• Tanoh@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    72
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Like the old joke, “What do you call alternative medicine that works?” “Medicine!”

    If some herb, plant or extract has a proven effect it will be adopted by real medicine, and all that is left in alternative medicine is the scams that do not work.

    • anon@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      28
      arrow-down
      14
      ·
      1 year ago

      You’re almost right. Modern medicine needs to synthesize natural compounds to profit fully from them. They can’t just use natural remedies and present them to patients because they can’t patent them.

      • TheActualDevil@sffa.community
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        25
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        I’m sure that’s a major part of it, but I also wouldn’t want to live in a world where we could only get aspirin from willow bark. We either wouldn’t have enough aspirin or we wouldn’t have any more willow trees. Medicines derived from the actual source aren’t possible on a global scale in most cases.

        Capitalism is a blight on society and has lead to countless deaths. But in a utopia where money doesn’t exist and people create medicine for the world only to help people with no profit they still need to synthesize it.

        • anon@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          major part of it, but I also wouldn’t want to live in a world where we could only get aspirin from willow bark. We either wouldn’t have enough aspirin or we wouldn’t have any more willow trees. Medicines derived from the actual source aren’t possible on a global scale in most cases.

          Capitalism is a blight on society and has lead to countless deaths. But in a utopia where money doesn’t exist and people create medicine for the world only to help people wit

          I agree with you but in that case, the need to synthesize it could be made entirely based on practicality rather than profit.

      • Otter@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Not all countries have for profit medicine though. I’m sure it’s a factor, but it’s not a universal thing.

        There are other reasons why “natural” remedies get more scrutiny in the medical community, and the other comments have touched on a few of them

    • DrQuint@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      There’s a slight gotcha here:

      I’m in Asia and a lot of traditional chinese medicine you can buy is just regular medicine with a marketing disguise hiding the fact. Why yes, this is a box of whatever the fuck extract, very interesting, old northern recipe to cure the shit, let me just check what’s written on this paper, and, yep, there it is, it’s just Loperamide but with an additive to make it taste like Ginseng. Got it.

    • GBR24_B_S@reddthat.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      I worked for a medical clinic years ago.

      One doctor was pushing natural hormone therapy.

      I asked one of the other doctors. He wouldn’t touch it.

      He told me he sees thousands of patients each year. Some number will get cancer, and some number of them will sue him.

      If he prescribes a medication, he can defend himself by pointing to the medical studies showing the safety of the medication.

      If he prescribes anything natural, there are no studies showing safety, because nobody can patent natural substances. Therefore there isn’t much money to be made, so nobody spends the money to do good studies.

      Even if it was a miracle drug, he wouldn’t prescribe it.

      • blujan@sopuli.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        He is wrong tho, natural substances can and are regularly patented when a use is found for them or a production method that’s better is discovered.

        • jon@lemdro.id
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          That was my initial reaction at first as well. However as far as I can tell, natural products are not patentable, unless the product in question has been modified, manipulated etc, to produce something that is deemed to have been significantly changed.

          So, in the US, for example, the Supreme Court ruled that human DNA, being a naturally occurring product, cannot be patented. However, it also ruled that complementary DNA, essentially DNA that has been extracted and then modified in a lab, can be patented.

        • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Monsanto has entered the chat.

          DNA shouldn’t be patentable. I guarantee you that the scenario that Micheal Crichton laid out in Next will end up happening at some point unless we reign this shit in.

      • jon@lemdro.id
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        Medicine is any substance that has a demonstrable healthcare effect (demonstrated through double blind tests and not some rando’s anecdote). That includes natural substances.

        To put it another way, medicine and natural substances are not two mutually exclusive (i.e. disjoint) sets, as you and/or your doctor friend appear to be implying.

        • GBR24_B_S@reddthat.com
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          That’s not what I’m saying.

          I agree a natural substance can be medicine.

          His statement - not mine - is that it couldn’t be patented.

          Therefore the profit is limited.

          Therefore there are fewer studies than a comparable pharmaceutical.

          Therefore when (not if) he is sued, he will be less able to defend himself.

          Therefore he won’t prescribe it.

          • jon@lemdro.id
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Thanks for clarifying. Although I don’t agree with your doctor friend from an ethical standpoint, the point about natural products not being patentable is an interesting one and hadn’t occurred to me before.