This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Alternative medicine article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find medical sources: Source guidelines · PubMed · Cochrane · DOAJ · Gale · OpenMD · ScienceDirect · Springer · Trip · Wiley · TWL |
![]() | The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information. |
Frequently asked questions
Science Q1: Where does the statement that alternative medicine is not evidence-based or scientific come from?
A1: The source for this statement is a report produced by the
National Science Foundation, which—while surveying scientific beliefs among the public—used the term "alternative medicine" to refer to all treatments that had not been proven effective using the scientific method. The report went on to describe the
American Medical Association definition as "neither taught widely in U.S. medical schools nor generally available in U.S. hospitals." The source is different than the definitions used by major medical bodies and its use as a primary source is not consistent with
Wikipedia's guideline on identifying reliable medical sources, but its inclusion remains important to some and a point of contention to others. Q2: Why don't I see lots of references in the
lead?
A2: To keep the lead from looking like a jungle with all the references which are actually used, they have been hidden from view, but are visible when in the editing mode. If a reader has a serious question about the sourcing for a statement in the lead, they can start a thread on this talk page and request to see the reference(s). Then, an editor will unhide that reference for them. |
![]() | Whole medical systems was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 13 September 2012 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Alternative medicine. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here. |
![]() | This ![]() It is of interest to multiple WikiProjects. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() | The
contentious topics procedure applies to this page. This page is related to
complementary and alternative medicine, which has been
designated as a contentious topic. Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator. Editors are advised to familiarise themselves with the contentious topics procedures before editing this page. |
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Do not feed the trolls! This article or its talk page has experienced trolling. The subject may be controversial or otherwise objectionable, but it is important to keep discussion on a high level. Do not get bogged down in endless debates that don't lead anywhere. Know when to deny recognition and refer to WP:PSCI, WP:FALSEBALANCE, WP:WikiVoice, or relevant notice-boards. Legal threats and trolling are never allowed! |
![]() | Miscellaneous notices | ||||
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Index
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 |
Old discussions at Talk:Complementary and alternative medicine |
This page has archives. Sections older than 15 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present. |
![]() | This article links to one or more target anchors that no longer exist.
Please help fix the broken anchors. You can remove this template after fixing the problems. |
Reporting errors |
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 17 January 2022 and 15 May 2022. Further details are available
on the course page. Student editor(s):
Angelica.gnlz (
article contribs).
This sounds like it was written by the American Medical Association, to disparage anything that isn't big pharma and big corpoate medical profits. 2601:881:8102:97E0:EAB1:1FAA:B3F1:16B4 ( talk) 03:03, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
This article comes across as sounding very biased. A less biased approach would be to define Alternative Medicines as those that do not yet have sufficient profit-potential to warrant the enormous cost of adequate testing for proof of efficacy and safety. Thus, the supposedly-scientific bases for medicines has been dragged into the realm of economics and patents.
As such, alternative medicines remain in the gray area as "possibly helpful" where the decision to use them needs to be balanced against possible negative effects including safety, cost and discouragement from seeking more reliable alternatives. When the negative effects are low, they often become "worth a try".
Another topic that the article fails to address is the inherent variability that exists from person to person with respect to body chemistry. Such variability can mean that there are some alternative medicines that will work for some people but not for others. In taking such medicines, one is essential experimenting on oneself, but if the product is safe, the downside of such a self-efficacy experiment is normally only the cost and time involved. Many vitamins fall into this category.
Generally, some distinction should be included concerning those alternative medicines which have been shown to be medically safe (as distinct from effective) vs those which have received no such testing and which, therefore, could be physically harmful.
Another perspective missing is that most (or all?) of the proven medicines were, at one point, unproven and thus could have been regarded as "alternative medicines" at that time. The tendency to label all alternative medicines as quackery would have blocked these medicines from ever finding their way into the realm of testing and proven efficacy. Jetstream423 ( talk) 18:36, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
insert this subsection under Types. Many of these techniques appear on the List of forms of alternative medicine and their articles reference the Alternative medicine page but there is very little mention of these here.
Besides the above reason, inclusion of this section will add the small amount of nuance about the subgroup of alternative medicine based on anecdotal or placebo based treatments with a lack of direct negative side-effects, as well as "treatments" science is unequiped to extract causality from due to difficulty of blinded trials, as mentioned above in A Biased Perspective?
![]() | This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Physical therapy, along with related disciplines like Pilates, Yoga as therapy, and Tai chi, focuses primarily on the treatment of musculoskeletal issues and occupies a unique position on the fringe of conventional medicine, largely due to challenges in conducting standardized medical trials for addressing specific problems. These practices, which include manipulative techniques such as osteopathy and massage, as well as other methods like foam-rolling, manual lymphatic drainage, acupressure, taping, and sauna, often lack definitive proof of effect. Nonetheless, they are some of the few alternative medicine practices frequently recommended by healthcare professionals and sometimes funded by healthcare providers [1] due to their minimal risk of harm. However, their use in place of established treatments for serious conditions, such as cancer [2], can still lead to adverse outcomes. Elkir ( talk) 15:51, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Alternative medicine article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find medical sources: Source guidelines · PubMed · Cochrane · DOAJ · Gale · OpenMD · ScienceDirect · Springer · Trip · Wiley · TWL |
![]() | The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information. |
Frequently asked questions
Science Q1: Where does the statement that alternative medicine is not evidence-based or scientific come from?
