What alternative health

practitioners might not tell you

 

ebm-first.com

Note that some links will break as pages are moved, websites are abandoned, etc.

If this happens, please try searching for the page in the Wayback Machine at www.archive.org.

Read the original article

Truth, falsehood and evidence: investigations of dubious and dishonest science including complementary and alternative medicine. Website of Professor David Colquhoun, Research Professor of Pharmacology, University College London.

Read the original article

A website explaining the dangers of uncritical thinking. It summarises and links to hundreds of reports of people who have been killed, injured, or swindled by faulty beliefs. More than 60 topics are covered including acupuncture, applied kinesiology, autism denial, chiropractic, cranio-sacral therapy, detoxification, ear candling, energy medicine, herbal remedies, holistic medicine, homeopathy, iridology, psychic surgery, quackery, vaccine denial, vitamin megadoses, faith healing, and attachment therapy.

Read the original article

"The need for regulation has the potential for creating a potentially serious conflict. Informing patients about the best scientific evidence will, in some cases, mean telling them about the lack of scientifically proven benefit and the presence of potential risks, yet this would be overtly contrary to the personal (financial) interests, beliefs and emotional attitudes of CAM practitioners." Edzard Ernst, Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies [FACT]

Read the original article

"Research into complementary medicines relies on donations from enlightened philanthropists. Let's hope we can attract more of them." Edzard Ernst (The Guardian)

Read the original article

"The terms efficacy and effectiveness are frequently used in the medical literature. Seemingly similar in meaning, they express distinctly different concepts." Max H. Pittler and Adrian R. White, Associate Editors and Research Fellows, University of Exeter, UK, Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies [FACT]

Read the original article

An analysis of what 'proved to work' means. Edzard Ernst, MD, PhD, FRCP, FRCPEd, Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies [FACT]

Read the original article

Includes criticism of media reports on alternative medicine, and also looks at alternative medicine in relation to Christian religious beliefs. Article by Dónal P. O'Mathúna, PhD, fellow of The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity and Professor of Bioethics and Chemistry at Mount Carmel College of Nursing in Columbus, Ohio, USA.

Read the original article

"A demonstrably favorable risk-free profile is an essential requirement for CM (Complementary Medicine), as it is for any other form of medicine. Without it, issues like regulation of and training in CM degrade to mere window-dressing exercises." Commentary by Edzard Ernst, MD, PhD, FRCP (Diabetes Care)

Read the original article

"The biggest problem with so-called complementary and alternative medicine — CAM (a misleading name for it is neither complementary nor a legitimate alternative) is that its proponents overtly seek to create a double standard to medicine…..I think the worst can be avoided, however, if the public is made acutely aware of the true nature of CAM promotion…" Article by Steven Novella, MD (NeuroLogica Blog)

Read the original article

"Claims that conventional medicine is not widely based on evidence should be rejected, as should logically fallacious arguments based on such claims. The evidence fails to support them." R. Imrie and D. W. Ramey, Complementary Therapies in Medicine [Reprinted by Veterinarywatch.]

Read the original article

Reported uses of complementary and alternative medicine by 38 named celebrities. The therapies include the Atkins diet, homeopathy, acupuncture, gem therapy, dowsing, Ayurveda, reflexology, magnet therapy, the Eskimo diet, healing, breathing therapy, yoga, herbalism, the Alexander technique, Klamath Lake algae, cupping, ginseng, and bioenergy. Edzard Ernst and Max H. Pittler (The Medical Journal of Australia)

Read the original article

"The assumption we should really mistrust is that satisfaction with CAM services is the same as a demonstration of efficacy….. The danger of integrative medicine lies in creating a smoke-screen behind which dubious practices are pushed into routine healthcare." Edzard Ernst, Md, PhD, FRCP, (The Journal of Family Medicine) [pdf]

Read the original article

Arguably the 'holistic approach' is fragmented and the 'conventional approach' can prove to be more holistic than the naïve holism displayed by some complementary practitioners." Edzard Ernst, (British Journal of General Practice)

Read the original article

Experiments and thoughts on quackery, health beliefs and pseudoscience. Also provides help in judging whether information sources are trustworthy by counting words in web pages that quacks tend to use. The more such words, the more quackery is suspected.

Read the original article

"What is at stake here is our right, I would argue our duty, to speak out against misleading claims and dangerous concepts. We should find ways of protecting ourselves against such enemies of reason." Professor Edzard Ernst in a letter to the British Medical Journal (18th October 2008) [pdf]

Read the original article

"If the term [integrated medicine] truly means the integration in routine healthcare of those CAM interventions that are proven by the accepted standards of medicine, it becomes redundant because it is synonymous with EBM." Professor Edzard Ernst, Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies [FACT] (June 2008)