Head 2 Head about Alternative medicine in the Irish Times

Myksyk

The IT today (Monday 12th) have an article featuring a 'for and against' debate on CAM. Brian Hughes, one of our previous speakers, is arguing against integrating CAM into the mainstream Healthcare system. Apparently the paper runs a poll so people can say which side of the argument they agree with. Go to http://www.ireland.com/head2head/ to cast your vote.

agrajag

that page of the IT also had this little gem from john waters...

God is our identity and destiny

I've had an interesting week poring over letters and e-mails in response to last week's column in support of the Taoiseach's criticism of "aggressive secularism", writes John Waters .

In the main my inbox reflected the readers' letters published over several days last week. Some were supportive, others critical, some both, a few demanded apologies and one or two opened windows I hadn't noticed before.

A couple sought to set atheists up as a marginalised minority, demanding retractions of the "offence" taken from my article. Such logic has already circumscribed discussion of most other "lifestyle choices"; for it to hold sway here would recruit us as the accomplices of our own gravediggers.

I heard also from some pleasant and interesting atheists, several of whom assured me that they disagreed with me about God but objected to being lumped in with liberals. The journalistic shorthand one employs in describing social patterns can lead to incorrect conflations, and I may have so sinned in tarring atheists, secularists and liberals with one brush.

Although the Irish media now conducts an unrelenting mob-secularist attack on God and church, one of the defining characteristics of atheism is that it is a solitary business. On reflection, I would say that most of what we recognise as secularism in the public domain is so transparently lacking in philosophical rootedness as to expose itself as a neurotic response to a bad experience of Catholicism.

What distinguishes this from the stream of apparently genuine atheism in the private realm is that the first is driven fundamentally by a collective backlash towards the church, whereas the other has moved on from this obsession.

Some who wrote describing themselves as atheists made mention of a bad experience of Catholicism, but almost invariably as a kind of ancient memory. They had moved on to a new place in which they had found peace but which for me seems the beginning of death.

When I wrote that there is a religious dimension inherent in the human being, without which we are less than human, I was suggesting not that those calling themselves atheists are "less than human" but that it is not possible for a human being to successfully deny the religious dimension. Because God is our identity and our destiny, denying His existence makes approximately the same sense as a daffodil denying the sun.

Oddly, some atheists seem to be closer to understanding this than the passive majority sleepwalking through what they regard as a spiritual existence. Some atheists seem to have looked more closely at reality, and sometimes the intensity of their searching verges on the religious.

"You claim," wrote one such correspondent, "that without religion there is 'no hope, no meaning and freedom'. Naturally I cannot speak for the entire planet, but as an atheist I promise, I live with hope, I live with meaning and, most of all, I live with freedom. Freedom because I am no longer tortured with images of burning in Hell as I was as a child. It has been the most liberating experience of my life to finally understand that God and religion are nothing but superstitious hangovers from a more base time. I feel more connected to this universe now than I ever did as a believing Christian."

It is a long road for most atheists to reach the spiritual awareness of not believing in God. They tend to think about it a lot and reach their conclusions after much research and self-inquiry. How many of the billions of religious can we say that of today?

Like many in post-Catholic Ireland, this man has taken his negative reaction to Catholicism for a philosophical understanding of the totality of reality. In truth, his experience of Catholicism had nothing to do with faith, religion or God, but was, in common with many such experiences, an encounter with earthly power.

Writing back, I shared with him my favourite definition of religion, from the writings of Fr Luigi Giussani. Imagine, he demanded, that, at this very moment, you have just been born - but with all your faculties, emotions, intellect and other powers of apprehension intact. What, he asked, is your response to reality?

The answer: an intense and radical attraction to reality, combined with a profound sense that you have not yourself created one atom of it. That, he said, is religion.

The distance between this and the idea of religion we have inherited from a dysfunctional church is reflected in the widening gap between Irish society and belief. This erroneous rejection of an erroneous religiosity is deeply damaging to our children's chances of peace and happiness. Atheists may be likeable, interesting people, but they have nothing coherent to offer either society or posterity.

While it is possible for an individual to live a hopeful, meaningful and free life without God, there is no evidence that this can be achieved by a society. I will go further: the "hope" Irish atheists claim to possess derives not from their own philosophical resting place but from the residual background radiation of a once intense, if flawed, cultural faith.

robindch

Plenty of burning oil is being poured on our troubled Waters over here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=2055062189

Enjoy!

agrajag

thanks for the heads up robindch, all those flames are warming the cockles of this atheist's heart

5uspect

Its nice to see that many of that comments posted there are quite sensible. Its sad that people seem to think that alternatives to medicine are some sort of remedy for the health system as a whole.

I've heard of too many people going to that "faith healer down the road where all that was wrong was he had a bone out and that foreign doctor told him he had cancer. What do these doctors know anyway?!"

People need to have confidence in real medical care, and the state of our health system isn't helping.

pH

It's a very complicated issue for the following reasons :

- 'Real' doctors have been dishing out placebos for years (sugar pills in every doctor's bag). Despite our medical advances many chronic (and fundamentally incurable) conditions exist, many of them respond well to a placebo (in addition to standard care).

- In addition to this, primary healthcare tends to be (dare I say it) clinical. Visits to a GP are quick and it's very easy to find yourself lost in our healthcare system when being treated long term. Complementary therapists (mainly due to cost) can provide a much more patient-centric experience.

- Finally many psychological conditions exist, from mild forms of hypochondria, through to anxiety and stress related conditions, many of which respond well just to - the idea that they're being treated, sensible lifestyle changes, relaxation, therapy etc. etc.

For all of the above it may be appropriate for a trained medical practitioner, once a diagnosis has been made, to 'divert' certain patients away from high cost (and ultimately ineffective) primary treatments to a treatment that may make the patient feel better by triggering a placebo effect.

