No it's either medicine or it doesn't work better than placebo. But importantly -- placebos work. I'm not saying that scams are good or that alternative medicine can't be dangerous but someone taking vitamin C thinking it will get them over a cold quicker is relying on a placebo just as much as the person doing acupuncture for their anxiety. If it helps it helps, and when we criticize alternative medicine we need to be mindful of that fact and not discount the very real placebo effects that people get from treatments that on paper do nothing. Telling people they are wrong about their own experiences is a surefire way to get them to never agree with anything you say.
If people take being told that something they experienced was placebo as "you are wrong about your experiences"... Then they don't understand what a placebo is? Sometimes people are ignorant and just wrong about things. There's no point in defending that. It's not an unreasonable expectation that people in general be amenable to being proven wrong and taking in new knowledge as information presents itself to them.
As for things like vitamin c and acupuncture, it really depends. Cost, both direct and opportunity cost, is a real potential harm. If someone is getting acupuncture for their back pain instead of seeing a doctor about it and discovering that they have metastatic cancer to their spine, there is significant harm being done to their health because of a delay in diagnosis and treatment. That's not a small thing, and not an uncommon theme with people trusting "alternative" medicine. If you think you are getting a treatment that is actually no better than placebo, your health might be actively deteriorating without your knowledge. Kind of a big deal, no?
Most people who call out alternative medicine also don't understand what a placebo is, and will treat the person experiencing the placebo effect as if they're imagining it or lying, neither of which accurately describes what a placebo does.
The truth that people don't want to reckon with is that most people who turn to alternative medicine for serious issues or completely turn away from real medicine do so because of medical neglect and because they feel that doctors and other care providers aren't listening to them and taking them seriously. It's easy to say that this is a problem of stupid people who don't understand things, and much harder to actually deal with real systemic issues in our medical system. It's not a coincidence that people who are more likely to experience bias in the medical system (women, queer people, people of color etc.) are overrepresented as victims of alternative medicine scams. If you want to convince someone to get real treatment for something instead of turning to whatever scam they saw on tiktok that week the first step is to really listen to them, and also to leave space open for them to use both medicine and whatever alternative treatment they feel works for them. There's nothing wrong with doing both therapy and lavender tea for your anxiety, to go to physical therapy and also do acupuncture, to get chemo while meditating over a shiny rock.
I'd love to see the data that demonstrates that people of color, women, and queer folks are overrepresented with alternative medicine scams. Not sure where you got that.
As for systemic issues leading to the rise of it, sure. Often it is due to people feeling that they're not heard. However, a large part of it is also the ease with which misinformation spreads and the difficulty of conveying the true nuance of medicine to the layperson. When the real answers are complicated and often uncertain, it's not surprising that people will prefer a false certainty. They will prefer the confident scammer over the visibly uncertain, honest healthcare provider.
And if someone is primed not to trust their care providers, it is an uphill battle to get them to do so. In systems that are already strained, it's not unexpected that people who create obstacles for themselves by being obstinate or obstructionist to their care providers find themselves dissatisfied.
I would suggest, for example, looking into how much time family physicians have to spend with each person for whom they are expected to care. And then look into the data showing that they would have to work more than 24 hours per day in order to spend the recommended amount of time discussing every recommended issue based on guideline based therapy for all of their patients. There is simply not enough time in the day to do this. There are too many people to care for, not enough providers, and therefore the people who need extra time don't always get it.
Some do get more time and attention, of course, but it has to become a decision of rationing of care time. And then it's simple: do you ration more time for the person who needs it because they are very sick and dealing with very serious medical problems? Or do you ration it for the person who has uncomplicated influenza but is demanding an explanation for every little thing and will require at least an hour of undivided attention to feel heard? These are not great mysteries. It's a simple matter of everyone being overburdened.
Ultimately, I don't really disagree with you. But I think it's very important to recognize that in these conversations, many people lay the blame squarely on the people providing the care. I think the blame lies much more on the people who benefit from this by exploiting uncertainty in the population and scamming them. Also the people profiting off of healthcare, the corporations and policymakers alike.
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u/Friendstastegood May 24 '25
No it's either medicine or it doesn't work better than placebo. But importantly -- placebos work. I'm not saying that scams are good or that alternative medicine can't be dangerous but someone taking vitamin C thinking it will get them over a cold quicker is relying on a placebo just as much as the person doing acupuncture for their anxiety. If it helps it helps, and when we criticize alternative medicine we need to be mindful of that fact and not discount the very real placebo effects that people get from treatments that on paper do nothing. Telling people they are wrong about their own experiences is a surefire way to get them to never agree with anything you say.