February 2003 Volume 84 Number 1 "serving the protectors"

Beware the medical myths

I was lucky enough to see the eclipse of the sun by our moon in 2002. It is a natural phenomenon with great expectation and excitement, half-light and the brilliant total eclipses. As the darkness swept over us, a ring of light around the moon produced a breathtaking experience. I heard someone say: “No wonder the ancients were freaked”. The language and the moment highlighted the wonder of our current age and scientific development, and contrasted with the wonder of nature and thousands of years of human history.

We marked the spot for our viewing of the eclipse on the Stuart Highway with the GPS and drove up in our air-conditioned car. The special tracking camera was set up to follow the sun so we could take pictures of all the stages. Two men from Europe set up alongside us with their digital movie camera and just behind us was a group from the NSW Astrological Society observing the eclipse just for the experience alone.

Imagine how you might have felt watching the eclipse 2000 years ago. You might have been hunting when, suddenly, the sky went dark, the wind changed, a chill went through the air, the birds stopped singing and the sun became a fiery ring.

Staying healthy today can be an experience as scary as an eclipse 2000 years ago or as exciting as the experience of 2002. If you approach an illness with no knowledge of the circumstances, it could be like experiencing an eclipse in the ancient times. Folklore might, without all the information, seem to explain natural phenomena. Stories about what might happen to you would be made up by well-intentioned people; and the causes would make sense at the time. The explanations would be in the context of your social culture and experience.

Today, we have other ways to make the whole experience more predictable and take a lot of the guesswork out of it. We have the chance to hear the old stories and use our science to work out what is believable.

Our use of vaccinations is an illustration of how old myths about diseases can be replaced with life-saving knowledge of our immune system. From the time the first small pox vaccine was used, there were concerns that vaccinating humans against this cowpox would turn them into monsters with cows’ heads and horns. People say too many vaccines being given to children will leave them with lazy immune systems, but we know that the new purified vaccines mean that we are exposed to less foreign material and our immune systems are stimulated into working better.

From thousands of years ago, there are stories about the health benefits of food such as garlic. Now, we know there may be some benefit from eating garlic, but it does not necessarily have all the good properties that ancient Rome though it had.

Viagra has some amazing properties to increase the chance of a successful erection, but there are thousands of other stories – with no foundation in truth – of different foods, potions, powders and contraptions doing the same thing.

Ancient stories or urban myths may, in some contexts, seem sensible but, in reality, be totally wrong. When you hear stories about wonderful new life-sparing treatments or disease-prevention programmes that will make you live forever, think of how it is to experience something like the eclipse. A natural experience that is wonderful even though we can predict it down to the last second.

Try to work out where the information came from and the context in which you heard it. Is the person selling you a product to make money from you and exploit your ignorance? Or, is he or she using all our scientific information to try to help you understand the situation and therefore allow you to get the most from the great natural experience of being alive?

When you see an advertisement for food or potions and their amazing health benefits and it sounds more like ancient stories than fact, use your common sense to experience the best of both worlds.

Your questions answered

Dr Pearce will answer questions on any health issue important to you. For his response, write to or fax the Police Journal with your question. Those who write need not identify themselves.

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If you prefer to correspond by e-mail, send messages to the associate editor
(brettwilliams@policejournalsa.org.au).

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