Chris Ruane MP, ex deputy head, has doubts about germ theory

What makes Chris Ruane think that western medicine doesn’t deal with "a good proportion of illness and disease" by "tapping into and enhancing an individual’s natural immune system". They are called vaccines and are really quite good. He ought to read about them.Indeed some diseases are from within (my brother has one – it’s called MS). However, in this case, it would appear the disease is caused because the immune system runs awry; either all by itself or as a result of some external trigger. Indeed there are huge numbers of diseases which are not caused by external infections – western medicine has some quite good remedies for some of those. For example, diabetes. At least this ill-informed twerp is no longer able to pass this sort of rubbish onto children. He also ought to look into the structure of that first paragraph.

Bloody hell, what a halfwit. Even his grammar is dodgy.

Other than the unfortunate use of the term "germ theory" there isn’t much wrong with this.A balance does need to be struck. We should not dismiss the benefits of treatments such as acupuncture or even just of positive thinking in the same way as good, hard science shouldn’t be ignored.Personally I feel that there is a lot to be said for having a healthy attitude and outlook and that it contributes to physical, or perhaps psychosomatic, symptoms. I’ll confess to not having looked into whether or not there is any scientific research to this end but I’m fairly confident that the "Placebo effect" has been scientifically demonstrated.

Foamcow. May I suggest you are guilty of the same error as Ruane. Pontificating about the benefits of alt med whilst admitting you have not looked into the evidence.For the latest on the misleading claims of acupuncturists, you would do far worse than look here http://www.dcscience.net/?p=4439