I am sure everyone has seen those (spam) commercials that promise to make you 3 inches longer, right? Pills, ointments, patches etc. you name it! These are only being sold by some obscure internet-based companies with suspicious sounding names. Have you ever wondered why no big company sells those? Answer: because they do not work. Analogy: why aren’t the big companies selling Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) when there are so many people using those, and when it guarantees huge profits? Found the pattern yet?

If something does work for a specific cause, then it will be marketed and sold by the big companies. Example: steroids. One of the first videos I watched in the National Geographic video section was about a professional weights-lifting guy (actually the founder of the World Powerlifting Organization whatever that is) who discusses his use of steroids to enhance his performance. To be honest, I find his situation a bit sad. To indulge into a potentially dangerous substance, to inject yourself a number of days, all of that led by vanity is just not worth the risk. But, whatever floats your boat…

Anyway, steroids is a very strong industry especially in the context of Sports Enhancements, despite not being recommended by the Scientific Medical community, since they are regarded as dangerous for the body -although they are used in many medical situations. They are still being promoted, marketed, and sold to millions by the “Big Pharma” and supplement companies. Do you know why? Because for the purpose they are being sold for they *do* work! Despite their side effects and whatever other bad consequences one might have from long term usage, steroids *do* work for athletes. And that is why they are promoted and sold.

Now listen to this: one of the main arguments of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) proponents -which is not even an argument, is that the “mainstream” medical establishment doesn’t like these CAM practises because CAM threatens their jobs (like it is difficult to turn to a homeopath…) and CAM threatens to reduce the profits of large corporate pharmaceuticals organizations (you know, those evil ones, all of them being in a world-wide conspiracy against CAM), which, apparently, are the sole source of funding for research, and scientists are forever leash-bound to these eeeevil employers. I mean, it is not like research is done in academia, right? Who could possibly ever think such a thing? But anyway, back to our point.

This “argument” doesn’t make any sense at all! Why not just accept CAM practises and market and sell them just like proper medicine? In fact, this would produce amazing profit for the companies -much, MUCH better than conventional medicine, for a number of reasons:

• The raw material is totally inexpensive: natural herbs, water, sugar pills, and alcohol
• There is no long process of research, science, experimental testing etc. to verify the efficacy of the treatments, as opposed to the many years of studies, rigorous tests and lots of trials that conventional medicine has to go through before it is accepted for distribution
• There are no costs or time wasted in regulation procedures (as opposed to proper or as they call it “conventional” medicine)

So all in all, it seems to me that the industry could really exploit CAM to increase their profits. Hence, the idea that they feel threatened by CAM because it is cheap medicine for the people just falls apart immediately. So why aren’t they selling them? Well, you should know the answer by now. It is the same case as with certain products that promise to make you 3 inches longer -if you know what I mean :-). They just do not work. Period. If they did work they wouldn’t be called “Alternative Medicine”. They would have been adopted by the mainstream community.

And just to clarify something else: CAM are typically against proven scientific laws. If anyone really though/believed/whatever that their woo-woo ideas work, then why, oh why, don’t they try to prove it and win a Nobel Prize for it?!? Or get the 1 million dollars from James Randi? It would be an amazing discovery and would shake the foundations of physics, chemistry, and biology! But until that happens, please do not make claims that you “know it works” or bother us with some magic, miraculous water that cures everything!