If by “mainstream sources” you mean the Express, Telegraph and Spectator then yes.
Personally I’d argue that they peddle so much fake news that they should no longer be regarded as reliable - sadly I suspect I am in the minority here.
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Fear not Tom, @Helen6 is very robust in her beliefs and well able to look after herself. She is also graceful (as others have said) and I expect sees her role to inform and offer an alternative viewpoint, however uncomfortable that may be.
Sadly there are disinformation rabbit holes in all areas of the world now. That is one of my deep regrets about this “joined up” world we now live in. That and the fact that the vast majority are completely ensnared to it 24/7. That Pandora’s box opened many years ago,
And although, superficially, the world may seem joined up, it also seems to me it is more polarised and there is less listening to alternative viewpoints. I have a lot of sympathy for Helen’s worldview, though not her sources! There was a time when I thought conventional and complementary therapies were beginning to find common ground (as in the importance of good nutrition) but I feel they have spun apart again - not helped by mad naturopaths claiming to get fake vaccine paperwork. (Was that comment made in this thread?)
As others have said, seems to me complementary therapy (in all its forms) is ideal for keeping us well or if ill with chronic conditions, keeping us as well as possible. Allopathy is ideal for crises - the broken bone, the heart attack, the pandemic. Fast, sometimes violent, certainly intrusive treatment is needed. But much better not to have the heart attack in the first place, or the pandemic and this is the bedrock philosophy of many complementary therapies.
Again, as others have said, we are where we are. And I was only too happy to be jabbed, as soon as possible. Whatever the risks. So that the pharma industry could learn to do it better. And those who are NOT being vaccinated need to remember this moral dilemma. Those who step forward when there are still uncertainties (as many have done here) are the “guinea pigs” for the testing / the learning / the refining so that in time others will have the courage and confidence to also be vaccinated and future generations will be safer.
Sorry, I’ve gone off topic, but I feel this needed to be said.
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I whole heartedly agree Sue. As a Reiki Master Practitioner, I am well aware of how energy in all its forms can help us and I am very glad to have had my second jab.
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I have a pretty open mind about alternative medicine, and quite few reservations about the mainstream medical establishment - I’m not sure its rather mechanistic model of humans is very accurate, for example, and, I think ‘big pharma’ often does more harm than good.
One problem I have is that ‘alternative medicine’ and similar descriptions seem to me to be catch-all terms that tell you little (other than status outside the medical establishment).
But surely in reality acupuncture, herbalism, homeopathy, etc, are all very different from each other?
I haven’t looked far into the history (or read much Foucault on this), but it’s pretty obvious that the ‘alternative’ status is historically and socially specific, and has a lot to do with establishing and maintaining an exclusive (and probably male) medical profession and power relations.
I believe in China acupuncture is pretty integrated with mainstream medicine - and indeed there are doctors everywhere that on the quiet mix mainstream and alternative medical practice, aren’t there? When I was treated for cancer here in France - including a big operation with all the fantastic technology of a modern ‘bloc’ - my surgeon also recommended I drink lots of ‘white’ tea!
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I think that you need to recognise that “mainstream medicine” is not a uniform homogenous whole but differs considerably from epoch to epoch, place to place, culture to culture and practitioner to practitioner.
Some of the problems with conventional medicine stem from the fact that in the past it has tended to an over-paternalistic world view and, sadly, Sir Lancelot Sprat is an all too accurate portrayal of a 1950’s surgeon. That attitude worked to a point when doctors tended to be upper middle class, ex military and Ronnie Corbett “knew his place”. It works less well in the modern age where people tend to resent being told what to do.
To be fair many doctors have realised this, have got over their God complexes and practice medicine in a much more collaborative way both with other colleagues and
patients - I see this a lot in the NHS. There is still the odd bad egg but they are fewer and further apart.
I’m afraid that, from what I hear of the French system on SF I suspect hat it still has some way to go before getting rid of unnecessarily paternalistic attitudes exhibited by its medical practitioners.
Many of the anti-vax, anti-“big pharma”, anti-“conventional medicine” movements are, of course, nurtured in the US. There seems to be something about that nation which provides a particularly fertile hothouse for the lunatic fringe.
I don’t think the US health system is a good one though. It excludes too many and, frankly, there are too many doctors that seem to wish to emulate Sir Lancelot, or think that they are House. Personally I blame the training - it is still too steeped in machismo and “rite of passage” 100+ hours a week on duty jobs. That sort of thing a) burns you out and b) makes you think that you are God for having survived. It also has a habit of producing senior physicians who perpetrate the bullying of more junior docs because that’s what happened to them in their own training.
Healthcare costs in the US are out of control, the uninsured or even those unfortunate enough to wind up with gaps in their insurance face crippling bills for getting ill, drug costs are also out of control as the pharmaceutical industry has been used to an insurance industry with deep pockets.
In this situation where conventional medicine is expensive, not accessible to all and doesn’t always work it is not surprising that there is also a lot of quackery about.
So I have to half agree - when I see criticism of “big medicine”, “big healthcare” and “big pharma” I look across the Atlantic and have to agree much of that criticism is valid. But then I look at the NHS and see that it does not have to be that way.
Sadly the current government seems to want to dismantle the NHS and emulate the US system. A severely retrograde step if you ask me.
