General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Anti-woo commentators are a bunch of smug and condescending... [View all]LeftishBrit
(41,445 posts)but I'd like to point out that 'bullying', condescending behaviour is not restricted to one side of the argument. People who support modern medicine, vaccinations, etc. are sometimes accused of being corrupt; 'pharma shills'; or, perhaps worse, of refusing to take responsibility for our health. Posters have suggested that people who rely on medicine are keeping ourselves dependent on government/Pharma, instead of maintaining healthy lifestyles, or relying on our 'natural' immune systems. Some alternative medicine advocates talk of the 'medical industry' keeping us 'dependent' in exactly the same way that economic right-wingers talk of poor people being 'dependent' on the 'welfare industry'. There have even been posters who have suggested that people with medical problems somehow choose to be ill, and could be healthy if they chose to be!
This can really be very hurtful to people who have genuine chronic health problems. Sometimes it is not that different from the religious right's opposition to e.g. stem cell research: another form of 'my ideology should trump your health needs'.
Also, sometimes people quote seriously right-wing sources in support of their anti-'Western medicine', anti-vaccination views. These sources can range from right-libertarian, Ron-Paul-supporting groups that oppose all 'socialized medicine', to racist conspiracy sites like whale.to.
I am NOT saying that everything that could be called 'woo' by some people comes into any of these categories. Nor am I saying that medicine is perfect nowadays; that doctors know everything; or that pharmaceutical companies are angelic (few people, including most doctors, would say any of these things nowadays). But just pointing out that there are modern-medicine bashers who are just as aggressive as any 'woo-basher'! And are generally much more fundamentally right-wing in the reasons that they give.