Helaing, hype or harm? - E Ernst

The scientists, academics and practitioners writing this book are not 'against' complementary or alternative medicine (CAM), but they are very much 'for' evidence-based medicine and single standards. They aim to counter-balance the many uncritical books on CAM and to stimulate intelligent, well-informed public debate. TOPICS INCLUDE: What is CAM? Why is it so popular? Patient choice; Reclaiming compassion; Teaching CAM at university; Research on CAM; CAM in court; Ethics and CAM; Politics and CAM; Homeopathy in context; Concepts of holism in medicine; Placebo, deceit and CAM; Healing but not curing; CAM and the media.

"[T]his book represents the very best of contemporary albeit on the whole skeptical scholarship. It is highly refreshing to find a collection that does not toe a line but instead gives a wide range of pros and cons and includes some new and stimulating ideas... [I]t is wonderful that academic honesty is still alive and well... For those people actively researching in the field of CAM this book is a 'must have'."

"We see here people deeply concerned about the infiltration of quackery into the healthcare system and how it is undermining important advances in medicine and society... In perhaps the most moving essay we read Michael Baum looking at the concepts of holism in medicine and the vapidness of CAMs view of holism... Baum does this in a way that no quack could ever come close to and tells us how, 'alternative versions of holism are arid and closed belief systems, locked in a time warp, incapable of making progress yet quick to deny progress in the fields of scientific medicine'."