What Alternative Health Practitioners Might Not Tell You

That's the title of a UK-based website, http://www.ebm-first.com/ Here in the US, "alternative medicine" is also known as "complimentary or alternative medicine", or shortened to CAM.

This has become a truism: You know what "alternative medicine" that has real, positive effects is called? Medicine

A newish UK-based website, created and maintained by Blue Wode

This web site has been created as a voice of reason in response to the substantial amount of uncritical media coverage currently being given to alternative medicine.

Despite the fact that a large number of alternative health therapies lack any scientific validity, the perceived benefits of such therapies continue to be promoted. In reality, claims of therapeutic success can usually be attributed to an ailment being self-limiting (i.e. it will resolve itself in time without any treatment), or to an unpredictable placebo response brought about by the patient's deep belief in the therapy and/or the practitioner's sympathetic attention. In both these cases the practitioner will normally take the credit for having elicited a cure and the patient will become a believer in the therapy.

Although most alternative health therapies are seen as being relatively safe, this is not always the case. It is known that some can be potentially harmful. Also, unlike fully qualified medical doctors, many alternative health practitioners have not received adequate training in the skills of differential diagnosis (i.e. the determination of which two or more diseases with similar symptoms is the one from which a patient is suffering based on an analysis of the clinical data).  Consequently, this can place patients at risk of not receiving proper medical attention. Other factors such as patient dependency, misleading information, and patient exploitation due to an undefined and/or unlimited scope of practice can also cause a delay in appropriate medical advice or treatment being sought.

With these concerns in mind, it is the aim of this web site to alert consumers to questionable alternative health practices whilst encouraging them to always seek evidence-based medicine (EBM) first.

Comments

[vmgillen]

I got sick and tired of Parent/Teacher meetings hosting speakers touting everything from full-body immersion in bat guano to injections/hyperbaric interventions... when I asked that a speaker be found to address some basic procedures for "sifting the wheat from the chaff" I was ignored; insistence got me labelled as a sell-out to the system (ah, I do remember the 60's!) People want to believe there's a silver-bullet cure. This outweighs any moderating influence of reason... to bad they can't use their faith more appropriately: religion, believing in Santa Claus... whatever.

[Joseph Hardsworth]

Multi-sensory toys are a creative outlet for my disabled son to learn and have fun at the same time. He especially loves Incrediblocks. I found this great resource for multi-sensory toys and activities and thought you would want to review it too.
http://yellowbrickroadshop.com/PW_MultiSensoryToys.asp

[Penegra]

In some cases, yes, alternative health care practitioners are quacks .... however, it is not likely to be a malicious, deliberate deception.