Examining Alternative Medicine

Examines, from a Christian perspective, alternative therapies such as herbal therapy, homeopathy, acupuncture, energy healing, yoga, and therapeutic touch.

Welcome to the world of alternative medicine. Prince Charles is a staunch defender and millions of people swear by it; most UK doctors consider it to be little more than superstition and a waste of money. But how do you know which treatments really heal and which are potentially harmful? Now at last you can find out, thanks to the formidable partnership of Professor Edzard Ernst and Simon Singh. Edzard Ernst is the world's first professor of complementary medicine, based at Exeter University, where he has spent over a decade analysing meticulously the evidence for and against alternative therapies.He is supported in his findings by Simon Singh, the well-known and highly respected science writer of several international bestsellers. Together they have written the definitive book on the subject. It is honest, impartial but hard-hitting, and provides a thorough examination and judgement of more than thirty of the most popular treatments, such as acupuncture, homeopathy, aromatherapy, reflexology, chiropractic and herbal medicine.In Trick or Treatment? the ultimate verdict on alternative medicine is delivered for the first time with clarity, scientific rigour and absolute authority.

This book reveals the numerous ways in which moral, ethical and legal principles are being violated by those who provide, recommend or sell ‘complementary and alternative medicine’ (CAM). The book analyses both academic literature and internet sources that promote CAM. Additionally the book presents a number of brief scenarios, both hypothetical and real-life, about individuals who use CAM or who fall prey to ethically dubious CAM practitioners. The events and conundrums described in these scenarios could happen to almost anyone. Professor emeritus of complementary medicine Edzard Ernst together with bioethicist Kevin Smith provide a thorough and authoritative ethical analysis of a range of CAM modalities, including acupuncture, chiropractic, herbalism, and homeopathy. This book could and should interest all medical professionals who have contact to complementary medicine and will be an invaluable reference for patients deliberating which course of treatment to adopt.

Alternative therapies, once the province of the hippie counterculture, are now a mainstream phenomenon. But they are more than a medical and economic sensation. At once spiritual and bodily, medical and recreational, they are an enormously popular cultural practice bound up with the pleasure-seeking drive of consumer culture as well as with spiritual and neo-liberal values. Complementary and Alternative Medicine critically examines this phenomenon - which some denounce as the triumph of superstition over reason - by asking practitioners themselves what makes these therapies so appealing. Drawing on a wealth of interviews with Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) practitioners as well as on the author's longstanding participation in CAM culture, the book provides a much needed look from both the inside and the outside of the CAM phenomenon. This book is essential reading for students and scholars of cultural studies, anthropology, sensory studies and sociology.

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Leading bioethicists and philosophers examine and debate the question of how the health care system should deal with using complimentary and alternative medicines. The distinguished authorities writing here both defend and criticize alternative medicine, with some arguing that the medical system should change substantially in order to accommodate alternative medicine, and others claiming that virtually all alternative treatments are worthless. In the heat of the debate many fundamental issues are raised concerning our health care system, among them the questions of therapeutic effectiveness, media truthfulness, the patient's freedom to choose among treatment options, health insurance coverage, the ability of the current healthcare delivery system to meet patients' needs, and government approval of alternative medicines.

This book examines how complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) – as knowledge, philosophy and practice – is constituted by, and transformed through, broader social developments. Shifting the sociological focus away from CAM as a stable entity that elicits perceptions and experiences, chapters explore the forms that CAM takes in different settings, how global social transformations elicit varieties of CAM, and how CAM philosophies and practices are co-produced in the context of social change. Through engagement with frameworks from Science and Technology Studies (STS), CAM is reconceptualised as a set of practices and knowledge-making processes, and opened up to new forms of analysis. Part 1 of the book explores how and why boundaries within CAM and between CAM and other health practices, are being constructed, challenged and changed. Part 2 asks how CAM as material practice is shaped by politics and regulation in a range of national settings. Part 3 examines how evidence is being produced and used in CAM research and practice. Including studies of CAM in Eastern and Western Europe, Asia, and North and South America, the volume will appeal to postgraduate students, researchers and health practitioners.

Finding the right criteria to use when judging Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is essential if it is to stand up to criticism from those concerned about the importance of evidence-based medicine. This edited volume highlights how CAM requires different research tools and techniques from conventional medicine, and examines effective methodologies for accurately assessing CAM. Addressing a problem which is often cited as the reason for a failure to appreciate the potential in CAM approaches to patient care, experts from a wide array of CAM modalities suggest the most effective research methodology for each particular therapy and illustrate how a lack of adherence to that methodology produces a less effective assessment. Disciplines covered include Traditional Chinese Medicine, homeopathy, herbal medicine, craniosacral therapy, qigong and yoga. Providing direction in research and the best criteria to appropriately assess each discipline, this book highlights and responds to the issues underlying research in CAM. It will be of interest to anyone involved in CAM research, in addition to CAM practitioners and students, western medical practitioners looking to include CAM in their treatments, and anyone studying research design and methodology.