[G3P]

There are instances in which chemotherapy is the only option, as advised by sound evidence-based medical research, just as there are instances in which diet is a completely acceptable treatment, and those instances must abide by the same strict evidence-based guidelines.

However, when people go around claiming that diet can cure the majority of disease it plants a seed in the minds of patients that have no option, patients that should be discussing palliative care with their physician, that all they need is a pot of "herbs" and a low-fat, vegan diet to cure their terminal illness. Then the physician has to spend an exponentially larger amount of time than it took to plant that seed to dig it up and move on, time s/he could be spending discussing palliative treatment or even working with other sick patients.

[aik]

Let me know if you disagree, however I think the problem so many people have in this thread (and an increasing number in today's world), and one reason a good number seek and believe in alternative treatments, is because the medical community (as viewed by individuals from the outside anyway) is viewed to be full of self-righteous elitists who believe they always know what is best when dealing with the human body, while a. People like to believe in miracles, and b. Successful outlier cases that are contrary to common medical understanding keep cropping up -- the media loves them and people notice them. One more reason could be that many have experienced alternative treatments be fiercely dismissed by their physician, even when it can be surmised that the dismiss-er is probably fairly ignorant on the particular topic -- it turns people off. Naturally physicians don't have to have an answer or even an opinion, so why does it seem like they often feel they have to? Can it be boiled down to personal insecurities and fears? Trying to live up to the stigmas around what a doctor should be and know?

[wbhart]

I would agree that people like miracles and notice them. However miracles are by their very nature the exception, not the norm. Science works by quantifying what is the norm through carefully controlled studies. The reason that alternative treatments are fiercely dismissed by many physicians is because they know, on account of said science, that they should not be the first course of action. Empirically, they work far too infrequently. Until an alternative treatment can demonstrate that it works for a statistically significant sample size it should not be recommended as the first course of action. However, if it does prove to be a viable treatment in a statistically significant study, it becomes part of mainstream medicine, not an "alternative" therapy.