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The One True Cause of All Disease

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The One True Cause of All Disease SI Jan Feb 2010 pgs 11/12/09 10:24 AM Page 33 The One True Cause of All Disease Alternative practitioners constantly claim that conventional medicine treats only symptoms while they treat underlying causes. They’ve got it backwards. HARRIET HALL hiropractors, homeopaths, naturopaths, acupunc- turists, and other alternative medicine practitioners Cconstantly criticize conventional medicine for “only treating the symptoms,” while alternative medicine allegedly treats “the underlying causes” of disease. Nope. Not true. Exactly backwards. Think about it: When you go to a doctor with a fever, does he just treat the symptom? No, he tries to figure out what’s causing the fever. If it’s pneumonia, he identifies which microbe is responsible and gives you the right drugs to treat that particular infec- tion. If you have abdominal pain, does the doctor just give you narcotics to treat the symptom of pain? No, he tries to figure out what’s causing the pain. If he determines you have SKEPTICAL INQUIRER January / February 2010 33 SI Jan Feb 2010 pgs 11/12/09 10:25 AM Page 34 acute appendicitis, he operates to remove your appendix. bacteria had to be capable of multiplying in the human body. I guess what they’re trying to say is that something must have The patient had to be exposed to another person who had a been wrong in the first place to allow the disease to develop. But strep infection, who in turn had caught it from someone else, they don’t have any better insight into what that something involving a chain of social and epidemiologic causes. The bac- might be than scientific medicine. All they have is wild, imagi- teria had to evolve from ancestor bacteria and the human from native guesses. And they all disagree with one another. The chi- ancestor animals. And so on. ropractor says that if your spine is in proper alignment, you can’t So you see, it involves a chain of causation and there can get sick. Acupuncturists talk about the proper flow of qi through even be several simultaneous causes. “Cause” can mean pretty the meridians. Energy medicine practitioners talk about distur- much anything you want it to. But however you look at it, bances in energy fields. Nutrition faddists claim that people who doctors definitely do not “just treat symptoms.” eat right won’t get sick. None of them can produce any evidence Philosophy has studied causation. Aristotle said everything to support these claims. No alternative medicine has been sci- had four causes: material, formal, efficient, and final. And he entifically shown to prevent disease or cure it. If it had, it would introduced complications: proper (prior) causation and acci- have been incorporated into conventional medicine and would dental (chance) causation. Potential or actual, particular or no longer be “alternative.” generic. Reciprocal or circular causality as a relation of mutual dependence or influence of cause upon effect. The same thing as the cause of contrary effects when its presence and absence result in different outcomes. He recognized that the subject of What if a doctor used one treatment causation was complicated. for everything? You have pneumonia? Alternative providers are more “simple” minded. They often claim to know the one true cause of all disease, which is curious Here’s some penicillin. You have a because medical science defines several categories of causes falling broken leg? Here’s some penicillin. under the mnemonic VINDICATE: V – Vascular I – Infectious/inflammatory Are these practitioners treating the underlying cause, or are N – Neoplastic they simply applying their one chosen tool to treat everything? Chiropractors treat every patient with chiropractic adjust- D – Drugs/toxins ments. What if a doctor used one treatment for everything? You I – Intervention/iatrogenic have pneumonia? Here’s some penicillin. You have a broken C – Congenital/developmental leg? Here’s some penicillin. You have diabetes? Here’s some penicillin. Acupuncturists only know to stick needles in people. A – Autoimmune Homeopaths only know to give out ridiculously high dilutions T – Trauma that amount to nothing but water. Therapeutic touch practi- E – Endocrine/metabolic tioners only know to smooth out the wrinkles in imaginary energy fields. They are not trying to determine any underlying And sometimes more than one cause is involved (e.g., a trau- cause; they are just using one treatment indiscriminately. matic injury gets infected). Where science finds complexity, alter- How do you define “cause”? We don’t know what causes native medicine imagines simplicity. As H.L. Mencken said, gravity, but we understand enough about how it works to over- “For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, sim- come it with elevators, airplanes, and rockets to the moon. We ple—and wrong.” may not know what ultimately causes asthma, but we know Some homeopaths claim to treat “genetic” illness, tracing