Alternatives Unit 12

Vocabulary•An illness - a disease of the body or mind

•Cold

•Symptoms - physical feeling or problem that shows you have an illness

•Runny nose, cough, fever

•Treatment - something you do to cure an illness or injury

•Remedy - something that makes you feel better

•Treatment - something you try to do to cure illness or injury

•Does your health insurance cover this kind of treatment?

•Remedy - something to make you better when you are ill

•When your throat is irritated, lozenges can be a good remedy.

•Placebo - substance patients take to feel better as they believe to be treated by medicine

•Homeopathy - treatment using natural substance

•Side-effect - reaction caused by drugs, other than the main effect

•Access - right, opportunity to use or see something

•Patients have access to their own records.

•Potentially - possibly

•Rule out - to decide that something will not happen or someone is not suitable

•Tried and tested - used many times before and proved to be successful

•Acupuncture - a way of treating pain or illness by putting thin needles into different parts of body

•Acupuncture doesn’t cause any pain, for the needles are thin.

•Antibiotic - a medicine that cures infections by destroying harmful bacteria

•Hypnosis - a mental state like sleep which can be easily influenced by other people

•Massage - applying pressure onto the muscles

•Painkiller - a drug that reduces pain

•Physiotherapy - treatment for injury in which you practice moving parts of your body

•Surgery - a procedure where a doctor cut open a part of body to remove or treat an illness

•Vaccination - substance is put into the system to prevent or treat diseases

•Health insurance - medical care is paid by an insurance company

•Free of charge - costing nothing

•Check-up - a general medical examination to see if you are healthy

•Entitled to - to have the right to

•Discuss something openly - to talk about something in a direct & open way

•Constantly - all the time or often

•Publicly - openly, with people as witness

•I’d like to see homeopaths debating publicly with their critics

•Reasonably - in a fair way, showing judgment

•Thoroughly - very carefully

•Consideration - thinking about something very carefully

•Scientific basis - showing true existence according to science

•Worthless - without any merit, value

•Homeopathic pills are no better than placebos.

•The placebo effect works.

•Homeopaths basically rely on the placebo effect.

•Homeopaths are unethical. They give sugar pills to unknowing patients.

•They endanger their patients by giving sugar pills to prevent serious diseases.

Main Argument: A

Detail - A•Four sugar pills a day clear up an illness

quicker than two sugar pills.

•An injection is more effective than a pill.

•Green pills are more effective for stress than red ones.

•Brand packaging on painkillers increases pain relief.

•Back pain, stress at work, medically unexplained fatigue, common colds.

•Some homeopaths give patients sugar pills to protect them from serious diseases like malaria, but do not give basic advice on prevention.

•Some give dangerous advice on vaccines.

Main Argument: B•It’s not reasonable to dismiss it just

because you don’t understand.

•People use homeopathy as a last resort, and they improve.

•We shouldn’t dismiss millions of people’s testimony that remedies worked for them.

•She once had a temperature of 39 C. She tried a remedy from snake venom. Four hours later, she had no symptoms at all.

•Because it’s so diluted, it must be useless.

•She wants to see homeopathy better regulated, homeopaths debating publicly with their critics, and initiating more research.

Detail - B