Vaccinations

[mystery]

Oh how dreadful. And they'd not noticed he'd developed Cushing Syndrome either?

I'd love to understand the psychology of how people make their decisions on which is the more reliable source of information - e.g. the vast majority of the scientific and medical community versus Wakefield and his supporters, the vast majority of the scientific and medical community versus herbalists, homeopaths and crystal healers (I'm not saying that some herbal medicine won't work - of course it will, as a lot of our drugs are / were plant based)

[loobylou]

Oh how dreadful. And they'd not noticed he'd developed Cushing Syndrome either?

I'd love to understand the psychology of how people make their decisions on which is the more reliable source of information - e.g. the vast majority of the scientific and medical community versus Wakefield and his supporters, the vast majority of the scientific and medical community versus herbalists, homeopaths and crystal healers (I'm not saying that some herbal medicine won't work - of course it will, as a lot of our drugs are / were plant based)

No they'd not been aware that his huge weight gain was of any concern!
I don't have a problem with people using herbal medicines so long as they don't ask me about them and they are not bizarre concoctions of non-herbal things packaged to look innocent.

[ToadMum]

Oh how dreadful. And they'd not noticed he'd developed Cushing Syndrome either?

I'd love to understand the psychology of how people make their decisions on which is the more reliable source of information - e.g. the vast majority of the scientific and medical community versus Wakefield and his supporters, the vast majority of the scientific and medical community versus herbalists, homeopaths and crystal healers (I'm not saying that some herbal medicine won't work - of course it will, as a lot of our drugs are / were plant based)

No they'd not been aware that his huge weight gain was of any concern!
I don't have a problem with people using herbal medicines so long as they don't ask me about them and they are not bizarre concoctions of non-herbal things packaged to look innocent.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8520171.stm

Possibly the 'need' to take 'about 30' little brown (or any other colour) tablets at a time to clear up my skin would make me think that perhaps I would give this a miss, thanks .

[mystery]

Yes! But the danger is worse still? Swallowing herbal materials with pharmacological properties - why do people not worry about the side effects 100 X more than with "real" medication? And why do anti vaxxers not get interested in the risks of the diseases themselves

.

[Amber]

I am not an 'anti-vaxer' nor a big user of alternative remedies. I do, however, have big issues with Big Pharma, the manipulation of 'health' by the media and pharmaceutical companies and, ultimately a sceptical attitude to what 'needs' to be swallowed in the name of making ourselves 'better'. I know people who will take opioid analgesics at the drop of a hat, not realising then that the sleepiness and mind-fog they are suffering is not because they are 'ill' but because that is the side-effect of the drugs. Some people I know also take NSAIDS pretty much daily in the genuine belief that they are going to be 'cured' of whatever inflammation is causing them to be in pain, despite the gastric bleeding risks, for which they then 'need' another (protective) medication; this protective medication has its own side effects, and so on. An elderly relative of mine believes herself to have a 'chesty cough' for which there is no medical evidence and which results in a huge outlay on conventional potions of dubious benefit and potential harm. I know of people also who have serial steroid injections into joints in the belief that this will lead to 'cure' of problems caused by wear and tear.

I think we have an uncomfortable relationship with the idea that we can potentially make ourselves 'better' by what we choose to do and to ingest, and this leads to sneering and scathing views of alternatives to pumping ourselves full of toxic drugs. It is worth remembering that there are alternatives to western medicine - one of the greatest and most successful civilisations on the planet sees the body entirely differently (and a friend of mine was treated for a lifelong chronic complaint while in China - a few nasty brews of foul-tasting herbs and it was gone, something western medicine had never managed in years and years of treatment). Many of those who shout the loudest about 'quackery' are very happy to swallow any pill the doctor offers, either ignorant of or unwilling to think about the fact that firstly many such things are plant -derived to start with (think of aspirin, digoxin) and secondly that no drug is ever without side-effects. Personally I am on lifelong conventional medication for a chronic autoimmune condition, and additionally I have discovered that most of my chronic joint issues, for which I absolutely will not consider either invasive procedures nor strong analgesia, appear to be relieved by a high dose alternative remedy. It isn't going to harm me, unlike conventional drugs; there is some evidence that it does demonstrably 'work' and I have taken an informed decision to try it, which appears to be paying off. I cannot help but think that the burgeoning market for drugs to deal with mild depression and anxiety (I am not talking about severe psychiatric conditions, which are clearly another story) would be better directed to talking therapies and in the wider view, towards fostering a less anxiety-inducing way of living.

In other words, western science is not always best. Sometimes there are other ways of doing things, but in the west we tend to assume that 'we' know best (this goes for politics too!), that science has the answer to everything and that those who see things differently are somehow less civilised than we are. As Gershwin said, 'it ain't necessarily so'.

