De‐legitimising complementary medicine: framings of the Friends of Science in Medicine‐CAM debate in Australian media reports

Abstract

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has developed into a complex and formidable commercial, sociocultural and political force in Australia, and given its influence, it is a relevant subject for scholars, health practitioners, health communicators, journalists, policy‐makers, and consumers of healthcare products and services. This research will consider a relative newcomer to the claims‐making space about CAM in the Australian health media‐scape; the Friends of Science in Medicine (FSM), an activist group of medical practitioners, researchers, and scientists, founded in late 2011. Using content analysis supported by NVivo, I searched for articles specifically referring to FSM and measured the patterns and frequencies of media frames, intonation and sources that are featured in Australian mainstream news reports between December 2011 and April 2017. The negative headlining and intonation of reports predominated, along with framing CAM as part of a lucrative, undisciplined and unethical industry as well as an illegitimate healthcare approach, more broadly. The findings offer insight into how journalists respond, replicate or reconstruct the framings that are provided by an influential and elite group of medical practitioners and scientists, and readdresses issues surrounding the need for more critical health reporting in Australia.

A Twitter campaign against pseudoscience: The sceptical discourse on complementary therapies in Spain

“…The group also contacted the media (FSM, 2011) and wrote to vice-chancellors to set out its case. Flatt (2013), MacArtney and Wahlberg (2014) and Lewis (2019) criticise the FSM’s discourse, reproduced also by the media, for using a rhetoric that promotes its beliefs while suppressing alternative views, as well as for using a paternalistic language when referring to patients who are dismissed as susceptible and naïve. This type of discourse has also been criticised by Ernst (2004), who advises these groups to moderate their tone, not to generalise and not argue that people just do not understand or have difficulty in grasping a relationship or the evidence at first sight without proof.…”

Interprofessional Communication—A Call for More Education to Ensure Cultural Competency in the Context of Traditional, Complementary, and Integrative Medicine

“…Since the turn of the 20th century, the medical profession began systematically marginalising TCIM practices, framing them as illegitimate, unscientific, alternative medicine cults where quacks and charlatans deceive gullible, vulnerable patients. 9 , 10 The effects of these delegitimising campaigns and policies have been long lasting and widespread. 11 Even in established clinics that integrate TCIM and conventional medicine, biomedical dominance has been identified as a barrier to interprofessional communication and collaboration within the clinic.…”

Argumentative time work for legitimizing homeopathy: Temporal reasons for the acceptance of an alternative medical practice

“…These revisions may be rejected by some proponents leading to internal factions (Degele, 2005; Welsh et al, 2004), or they may generate epistemic and moral stress (Brosnan and Cribb, 2019). Other studies investigate processes of delegitimisation, which entail the use of rhetorical strategies in public discourse for denigrating CAM practices and defending the boundaries of science by means of contrasts such as academic integrity versus profit, rationality versus faith, or logic versus magic (Caldwell, 2017; Lewis, 2019).…”