From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative,talk.politics.medicine,sci.med
Subject: Re: Welcome to the town of Allopath
Date: 22 Jun 2005 16:51:29 -0700
Message-ID: <1119484289.681703.262090@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>

Ilena Rose wrote:
> Note: The full text of today's feature (a fable about health) is
> being included in this email. You can also view the fable online at:
> http://www.newstarget.com/008674.html
>
>
> Welcome to the town of Allopath
>
> There once was a town called Allopath. It had many people, streets
> and cars, but due to budget limitations, there were no stop signs or
> traffic lights anywhere in Allopath.


COMMENT:

Somebody doesn't know what a "fable" is.  Hint: you need animals.

If I were writing an allegorical story, I would have a town (Carville)
which has stoplights and stopsigns, for these prevent car-on-car damage
and everyone agrees to them. Another name for them is "Criminal and
tort laws" and they are a part of prevention, but generally only
vaguely relate to health care.

Cartown's real problem is all the cars which just start running badly
after a few 10's of thousands of miles, all by themselves, without ever
having an "accident" which involves another car.

There are a number of auto garages in town to take care of these, and
all have different philosophies about why cars quit running well.

There are the homeo-fixers. These folks look at symptoms but don't know
much about motors. If a car starts making black smoke at the tailpipe,
the homeo-mechanics will treat the problem by putting just a drop of
oil in the tank, since they've noticed that putting a quart of oil in
the gas causes black smoke, and their philosophy is that a little bit
of oil-- a teeny tiny drop-- will do just the opposite. People disagree
about whether or not their practice helps.

There are naturo-fixers. Their philosophy is that a car will run
practically forever if you give it enough good pure air and good pure
special gasoline with the right stuff in it. The naturo-fixers sell a
lot of gas filters and special gas, and special gas-additives. Dozens
of them. People swear by their gas additives they get from the
naturo-fixers.  Of course, these don't work nearly as well when the car
is making black smoke.

There are the chiro-fixers, who think all things wrong with cars can be
traced to improper wheel alignment.  They don't know much about motors
either, but can tell you everything about castor and camber and tire
weights. And sometimes they do seem to fix a car which is making funny
noises in the front end. People swear by them also.

Finally come the cut, slash and burn mechanical mechanics, or just
mechanics for short. They change oil often, and are well-known to be in
the pocket of Big Q-Lubarama. They're always taking apart motors and
getting greasy. They talk a lot about how things work. They're
well-known for pulling out an alternator without looking at "the whole
car."

They're always arguing with the other fixers.

"Just clean the plugs or replace them." they say.
"You wouldn't have dirty plugs with the right gas additive," say the
naturofixers.

"Just rotate or replace the tires."
"You wouldn't have improper tire wear at all if you had them propertly
aligned," say the chiro-fixers.

"The black smoke is from a blown head gasket."
"A whaaaa...?" say the homeos.


And so things go on and on in the town of Carville. Everybody has his
own philsophy, and his favorite fixers, particularly when the car is
running only slight funny.  But strangely, the mechanics are the last
resort of just about everybody.

SBH

From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative,talk.politics.medicine,sci.med
Subject: Re: Welcome to the town of Allopath
Date: 23 Jun 2005 13:03:45 -0700
Message-ID: <1119553690.926112.89920@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>

>>It is, of course, rather self-evident that main-stream, allopathic
medicine is predominantly symptom focused. <<

COMMENT:

Is THAT why doctors waste so much time looking at your temperature,
blood pressure, pulse, oximetry, cholesterol, electrolytes, liver
enzymes, blood counts, and so on?  Do tell.

Sheesh, if people aren't here complaining that drug companies and
doctor shills are treating numbers and diseases that don't really
exist, they're complaining that doctors only focus on symptoms. Make up
your minds.

SBH

From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative,talk.politics.medicine,sci.med
Subject: Re: Welcome to the town of Allopath
Date: 23 Jun 2005 14:32:10 -0700
Message-ID: <1119562330.932170.120760@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>

In article <1119499343.299880.156...@z14g=AD2000cwz.googlegroups.com>,
Tim Campbell <timc...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>Steve Harris wrote:
>>But strangely, the mechanics are the last resort of just about >everybody.
>...which, if the other fixers are effectively carrying out their
>preventive activities, is as it should be.

>>A very, very large "if."


COMMENT:

Indeed. I'm compared it to the idea that if you have the right gas
additives, your spark plugs will never wear out and in general  your
engine won't age.

As I've said before, for all the carping I get that doctors don't do
enough prevention teaching, I have point that *nobody* does much
prevention TEACHING. Teaching per se does not pay, because people will
not pay for information, and you'll starve that way no matter what kind
of health care you do.  Alternative practitioners don't spend their
time TEACHING, they spend it selling something else. Homeopaths sell
homopathics. Herbalists sell herbs. Chiropractors manipulate spines.
TCM people stick in needles and sell herbs. You'll have a hard time
getting past any naturopath or chiropractor without being sold a bottle
of some supplement. All of which they profit from DIRECTLY--- so how's
that for a conflict of interest problem, and a problem with bias? All
while complaining that MD's MIGHT get more free pens or something if
they write a prescription for a particular drug vs some other. Hey,
alternative folks:  before talking about the splinter in the MD eye,
try that log in your own.

SBH