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My meandering and getting lost and finding dead ends down rabbit hole days are mostly over…(or I thought they were…!) now I mostly meander and ponder and read and pick up pieces and then either set them aside for future reference or decide how I feel about it in the moment and explore further…
Since the blanket censorship and deletion of people I respect and admire started I kind of feel that “disinformation” and “misinformation” have lost their meaning…
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More and more it seems that conventionally trained doctors are getting closer to functional and integrative medicine. To me it should not be one or the other, but a balance that is patient centred not disease centred.
Moving to France did seem in some ways going back to the 1950’s in terms of the god complexes of the first doctors I encountered. But they can be trained! I now get on well with my specialists and they talk to me as a human being rather than an object to be told what to do. And even ask my opinion or offer me choices…And they all do bring in aspects of alternative approaches to, with increasing emphasis on lifestyle issues and self help. So the world is changing even here…
(My father and Lancelot Spratt could have been twins, except my father was more of a racist bigot)
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I think what bothered me about this (apart from one of my daughter’s being pregnant at the minute and currently being bombarded by letter text and email with “vaccine” invites from all and sundry) was coming across a doctor in Canada who’s few minute speech went viral…pardon the pun…I thought he was maybe a whistleblower and maybe he is but I went looking for him and found that someone had set up a fake website in his name…
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I was trying to think back to where it all began and exactly where I had come across that video…(I often start formulating a reply and then get distracted by a ball thrown in my lap or my mum ringing or my kids texting or feeding times etc 
)
Yes I did know that the concerned parents weren’t the actual parents of the children being vaccinated and didn’t say that in my post…(my bad and I apologise)…i had started the day reading the vanity fair investigation and then followed all sorts of links looking at the Fauci emails and gain of function research and the paper in the lancet that effectively made it impossible to investigate the “lab leak” theory that ultimately resulted in blanket deletion of as I have already mentioned people I respect and admire…
That video was much longer and appeared to be posted by activists at the scene but it was only in a tweet attached to the article…and I can no longer find it…
I saw the poor woman with the toddler a while back…it’s one of many such videos but it stuck in my mind because I don’t think there is ever any justification in any circumstances pandemic or not for violence against women and children…
Dean Ornish: One of my favourites. Dean Ornish: Healing through diet | TED Talk
I commend the above TED talk to you Geof. There are many routes to healing and what is key is what happens in our own minds and bodies. We heal ourselves and that healing is helped if we find a healer, be they doctor, acupuncturist, herbalist, reiki master, whom we trust. They are the conduit.
I think you have to look critically at everything really - I know I am prejudiced and probably miss out on stuff because I won’t read the times, the telegraph, the daily mail, the sun, the daily mirror etc
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Probably not 
but then you were probably being sarcastic.
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We’re at slight cross-purposes there I think Paul - although The Birth of the Clinic is one of the Foucault books I haven’t read my allusion to him should have alerted you to the fact that I wasn’t just talking about the sort of medical cultural differences you mention (though I must say my experience is that the French system is much better than the UK’s - my family doctor here, and my local hospital, are easily the best I’ve ever had). Rather, I meant (as in Foucault’s general outlook) the fundamental conceptual paradigms that are constitutive of ‘the medical profession’ as such - those that if you don’t adhere to you’re not regarded as a ‘doctor’ at all.
You might be interested in this very relevant book that was reviewed in The Guardian yesterday (and it does have some slight relevance to the actual subject of this thread!)…
Any treatment that involves moving energy throughout the body, acupuncture, chiropractic and osteopathy, are now practised alongisde recognised medicine, often by the same pracatitioner.
I knowfrom my own Reiki practice in UK just how much can be achieved and I have had success with both my human and animal patients.
Energy medicine is not ‘quackery’.
Well…I’ve took a bit of a sojourn into why exactly do I feel so…ermm what’s the word…??? 
Read a bit more…
Found actual documents…
There’s still nothing I’ve come across yet that reassures me about children and young people and pregnant and lactating women…
(Can’t believe China is saying it’s ok to inject babies from 3 years old with their experimental injectable…)
babies from 3 years old?
Despicable.
But if we’re unlucky and nasty mutations (variants) do break through the vaccines because not enough people are vaccinated quickly enough to stop the spread that increases the risk of variants, it may come to that.
Have you heard about RSV?
It’s pretty ubiquitous - most of us have had it and acquired immunity by about the age of 2 but it kills a good few hundred babies per year as well as immunocompromised adults.
mRNA is offering the first possibility of a vaccine against RSV.
It is also offering the possibility of treatment for many hitherto difficult or impossible to treat conditions.
And the ideas and basic technology have been around for 30 years
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@KarenLot and @Helen6 I am not a scientist, nor medical professional, but I am curious to know why you think innoculating babies and children is despicable?
I thought measles, rubella, tetanus and meningitis were currently recommended for all children for a number of decades, and I assume the medical community would have needed to trial this on some children before they advised it to be safe for all children.
Are your comments particularly against the Covid vaccine, against vaccines in general, or just the idea that some humans, including children, need to be included in trials?
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Just a note of caution Helen - on https://mediabiasfactcheck.com, Trialsitenews is not fully reviewed, but is currently provisionally rated as a ‘conspiracy’ website. It might be linked with the notorious extreme right/christian Lifesitenews.
This does not mean that everything on it is incorrect, of course - or indeed any worse than most main stream media such as the Daily Mail or Fox News - but we need to all be alert to the various political agendas in play across the media.
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