Naturally Stupid...

Did I mention it's hot here? Between trips to the pool, the beach, and just lying on my balcony, I'm getting quite the tan. Or, more accurately, my freckles are getting closer together. Semantics...
But I'm getting sunburnt a lot.( By my calculations my risk of skin cancer has gone up 30.61 % since I've got here.) And when I'm not sunburnt I'm shedding skin like a snake in growth hormones. (you like that? Took me two minutes to think up that metaphor. Simile?...)

But here's my point. Whenever I tell someone I'm sunburnt they'll tell me some local remedy to get rid of it/ease the pain. My favourite is throw some yogurt on it. (Early on I bought some aloe vera and that seems to so the trick. ) now without knocking on folk medicine to much, they've got a lot of weird treatments here for pretty much every ailment you can think of. One of my very first investigator families had me sit through a whole discussion with a cup of their moonshine brandy under my nose cause I mentioned in my broken Albania that I thought I was coming down with a cold. My favorite was when we were visiting this one family, and the daughter, who was a very smart very westernized, severed a mission abroad type girl had her ankle wrapped in onions because she'd sprained it. Now considering Albania was pretty isolated for the large part of her recent history, you can't blame the people for the lack of knowledge or access to pharmaceuticals. Also I don't wanna negate the possibility that there might be something to it all. After all, there had to be some reason that they chose onions over, say, egg plants. But my point is this, if there was a whole lot off merit to it, some ginormous drug company would have had there R&D dept. do a million dollar study years ago into the effects (affects? No effects...) of onion pulp on the reduction of swelling on a Class 2 spain of the Anterior Talofibular Ligament.

And here's my main argument. For all those natural-paths and homeopaths out there, western medicine may have it's flaws, but seeking out new treatments isn't one of them. And therein lies the rub. All those natural types love the idea of taking everything from nature. Well news flash, everything, (EVERYTHING!) comes from nature. Those drug companies aren't couriering their pills in from Mars. The find a plant that lowers blood pressure slightly, they'll extract the specific essence that does the job, condense it down to pill form and start selling it. Except not until after they go through extensive testing and a lengthy approval process from the FDA. They're not stupid. Sure they're after profits but they all want a better less dangerous pill than the next guy. Besides who's not after profits. Definitely not the med school dropouts who became homeopathic practioners. The same people who are telling you about the evils of medicine are the same ones who want you to by their placebo laced snake oil. Now don't get me wrong. I'm all for taking less drugs, better diets, more exercise, vitamins and all that jazz, but pitting one school of thought against the over is disingenuous at best. I had a friend in dental hygienist school, who, under the sway of her naturopathic parents, went to one of their doctors (sic), to get something for hepatitis B instead of getting the vaccine. And while I'm sure there's something they can give you to boost your immune system, there's no replacement for the weakened form of the disease to allow your bodies NATURAL defenses to build up some antibodies to kill the virus. The thing that bothered me the most was that the practioner told, and subsequently convinced her, with a 100 certainty that this combination of herbs or whatever was as good or better than the vaccine.
To me what it all boils down to is elitism. It's rich housewives, with to much time and disposible income, watching too much oprah and reading too many magazines. It's them wanting to have better healthcare than all the plebs out there. Same people that are spending four times as much for organic food and the finest Cambodian breast milks. (Chappelle's Show) Dang I'm ruining my argument with humor. I hope grandmas not reading.

Bottom line, there's definitely flaws in the system. But there's a reason it's the best one out there. And we all know those natural followers and more significantly the proponents, would be double-fisting the antibiotics if they ever had a serious problem so stop trying to rip off ignorant people.