A1: The source for this statement is a report produced by the
National Science Foundation, which—while surveying scientific beliefs among the public—used the term "alternative medicine" to refer to all treatments that had not been proven effective using the scientific method. The report went on to describe the
American Medical Association definition as "neither taught widely in U.S. medical schools nor generally available in U.S. hospitals." The source is different than the definitions used by major medical bodies and its use as a primary source is not consistent with
Wikipedia's guideline on identifying reliable medical sources, but its inclusion remains important to some and a point of contention to others. Q2: Why don't I see lots of references in the
lead?
A2: To keep the lead from looking like a jungle with all the references which are actually used, they have been hidden from view, but are visible when in the editing mode. If a reader has a serious question about the sourcing for a statement in the lead, they can start a thread on this talk page and request to see the reference(s). Then, an editor will unhide that reference for them. |
![]() | Whole medical systems was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 13 September 2012 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Alternative medicine. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here. |
![]() | This ![]() It is of interest to multiple WikiProjects. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() | The
contentious topics procedure applies to this page. This page is related to
complementary and alternative medicine, which has been
designated as a contentious topic. Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator. Editors are advised to familiarise themselves with the contentious topics procedures before editing this page. |
![]() |
Do not feed the trolls! This article or its talk page has experienced trolling. The subject may be controversial or otherwise objectionable, but it is important to keep discussion on a high level. Do not get bogged down in endless debates that don't lead anywhere. Know when to deny recognition and refer to WP:PSCI, WP:FALSEBALANCE, WP:WikiVoice, or relevant notice-boards. Legal threats and trolling are never allowed! |
![]() | Miscellaneous notices | ||||
|
Index
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 |
Old discussions at Talk:Complementary and alternative medicine |
This page has archives. Sections older than 15 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present. |
![]() | This article links to one or more target anchors that no longer exist.
Please help fix the broken anchors. You can remove this template after fixing the problems. |
Reporting errors |
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 17 January 2022 and 15 May 2022. Further details are available
on the course page. Student editor(s):
Angelica.gnlz (
article contribs).
This sounds like it was written by the American Medical Association, to disparage anything that isn't big pharma and big corpoate medical profits. 2601:881:8102:97E0:EAB1:1FAA:B3F1:16B4 ( talk) 03:03, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
This article comes across as sounding very biased. A less biased approach would be to define Alternative Medicines as those that do not yet have sufficient profit-potential to warrant the enormous cost of adequate testing for proof of efficacy and safety. Thus, the supposedly-scientific bases for medicines has been dragged into the realm of economics and patents.
As such, alternative medicines remain in the gray area as "possibly helpful" where the decision to use them needs to be balanced against possible negative effects including safety, cost and discouragement from seeking more reliable alternatives. When the negative effects are low, they often become "worth a try".
Another topic that the article fails to address is the inherent variability that exists from person to person with respect to body chemistry. Such variability can mean that there are some alternative medicines that will work for some people but not for others. In taking such medicines, one is essential experimenting on oneself, but if the product is safe, the downside of such a self-efficacy experiment is normally only the cost and time involved. Many vitamins fall into this category.
Generally, some distinction should be included concerning those alternative medicines which have been shown to be medically safe (as distinct from effective) vs those which have received no such testing and which, therefore, could be physically harmful.
Another perspective missing is that most (or all?) of the proven medicines were, at one point, unproven and thus could have been regarded as "alternative medicines" at that time. The tendency to label all alternative medicines as quackery would have blocked these medicines from ever finding their way into the realm of testing and proven efficacy. Jetstream423 ( talk) 18:36, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
insert this subsection under Types. Many of these techniques appear on the List of forms of alternative medicine and their articles reference the Alternative medicine page but there is very little mention of these here.
Besides the above reason, inclusion of this section will add the small amount of nuance about the subgroup of alternative medicine based on anecdotal or placebo based treatments with a lack of direct negative side-effects, as well as "treatments" science is unequiped to extract causality from due to difficulty of blinded trials, as mentioned above in A Biased Perspective?
![]() | This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Physical therapy, along with related disciplines like Pilates, Yoga as therapy, and Tai chi, focuses primarily on the treatment of musculoskeletal issues and occupies a unique position on the fringe of conventional medicine, largely due to challenges in conducting standardized medical trials for addressing specific problems. These practices, which include manipulative techniques such as osteopathy and massage, as well as other methods like foam-rolling, manual lymphatic drainage, acupressure, taping, and sauna, often lack definitive proof of effect. Nonetheless, they are some of the few alternative medicine practices frequently recommended by healthcare professionals and sometimes funded by healthcare providers [1] due to their minimal risk of harm. However, their use in place of established treatments for serious conditions, such as cancer [2], can still lead to adverse outcomes. Elkir ( talk) 15:51, 18 April 2024 (UTC)