geb@cadre.ARPA (Gordon E. Banks) (06/01/85)
Many medical scientists recognize the existence of "healings" that we are not currently able to explain within our scientific tradition. This does not mean that they are not explainable. Neither does it mean that the imputed agent (megavitamins, copper bracelets, snake venom, laetrile, Lourdes water, etc.) was responsible. Medical education is no more deficient in the study of nutrition than in any other subject. It is not possible to learn as much as you really need to know about anything in four short years. Medical students learn the scientific foundation of nutrition in biochemistry. They learn the diseases caused by lack of nutrition, and how to administer hyperalimentation to those suffering from such, or those who cannot take food the normal way. They do not learn that organic vitamins are better, that our food is deficient in essential nutrients because of chemical fertilizers, or that massive doses of vitamin C (E, etc) will cure just about anything, because there is no scientific evidence that any of these are true. They do not study Adelle Davis. They do not learn of new "cures" from the pages of National Enquirer, Prevention, or the Shaklee Vitamin promotional literature. Medicine today tries to be scientific. It is not "allopathic", which means to apply a cure "opposite" to the disease, a term that hasn't really applied for 60 years, and which is based on ancient Greek theories of the nature of diseases. Of course there it is still an art as much as a science. If there are faith healings, or miracle cures, these do not pertain to scientific medicine unless and until they can be investigated and systemitized. When such "formula cures" have been investigated scientifically, they have been shown to be spurious. Follow ups on patients with cures from cancer in Tiajuana, etc. have shown them to have died or had relapses in most cases. Whatever the mechanism of the cures, it doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny. Perhaps applying scientific methods to studying it destroys it's validity if it is "faith" that heals them, since science may destroy the faith. Who knows?