Look Out for the Snake Oil
November 7, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Alternative treatments for autism abound, from nutritional supplements to special shots to craniosacral therapy to hyperbaric oxygen therapy to holding therapy, to name a few. November is Complementary and Alternative Medicine Month and Science Blogs considers homeopathic “remedies,” including Abel PharmBoy on Homeopathy is NOT herbal medicine and Respectful Insolence on A Real Death by Homeopathy. Sometimes it seems that one hears so much about such “alternative” treatments” that one starts to feel that just doing “the basics”—let’s say, school, speech, OT, some physical therapy—is not enough.
In further honor to this month, here is a description of some real snake oil.
Kristina, I wrote a post some time ago about my version of “snake oil”, which started with the shark cartilage we gave to my Dad during his last stages of colon cancer. http://www.revolutionhealth.com/blogs/resilientmom/beware-of-snake-oil-5210
Grasping at straws is not uncommon. When reality bites we all need to get a grip. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
So much of this stuff is DANGEROUS, it scares me. One of the supplement companies actually has a “road map” to “curing” autism on their site (they dont use those EXACT words but they have symptoms then the products to buy, it’s SO OBNOXIOUS! Not to mention DANGEROUS!)
I want to live in a world where people don’t risk the lives of people like me to stop them from being people like me.
Thanks for that, resilientmom—-we did once bring Charlie to “Dr. Bob” who was a chiropractor but, in retrospect, a faith healer—a very interesting experience; same boy, before and after.
Sometimes, when we want something so badly, we unintentionally skew our response to meet the quest for success.
When it involves dangerous interventions I draw the line, as I would for my typical children.
Call me practical, or simply honest.
Talk about spin.
\”A real death by homeopathy\” does not tell a story of a child that died from homeopathy. The child needed treatment and wasn\’t getting treatment.
Death by homeopathy would be dying from the remedies one is taking.
I think the accumulation of “alternative treatments” is very telling. Many parents turn to these with hearts full of hope that their kids will benefit substantially, but they should be very wary. Some “alternative treatments” are just dangerous and/or completely unproven. The nature of the “disorder” being on a spectrum doesn’t exactly lend itself to any one treatment or remedy in the first place. People tell me my son is mildly autistic. What the hell does that mean? Will the hyperbolic oxygen chamber do the trick? This junk just tells us that autism remains largely misunderstood and poorly researched by the international medical community – and that the medical and research community need to (finally) take it seriously and kick it up a notch in terms of their efforts to find the cause (be they genetics, chemical poisoning or other). I make no illusions that a cure can suddenly drop from the sky until the disorder is isolated and explained. It is far from being explained by anyone, not even the best neurologists.
This riding of the merry-go-round of potential cures with all the happy music playing in the background, while fun and hopeful for a minute or two, is getting pretty old in 2007.
So death from water intoxication?
I’m finding it so tough to parse out the “real” from the “not so real” research and researchers! Some of the biggest advocates for products that you’ve mentioned as snake oil – hyperbaric oxygen, supplements, etc. – are full fledged MD’s. Many are getting their funding from NIH or similarly well-credentialed institutions.
How are you determining for yourself which treatments are snakey and which not so reptilian??
Lisa