Trick or Treatment?: Alternative Medicine on Trial [Hardcover]

This should be essential reading alongside Ben Goldacre's Bad Science. Both books serve a vitally important role. Where Goldacre's book is a little more chatty, it's author being the 'David Brent' of the popular science writers world (I'm cool, you'd love to have a drink with me, and yeah, I can drink loads, while leading two double-blind trials, writing newspaper columns, participating in amateur dramatics (yes, really!) and being the funniest guy you've ever met... I'm cool, I swear, particularly if it impresses the kids and ...), Ernst and Singh's book is a little more sober, the authors being less desperate to impress. The books compliment each other well. If you come away, as some readers have, unconvinced,claiming the authors to be part of some conspiracy, or accusing them of blind prejudice against CAM then you have simply failed to understand the basic points they're making, and those points are not difficult to understand. This book and Goldacre's explain with admirable clarity the placebo effect and the way a double blind trial works and why they're important. Not difficult notions to understand in any case, but, just in case, here they are explained clearly, so all can grasp them. All treatments should undergo rigorous testing, much of the stuff on your health food shops' shelves hasn't, and when it has it has been shown (with very very few exceptions)to have all the healing qualities of a sugar pill, which in the case of homeopathy isn't surprising since that's what they generally are.
Now, to the KINDLE edition. 1 month into my Kindle ownership and I'm now getting pretty irritated by the shoddy quality of many of the Kindle editions. This one leaves block quotes (long quotes that are set out separate from the text in the print edition) in the same font, without quotation marks and with the same paragraph indentation as the main text; so often you find yourself half way through a quotation before realising that you are reading a quotation, and then you have to workout where it ends and the main text recommences. In addition, some special symbols just come out peculiar, as do some of the lists. Is it too difficult to make the Kindle editions the same quality as the print editions? This should not even be a question. This is really poor and shows disrespect for those who have bought Kindles. C'mon Amazon!

This is a book that should make us all sit up and listen.

Most of the previous publications on alternative and complimentary medicine that I have read, seem to be based on opinion and/or anecdotal evidence. 'Trick or Treatment' is quite different. Edzard Ernst, one of the two authors, is the first Professor of Alternative and Alternative Medicine in the world. Under his leadership the faculty at Exeter University has carried out extensive and definitive research, on a large scale, to test the efficacy of a range of alternative and complimentary treatments including, amongst others, homeopathy and acupuncture. Both Professor Ernst and his co-author Simon Singh are adamant that neither of them had any previous bias, no vested interests were involved, and no assumptions were made in advance. The aim was solely to find out through exhaustive and objective research, whether the claims of success made by alternative medical practitioners are soundly based on scientific evidence alone.

The results of Ernst's research at Exeter are clear. And what results! The book provides conclusive proof that most alternative 'medicines' and practices are, with some exceptions, worse than useless, other than having a placebo effect; in some instances they can actually cause harm. As the authors remark, they mostly "relieve nothing more than cash from the patients pocket". Some herbal remedies are proven to have beneficial properties. For those of us who love the stuff but suffer from "Go away, you stink of Garlic", we can now (genuinely and righteously) counter with " but I HAVE to take it, it's for my heart, you see".

Perhaps the most surprising result from Exeter is the one that deals with the most widely used and, up to now, perhaps the most respected of all the alternative practices eg. Homeopathy. The authors give hard evidence that homeopathy has little or no efficacy; in most cases the claims of success are apparently false, either by design or more probably through self-delusion.

Trick or Treatment is dedicated - with a well-savoured irony, I suspect - to the Prince of Wales, who has so strongly advocated the inclusion of certain alternative and complimentary treatments within the NHS. The Prince would be well advised to read this book; it may serve to curb his enthusiasm for alternative practices, and homeopathy in particular. After all, the website for his own Foundation for Integrated Health states " We strive to ensure that our judgements and decisions are founded on reason, and informed by evidence" Well, here is a book that provides precisely that - both evidence and objectivity. It would be nothing short of a travesty if substantial funds were diverted from effective and conventional treatment on the NHS, in order to support unsubstantiated and unproven alternatives. If the Prince's Foundation, or other supporters of Complimentary and Alternative medicine, can counter the conclusions reached in Trick or Treatment with sound evidence-based research of their own, let us hear it loud and clear.

In general this book is written with a clarity and precision that makes it easy for the average person to grasp the whole research process. It is not only a fascinating read the first time round, but the information within makes it a book you will want to refer back to, time and time again.

This is one of the books in a growing movement that is fighting for all that we gained in the Enlightenment, and which in the late twentieth and early twenty first century appears to be slipping away in a cloud of wishful, hazy thinking.

The key is evidence-based medicine. In other words, not wanting or hoping or idly believing a treatment will work, but testing if it is so. There is nothing sinister or 'un-holistic' about a trial - it merely tests if something works against a control or placebo. When most complementary therapies are tested this way, the evidence, for them, is devastating.

This books clearly explains the history of medicine before the evidence-based approach. One word : scary. It explains how trials work and it then tests alternative medicines. It also shows how practitioners try to squirm their way out of begin tested, argued with and ultimately exposed.

An excellent book. I think, however, Ben Goldacre's Bad Science wins over for prose style and entertainment factor, while also being hugely informative.