Evidence-Based Medicine is Not Exclusive of Alternative Medicine

(NaturalNews) There appears to be a disconnect between what is evidence-based medicine and alternative medical options. The problem is with mainstream medicine and its virtual control over what is considered to be "evidence-based." This is due to the corruption of science that has been perpetrated in the name of Big Pharma and her allies.

Because of this corruption, evidence- or science-based medicine has received a bad rap and is often looked down upon by proponents of alternative medicines and methods. So to begin with, let's see how the science has been corrupted and to what ends.

The Corruption of Science in Medicine

Most of thecorruptionwe see in modernmedicinecenters on pharmaceuticals.NaturalNewsreaders will be very familiar with this, of course, but it's important to lay out how endemic the ties betweenBig Pharmaand the government regulators have become.

The Food and Drug Administration itself has spelled out its unique relationship with Big Pharma and ourhealth. The FDA's Dietary Supplement Task Force published a report in 1993 regardingnutritional supplementsand said: "The Task Force considered various issues in its deliberations, including what steps are necessary to ensure that the existence of dietary supplements on the market does not act as a disincentive for drug development." (Emphasis added.)¹

In other words.. their main concern was that nutritional supplements like vitamins don't become a problem for drug companies. Countless actions before and since that report was written have only further illustrated the FDA's true mission.^3,4

The science of medicine is corrupted through the whole process of clinical trials. A trial consists of four basic steps: test a hypothesis/treatment through trial on animals or humans, use controls and placebos to ensure the data is clear, draw conclusions based on that data, and retest the hypothesis with more trials.²

Because medical science is unique from many other sciences, in that it is based on statistical outcomes rather than hard conclusions, it is malleable. If the scientific process is not held too rigorously, any of the first three steps listed can be manipulated to create the outcome desired. This makes the fourth step, having repetition of the trials, all the more important. Yet these repetitions rarely happen.

Why Science in Medicine Matters

Science is the search for truth and as one of the founders of the modern scientific method, Alhazen said, "Truth is sought for its own sake."

The scientific method allows us to find out the real truth of things. Using objectiveevidenceand inquiry, it looks for the answers to nature's questions. The benefit to using science in medicine is that it makes our own health and care more efficient. Believing that something is healthy is one thing, but knowing it is requires that we have evidence of the fact.

Knowing the reasons behind why something does or doesn't work will result in better care, whether it is a pharmaceutical or a yoga technique.

Because most alternatives to accepted medicine do not have much scientific data to back them up, they instead rely on other "proofs" that are less than scientific. It's important that we understand why those proofs prove little and why we should move forward with getting some real science to back the methods andtreatmentsused in alternative medical practice.

What Isn't Proof That Something Works

Probably the thing most-often used to claim proof of something working is the anecdote. These are generally nothing more than testimonials or claims made based on what someone saw or experienced. They are nearly always very subjective and definitely non-repeatable. This makes them unscientific, but powerful emotional motivators.

Sadly, for many alternative options, anecdotalevidenceis about all there is to give any kind of proof of its efficacy. Belief in something working or seeing something appearing to work on one person or even half a dozen people does not prove that it actually works. It's compelling, but not definitive.

Age and tradition, similarly, are often used as proof. Just because something has been used for centuries doesn't necessarily mean that it really works. In a similar way to anecdotal evidence, the tradition behind something being used to cure something else does little to give repeatable instances of it working.

It's important to understand that inmedicine, no two bodies are alike, so anytreatment, whether modern or ancient, will have failures - nothing works 100% of the time. What is important is that the statistics (the number of times it does work in a given group of people) needs to be consistent. This just can't be argued with hearsay.

Getting Alternatives Into Science

The search for truth can find the evidence to prove or disprove thatalternativeswork. All that's needed are the studies to do so.

The trouble with the clinical trial method, which is the most-accepted way that science has come up with to prove or disprove medical treatments, is that it is very expensive. Currently, the only groups who are willing to pay the kind ofmoneyrequired to do a good, double-blind, placebo controlled study areBig Pharmaand her allies.

That needs to change.

So what this citizen journalist is calling for is the creation of a new non-profit. This non-profit's sole purpose should be to raise resources and begin independent, unbiased, science-based clinical trials to alternatives to mainstream medicine. Everything from Vitamin D to Ayurveda should be on the list of things to be tested. All that's needed is for the first person with the money and the will to seed the idea to step forward and begin the formation of this new age of medicine. Is that you?