>You seem to be equating osteopathy (a completely accepted medical science)
No, osteopathy is not completely accepted by medical science. Osteopathy is absolute pseudoscience. Please do your research.
Yes, I realize that DOs undergo actual medical training in addition to the quackery that gives their field its name, but they are still taught the pseudoscience on which the practice was originally based. That they believe these techniques are legitimate medicine is indicative that their entire understanding of science and medicine is compromised. This hypothesis has been borne out by literally every experience I have had with a DO.
If you are outside the U.S. then I understand your belief that osteopathy is quackery because outside the U.S., it is. Inside the U.S. though a D.O. is equivalent to an M.D.
You would know this if you bothered to read either of the citations I provided. You and the person downvoting me apparently disagree with the American Medical Association that says a D.O. is equivalent to an M.D.
For failing to read my citations before you replied to them and for providing no citations of your own other than "every experience I have had with a DO." you are currently in the category of Ignorant Fool. If you would like to provide a citation or two for what you say and perhaps if you actually respond to my citations instead of around them I might be able to upgrade you to Misguided Goof.
EDIT: Never mind, I see in another comment below you are saying that you are just as suspicious of medical doctors. I have no further desire to discuss this with you.
> Never mind, I see in another comment below you are saying that you are just as suspicious of medical doctors.
You accuse me of not reading your citations (I did), did not actually read my response to your comment, and then somehow you got that out of my comment below?
I said that MDs don't have immunity. If I find out that my doctor believes in pseudo-medicine, I will find a new doctor. If you think that's unreasonable, then I guess this "no further desire to discuss" feeling you mentioned is mutual.
It's not about what their predecessors believed. It's about what is still taught in their standard training.
Also, by no means should you take this to mean that I am giving MDs any special immunity. The only leg up they have is that I can't tell just by looking at the letters at the end of their name that their model of science in medicine has been poisoned by bullshit.
Because their training also includes the scientifically bankrupt "osteopathic manipulative medicine", presented as if it were real medicine.
If you found out that your doctor had, in addition to her ordinary training, received training in psychic healing, and believed that this was a valid approach to medicine, how comfortable would you feel with that doctor being allowed to prescribe potentially dangerous medications to patients?
In an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine in November 1999, researchers concluded that osteopathic manipulative medicine and traditional drug therapy resulted in equivalent resolution of lower back pain in a nearly identical time frame. The difference was that participants receiving osteopathic manipulative medicine required less pharmaceutical intervention. The advantage of osteopathic manipulative medicine was a diminution of adverse drug reactions while the disadvantage was the greater amount of physician time required for each patient.[22]
A 2005 meta-analysis and systematic review of six randomized controlled trials of osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) that involved blinded assessments of lower back pain in ambulatory settings concluded that OMT significantly reduces low back pain, and that the level of pain reduction is greater than expected from placebo effects alone and persists for at least three months.[23]
The National Institutes of Health's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine states[24] that overall, studies have shown that spinal manipulation can provide mild to moderate relief from low-back pain and appears to be as effective as conventional medical treatments.
You are the worst kind of debater. You say something wrong, are called out on it, then you change the entire topic. Only you're wrong about that new topic too, so you cling to it to death. So now you're in the position of arguing against the American Medical Association, the National Institute of Health, the New England Journal of Medicine and frankly thousands of studies.
See my other responses. In summary, DOs are fully trained doctors who also believe that a completely pseudoscientific methodology (OMM) is valid medicine. I have very little confidence in such a person's ability to critically weigh evidence, and it seems crazy to me to let them give people drugs.
DOs are fully trained doctors that happen to have gone to medical schools affiliated with osteopathy. A previous commenter related osteopathy to Catholicism via Georgetown; that sounds about right. People choose medical schools for a variety of reasons (cost, admissions, locations). One of the practitioners at my primary care doctor's office is a DO, and does not believe in pseudoscience.
I think what happened here is that you overreached; you claimed that chiropractors could prescribe drugs, were corrected, and then scrambled to recover your argument instead of just admitting you were wrong. Now we're in a totally pointless and, from what I can tell, one-sided discussion about the legitimacy of DOs, despite the total irrelevance of osteopathy to the thread we're on.
>I think what happened here is that you overreached; you claimed that chiropractors could prescribe drugs, were corrected, and then scrambled to recover your argument instead of just admitting you were wrong.
It's a good hypothesis, but for the purposes of updating your model, I should inform you that your guess is wrong. This is a position I've given a lot of thought to. I know that a lot of people disagree with it, so I chose chiropractic for my argument, as it would have been a less controversial and more clear cut example - had I not been mistaken about their ability to write prescriptions. That was sloppy of me.
The difference between OMM and Catholicism is that Catholicism does not purport to be medicine and is not part of the medical curriculum. If it were a Pentecostal school and they taught all of real medicine, but also taught faith healing, then I would feel very similarly about that to how I feel about DOs.
Here's a test: ask the DO at your primary care office if he thinks that OMM is a valid medical practice.
You should submit a story to HN about the problems of osteopathy; that would make this an interesting discussion.
But here, it's just a sideshow. Your point was that being able to prescribe medicine is not a big deal. Whatever you may think of the philosophy of osteopathy, being a DO is a big deal; DO's are doctors, licensed by the state to practice medicine. It is approximately as hard to become a licensed DO as it is to be an MD. DO's are not like chiropractors. Chiropractors don't go to med school.
You were wrong, obviously wrong, and it is clear that no matter what your underlying feelings about osteopathy are, this subthread is irrelevant. In fact, you're doing your opinions about osteopathy a disservice by hitching them to to this particular argument!
To be fair, the one DO I know is a DO rather than an MD because he couldn't get into a normal medical school (schools of osteopathy are not as selective in general).
Though I suppose that also may not be something you'd want to know about your doctor. But as far as I know the academic rigor of his medical program was no less than that of any MD school, minus the inclusion of osteopathy itself. I wouldn't have any issues going to him as a primary care doctor.
