Alternatives That Aren’t

Posted on May 15, 2006 in Medical Ethics Psycho-bunk

Orac talks about the quackery behind alternative medicine testimonials:

Never forget that alternative medicine testimonials exist largely for one purpose: To sell a product. Most of them are advertisements, nothing more. They are no more “unbiased” than pharmaceutical advertisements for their latest, greatest drug. In fact, they are worse, because at least the pharmaceutical companies have to be able to back up their claims with science and disclose potential adverse reactions in their ads. No such requirements exist for most alternative medical treatments, mainly because most of them claim to be supplements rather than medicines. The other problem with testimonials is that they don’t rise even to the lowest level of medical evidence, the anecdotal report. Anecdotal reports in medicine require a careful documentation of symptoms, lab tests, diagnoses, exact courses of treatment, and a patient’s response to treatment. Testimonials almost never present these elements in sufficient detail to judge whether the treatment actually did anything. There’s just no way of telling truth from exaggeration or fiction.

Thanks to Liz.