Alternative medicines draw fire
- From: rpautrey2 <rpautrey2@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2008 07:36:25 -0700 (PDT)
Alternative medicines draws fire
Fran Metcalf
Queensland Newspapers
June 21, 2008 12:00am
AFTER decades of fighting for credibility within mainstream medicine,
alternative health practitioners are once again in the firing line.
This latest salvo has been launched from Britain, where two recently
released, hard-hitting books accuse the complementary and alternative
medicine (CAM) industry of quackery and trickery.
The attack comes at a time when, in Australia, more money than ever is
being invested in CAM remedies.
In the 2006-2007 financial year, Medicare Australia paid out more than
$23 million in rebates for patients who received acupuncture,
chiropractic therapy and osteopathy.
While only a small number of people qualify for the rebates – those
with chronic conditions and with complex care needs – the cost to the
public purse could rise dramatically if CAM becomes part of mainstream
medicine as forecast by some within the medical fraternity.
Have your say about alternative medicinesAnd at an international CAM
congress staged in Sydney earlier this year, the Federal Government
announced more than $7 million in grants for the creation of new
centres and research projects across the country.
In Queensland, more than $660,000 was awarded to establishing a new
clinic at the University of Queensland in a bid to integrate CAM with
conventional medicine.
However, scientists in Britain are now labelling most CAM practices as
fake, with new research analysis showing the majority of them provide
nothing more than a placebo effect.
So, what are we to believe?
Are alternative therapies finally getting the kudos they deserve or
have they ultimately been revealed as fake?
According to British author Rose Shapiro, CAM has grown into a
"massive social and intellectual fraud" – a "dangerous global
delusion" – with no scientific evidence to justify the global
industry.
"What's happened is that patient satisfaction and demand has replaced
evidence when it comes to the efficacy of complementary medicine,"
Shapiro writes in her new book, Suckers: How Alternative Medicine
Makes Fools of Us All.
"In other words, demand itself constitutes evidence and no other proof
need be sought; if science cannot show an alternative method to be
safe or effective there must be something wrong with science."
Shapiro says many CAM practitioners rely on a "long-ago and far-away
factor" to justify their treatments and patients swallow their spiel
whole.
"We hear a lot about Chinese and Indian medicine – acupuncture,
ayurveda and the like – but what do we know of their history and
success?" she writes.
"We are encouraged to believe that it has been transposed, intact and
unmodified, from ancient times to today.
"Nothing could be further from the truth.
"The history of the TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) that was
exported to the West was reinterpreted to suit Western sensibilities.
"The bases, history and effectiveness are all scientifically
unproven."
Shapiro's credentials to make such assertions are uncertain, with her
only public qualifications listed as a writer for different newspapers
and magazines including health journals.
However, her sentiments are echoed in another new book, titled Trick
or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial and written by two British
scientists – professor of alternative medicine Edzard Ernst, who has
worked as a clinical doctor and spent the past decade working out
which CAM treatments work, and popular science author Dr Simon Singh,
who has a PhD in particle physics.
They claim to have assessed all existing research on alternative
therapies and their book delivers the verdict on each.
"At the more positive end of the scale, herbal medicine can claim a
few successes, but the majority of herbs appear to be overhyped," they
write.
"Chiropractic therapy might offer some marginal benefit, but only for
back pain – all its other claims are unsubstantiated.
"Similarly, acupuncturists might be able to offer some marginal
benefit in terms of relieving some sorts of pain and nausea, but the
effect is so borderline that there is also the strong possibility that
acupuncture is worthless.
"Homeopathy is the worst therapy encountered so far – it is an
implausible therapy that has failed to prove itself after two
centuries and some 200 clinical studies.
"Moreover, none of these alternative treatments (apart from a few
herbal medicines) compares well against the conventional options for
the same conditions. In fact, not only are such treatments unproven
but over and over again we have seen that alternative medicine is also
potentially dangerous. We argue that it is now time for the tricks to
stop, and for the real treatments to take priority."
Yet, here in Australia, confidence in CAM is growing, with some health
officials saying it could make a significant, cost-effective
contribution to public health in chronic disease management and
preventative care.
More than $2 billion is spent nationally on CAM with up to two-thirds
of the Australian adult population using at least one product and one
in four using complementary medicine services.
According to Shapiro, the most likely users of CAM are middle-aged,
middle-class, educated women aged 35 to 55 with a high disposable
income.
"As many as 47 per cent of middle-aged mothers in the UK in the top of
the tree in socioeconomic terms say they have used CAM at least once,"
she writes.
"About half the population of European countries like France, Belgium,
Germany and Denmark have used CAM and in Australia, America and Canada
up to 70 per cent of the population does so."
Singh and Ernst point to celebrities, universities, alternative
"gurus", the media, governments and regulators as key culprits in
promoting CAM remedies, many of which can be dangerous and prey on the
most vulnerable.
"If such standards are not applied to the alternative medicine sector,
then homeopaths, acupuncturists, chiropractors, herbalists and other
alternative therapies will continue to prey on the most desperate and
vulnerable in society . . ." they write.
Suckers: How Alternative Medicine Makes Fools of Us All, Rose Shapiro
(Random, $32.95); Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial,
Dr Simon Singh and Professor Edzard Ernst (Random, $37.95)
© 2008 Queensland Newspapers. All times AEST 21/06/2008 02:25.
URL: http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23883737-5003424,00.html
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