enough about the causes of airway constriction and inflamma- its origins to six main genetic causes: tuberculosis, syphilis, tion to devise effective treatments. gonorrhea, psora (scabies), cancer, and leprosy. Bet you didn’t Let’s take a simple example: strep throat. The symptom is know tuberculosis was genetic! Neither did I. Science classifies throat pain. Doctors don’t just treat the pain; they do a throat all these as infectious except for cancer, which is neoplastic. culture, they determine that a strep infection is causing the Homeopathy disregards science and redefines genetic to suit its pain, and they treat the infection with an antibiotic. But what own inscrutable purposes. caused the strep infection? The body had to host the bacteria Science finds many causes for disease and sometimes more and respond to their presence by developing symptoms; the than one cause for a given disease. Pseudoscience has identified the one true cause of all disease—many times. I did an Internet Harriet Hall is a retired physician. Also known as The SkepDoc, search and found sixty-seven single causes of all disease (see she is one of five MD founders of the Science-Based Medicine blog. accompanying box). This is not an exhaustive list but rather an She is a SKEPTICAL INQUIRER contributing editor. Visit her Web exhausted list (I stopped when I got tired of searching). site at www.skepdoc.info and reach her by e-mail at harriet.hall It never seems to bother proponents of alternative medicine @comcast.net. that others have found different “one true” causes. In his book 34 VOLUME 34, ISSUE 1 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER SI Jan Feb 2010 pgs 11/12/09 10:25 AM Page 35 Internet Search Results for the One True Cause of Disease Toxemia Holding on to energy within the Food abuse physical, emotional and spiritual Subluxations bodies that is not in harmony with us Allergies Oxygen deficiency Impairment of movement of Ignorance of reality “Fearful, tight and negative minds” the bones of the skull Dis-ease on any level Obstruction of ch’i along Nerves too tense or too slack (physical, emotional, mental, the meridians soul, or spiritual) is incorrect God Refined sugar vibratory rate(s), patterns which Lack of life are not appropriate, or blocked “Fault of awareness” energy pathway(s) within or Witchcraft between the various levels Grains in the diet of existence Poor sanitation False beliefs and fears The blood A shock experience that catches “Imbalance” us completely off guard Morbid humors Ama due to aggravated doshas Cellular memories Emotional trauma Stress Poor digestion Toxic metals Modern medicine Weak digestive fire Cold Arrogance Exogenous toxins Blocked nerves A “non-perceivable but very real An unbalanced lifestyle Sin attachment to the material aspect of creation” A weak “immine” system Overeating Inadequate nutrition Malnutrition Food acidity A congested colon Free radicals Violation of natural law “All disease is a learned experience An imbalance of electrons which we can un-learn.” in the cellular atoms And my favorite: “the United KKK States Spiritual vital force and of America is the root cause its dynamic derangement Our inability to adapt of all disease . .” Voodoo Science, Bob Park describes a press conference follow- leave a winner. They eventually reach a consensus. Alternative ing a meeting to discuss government funding for alternative medicine pseudoscientists don’t seem to mind cognitive disso- medicine research: nance. They are content to look for evidence to support their Perhaps the strangest part of the press conference consisted of own chosen treatment while blithely disregarding competing brief statements by individual members of the editorial review claims. They don’t want to look for evidence that something board of what they saw as the most important issues for the Office of Alternative Medicine. One insisted that the number- doesn’t work. While each claims to know the one cause of dis- one health problem in the United States is magnesium defi- ease, they don’t seem interested in looking for the one truth. ciency; another was convinced that the expanded use of Live and let live? Create your own reality? Truth is only rel- acupuncture could revolutionize medicine; and so it went around the table, with each touting his or her preferred ther- ative? The same thing may be simultaneously true for me and apy. But there was no sense of conflict or rivalry. As each false for you? Maybe it boils down to a mutual tolerance of spoke, the others would nod in agreement. The purpose of the delusions (okay, I’ll believe that you are Jesus if you believe that OAM, I began to realize, was to demonstrate that these dis- parate therapies all work. It was my first glimpse of what holds I’m Napoleon). For the cynical, follow the money: “I won’t alternative medicine together: there is no internal dissent in a interfere with your livelihood if you don’t interfere with mine.” community that feels itself besieged from the outside.
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