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Voodoo Medicine
Our family has been afflicted with conjunctivitis lately, and it has been making its way around the ward. I know your first thought is "nursery", but that doesn't seem to be the central problem in this case. Anyway, we called our daughter's pediatrician and were prescribed some eye-drops with antibiotics. Now, we don't really know whether the agent here is viral or bacterial. The ease of transmission leads me to believe it is viral, but I'm not sure. Of course if it is viral, not much can be done--you just have to wait it out.
A friend of ours decided to try a home remedy. She treated her eye with her own breast milk.
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It seems like some people studiously try to avoid modern medicine. I just don't understand the mentality. Otherwise reasonable people--fellow saints, no less--sometimes go wacko when it comes to medicine. It is manifested in refusals to have children vaccinated, turning to folk remedies before calling a doctor, insisting on giving birth at home with a mid-wife, buying groceries at special "organic" stores, and protesting fluoridation of water.
I can understand turning to alternative medicine when mainstream medicine doesn't seem to have an answer. And I can understand trying a home remedy in hopes of saving on medical costs. But some people seem to seek out the alternative way. I guess they must have a deep distrust of mainstream medicine--in spite of its amazing successes and praise by prophets.
Why do some people seem to wish for the days of high infant mortality, low life expectancy, and general morbidity? Is it a desire for self-sufficiency gone wrong? What about a desire to identify with the hardships of our pioneer ancestors? Is it a lack of education about science and medicine? Maybe it is just plain irrationality.
Oh by the way, I guess the breast milk didn't do much for our friend. So I recommend you call a doctor instead.
7 comments:
I must admit that this is one of the things that I have difficulty tolerating (although I am a pacifist compared to my brother the neonatologist). I know of a gentleman that forsook his mission call to India en lieu of getting vaccinated. And your right, the big question is why?
Maybe there was some Amish cross breading somewhere along the line. But to be serious, I am dumbfounded and haven’t seen a reasonable explanation.
I actually had a lady tell me that she too thought that breast milk was the cure to an ear ache. Of course this lady lived in Guatemala, had never set foot in a school and could barely even speak spanish. Aren't we better that that?
The fact that we get over most of our ailments within a week or two probably reinforces folk medicine in people's minds. This is why blinded, placebo-controlled studies are important for showing efficacy.
The mentality goes both ways, I guess. I've heard that in less developed countries the cure for everything is an injection (of what, I don't know.) I guess the people associate injections with modern medicine. So people trust the form of the treatment without understanding the basis for it. But at least in this case you can attribute the behavior to lack of education or good public health infrastructure.
What is very bad is that those who refuse to be vaccinated raise the risk for all the rest of us. Look at how polio broke out last year in Africa, after decades of near-non-existence. Why? Because an anti-American conspiracy theory led people to stop being vaccinated.
The fact of the matter is that kids not vaccinated in your community for measles, mumps, chickenpox and so forth are a danger to your kids.
Following up on Clark's comment, vaccines have variable rates of protection. Some people don't respond much to a given vaccine. It is therefore possible to have been "vaccinated" but not be protected. So it is conceivable that your vaccinated child could still get a given disease (leaving aside children not vaccinated for certain health reasons.) This is one reason why broad coverage is important for maintaining "herd immunity."
Faith in medicine needs to be tempered with an appreciation of its limitations. The daughter of my old teachers' quorum advisor was killed by a vaccination. There is a girl in my present ward who due to a vaccination just sits in her wheelchair and wails occasionally. Neither of these unlucky families have turned against vaccination, but freedom from some serious diseases has not been cost free. It also bothers me a bit that public health has expanded its concern from diseases with serious consequences, like smallpox and polio, to nuisances like chicken pox. A report out this month from the CDC shows that chicken pox deaths have been reduced from 145 per year to 66 per year. I am not sure that gain was worth poking every child in America in the arm.
--John Mansfield
A report out this month from the CDC shows that chicken pox deaths have been reduced from 145 per year to 66 per year. I am not sure that gain was worth poking every child in America in the arm.Isn't it more about shingles?
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