Maybe I'm Misunderstanding Woo... But... Wasn't There A Time When...

[IdaBriggs]

200. Disclaimer: I know nothing about homeopathy.

My current expertise (and take that with a grain of salt, because I have A LOT of questions) is nutrition.

Of course "cause and effect" can be confused ("I prayed, and my tumor went away, all while simultaneously taking chemotherapy.&quot , and that is why investigation for the *unexplained* improvements needs to happen.

Telling people that their experiences are not relevant instead of investigating is part of the problem.

There is a fabulous story (I'm losing track of the threads, but it is in one of the "woo" threads) about someone figuring out that "traditional treatment of rickets by native americans" was (bunch of stuff I don't remember) which *never* worked when the modern folk tested it, but was historically documented to be effective. Finally somebody figured out the concoction was traditionally prepared in *clay* containers (instead of modern glass, metal or plastic), and the mystery was solved.

I am not convinced that some of the "investigation" on "woo" has been conducted with scientific diligence. (I am not omniscent, so I may be wrong.) I can tell you this: when you type in "micronutrient deficiency" (my area of experience) the first site you find is one about "quack watch" which says "nothing has been proven." It does not tell you "nothing has been investigated." And I just got another note from a parent in the project about a child who was supposed to be dead (not kidding - a few weeks before she joined, the mother was being advised to "just let her go&quot who went from "failure to thrive/completely unable to control her own movement" to "no longer failure to thrive/recovered from hip dysplasia surgery in record time/just moved four feet in a gait trainer under her own power while wearing a body cast". She's a little young for the placebo effect to be credited.

Some of this stuff is COMPLICATED. We've only got an 83% rate of good responses, and to be blunt, we are dealing with a diverse self-selected population. BUT if *I* was able to figure out that I have five difference sources of deficiency (prematurity/IUGR, maternal deficiency, malnutrition, absorption issues and exposure to teratregens) which all have the same symptoms (failure to thrive, neuromuscular issues, cognitive/communication delays, sensory processing issues) which four out of five times respond to the same protocol in the same pattern --

Ah, but it is "woo" until someone else publishes it in a medical journal. Sigh. And getting it investigated, if you aren't already trained to discount it, is like pulling teeth because WOO!!!!