Before review Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Truth about Alternative Medicine by Singh & Ernst, I will admit that, because of my personal and professional history with disease and alternative medicine, this book provoked strong feelings. I do not agree with these authors. I feel that they reject partnership between alternative and conventional medicine. From where I sit, their approach over-simplifies of the problems of disease, suffering, money and quality of life confronting humanity.
Nonetheless, in the spirit of partnership and joint discovery, I would like to extend an offer to both Edzard Ernst and Simon Singh. The offer is this: I will give 12 free spiritual healing sessions each to each author to be used over the course of a year. These alternative methods have had a deep and positive impact on many. I feel confident that these same benefits can be extended to these authors, if they are willing.
So, Simon and Edzard, are you game, for 12 sessions each, to enter your own personal laboratory of spiritual healing? Let me know.
Review
In Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine, (2008), authors Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst, MD use the scientific method to assess whether alternative healing methods are valid. They claim to be the two people most likely to be able to understand the truth about alternative medicine.
In this review, I take a look at these claims, including whether the scientific method can access the truths behind many alternative healing modalities.
An Ongoing Controversy: What’s at Stake?
In Trick or Treatment, Singh & Ernst dive unapologetically into the on-going controversy between science and alternative medicine. This controversy can be summarized as follows:
· Many experience symptom relief, improved quality of life and healing through alternative medicine.
· Many forms of alternative medicine, like acupuncture, Ayurvedic medicine and shamanism are historically well-established in their cultures of origin. They comprise unique systems of medicine and thought in their own right – systems that have supported human health and survival, in some cases for millennia.
· According to Singh & Ernst, globally, alternative medicine forms “the fastest-growing area of medical spending.” (pp. 2).
Throw into the mix that science is so far unable to figure out how these modalities work, and you get what we have here: a lot of fighting and a limited focus on learning how conventional and alternative medicine can partner in the best interests of all.
On the surface the debate is fueled by a desire on both sides to relieve pain and suffering and provide the best possible care. As more people take advantage of alternative health care, diverting funds to this corner of the market, the debate intensifies.
Beneath mundane concerns about money and who’s smarter, lies another driving concern – questions about “truth,” how we know when we’ve found it and if anyone has the right to determine for us how to care for our minds, bodies, emotions and spirit.
Singh & Ernst also express a desire to protect an unaware public. For instance, in a one page review of all spiritual healing techniques they state that “the concept of healing ‘energy’ is utterly implausible.” (pp 327). They also imply that no real healing can be accomplished through energy medicine when they say that, scientifically, “at best it may offer comfort and at worst it can result in charlatans taking money from patients with serious conditions who require urgent conventional medicine.” (pp. 327).
The Truth According to Singh and Edzard
Simon Singh is an author and scientific journalist. Edzard Ernst, M.D., is a medical doctor whose credentials include being “the world’s first professor of alternative medicine,” who has practiced “some alternative therapies.” (pp. 3). In writing Trick or Treatment their mission was to “reveal the truth the about potions, lotions, pills, needles, pummelling and energizing that lie beyond the realms of conventional medicine….” (pp. 3).
(for more see next post)
I think part of the debate has to do with money, although western medicine practitioners are sometimes reluctant to acknowledge this fact. Alternative and complementary medicine functions as a preventative and there's more money to be made in treating illness than preventing it from emerging in the first place. All one has to do is compare attitudes between countries with and without socialized medicine to see how money influences people's attitudes towards health care; countries with socialized medicine are interested in saving money on health care, as opposed to making money off of it, and as such generally have a far more open attitude towards alternative medicine.
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