this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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WHO’s first traditional medicine summit splits opinions (www.nature.com)
submitted 1 year ago by HowRu68@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world
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[–] otter@lemmy.ca 44 points 1 year ago (2 children)

With billions of people already using traditional medicines, the organization needs to explore how to integrate them into conventional healthcare and collaborate scientifically to understand their use more thoroughly, says Shyama Kuruvilla, WHO lead for the Global Centre for Traditional Medicine and the summit, who is based in Geneva, Switzerland

This is the important bit for me. A lot of people are already doing it, so it's worth exploring why they are and how it could affect other treatments (ex. harmless placebo, harmful action, if it increases / decreases compliance with other treatments, mental health and mindset, etc.).

[–] DharmaCurious@startrek.website 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm hoping this may also help some of the people who tend to disregard western medicine as simply an arm of big pharma. If they can see an organization like WHO reaching out to traditional medicine, it may help them accept those sorts of organizations. One of the biggest problems with people like that is that so much of what they are afraid of, and complain about, are legitimate complaints, they're just levied at the wrong groups, because they lump everything together, from their local PCP to Pfizer to the WHO. Maybe this can help a little bit.

[–] deafboy@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

It may have an oposite effect as well. People who trusted them before may doubt them in the future.

I know the medical system is largely shit, if your diagnosis can't be neatly put in a box, and treated by a pill, but fake doctors are not the alternative for bad doctors.

[–] Cleverdawny@lemm.ee 21 points 1 year ago

Yes.

It's controversial when an international body purporting to represent science and medical progress for the world endorses sham medicine and quackery.

That's controversial. And it should be. It would be like a green energy summit featuring coal companies as speakers.

[–] tdawg@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

look I'm fine with people researching whatever the hell they want. That's how we learn new unexpected things. Just so long as it doesn't come at the expense of further research on stuff fields proven to be effective

[–] Lemmywink@lemmynsfw.com 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You know what we call "traditional" or "homeopathic" treatments that actually work?

Medicine.

Making a platform for con artists to grift on isn't gonna help things

[–] tdawg@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If the research standards are the same for everyone how is it a grift?

[–] RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago

That is sort of the aim with this initiative, isn't it? Right now the standards are not the same, so some alternative treatments are absolut bullcrap while others actually seem to help.

Now once you find out which ones are a grift, as you say, would you really want all of these call with the same term, alternative medicine? Thats what the previous poster means, it would be much easier to lump those in with what we call now medicines and keep all the bullshit treatments on their own, a.k.a. alternative medicine.

[–] osarusan@kbin.social 10 points 1 year ago

People act like scientists have never even looked at traditional treatments and just ignore them because they are "traditional." Like we haven't had decades upon decades of progress in medicine, exploring every accessible avenue, and only a few of those avenues actually lead anywhere real. Herbs do not "cool down" or "speed up" your blood. Water does not have "memory." There are no such things as "meridians" in your body. We don't need to spend more time researching these things until you can prove that they exist.

People arguing that we need to spend more time researching traditional medicine ignore the fact that we have, and we found it to be bullshit. It's an intellectually dishonest argument, because it just moves the goalposts every time. Traditional medicine supporters will never admit that their medicine is bullshit, because they view it as foundational, so the most they can do is say "we need to examine it more!" Even though the fundamental, most basic claims that these systems are based on are pseudoscientific fairy tales.

[–] HowRu68@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

That's how we learn new unexpected things. Just so long as it doesn't come at the expense of further research on stuff

Yeah, as for the first bit, for sure; exploration and discoveries mostly lead to advancements in the field.

The second sentence is a bit harder to grasp, because stuff that already works usually doesn't need much further research. Unless you have something specific in mind or it's a new field like mrna vaccinations against cancer, for example.

Getting back to the article, I like this quote: " It does not at all mean being soft on science," says Kuruvilla. “It actually means being hard on traditional medicine and hard on science, to say, do we have the right methods to understand more complex phenomena in the right way?”

[–] tdawg@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Ya that second bit there is mostly why I'm fine with it. I think people get triggered a bit when they hear terms like "tranditional" medicine

[–] Hazdaz@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

"traditional medicine"

Oh boy.

[–] HowRu68@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I am curious to see how these clashes in viewpoints develop from a more international perspective. Traditional versus modern medicine, versus misinformation; ancient cultural rooted customs versus science and a billion dollar industry. Beliefsystems; placebo effect versus empirical data.

I hope we will have some positive cross-pollination.

[–] Cleverdawny@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Absolutely! We have so much to learn from traditional medicine. First, let's find people suffering from hallucinations and drill holes in their heads! Then, let's find sick people and seek to balance their humors using bloodletting.

I think regulatory and scientific advisory bodies should use science and evidence to endorse or condemn practices, not what's traditional or not.

[–] sagrotan@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

But: WHO's on the first base. So I heard, at least.