"Woo Wars" - What is "Woo"?

[MineralMan]

2. Woo does kill people:

Usually through its use rather than actual medical care, but not always.

Most of the ailments humans are subject to are self-limiting, and the body's natural systems take care of those things in time. Colds, the flu, and other mild illnesses run their course and the person recovers, whether they get medical care, woo, or simply do nothing.

However, there are other illnesses that need prompt medical attention. Purveyors of "supplement," alternative treatment "modalities" and other untested, unproven methods often promote their stuff using falsehoods. They know, as do most doctors, that most illnesses in otherwise healthy individuals will go away on their own.

On the other hand, as with a friend of mine in California, there are some huge risks involved with "alternative" health care. She had rheumatoid arthritis, which caused her great pain in her hands and elsewhere. RA is a tough, auto-immune disease, and treatments are only partly effective. But, the pain of RA often leads people to try almost anything to get relief. This woman, in her 30s, was not getting adequate relief through normal medical care. This was three decades ago, so some of the new medications for RA, which have potentially dangerous side effects, too, were not available at the time.

She had been seeing a naturopath, who also dabbled in acupuncture, herbal medicine, and other "modalities." What happened next was tragic and ended up with her bogus "health care practitioner" serving a prison sentence. She went to him and he decided that the best treatment for her RA in her hands was to inject Tea Tree Oil into her swollen, painful joints. Tea Tree Oil is often used, applied externally, for such things, with very modest results. But this poorly trained and dumb-as-a-stump naturopath, educated through mail order programs, decided that if it worked externally, it would surely work if he injected it into her joints.

My friend had to have her arm amputated at the elbow. Not only did the Tea Tree Oil cause massive tissue destruction in her hands, but the injection also caused a raging infection, probably due to non-sterile practices. She lost her arm. A year later, she committed suicide.

She trusted the practitioner, and trust is an important part of health care. He did not deserve her trust, and caused her great bodily harm, and may have contributed to her suicide. He served a term in prison, but I do not know what he did after that. It may well be that he's still out there practicing unregulated "health care" on other unsuspecting people.

Far too many untrained or poorly trained people are practicing "alternative" medicine out there. They dupe their "patients" by making them think they are getting some sort of skilled health care. They offer completely useless treatments like homeopathy, magnetic therapy, and other worthless "modalities." Sometimes, they do worse. Much worse. For people who don't really have a serious medical condition and who would recover with or without any treatment at all, they do no harm. For others, however, harm is done, either through incorrect health care or through ignoring a serious condition that requires real, evidence-based medical attention.

I'm a host in the Health Group here on DU. Woo is not a topic that is allowed there. Giving medical advice or asking for medical advice is not allowed there. It is a group that discusses real health information, reports on actual research, and provides news and information from reliable sources about healthcare and health issues. No woo.

Note: This reply was also posted in another thread about woo. I won't post it in any further threads.