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Consequently, one has to blindly trust the doctor. Authoritative journals or texts are difficult to find; and most publications use little scientific rigor, being based mostly on anecdotal case reports, with little documentation or proof. Moreover, since there is no official monitoring of the practitioners of alternative medicine, anyone can make tall claims and get away with them! Also, since there are few formal training requirements, anyone can practice alternative medicine, with minimal skills or qualifications. Unfortunately, unscrupulous practitioners have mushroomed, who are out to make a quick buck, and malpractices and quackery flourish, which is why most infertility specialists distrust alternative medicine practitioners today.
How can you protect yourself from quacks? Remember that quackery is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon. Some products can be useful for some purposes, but worthless for others. For example, while certain ayurvedic herbs can be very useful, often the mass-manufactured ayurvedic medicines available in chemists' shops are completely useless, because they do not contain what they are supposed to! While there is no doubt that homoeopathic medicines can be helpful, the concept of a standard homoeopathic remedy for common illnesses such as headaches and colds flouts a basic homoeopathic principle, which states that remedies need to be tailor made for a particular person and only a skilled homoeopathic physician can identify the required medicines properly.
Unproven methods are not necessarily quackery. Those consistent with scientific concepts may be considered to be experimental, but legitimate practitioners do not go around promoting unproven procedures in the marketplace. Instead, they engage in responsible, properly designed research studies to prove or disprove their claims.
Quackery can harm individuals in many ways. First, is the loss of a tremendous amount of money which patients invest in pursuing this treatment, and many unscrupulous practitioners can bleed patients and their relatives dry - a little at a time. Also, many of the quack therapies can cause direct harm. It is a common misconception that 'natural medicines' have no harmful side effects - but anything, which can have an effect, by definition, also has the potential to cause harmful effects (after all, the desired effects of a medicine are what we call its therapeutic action and undesirable effects are labeled 'side-effects'!). The indirect harm they cause can also be enormous: for example, patients may pursue 'alternative medicine' for treating their infertility and may deprive themselves of the opportunity of getting effective state-of-the-art medical treatment.
Quackery flourishes even in the USA where people are much more sophisticated, and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) provides effective policing. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that in India this menace is rampant, and there are far more quacks than regular medical practitioners. Faith healing, for example, is an integral part of Indian traditions, especially in villages where educated priests take advantage of people's ignorance and blind faith.
© Dr. Aniruddha Malpani and Dr. Anjali Malpani www.drmalpani.com
Credits: How to Have a Baby: Overcoming Infertility
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