Reply #13: About that 30-40% effectiveness...

[FloridaJudy]

The FDA has approved medications that are far less effective than that! One prescription remedy for toe-nail fungus has a 2% cure rate. Yup that's right: 2%. I didn't lose a decimal point. Despite that, it's widely advertised to consumers: check out the ads in any glossy magazine, and then read the fine print. An expensive drug with an abysmal cure rate for a non-life-threatening condition? The FDA probably approved it because it's innocuous. Systemic anti-fungals are cheap and work really well, but they can have serious side effects. You wouldn't lose anything but a cartload of money by trying the stuff that only works one time out of twenty first, as opposed to - say - losing your liver or kidneys. If it were up to me, I'd just resign myself to wearing colorful socks to hide the problem.

Many other drugs have low effectiveness but stay on the market because the conditions they treat are so horrendous. One popular drug has a 40% effectiveness against certain forms of hepatitis C: certainly worth a try if your only alternative is a liver transplant several years down the road. Many other forms of chemotherapy only have a 20% cure rate for certain lethal cancers. Again, that's definitely worth a trial if the alternative is death. The odds are much better than the lottery, and the pay-off is bigger.

It all comes down to a cost/benefit decision, where not all of the costs are financial. It's worth trying something with less than 100% effectiveness at times. And "alternative" methods do seem to work for some people, albeit only anecdotally. If I had a malignant disease, I wouldn't forgo chemotherapy in favor of coffee enemas and a macrobiotic diet, but I might try them as well. Don't knock the placebo effect. It's why scientists do controlled double-blind studies.

So if someone thinks that waving crystals over her pancreas will help her manage her diabetes, I wouldn't discourage her, just as long as she takes her insulin and watches her diet as well. What's unconscionable is when people prey on the fears of others to promote unproven remedies. Many of the "alternative" medical treatments promoted do just that, but it's not limited to the New Age woo-woo types.

Just check out the ads for toe-nail fungus.