I have real problems with charlatans taking money from sick and vulnerable people, but if trained doctors are involved and the referral is based on what that doctor feels is the best action for that patient (i.e. there is absolutely no pressure to move patients away from primary medicine, it is only undertaken when the doctor genuinely thinks it's best) then I'm more at ease. Yes there are ethical issues about referring patients to treatments that you are certain provide no actual health benefits, but if you as a doctor feel that the referral is in the best interest of the patient (and of much lesser importance in the interest of the health service) then I'm open to being convinced.

Myksyk

Paul O'Donoghue in the Times this morning (following on from a letter yesterday about the head2head article):


Madam, – Irene Stevenson’s claims for the efficacy of alternative medicine, based on having tried it and found it to work (March 14th), were already answered in Brian Hughes’s article (Head2Head, March 12th).

He outlined the clearly documented psychological reasons for this perception and noted that pain was one of the conditions susceptible to psychosomatic effects.

I am more concerned by the claims of Ruth Cloherty, who opposed Dr Hughes, that alternative medicine can fill gaps in the health service. It clearly cannot. Substituting or “complementing” evidence-based therapy with unproven or disproven diagnostic or treatment practices does nothing to improve the situation and in my view can only make it worse.

Having read Ms Cloherty’s article I consulted the website of the organisation that she directs. The Institute of Complementary and Integrated Medicine (ICIM) offers a range of scientifically questionable courses. For example, there is a diploma course in clinical iridology, an alternative system which claims that illnesses throughout the body are reflected the iris of the eye.

It is claimed on the website that “this is an invaluable tool for any health practitioner as it will help you to form a diagnosis. It is also a useful tool in measuring the success of treatment, as effected [sic] parts of the eye will change as health is restored”.

Clinical iridology is abject nonsense. The iris of the eye changes only in rare ocular conditions. The iris provides an indication of personal identity that is more accurate than fingerprinting. It does not change in response to any general illness of the body. Iridologists have been systematically tested and are unable consistently to diagnose any illness with this ludicrous technique. It is obvious that changes perceived by iridologists occur in their brains, not in the irises of their clients.

The diploma course on clinical iridology offered by ICIM is run on five weekends over six months and costs €1,600. – Yours, etc, PAUL O’DONOGHUE, Principal Clinical Psychologist, Dublin 6.

Barnowl

Madam,

With reference to Irene Stevenson's letter (March 14th), her claims for the efficacy of alternative medicine, based on having tried it and found it to work, are answered in Brian Hughes's Head2Head article. He outlines the clearly documented psychological reasons for this perception and notes that pain is one of the conditions susceptible to psychosomatic effects.

I am more conerned by the claims of Ruth Cloherty, who opposed Dr. Hughes, that alternative medicine can fill gaps in the health service. It clearly cannot. Substituting or "complementing" evidence based therapy with unproven or disproven diagnostic or treatment practices does nothing to improve the situation and in my view can only make it worse.

Having read Ms. Cloherty's article I consulted the website of the organisation that she is referenced as directing. The Institute of Complementary and Integrated Medicine (ICIM) offers a range of scientifically questionable courses. For example, there is a diploma course in clinical iridology, an alternative system that claims that illnesses throughout the body are reflected in changes in the iris of the eye.

It is claimed on the site that "this is an invaluable tool for any health practitioner as it will help you to form a diagnosis. It is also a useful tool in measuring the success of treatment, as effected (sic) parts of the eye will change as health is restored"

Clinical iridology is abject nonsense. The iris of the eye only changes in rare occular conditions. The iris provides an indication of personal identity that is more accurate than fingerprinting. It does not change in response to any general illness of the body. Iridologists have been systematically tested and are unable to consistently diagnose any illness with this ludicrous technique. It is obvious that changes perceived by iridologists occur in their brains, not in the irises of their clients.

The diploma course on clinical iridology offered by ICIM is run on five weekends over six months and costs €1,600. It is stated under their FAQ section that with an ICIM diploma, students have successfully completed a recognised course and can practice.

I can only conclude from this that students who complete this course have been relieved of €1,600, fed a lot of nonsense about a demonstrably untenable practice and left with the delusion that they can now diagnose members of the public and measure treatment effectiveness by monitoring non-existent changes in the iris.

This should serve to terrify any reasonable citizen and throw serious doubt on Ms. Cloherty's claims that alternative medicine can contribute in any trustworthy or safe sense to the nations health and welfare.

JuliusCaesar

pH wrote:

but if trained doctors are involved and the referral is based on what that doctor feels is the best action for that patient (i.e. there is absolutely no pressure to move patients away from primary medicine, it is only undertaken when the doctor genuinely thinks it's best) then I'm more at ease. Yes there are ethical issues about referring patients to treatments that you are certain provide no actual health benefits, but if you as a doctor feel that the referral is in the best interest of the patient (and of much lesser importance in the interest of the health service) then I'm open to being convinced.

Too many doctors have faith in nonsense; look at the numbers providing homeopathy and other 'alternative' treatments. (And yet many others will say that they are sceptical of psychology without any hesitation.) Psychologists can do the same - we have some well-known examples. Do they not become convinced of the scientist/practitioner model at college?

Myksyk

The final result of the poll was 63% in favour of integrating CAM into the mainstream Health services ... 37% against so doing. Despite the expected outcome in favour, I think the no vote was higher than expected.

There have been a number of letters in the IT over the last week with regard to the original article (including one from my good self and one from Paul O'Donoghue). In reply there have been letters addressed to Brian Hughes which I know he has responded to but that may not be published (I think the Times try to avoid tit-for-tat correspondence on the letters page). If not we might consider putting them up on our website.