Reply #104: I object to the broad brush with which you seem to paint anything

[laughingliberal]

labeled 'alternative.' It is not all the same. Many drugs we use today came from plants and cooperation with botanists. Taxol was discovered in a cooperative effort between a chemist and a botanist. There are some who would call that 'woo.' There are natural substances out there that warrant some study. There is plenty of quackery in alternative health but it is not all quackery. I don't believe homeopathy and nutritional support belong in the same category.

The reluctance of science to explore this, I believe, keeps us from some discoveries that would be useful but there is something of a bias against studying those things from which no one can profit.

I had a rather 'woo' doctor tell me when I was a teenager that he thought stomach ulcers were caused by an infection. My mother thought that was the stupidest thing she ever heard. At that time they still told ulcer patients to drink milk. Hell, when I was in nursing school we were still doing that. How did he know? I have no idea but it sure was an eye opener when we discovered H. Pylori.

So, it is the implication that anything people call 'alternative' should be avoided and no study made of it is counterproductive in my mind. But you are certainly entitled to see it differently.