How folk remedies can fuel misinformation

[Still Waters]

Quote

When London faced the bubonic plague in 1665, many people desperately sought a way to protect themselves and their loved ones from getting sick. One widely adopted method consisted of mixing two small cloves of garlic in a pint of fresh milk. People believed that drinking this cocktail in the morning, on an empty stomach, would prevent the feared disease.

Like those living through the great plague of London, many people searched for remedies that would keep COVID at bay, which is why claims that garlic could cure or protect people proliferated on social media. The claims prompted an exasperated World Health Organization to post tweets of caution.

Unfortunately, despite laboratory studies showing that garlic does indeed have compounds with anti-microbial properties, the idea of ingesting garlic to prevent becoming infected with any bacteria or virus is mostly folklore.

Continued:

https://theconversation.com/how-folk-remedies-can-fuel-misinformation-210993

[quiXilver]

No doubt folk notions can lead to misinformation.  However, they can also lead to actual insights as well.  It's not a one way street.  Life is a process that unfolds and evolves and when we are open to explore and learn, we can develop.  So just because it's an old wive's tale, perhaps we shouldn't intrinsically throw the baby out with the bath water.  Nor should we blindly accept anything we hear outright.  Explore, learn and adapt.

 

I recall reading an instance where a student of latin was interpreting a middle ages text for an assignment.  The manual being translated was describing a process for preparing a tincture that treated infections and was quite elaborate and invovled, involving copper vessels, heating a concoction to a very specific temperature and holding it there for a time, then burying the concoction in another clay vessel for a number of days in the ground before using it to treat infections at the time.

She was a linguist however and not a chemist or biologist so the information meant little to her, but she had an associate who was a chemist and biologist and she shared the interpretation with them.  They were intrigued by aspects of the process and entered a course of study regarding the instructions and the short version of the story resulted in a very potent treatment for MRSA, which in modern times has become so resistant to our current methods of treatment that it was nigh on immune to them.

Not that this is entirely applicable to 'folk cures' but I do sense that we have intuitive ideas and notions arise that when listened to, may lead to very potent discoveries.  

Nope we shouldn't blindly follow all folk remedies we hear about what 'Old Auntie' says... but I also don't think we should outright dismiss all folk notions without considering the possible merits of them either.

[Abramelin]

1 hour ago, Still Waters said:

Continued:

https://theconversation.com/how-folk-remedies-can-fuel-misinformation-210993

Many people have died or suffered from unexpected 'side effects' after ingesting approved regular medicines.

[Nicolette]

Wait are we saying garlic doesn't  help immunity? It might not stop the plague but i really don't  think natural remedies are "anti-scientific" if they work. Isn't it a little more anti-scientific to pretend its not valid if they do and that only manufactured remedies are side effect free, despite the fact that they generally aren't?

Sounds like big pharma propaganda. I'll take my mythical natural food thank you.

Edited September 5, 2023 by Nicolette

[Abramelin]

51 minutes ago, Nicolette said:

Wait are we saying garlic doesn't  help immunity? It might not stop the plague but i really don't  think natural remedies are "anti-scientific" if they work. Isn't it a little more anti-scientific to pretend its not valid if they do and that only manufactured remedies are side effect free, despite the fact that they generally aren't?

Sounds like big pharma propaganda. I'll take my mythical natural food thank you.

Some claims made by alternative medicine are based on bull.

Many others are not.

[+Liquid Gardens]

45 minutes ago, Abramelin said:

Some claims made by alternative medicine are based on bull.

Many others are not.

Sure, the thing with 'folk medicine' or 'traditional medicine' though (not sure about 'alternative' medicine) is that these have been around a long time and many of them, at least the ones that were not bull, are now just called 'medicine' because they have been tested and shown to be effective.  In addition sometimes when submitting the folk medicine to scientific analysis it's discovered that the folk medicine isn't that effective on its own and needs to be refined further.  From https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2023/08/28/the-who-endorses-quackery-even-homeopathy/ :

Quote

(part of tweet from WHO promoting traditional medicine:  "In 1969, Tu Youyou was tasked to search for antimalarial drugs.  She turned to ancient Chinese #TraditionalMedicine books & discovered artemisinin. In 2015, Tu Youyou was awarded the Nobel Prize for her work on #malaria, which has saved millions of lives.")

"These are common rationales used by proponents of “traditional medicine,” namely that the existence of medicines derived from plants and other natural products, some of which were used in traditional medicine practices, validates the whole of traditional medicine. Of course, I’ve already discussed the example of Tu Youyou and why her winning the Nobel Prize for the discovery of artemisinin as an effective treatment for malaria does not somehow validate traditional Chinese medicine. Rather, it represented the triumph of natural products pharmacology, not herbalism or Traditional Chinese medicine, as TCM boosters like to claim. As Scott Gavura put it, alone “artemisinin isn’t effective as a treatment – it is eliminated too quickly from the body,” and added that what “finally turned artemisinin into a useful drug and brought this treatment to patients was in fact Big Pharma.”

 

[iAlrakis]

1 hour ago, Nicolette said:

Wait are we saying garlic doesn't  help immunity? It might not stop the plague but i really don't  think natural remedies are "anti-scientific" if they work. Isn't it a little more anti-scientific to pretend its not valid if they do and that only manufactured remedies are side effect free, despite the fact that they generally aren't?

Sounds like big pharma propaganda. I'll take my mythical natural food thank you.

There are definitely benefits to using garlic that have been confirmed by research.

People are way too fast to dismiss everything based on nature these days.

It's been documented many times that even animals specifically go after certain plants to address health issues.

[Cho Jinn]

"which can lead people to think they don’t need to be vaccinated against the flu or COVID."

I'd laugh, if it weren't all to tragic.  This article is an excellent example of paint-by-the-numbers, SEO'd alarmist pablum.

[quiXilver]

 

Yea, that about sums it up...

Edited September 6, 2023 by quiXilver

[NCC1701]

I believe in folk remedies if there is undeniable scientific proof.