It's funny how we were just talking about the evils of modern medicine in chat, and now you've just posted this! :)

As a person with many libertarian-style views, I'm often confronted with a lot of assumptions that I believe certain things. There seem to be many fringe beliefs that mesh well with a general distrust of centralised authority, and one of them that comes up a lot is alternative medicine in general.

Treat your diseases with herbs and homeopathy! Cure your cancer with algae smoothies! Give birth at home miles away from medical attention! Vaccines cause autism! Breast is best! (Okay, they're actually right about that last one. At least, I think they are.)

I feel a bit like the odd one out sometimes, retaining my trust in all this "established" science and medicine when I distrust so many other things people take for granted... but I think it might be the decentralisation factor that makes it different for me. When scientists sponsored by entirely different entities spread across the entire world agree on something, you should probably give a bit of credit to what they have to say. If there's any doubt about a subject, people are out there talking about it, very much in the open, and the truth will come out sooner or later.

About the other thing: I don't like pumpernickel very much. Always preferred rye... especially toasted, with eggs. Mmm. Rye toast.