It is so important to have an evidence base when dealing with peoples health. Would you honestly just take someones word for it without knowing if it was true or not?
In holistic medicine modalities we can see the evidence base behind them, for example Hahnemann and his ‘Provings’ and Herbal Medicine and Nutrition, thousands of years of using the same things shows that they do in fact work. Dealing with a persons health can be sketchy, not knowing their health background and giving them the wrong thing can turn something very acute into a big drama. Be it in the mainstream health practice or in ‘alternative’ health care, this is the same, people want and need evidence. In all of the modalities, Homeopathy, Naturopathy and Manual therapy, all the evidence can’t be wrong. Not every person will respond the same way to the treatment, but that is in every type of medical branch. When you see examples/ evidence of the treatments sucsess on a large range rather than one or two people, the EBM becomes clear.
With Natural Medicines, which were thought of more as folk, this is where the problem came, the people who ran the tests on the substances used in natural medicine clearly had no idea what was going on. In my opinion, it is the lack of funding to do these tests and the lack of education of some of the people running them that causes Natural medicine to have a gap in its facts and figures when compared to mainstream medicine. Accurate documentation is needed to allow ‘Alternative’ Medicine to be put alongside mainstream orthodox medicine by the view/scrutiny of the public and other health care professionals who don’t carry much faith.
It is only with facts and figures that we can hope to have alternative medicine adopted by the public. You cannot just ask the people to start something new on blind faith.
Elysium Tewlder 