Viewpoint: Female, younger, better-educated and affluent – How ‘alternative medicine’ has taken America by storm and endangered lives

 S. Stiles | February 15, 2021

 I am a skeptic and a curmudgeon, so I was surprised when a friend of 30 years asked if she could add me to her “Reiki Grid.” A Reiki Grid, I soon discovered, is a pattern made with crystals, allowing a Reiki practitioner to send “healing energy” to individuals whose names or pictures are placed on the grid.

My friend is not a contemporary shaman. She is a hard-nosed, highly competent 37-year-old female attorney. She also has Stage IV breast cancer. Since her diagnosis, besides conventional cancer treatment, she has turned to alternative medicine and treatment modalities, including Reiki, which she credits for playing a large part in her health remaining stable at the moment. And what is Reiki? 

If I’m being diplomatic, I would describe it as “energy healing,” a sub-type of alternative medicine involving the practitioner placing their hands lightly on or just above the patient’s body in order to “transfer” energy. If I’m being truthful, I’d describe it as utter woo—a glaringly obvious pseudoscience.

And yet it is a pseudoscience many women of my demographic embrace. My lawyer friend was not the only chum from my childhood diagnosed with cancer this year. Another friend in her 30s, a former nurse, was diagnosed with early-stage neuroendocrine cancer of the cervix. 

Anxious to learn more about what they were going through, and dissatisfied with the dry statistics available online, I began reading cancer blogs (and other forms of social media), focusing on ones written by women around our age, in their 30s and 40s. 

This led to breast cancer blogs, which in turn led to metastatic breast cancer (MBC) blogs. What started as a layperson’s dabbling became an obsession. I probably read 30 MBC blogs, going through their entire archives. In my unscientific way, I began picking out patterns. One was that the majority of these youngish female bloggers tried using alternative medicine at some point, as their diseases progressed......To Read More...

My Take - While I'm not opposed to investigating alternatives, for the most part I've found myself upset at those who promote it because so many are nothing short of hucksters.  I think so much of it is loony, and have attacked them accordingly.  Having said that, I found this to be a very touching piece. I understand their views, emotional and intellectual, and I think this story was handled with great care and compassion.