During your healing journey, you will face many different choices.
Hopefully, this article will help you objectively and honestly
assess any methodology, fully aware of its positives and negatives,
its limits, its risks, before deciding to do or not do something.
These are the factors and criteria I use to assess any methodology.

1. Is it safe? Safety is relative. Someone who is desperate will
have a higher risk tolerance than me. My choices were and are
highly influenced by safety. What are the potential positives and
negatives? Does the potential positives truly out weight the
potential negatives, enough so that it is worth doing?

2. Are there better alternatives? I don't fault someone for making
limited and or bad choices, especially when they don't know better
alternatives. I do question their priorities when they make riskier
choices, especially when they do know safer and better
alternatives.

3. Credibility of the evaluator is important since that is one
criterion I use to determine how much weight, if any, to give to the
evaluator's opinion. His evaluation must fall within the scope of
his core competence, as established by his experience in that
methodology. When the evaluator doesn't have credibility, earned by
personal experience in that methodology I disregard that opinion as
useless, and have no influence in my decision.

4. How do the peers in that methodology feel about the method?
Every methodology has supporters and critics. Every industry has
that industry's titans, the people who have achieved the pinnacle of
success, accomplishments, and admiring acknowledgments from peers of
that industry. How do the titans of that industry or methodology
feel about the method? To objectively understand the positives and
negatives of a methodology, I feel it is important to see how the
peers, who have experience in that methodology, honestly assess it.

5. Is there a conflict of interest for the evaluator? Some
allopathic doctors receive perks from drug companies, so it is fair
to question objectivity, especially with such a potential for
conflict of interest.

6. Does the evaluator have something to sell, giving him a reason
for biases? When something is not objective from the beginning, I
must question the conclusion.

7. What standard should we use to determine whether to use a
methodology or not? Some assert the Scientific method, which I
loosely define as a randomized, placebo-controlled, peer reviewed
test, where the results are verifiable, and duplicable. But the
problem is, there are many methodologies that existed before the
current day Scientific method. Furthermore, current day Science
doesn't understand every existing methodology to devise an
appropriate test for it. When current day Science cannot explain
something, or it is beyond the scope of current Science, that
doesn't invalidate the method. It just means current Science cannot
appropriately test or validate its results. As recently as several
decades ago, we didn't have a test for AIDS, and medical science
didn't even know it existed. Science cannot explain every
methodology, because it doesn't understand every methodology. The
Scientific method also assumes everyone has the same constitution,
so results should be duplicable. But if a criterion for validity is
duplicable, then the standard is flawed. Everyone is different,
with different constitutions, so it should not surprise anyone that
two people can have the same test results, but have different
treatment protocols with different results.

8. Anecdotal evidence may fill the void that science cannot fully
explain or completely understand. Several years ago, I had minor
back pains. It was not painful enough to debilitate me, but it was
enough to irritate my daily life. Allopathic medicine just
recommended taking pain medication. A friend recommended electro-
acupuncture, because she had a similar problem that was helped by
it. I didn't fully understand how it worked, but since I couldn't
find any major downside risk to try it, I got electro-acupuncture
treatments. After three sessions, my back pain was gone. I don't
think science can fully explain what happened, or how it worked.
But the anecdotal evidence was very clear. It worked, despite no
scientific validation.

9. How long has the methodology been around? Has it withstood the
test of time? That's my common sense test. When something is pure
Quackery, like when charlatans attempt to sell their magic potions
that will cure everything, for everyone, all the time, such quackery
doesn't pass the test of time, since sooner or later, common sense
prevails. But when a methodology has been around for hundreds, and
in some cases, thousands of years, common sense tells me it must be
effective for SOME health problems, for SOME people, SOME of the
time. The danger is when bad practitioners misuse the methodology
and attempt to use it for other health problems that the methodology
was not designed to do. We see this same problem in allopathic
medicine when doctors prescribe drugs off label, misusing the drug.
The time test is really common sense, and provides a great-unbiased
testimonial.

These are the nine criteria I use, mixed with some good old-fashion
common sense to help me make better choices. May it help you
too!