journal

Georgina Whiters

Dexter Christian

Intr-1110 Critical Thinking

Student Journal 3

AA430

11 /13 /06

Abhishek Thakore 's The Miracles of Urine Therapy : A Critique

Many home remedies and alternative medical treatments claim to be miracles ' or universal cure-alls ' for various illnesses and diseases . Many such treatments even claim to be scientifically proven ' or backed up by scientific evidence . But before believing any claim , scientific or otherwise , it is very useful to apply critical thinking and analyze the soundness of the evidence first

Quite a number of the

aforementioned treatments are actually based on reasoning inferred from anecdotal evidence and some supposedly physiological principles , rather than sound clinical testing and research . Such conclusions can be seen in Abhishek Thakore ' article on urine therapy , The Miracles of Urine Therapy

Urine therapy , according to Thakore , claims miraculous ' results - urine is said to be effective in treating a wide range of diseases including multiple sclerosis , colitis , lupus , rheumatoid arthritis [ .] hepatitis , pancreatic insufficiency , psoriasis , eczema , diabetes and herpes ' and even cancer . It is claimed that urine is non-toxic , and that ingesting it regularly promotes and maintains good health . There are , however , quite a number of problems with regards to the how he author supports these assertions

Those claims or miracles , first of all , are supported to a large extent by dramatic testimonials by patients as to how urine consumption has cured their ailments . The common thread of reasoning is that since many people report drastic improvements in their situations after undergoing urine therapy , then urine therapy must be the reason for these improvements . However , to derive broad conclusions from individual cases and proclaim them as truth is not only irresponsible , it can be very misleading and may pose serious dangers to others

Notwithstanding the fact that there is no mention of any controlled scientific study to back up the aforementioned claims , the sweeping generalizations made can be considered as a form of post hoc fallacy Proponents of urine therapy take the of events as sufficient evidence , while overlooking other factors of causation . For example , it was implied that since the former Prime Minister of India (who was a proponent of urine therapy ) lived up to the age of 99 , that happening was due to the therapy . Aside from the fact that the same wasn 't said about other people who consume urine , the claim ignores the possibility that the Prime Minister 's long life can be caused by other factors such as genetics , diet , exercise , etc

It is also possible that the reported therapeutic effects are the results of placebo response . Just because a number of people provide anecdotal evidence , one cannot safely assume that something is indeed beneficial . It may be argued that placebo responses could not account for all the improvements from this therapy - however , it is also possible that those illnesses have been misdiagnosed in the first place In one interview , a patient said that doctors had told her that her ears have been permanently damaged , but when she...