"But 'Cure' points a way toward a future in which the two camps might work together. After all, any medicine that makes a patient better, whether conventional, alternative, or placebo, is simply medicine." Such is the conclusion of Dr. Ross's review in today's Wall Street Journal of Jo Marchant's new book titled simply "Cure." We can only wish at this time that all medical professionals had such open minds.
The book is apparently filled with lots of anecdotes about people who've recovered from injury or other health problems simply from the use of a placebo. I've used a story in my speeches for years about a knee replacement study done at Baylor Hospital in Houston where folks who didn't have their knees replaced scored the same as those who did, simply from the placebo effect.
The drug industry knows all about the placebo effect and they hate it. It ruins all of their research and studies by showing how folks really don't need the latest and greatest drugs after all. So they campaign aggressively and effectively against it with the FDA and anybody else who will listen. And the medical community steps right in line for them.
The human body has unknown and unlimited abilities to heal itself. Conventional medicine wants to maintain its exclusive control of health care in America. Alternative health care recognizes the potential of every person to heal themselves. Maybe one of these days the two opposites will shrink the distance between their extremes. Apparently there is reason for hope.
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