hmmmm

"There is no doubt that some herbal remedies do work as anyone who has used arnica on their kids bruises will attest."

Did you do a controlled trial where you got a number of identical bruises, and treated half with arnica and half with a placebo, and then monitored the speed with which they recovered?

Or have you just put arnica ona few bruises and noticed that the bruises go away?

As Ralf says, if a treatment is discovered to actually work - ie do better than a placebo - then loads of money and effort is inevitably put into discovering *why* it works (because there's then lots of money to be made from replicating and extending the treatment).

At which point it ceases to be in any way alternative

If there's no evidence on why a treatment works, and no effort being put into understanding it - ie if something is still 'alternative' - then it almost certainly means it doesn't, in fact, work at all.

It is scandalous that, as you point out, the NHS subsidises some alternative treatments. But that just demonstrates that some funding decisions are made by weak-minded people. Not that they work in any way.

Posted By: Tricky Hawes on June 2nd 2009 at 10:37:35

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