Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
The truth about the potions, lotions, pills and needles, pummelling and energizing that lie beyond the realms of conventional medicine.

Whether you are an ardent believer in alternative medicine, a skeptic, or are simply baffled by the range of services and opinions, this guide lays to rest doubts and contradictions with authority, integrity, and clarity. In this groundbreaking analysis, over thirty of the most popular treatments—acupuncture, homeopathy, aromatherapy, reflexology, chiropractic, and herbal medicines—are examined for their benefits and potential dangers. Questions answered include: What works and what doesn't? What are the secrets, and what are the lies? Who can you trust, and who is ripping you off? Can science decide what is best, or do the old wives' tales really tap into ancient, superior wisdom?

In their scrutiny of alternative and complementary cures, authors Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst also strive to reassert the primacy of the scientific method as a means for determining public health practice and policy. 16 illustrations.

Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Excellent analysis of "alternative" and "complementary" medicine August 4, 2008
29 out of 35 found this review helpful

I have been meaning to write a review of Trick or Treatment for some months now and had a lot of sophisticated ideas how to phrase it. In the meantime, I had sent my mother a "care package", with dried cranberries, organic Earl Grey tea and a copy of Trick or Treatment. She called me last weekend and said:

"This book is so full of suspense and so extraordinarily well written. I understand what you mean now. I guess I will have to give up my beloved Arnica globules then. It *does* make sense that they cannot work if there is nothing in them. To bad that the German version does not come out until next year, I have some friends who should read this book."

There, that sums it up: Singh and Ernst obviously struck the right tone and paced the book appropriately for the educated user of "alternative medicine" to follow and accept the conclusions of many careful trials. That is excellent, because I myself somehow never muster the patience to go through the details, why this or that "alternative" is not even worth trying.

The only point that I found irritating (and so did my mum) is the sparseness of literature. Few sources are cited and they only refer to the chapter rather than a specific statement. This is something that would be worth amending in future printings and/or in other language additions. I want all necessary references in the book I am reading and don't want to be refered to another book of the author for background.

A must read for:

Any person in the medical field, so they understand who and what contributes to healing (the colour of the pill often as much as the ingredient).

Anyone with a longer lasting medical condition (since they are the prime "target" for most of the CAM methods and practitioners).

Any parent (most CAM products are essentially "Wellness" and parents should realize that they can generate "Wellness" for their child without the stringent rules of homeopathy, or the potentially dangerous upper spine manipulations of a chiropractor).

5 out of 5 stars

All alternative medicine users should read this book August 17, 2008
21 out of 26 found this review helpful

If you use any type of alternative medicine -- chiropractic, homeopathy, whatever -- you should read this book! Education, licensing, and other forms of regulation of alternative medicine practitioners DO NOT protect you from worthless treatments and physical harm (even death). An honest, factual risk-benefit analysis explained by your health care provider prior to treatment -- the cornerstone of informed consent in conventional medicine -- is virtually non-existant in alternative medicine. You must protect yourself with the type of unbiased, well-researched information this book provides. Don't worry about it being "too scientific." The authors do a fantastic job of explaining alternative medicine in easily understood language. Think about it: considering what you are paying for alternative treatments, isn't it worth the price of Trick or Treatment to find out if you're getting your money's worth? Or better yet, if you are risking your health for no good reason?

5 out of 5 stars

The Truth About Alternative Treatments September 18, 2008
16 out of 21 found this review helpful

