What's the harm of alternative medicine?

[realisticphish]

IT'S BEEN AROUND FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS


"Poachers have butchered the last adult rhinoceros at a South African game reserve, cutting off her horn and letting her bleed to death, the chief game ranger says."

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/08/i_hate_traditional_chinese_med.php

[Orrex]

1. Famous Big Pharma shill TZ had the nerve to bring this up in GD a few weeks ago

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=8891218

Much hilarity ensued.

[realisticphish]

2. I missed that

that thread made my brain hurt

"well, they use it for knife handles too!"

"landmines!"

"scientists steal remedies from indigenous cultures (?) and test them on endangered species"(????)

[Orrex]

3. Yeah, it was a hum-dinger

I learned two things:

1. That that some alternative medicine requires the slaughter of endangered animals does not indict the entire practice

2. The fact that some alternative medicine does not require the slaughter of endangered animals in fact redeems the entire practice


Weird and wild stuff.

[laconicsax]

4. Vectron wept.

"Animal testing to develop effective drugs is equivalent to poaching endangered animals to make a magic potion."

"Alt-med is EXACTLY THE SAME as proven treatments."

""Magic remedy" is HATE SPEECH!!!!"

If there was ever evidence of the dearth of scientific literacy in this country there it is.

[mr blur]

5. Yeah, The Stupid certainly was strong in that thread. (nt)

[TZ]

6. I got aggravated with the stupidity and left

The "but western medicine doesn't always work so alternative medicine is helpful" and western docs use endangered species crap...

[realisticphish]

7. yeah, that last part confused the shit out of me

experimenting on endangered species? what?

[TZ]

8. here's the GRAIN OF TRUTH to that out right lie

There are breeding colonies of monkeys that are endangered in THE WILD...but these monkeys have always been bred for lab use. A lab if they get permission from the USDA, FDA etc can use these monkeys for medical research. But NO ONE goes out and gets endangered monkeys from the wild. Especially since, wild monkeys can carry all sorts or nasty diseases including EBOLA!
But most of the primates used are not endangered. But almost all are specially bred for lab work. Lizerdbits and I made a living testing monkeys like this to make sure they were healthy for the labs.
Its not a happy cheery nice thing, no, but its necessary for medical research.

[lizerdbits]

9. I think it's just USDA/Fish and Wildlife

When I've gathered information for CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) permits to export serum, the authorization to transport the live animals form is APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services) form 7020 as proof of sale. To apply for the permit you have to know what import CITES they were imported under and track the chain of custody to our facility. Even though the animals are captive bred, we still have to have a CITES permit to export them because they are technically an endangered species.

[semillama]

10. That's interesting

I learned something today!

[TZ]

12. Yeah it might be.

But I thought that since the FDA has so many more GLP- pre clinical rules on animal testing that it probably falls under their purview as well. But I know that our company recently had and passed a USDA inspection in their animal facility.

[realisticphish]

11. that sounds like axolotls

AFAIK, in the wild, they are fully protected from collection. But they are very common as lab or educational pet animals