Quack remedies taken too seriously can have dangerous consequences
... complementary medicine is described as an approach that is complementary to the body’s innate healing process (unlike drugs or surgery).
Two pages later, in the same issue, you describe Ariel Sharon’s (drug) induced coma as being to give him time to heal. Which would seem to be a clear case of using drugs in a way complementary to the body’s innate healing mechanisms.
In reality, modern medicine makes extensive use of the body’s own healing mechanisms, whether it is through vaccination stimulating the production of antibodies to specific disease organisms or through sedating Ariel Sharon to give his body’s repair systems time to react. But this isn’t the worst of a truly awful article, in which all the usual buzzwords (‘positive energy,’ ‘vibration,’ ‘harmony,’ to name but three) of the quack remedy community are deployed to hide any hint of real meaning. No, these don’t do harm in themselves, and if they make people feel better and keep them away from an overworked health service, where is the problem?
The harm comes from the assertion that “homeopathy can cure such conditions” - where, from the context, “such conditions” include, for example, cancer.
There are plenty of gravestones bearing silent witness to people who were foolish enough to believe such assertions and who didn’t consult medical professionals until too late as a result.
Yet Ms Kerrigan reproduces this extraordinary statement without comment or question. A proper journalist might, faced with a claim as spectacular as this, have asked for some evidence. A really good journalist might have done some background research themselves: a bit of Googling, a couple of phone calls, that sort of thing.
Ms Kerrigan doesn’t bother.
Every statement from the clinic’s owner is simply parroted and presented as fact.
I hope Ms Kerrigan can live with the prospect that someone that morning, feeling a lump in their breast or a growth on their testicle, may have decided not to consult a doctor but to have a nice wrap, destress themselves, restore their body’s inner harmony and pop a couple of sugar pills while their tumour grows and colonises the rest of their body, leaving them a harmonious and relaxed corpse.
Bass Tyrrell
Clonakilty
Co Cork