[mystery]

Yes - I didn't explain myself well.

There are some herbal remedies where one can find out the consequences fairly reliably and there is much conventional medicine where one needs to weigh up for oneself whether it is doing / will do more good than harm or more harm than good. But the thinking that all vaccines are bad and that all herbal medications are totally safe long term because they are "natural" seems faulty - as of course does ignoring the side effects from conventional medicines.

Profit is key in big pharma of course - so simple cheap remedies tend can get overlooked as does research into diseases which are not going to yield much profit. So research into malaria is reputedly higher when the US army is in long term combat in a malarial zone etc.

A bit of scepticism is always useful - and not just in conventional and alternative medicine.

[mike1880]

...

+1

There is sometimes surprisingly little actual science behind conventional medical remedies. See Ben Goldacre's "Bad Science" for a rigorous view of the science of big pharma:

http://www.badscience.net/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Surferfish]

I am not an 'anti-vaxer' nor a big user of alternative remedies. I do, however, have big issues with Big Pharma, the manipulation of 'health' by the media and pharmaceutical companies and, ultimately a sceptical attitude to what 'needs' to be swallowed in the name of making ourselves 'better'.
...
In other words, western science is not always best. Sometimes there are other ways of doing things, but in the west we tend to assume that 'we' know best (this goes for politics too!), that science has the answer to everything and that those who see things differently are somehow less civilised than we are.

I kind of agree with the first part, in that I think there are plenty of undesirable issues related to Big Pharma. In my view this is mainly to do with the fact that they operate within a capitalist environment in which profit and shareholders are considered more important than the health and well being of the consumers who buy their products. Also as Mike mentioned they don't always apply science correctly for whatever reason.

I don't agree with your last paragraph though. What do you mean by "western science" and "western medicine"? It's true that modern science was first developed in Western Europe in the 16th/17th centuries by the likes of Newton, but these ideas have since spread all around the world. It is universal and no longer just something that "we" in the west practice and know about. Countries like China, Japan and South Korea are at the forefront of much of today's scientific research and new technology and have made many contributions to modern science including conventional science based medicine.

[Amber]

You're allowed to disagree.

I am not disputing that 'western' science has now become 'science'. I am, however, (a bit like Goldacre I guess, just less effectively) challenging the hegemony of 'science' and its gradual dominance in all kinds of fields as the only right way. If it is 'scientific' it must work and if it is not rooted in 'science' then it must be rubbish. 'Conventional science-based' medicine is totally brilliant at some things and utterly ineffective at others. If you have a stroke or a heart attack and you are close to a hospital, western science will put you back together. Likewise it will make a pretty good fist of treating many cancers, infections, infestations and irritations.

On the other hand, if you have a chronic condition, an autoimmune condition or a mental health condition, 'conventional science-based medicine' is much less likely to sort you out. And my point in the post with which you disagree was to point out that there is not only one right way to approach such things. Often other cultures have different approaches to our own 'prescribe something to alleviate the symptoms but don't address the underlying cause because it is too complicated/expensive' method.

An additional point which DD makes and which turned her away from studying medicine herself and back towards the social sciences is that science has the ability and the skills to sort out many human problems. And yet, much of the world is starving or living in poverty, people in many nations still die of curable diseases or in childbirth and even in so-called developed countries like ours there is shocking poverty and chronic illness. Science will not sort any of this out; the answers lie elsewhere, outside it.

[anotherdad]

I am, however...challenging the hegemony of 'science' and its gradual dominance in all kinds of fields as the only right way.

This shows the power of perception because as a science graduate, I lament what I perceive to be the growing influence of non-scientific thinking at the expense of rational, scientific approaches.

An additional point which DD makes and which turned her away from studying medicine herself and back towards the social sciences is that science has the ability and the skills to sort out many human problems. And yet, much of the world is starving or living in poverty, people in many nations still die of curable diseases or in childbirth and even in so-called developed countries like ours there is shocking poverty and chronic illness. Science will not sort any of this out; the answers lie elsewhere, outside it.

I completely agree and it's impressive reasoning from your daughter. I am optimistic that this next generation will tackle the problems our generation and those before us have either created or failed to deal with, far more imaginatively and radically than we have. As you say, those problems will need to be tackled in a coordinated, cross-disciplinary way. In science, much of the pioneering work is happening in the crossover territory between the classic subjects in areas like bio-engineering and chemical physics. Maybe in years to come the old subject boundaries will disappear completely. It's happening in a company near here, where geography meets maths meets biology meets economics and languages to tackle issues such as disease spread or the consequences of natural disasters. None of the separate subjects are capable of dealing with problems on those scales.