On Fri, 15 Aug 2003, Allwyn Carvalho wrote: > Hi Santosh, > What, in your opinion, makes western medicine any more scientific than > Chinese medicine and Ayurveda?
Of course, these are men and women (mostly men) in white coats, doing things in a very clinical, anti-septic manner. Therefore there is every reason to get convinced that they are modern, and scientific. So if some villager from Valpoi innately knows that some plant can cure a certain ailment, of course that's not science. It becomes science when some multinational comes to the same area (this is not ficition, there are a growing number of 'labs' operating there), scouting around in for 'medicinal plants', takes back the plant and the traditional wisdom, and makes a neat looking pill out of it. Of course, one which costs a small fortune to make the pharmaceutical industry even more affluent and our planet even more sick than it currently is. Our doctor friends could correct me on this, but till date nobody quite knows how an ECT ("electric shock" or "power", as it used to be called in commonman's parlance) works. But it does, so it's part of modern medicine. Never mind the Thalidomide reality -- the drug which used to be widely given to pregnant women, before it was discovered that it resulted in babies being born with wrongly shaped arms and legs. Raj Vaidya of Hindu Pharmacy was recently speaking about the havoc wrecked by overprescribing As he put it recently, in the US, 10-15% of hospitalisations are due to adverse drug reactions, mainly due to improper use. Some five per cent of deaths in the US are due to adverse reactions to medicines themselves. Aren't all those pesticides and chemical fertilizers part of modern science too? So what if we start realising that the chemical lobbies behind them have been taking us for a ride and leading us to poison our earth, with tonnes of taxpayer's money going in as subsidies for their operations? (Some years back, the Birla and former US Steel/USX-run Zuari Agro was getting nearly a hundred crore rupees in subsidies each year). Some decades back the Catholic-run hospital network in India (e.g. Catholic Hospital Association of India, CHAI) were the harbingers of "modern, scientific" medicine into India. Now, they are at the forefront of promoting plant-based medicine in India, after realising that the prices of modern medicine is beyond the reach of the vast majority of Indians. We are all brainwashed into our own points of view. As a father a second time round, I've seen the skepticism with which "modern medicine" treats the traditional 'dais' (village medicine women who assist with newly-borns and mums who have just delivered... they exist in many areas of Goa, but are simply non-existent in the world of official figures too). We are all brainwashed into our own points of view. Can we have an open mind to look at other logic systems. This is where I disagree with my learned friends like Dr Santosh Helecar. FN ########################################################################## # Send submissions for Goanet to [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # PLEASE remember to stay on-topic (related to Goa), and avoid top-posts # # More details on Goanet at http://joingoanet.shorturl.com/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ##########################################################################