Avicenna, a medical student in India who blogs at A Million Gods at Freethought Blogs, offers an example of the harm that can result from seeking “alternative” or “natural” treatments to the exclusion of medical treatment.
Ever had a sore throat? Impetigo? See both are caused by Streptococcus. Harmless right?
Not really. Do you ever wonder why doctors give out anti-biotics for just a sore throat?
There are two diseases you can get. One is nephritic syndrome. The inflammation of the body causes protein and blood leakage via the kidneys. While “alarming” it is more treatable.
The other? Is a thief of childhood. I had a case on friday. A 10 year old child who was 3 inches and 10 Kg lower than what his height and weight should be. And we cannot calculate the loss of development this disease has caused to his intellect. The child is tired. When he takes his shirt off all you can see is skin and bones.
What caused him to be there? Was a naturopath. Chronic Cough? Take some ginger and turmeric. So his mother lovingly made him ginger turmeric milk every day and rubbed preparations on his chest. And all that happened was he got worse till he could no longer play with the other kids any more. His knees and elbows hurt. And finally she brought him in to a “big” doctor. Because our clinic has more equipment than the quack she went to. She is not to blame. She doesn’t know the difference.
A simple sore throat lead to this. This is called Rheumatic Heart Disease. On examination? The child’s joints are hot and swollen. Aspirin does not reduce the pain, aspiration of the fluid does. But that is distressing to any 10 year old boy. But that is the least of his worries.
His heart is failing. The edges of the heart valves are ragged so they don’t pump blood properly. In exchange his heart gets more and more muscular which shoots up pressure in his lungs. He will need insanely expensive surgery to repair the valves. We could help hundreds of people for this cost. We have raised the cash for him, but it is such a frightful waste.
Untreated? The median survival is 2 to 3 years before death by cor pulmonale.
Treated? He will live a long and happy life.
We wasted resources to correct the folly of quacks. Because “natural” options. Do you want to know the joke?
2 weeks of amoxycillin would have prevented all of this.
To understand the damage realise that this child has lost 30% of his expected body weight. Imagine all that lack of growth his developing brain has endured. Now imagine all those lost school days and lost childhood. And now imagine what this child would endure without people who looked out for him. If he was born in the North in places like Uttar Pradesh or the Tribal Lands?
He may not have gotten this help. He would be one more statistic.
The quack who treated him will continue to ply his trade.
Avicenna’s entire post is well worth your time.
I’m reminded of a line from a Tim Minchin bit, which I paraphrase as follows:
“Alternative medicine,” by definition, either has not been proven to work or has been proven not to work. Do you know what they call alternative medicine that has been proven to work?
“Medicine.”
