Possible H1N1 shot and UC link?

chcl,

So you are willing to write off the bad in traditional medicine by pointing out positives but you write off alternative medicine entirely because of some negatives?

Why would someone that is against alternative medicine be buying turmeric?

The reason that prescription medication has a higher standard of testing is that the law requires it. Enforcement is more intense(although pretty lax in the US in my view). Making false or unsupported claims about alternative treatments is against the law but enforced even less. That doesn't lead me to distrust alternative treatments just to doubt the sellers claims more. In this country you can find MDs that will do precisely what you are describing.

I believe Pfizer is the top spender on drug research in the world. The NYTimes(business section) had a very good article last year on how they have lead the a charge from spending on creating maintenance medication(like asacol) to ultra expensive chemotherapy agents. These are mostly last ditch drugs for terminal cancer. They are spending the most research dollars on this area. These drugs are getting approved by the FDA even though they provide little and sometime no benefit in increased life expectancy or quality of life. They cost 10s to 100s of thousands of dollars for a course of treatment. Why are they being developed? Extremely profitable and because they are doctor administered medicare, some state laws and many private health plans have more complete coverage. The science is good but the results are ignored by many medical professionals and the regulatory agencies. I would make an educated guess that many developed nations do not permit the sale of these drugs but their residents are helping to fund their development when purchasing other medications.

Are probiotics considered alternative medicine in Sweden? They are here. You get no insurance coverage from most insurance policies including medicare.You have to pay for them out of pocket and even though many have promising clinical studies to back them up, nobody seems interested in changing this.Our universities have moved almost completely from independent research to benefit patients to marketing their services to the traditional health care industry for the cash and to promote their regions economic development. This means little is done to develop treatments that generate little profit.

For a single exam with my primary care doctor,a few "cheap" blood tests, a office visit to my GI and a colonscopy and biopsies, the cost approved by my insurance company and paid by the two of us was about $3500 to get diagnosed with UC. I waited 9 weeks total for appointments. Cost for drugs would have been $6000 for the first 6 months of this year if I followed the doctors instructions to use canasa and 4.8 gr of asacol daily indefinitely. I reduced the dose on my own but have still spent $3500 on prescription drugs. The probiotics I have purchased and feel have helped me at least as much as the prescription meds cost less than $300. I have a very treatable and cooperative version UC so far.

I don't think people in other countries understand how really screwed up the US healthcare system is and why so many here do not trust it.