Medical orthodoxy defended
Geoff Mein - 1 May 1988
What price progress as many seek alternative remedies?
Medicine has come a long way since the days when self-styled surgeons drilled holes in the heads of patients to remove the “stones of madness.” Or has it?
Prominent doctors, such as Wellington’s Peter Dady, rave about the achievements of modern medicine and the important contribution of science.
Yet hundreds of New Zealanders are turning their backs on modern medicine in favour of alternative remedies ranging from colonic irrigation to astral travel.
Last month, a medical centre specialising in an ancient Indian system of natural medicine —
Ayurveda — opened in Christchurch.
Ayurveda uses transcendental meditation to balance the mind and body, supposedly creating a state of perfect health, free from disease.
Historians tell us it is based on the writings of a divine being who, many hundreds of years ago, rose from a churning sea of milk, accompanied by the moon, a sacred cow, goddess of wine, tree of paradise and winged horse. In later life, after being reborn on Earth as a prince, the being withdrew to the woods to live as a hermit and write the Ayurveda.
Cancer doctor firm critic
Next month. a Foundation for the Healing Arts will be launched in Christchurch — in response to “the growing demand for drug-less and non-invasive therapies for chronic illnesses”
The promoters of both groups emphasise the advantages of natural remedies, either as alternatives or supplements to orthodox scientific medicine.
One of the most outspoken critics of unscientific treatments is Dr Dady, a cancer specialist at Wellington Hospital.
He told a meeting of the New Zealand Committee for the Scientific Investigation Claims of the Paranormal — commonly known as the Skeptics — that alternative treatments are “a load of garbage.”
And, he warns, they are dangerous.
Every year. dozens of seriously ili New Zealanders are refusing medical treatment which could cure them, in favour of alternative remedies which, he says, are “useless.”
Dr Dady knows of several cases where cancer patients have stood good chances of being cured, but have decided to have alternative treatments.
“Patients consulting alternative therapists believe that these people are skilled in the treatment of disease. They only discover their mistake when they become ill and find that their therapist is incapable of providing any real help.”
Dr Dady says most return for proper medical treatment when it is too late, having suffered terribly from pain which has not been treated.
“They generally come back when they are riddled with it (cancer), when the chance of getting a cure is gone. They ask for the treatment you had suggested, and you have to tell them it is not practical now.
“They think you are punishing them … it is a hard thing to do … I hate it”
He says cancer patients are particularly vulnerable to the lure of alternative medicine. There is a public perception that cancer is incurable, even though many of the 200 separate cancer diseases are curable.
“It is the disease people fear the most. When you have the combination of fear and misinformation it is a very fertile ground (for alternative therapists).”
A survey of New Zealand cancer patients in 1985 showed that almost one-third had been advised about alternatives to ordinary medical treatment.
They were advised to seek help from naturopaths, faith healers, acupuncturists, iridologists, herbalists, tohungas, homeopaths and one practitioner of magnetic-resonance faith healing.
Herbal remedies Included aloe vera and wheat grass, molasses, mistletoe extract, Bach flowers and Biostrath liquid yeast. Non-herbal treatments included both sea-salt water and low-salt diets. Some patients were advised to exercise, others to relax.
One quarter of the patients surveyed felt they were being informed about treatments which would make conventional treatment unnecessary. However, only 12 per cent of those surveyed actively sought alternative advice.
Three quarters of the patients were told to take restricted vegetarian diets.
Dr Dady says there was no shred of evidence that such diets had any effect on the progress of established tumours. There was good evidence that they could cause weight loss and hasten death.
“I have seen patients being starved on diets they hate, and dying patients being denied such simple pleasures as wine and meat,” he says.
Alternative treatment costs ranged from $10 to $30,000.
Immunisation next target?
Dr Dady disagrees with alternative therapists who say the orthodox medical profession is Impersonal and obsessed with high technology and self-preservation.
“Good medical practice has always recognised patients’ emotional, cultural and social needs
… Doctors spend a lot of time in consultation with patients.”
Scientific medicine, he says, does not aim to protect the establishment; it tries to protect the patient.
“I’m not saying we’re perfect. Mistakes are made in modern medicine.”
But, Dr Dady says, scientific medicine is based on demonstrated truths and observed facts. Science acknowledges its failures and tries to correct them. Alternative therapists rarely, if ever, admit failure.
He agrees that patients should be free to choose whatever treatment they want, but is worried that some are basing their decisions on wrong or distorted information.
“The spread of alternative medicine has been greatly helped by some sections of the media who will print almost any claim, however implausible it may be.”
Journalists are not the only victims of gullibility.
Dr Dady fears that alternative medicine is gaining supporters within Government health circles.
“The Health Department is showing itself less and less inclined to be influenced by doctors. Anyone who has a countervailing view. to the doctors gets more than a fair crack at the whip. It seems a cheap alternative, and anything cheap is going to excite the Health Department.”
He thinks the department will stop short of funding alternative medicine.
“They are not going to fund anything they don’t have to … but they are political animals. If they can play the alternative medicine card against the doctors for public consumption, I think they will get away with murder in dismantling the public health system.”
Dr Dady believes immunisation will be the next target of alternative therapists.
Naturopaths in New Plymouth have made newspaper headlines with claims that they are having to pick up the pieces left by the immunisation programmes of health authorities. “If you have a sore arm, they (naturopaths) slap some herbs on and say it is all better. It’s a load of old bollocks.” says Dr Dady. “The people who are whipping up the anti-immunisation fears are generally white, articulate and relatively wealthy. As we have seen recently in Auckland, the people whose children die are non-white. inarticulate and poor.
“If they persuade large numbers of people not to have their children immunised, the way will be open for large epidemics with a high death toll,” he says.
Dr Dady’s views were shared by a key speaker at the New Zealand Medical Association’s centennial conference in May. Professor Victor Herbert, of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, said alternative remedies were at best a waste of money, and at worst, they were dangerous.
“No proposed preventive or therapeutic therapy should be used unless the potential for benefit is proven to outweigh the potential for harm. It must be scientifically proven to be better than doing nothing.” said Professor Herbert
Dr Dady sums up his thoughts on the use of unscientific ancient remedies with an observation on what he sees as the wisdom of the Orient:
“When (Chairman) Mao was dying. he didn’t get a man on a bicycle with acupuncture needles, he got an American cardiologist who flew in first class on a Boeing 747.”
