made a convincing counter-argument to this. According to him, you can't simply rely upon the magnitude of harm or benefit - instead, you have to take into account the probabilities of harm and benefit:
Even if an unproven treatment has considerable possible benefits, is harmless, and costs little, it may be no bargain. In general, given the realistic probabilities, the most likely prospect is that the treatment will be ineffective. So, in fact, the odds are excellent that people who buy the treatment will waste their time and money.
Lawrence Schneiderman has also made a case for the idea that even calling alternative treatments "medicine" is ethically shaky in terms of ethics. They might do a lot to satisfy emotional and psychological needs of people, but medicine isn't supposed to fulfill every human need - medicine is supposed to cure physical illnesses.
But how to you tell if an alleged medical claim is fraudulent quackery? The FTC offers this list of signs that an alleged treatment is probably ineffective and useless (and, hence, not ethical):
- The product is advertised as a quick and effective cure-all for a wide range of ailments.
- The promoters use words like "scientific breakthrough," "miraculous cure," "exclusive product," "secret ingredient" or "ancient remedy."
- The text is written in "medicalese" - impressive-sounding terminology to disguise a lack of good science.
- The promoter claims the government, the medical profession or research scientists have conspired to suppress the product.
- The advertisement includes undocumented case histories or testimonials claiming amazing results.
- The product is advertised as available from only one source.
In the end, the vast majority of what falls in the category of "alternative medicines" are based upon metaphysical principles which directly contradict all we know about biology and the world around us. People tend to make use of them partially because they believe those metaphysical presuppositions, partially because they don't find traditional medicine to be as emotionally and psychologically fulfilling, and partially because they find the anecdotal "evidence" behind alternative treatments to be compelling.
The ethics of recommending and promoting such treatments is dubious at best - even if they do no harm and simply encourage a placebo effect, there is little ethical basis for choosing to administer them over more proven treatments. There may indeed be a few of these "alternatives" which could help people, but that will only be determined by using scientific methods of testing.
This, of course, is the crucial point which must be repeated: alternative medicines cannot be validated by anecdotal evidence, by unverifiable claims from those who think they have been helped, or by metaphysical belief systems which stand at odds with everything we know about the world. To claim otherwise is not ethical
Alternative treatments can only be validated and considered "medicine" if and when rigorous, scientific testing demonstrates first that they do no harm, second that their use proves effective, and third that this effectiveness is better than a placebo or no treatment at all. Refusal to hold alternative treatments to these standards is either condescending towards them or simply a tacit admission that they cannot meet those standards and, hence, should not be in the same category as real medicine.
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