I’ve never argued that research in mainstream medicine is good, only that “alternative” medicine is a worse alternative. If there is no evidence whatsoever that a piece of alternative medicine provides benefit over placebo, you’re better off taking something for which there is even weak evidence of it being better than placebo. At least you should get the benefit of the placebo effect either way.
One common way in which industry funded studies are slanted is by measuring their drugs against placebo, when the relevant information is how they perform against the best drugs already on the market. A drug that comes out ahead in these tests may be strictly inferior to other drugs that are are available, but it’s probably still better than alternative medicine, which reliably fails to outperform placebos.
If an individual takes alternative medicine and gets better, there’s no point arguing that they didn’t get better, but that doesn’t mean that taking alternative medicine was a good idea.
I’ve never argued that research in mainstream medicine is good, only that “alternative” medicine is a worse alternative. If there is no evidence whatsoever that a piece of alternative medicine provides benefit over placebo, you’re better off taking something for which there is even weak evidence of it being better than placebo. At least you should get the benefit of the placebo effect either way.
One common way in which industry funded studies are slanted is by measuring their drugs against placebo, when the relevant information is how they perform against the best drugs already on the market. A drug that comes out ahead in these tests may be strictly inferior to other drugs that are are available, but it’s probably still better than alternative medicine, which reliably fails to outperform placebos.
If an individual takes alternative medicine and gets better, there’s no point arguing that they didn’t get better, but that doesn’t mean that taking alternative medicine was a good idea.