by CHRISTOPHER LANE
In the U.S. (and across the West, more generally), we are understandably suspicious of medical hoaxes and scams, given the damage they can cause. Our media and pundits try to weed out medical assertions that are unsupported by science. The Internet, in particular, abounds with dubious products whose untested, often wildly oversold effects can easily persuade the unthinking and the credulous to part with their cash.
Yet as someone who follows and comments on developments in especially psychiatry, I frequently am struck by the faith we place in products that come with FDA approval, but a litany of unpleasant, sometimes risky side effects. When, for example, millions of men across America are willing to “double their risk of hearing loss” and jeopardize their eyesight for an erection, as recent studies warn about those routinely taking Viagra, you know that potency is something we take very seriously as a people and culture. Seriously enough to tune out such warnings and opt unthinkingly for a blue pill, rather than a wealth of natural aphrodisiacs whose effect is basically identical—minus, of course, the nasty health risks.
When our knowledge of natural products is also limited, even impoverished, by cultural biases that skew toward pharmaceuticals, our information-base shrinks accordingly. We ignore the well-known medicinal properties of vast amounts of natural products and end up placing enormous faith in pills whose very advertisements are forced to devote significant amounts of time and space to a laundry list of side effects. (The U.S. shares with New Zealand the dubious distinction of being the only Western countries to allow direct-to-consumer advertising of psychotropic pharmaceuticals.)
Because I also spend large amounts of time in South America, in particular Peru, from where I’m blogging this summer, cultural differences in medicine and public health can be especially striking. From here, over the last few weeks, I’ve been able to follow with intense interest the arguments both for and against naturally existing cancer-fighting agents, such as the leaves of the guanabana tree (hereafter known as “graviola”). From all that I’ve been able to investigate, from PubMed to the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health, my sense is that the leaves of this remarkably promising fruit should be getting more rather than less attention from the scientific community. Yet though in Perú graviola is routinely part of a cancer-fighting arsenal, along with chemotherapy, in the States the latter prevails, eclipsing more or less all other options.
Psychology Today for more
(Thanks to reader)