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Alternative medicines thrive on "hopelessness"
Let us recall my brave HIV positive patient discussed in the following story:
This lady had CMV retinitis an opportunistic infection of the eye. She had been seen by us in Chennai and was heading towards Trivandrum in 1995. She had heard of a "miraculous cure" that involved some heavy metals for HIV and AIDS that turns a patient negative on an ELISA test for the HIV virus.
I am not sure she planned to go to this chap out of firm conviction or simple helplessness. There was nothing she would loose by that trip, she must have thought.
My consultant told her, there was no way, one could be free from virus by using such wonder drugs. After she had left, he asked me if I could think of any way, one would have a negative ELISA test that has been positive earlier. We had no information if the lady implied a negative "western blot test" as well.
There was one way, I thought the result of ELISA could be skewed if a heavy metal could break the disulphide bridges in the immunoglobulin molecules that hold the heavy and light chains together!
We do not know what happened to the lady and her HIV tests subsequently. In all probabilities she is not alive today as she already had a full blown AIDS then.
But of course, had the miraculous drug worked the "doctor" (read quack) and his centre would be famous the world over by now!
These kind of terminally ill patients fall prey to all kind of gimmicks. Unlike the patients who have good medical prognosis (and who survive) these patients have been adequately "counselled" to understand their predicament. They would never sue the quack... nor would their relatives in case they do not survive themselves.
The duration of treatment of these ailments also tends to be prolonged. So there is an ample scope to mint money through them.
Did you hear of the wonder drugs prescribed by a quack (now in jail) in Rishikesh, India, who claimed to have found a cure for epilepsy?
He is behind bar now.
That is the logical conclusion of these stories, but we seldom get to hear this as there is no way to bring them to justice in most cases.
However a dental college owned by this thug still runs.
Moral of the story:
Suspect anything practised stealthily by people who make tall claims!
The original question: Do wonder drugs really exist?
Yes, chloroquine was once a wonder drug when initially discovered and when malaria was rampant.
Penicillin the first antibiotic to be discovered was since there were no effective ways to combat infections in the pre antibiotic era!
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1 comment:
dear MJ,
i remember one lady, who had publicly come on TV.
she had claimed to have reduced viral loads after taking the medicine.
she even married a keralite.
ultimately she died!!
there is no cure MJ.
wonder drugs after all HAVE to be proven by science!!
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