Alternative medicine deserves more respect

Dear Editor: 

A recent letter in your paper criticized Preston Manning’s review of Alberta’s pandemic response. I don’t know how valid is Mr. Manning’s Review or that of his critic, but I do know of one area in which Canada could have done better: that of alternative medicine. 

Using Ivermectin to treat COVID was not Danielle Smith’s idea. It is a treatment used to good advantage in other parts of the world where practicality trumps our puny ideology. 

Yes, the horse medicine which is so scorned as a COVID treatment is too strong for human use as we know it, but elsewhere—like in parts of Africa—a human-friendly form of it had been developed and proven useful against several diseases, including COVID. Even in this country, a few COVID sufferers who have tried it, and managed to use little enough of it to avoid harm, have achieved good results. 

Indigenous people, and many other folks, have known and used natural remedies which we moderns, if we were more prudent and smarter, could employ to our own advantage. Don’t reject a solution just because it’s foreign or old. 

When will we, who preen ourselves as being most learned, realize that we don’t hold all the keys to knowledge. Many others, in many places, had viable answers long before us. 

Charmaine Wood, Irvine

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