“Do you know what they call ‘alternative medicine’ that’s been proved to work? ‘Medicine’.” — Tim Minchin
This of course doesn't apply to homeopathy.
Maybe you're right. Care to point to some specific cases?
We err far too much on the side of not approving new treatments (it's like we think harming someone by giving them bad medicine is thousands of times worse than doing the same harm by not giving them good medicine), particularly when there are no patents so no drug company profit motive to push them through trials.
>"but it's not yet something your doctor would prescribe you."
Because it doesn't require a prescription. There is nearly unlimited information on the product (including efficacy), and I can go into any pharmacy in North America and buy it off the shelf, no questions asked.
>"particularly when there are no patents"
The idea that you can't make money without owning the patent on something flies in the face of everything done in the hacker world, doesn't it? I don't buy into that theory, but can't really back up my opinion. The world is filled with companies who sell commodity products at a mark up, though.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20424008
Basically what is says that omega-3 combination might help some kids, we need more research.
omega-3 is safe to use(except maybe for people who use blood thinners). The best strategy seems just to try.
This is a strange sentence. So this hypothetical alternative treatment has been shown to work better and with less side effects and also that it's risk is low, but is only "non-fully proven".
If you showed low risk and better efficacy and less side effects then that's pretty much fully proven. What's left?
Well, yes. Less effects of all sorts naturally means less side effects as well.