Complementary and Alternative Medicine

I'm gonna start by saying I'm a scientist and I find the concept of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) laughable.

First, the church of medicine is broad and deep and includes any therapeutic techniques that have been shown to work. So there is simply no need for a separate branch of therapies which either claim to be an adjunct for "regular" medicine or which are effective but not compatible with "mainstream" therapies.

Secondly, the claims of various branches of CAM therapies are, frankly, astonishing and exceed those of the tried and tested therapies available elsewhere.

Thirdly, the claims of CAMs are unscientific. Unscientific in this context means contrary to accepted scientific theory* at best or agnotologistic** at worse.

For example, homeopathic theory relies on principles which are directly in competition with our understanding of pathology and physiology. Acupuncture and other techniques rely on the concept of "chi" which has never been detected. Aromatherapy is just laughable (if chamomile is so soothing, why isn't it used by paramedics to care for people with serious injuries?).

The reason I mention it is that I have again seen someone claiming immunotherapeutic effects for an improbable substance: this time it's honey. Sorry, manuka honey, not any old honey!

And whilst I appreciate that the honey may have a placebo effect which helps some people (as do any/all of the CAM techniques), it's not going to have the effect of permanently improving immune response.

So please, don't tell people with PIDs that all they need to do is take some snake oil product: you're just making yourself look foolish.

* Unlike the common use of the word "theory", in science, a theory is an explanatory hypothese or model which has been shown to stand up to experimental reality time and time again. For example, gravitational theory, atomic theory, germ theory, evolutionary theory.

** Agnotologistic is the deliberate spreading of ignorance for gain, whether personal or social.