A Dose of Our Own Medicine: Alternative Medicine, Conventional Medicine, and the Standards of Science

Abstract

The discussion about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is sometimes rather heated. “Quackery!” the cry goes. A large proportion “of unconventional practices entail theories that are patently unscientific.” “It is time for the scientific community to stop giving alternative medicine a free ride. There cannot be two kinds of medicine — conventional and alternative. There is only medicine that has been adequately tested and medicine that has not, medicine that works and medicine that may or may not work.” “I submit that if these treatments cannot withstand the test of empirical research, … then we have wasted a lot of time and effort. The time has been wasted on all the people who have spent years learning falsehoods about acupuncture points and the principles of homeopathy. And the patients have wasted their time, money, and efforts receiving treatments that were not what they were represented to be or were harmful.”

Prevalence and Correlates of Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use among Patients with Lung Cancer: A Cross‐Sectional Study in Beirut, Lebanon

“…Therefore, despite the low prevalence of alternative use of CAM therapies observed in the study, the repercussions could be significant with potential negative consequences on patients, their families, and the health system at large (increased cost of treatment). Among the factors reported to affect the decision of patients to resort to CAM use and decline conventional treatment were dissatisfaction with conventional medical practices [ 56 ], poor doctor-patient communication, frustration with the contradictory and consistently evolving state of current medical knowledge [ 57 , 58 ], the increasing cost of conventional medical care [ 59 ], the intellectual and spiritual appeal of holistic models of health and healing [ 60 ], and the need for a sense of control over own health and self-management of the cancer [ 61 ].…”

The Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine among Lebanese Adults: Results from a National Survey

“…Medical use of CAM products is on the increase worldwide [ 3 ]. The growing popularity of biologically based CAM products has been attributed to a variety of factors including dissatisfaction with conventional medical practices [ 4 ], frustration with the contradictory and consistently evolving state of current medical knowledge [ 5 , 6 ], the increasing cost of conventional medical care [ 7 ], the intellectual and spiritual appeal of holistic models of health and healing [ 8 ], and the placebo effect [ 8 , 9 ].…”

Method as Argument: Boundary Work in Evidence‐Based Medicine

“…And so, not surprisingly, when CAM efficacy studies are available (e.g. Cardini and Weixin 1998;Shlay et al 1998), their methods tend to be subjected to greater scrutiny than their biomedical counterparts (Borgerson 2005;Morreim 2003). Of course, given the studies' often complex challenges in design, it seems only fair to exercise some caution when evaluating their results.…”