NHS approves alternative therapies

[Neireekence]

Thanks for that. There's quite a lot of info there. To boil it down a bit go here
http://www.mrc.ac.uk/Ourresearch/Industry/index.htm

MRC also produce a book which gives specific grants available - not sure if anyone can get hold of this, but all Uni's have access.

David

 

[peacebuffalo]

Doing more research is really important both to understand more about the healing process and disseminate that understanding to the public, public health services and government. I think we all agree about this.

Of course the majority of money behind research comes from vested interest but there is more to vested interest that just money. There is organisation. This is not just about raising and administrating funds to carry out research, it is about lobbying government and public relations.

I don't know the figures but there must be a significant market in alternative therapies and products as well as a large public interest (potential voters) and alternative practitioners out there. And I don't know what organisation to promote better understanding is out there but I think that all here would like to see more.

So, research into alternative therapies is limited. Hopefully this would change if the world of alternative therapies was more organised.

But perhaps there are intrinsic problems in researching alternative therapies? What would people think if it were shown that many were no more effective than placebos?

Norbu

 

[heyyyyyy]

See my post on this thread (#12).

David

 

[Grak]

Hi David,

I'm not sure that your post 12 on this thread looks at the kind of issues that come to mind to me. In fact there was something on the radio yesterday about the significance of diet in prostrate cancer. The discussion did look at some of the reasons why there wasn't (in the words of one cancer surgeon) any evidence to support the idea that diet could be of benefit.

The contributors to the discussion looked at why this was the case. Of course the vast bulk of research was profit driven and there wasn't much money coming from cabbage farmers to show that cabbages were good for prostrate cancer. The discussion then considered the question of why public funds or even untied charitable funding didn't go more into this area (I actually think this is a significant question). This is partly about attitudes and the need to change them through lobbying and better pr related to alternative approaches plus a build up of more rigorous studies.

But then one of the contributors explained that it was actually very difficult to design good studies on things like the benefit of cabbages in diets on prostrate cancer. First of all cabbages are made of many thousands of complex compounds and there would be an enormous challenge to identify these compounds and identify potential causal pathways that are effected by these compounds and then identify the almost infinite potential interactions of theses compounds. Then there are differences in subjects and the length of time these kind of trials need to run to show some kind of difference and then there are the ethical obstacles...

The point is that healing processes are incredibly complicated and in many ways I think that the reductionist model is inseparable from classical empiricism. I think that the whole approach may have to change to test alternative therapies properly. And I don't think there is a simple solution to this problem but I do think it is worth trying to understand it because it is then easier to explain why clinical trial approaches are problematic.

Incidentally I had a chat with my medical writer friend the other day. He has tried to get data out of drug companies that look at genetic differences in in drug trials. He says they won't release this information. He thinks this is a commercial decision because if you tell a large percentage of your market the drug won't do any good you'll sell a lot less of your product.

Norbu