Doctors have treated patients for thousands of years, and patients generally trusted their doctors. This was true when doctors based their treatments, like bleeding, on superstition rather than science, treatments that did nothing, or that even made things worse. Patients paid their fees and thought health had arrived, or at least was just around the corner. People don't change much: these days internationally they pay about $40 billion a year for "alternative medicine" that has little chance of making things better and some chance of making things worse. This is despite that we know how to test a treatment and we can tell scientifically if it works or not. _Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts About Alternative Medicine_ (W. W. Norton) is a serious look at how we can know which of these therapies are bunkum, but at the same time it allows how a very few might have potential for actual healing. The two authors make a winning team to create an informed and entertaining volume. Edzard Ernst is a medical doctor who at one time practiced the useless homeopathy, and received its treatments himself, and is a professor of complementary medicine. Simon Singh is a science journalist who has written fine layman's introductions to big subjects like _Fermat's Enigma_. Together they have produced an informative work to explain to readers how the science of telling good treatments from bad works, and how alternative medicine time and again does not. "Our mission," they say at the outset, "is to reveal the truth about the potions, lotions, pills, needles, pummelling and energizing that lie beyond the realms of conventional medicine, but which are becoming increasingly attractive for many patients." They have succeeded.

In a lucid first chapter, the authors set down the history and principles of evidence-based medicine. Experimenting to find what works seems to have first been practiced by James Lind, who in 1747 conceived the idea of taking groups of sailors suffering from scurvy and giving each group a different treatment to see which ones got better. It seems obvious to us now, but there was no precedent for such experimentation when the standard was to stick to traditional, and ineffective, treatments, no questions asked. Lind, of course, had no idea about vitamin C; this didn't matter, as he could tell which subjects got better on oranges and lemons without knowing the vital reason why. Another hero blazing the way toward evidence based medicine was Florence Nightingale. Famous as the founder of modern nursing, her role in the use of statistics is less well known but just as important in saving patients' lives. When she was assigned to a filthy hospital in Turkey in 1854, she pushed ahead with good food, clean linen, and fresh air for patients. She was adept at data display, inventing a variation of the pie graph, and she marshaled data and illustrations to demonstrate different outcomes for differently treated groups. Medical experimentation worked, and statistics demonstrated it. After an overview of how humans eventually came to understand how evidence based medicine was the way to go, the authors give four chapters about specific treatments which don't have the evidence to back them up: acupuncture, homeopathy, chiropractic, and herbal medicine. The authors are not universally condemnatory; experimental evidence shows, for instance, that some herbs have good effect, and chiropractors might help with a lower back problem (but it is dangerous to let them fiddle with your neck or with any other health conditions).

Besides the main chapters, there is an appendix which gives one page summaries of other therapies, including magnets, leeches, crystals, ear candles, and more. The authors explain how most of these can have no effectiveness, but in each case they summarize what evidence is available and what the risks of such treatment are. It seems that their decisions are judicious, in that they accept that certain relaxation techniques or massage might have specific usefulness. The book is wittily dedicated to HRH The Prince of Wales, and it would be nice to think that Prince Charles might benefit from its contents as well as from its dedication. He has, after all, been a major force in the advocacy for alternative treatments, but the authors show that his advocacy has been misdirected. They quote Michael Baum, a cancer specialist who was frustrated by the Prince's role: "The power of my authority comes with a knowledge built on 40 years of study and 25 years of active involvement in cancer research. Your power and authority rest on an accident of birth." You won't find the authors themselves saying anything quite that scornful. They have done a splendid job of their own advocacy here, advocacy for rationality, experimentation, and evidence. Anyone who is considering spending money on an alternative treatment ought to read this book carefully first. Even if you are at no risk for throwing your money away in that fashion, you will find this an entertaining tour of the power of applied good sense.

5 out of 5 stars

A healthy dose of sense and reason August 7, 2008
13 out of 20 found this review helpful

I find it perplexing the way some people simply assume to be correct what others tell them with no deeper inquisitiveness or afterthought. We know we cannot simply trust anyone otherwise we run the risk of being duped as we see from various successful scams.

What is more perplexing is how intelligent people can simply assume to be correct what their own gut feelings tell them or be tricked into actually believing they've experienced things that they haven't. I remember a study done a while ago where a group of random people took part in a psychological experiment. These people were shown a photo taken from their early childhood and asked to remember and describe the scene in it. The only problem was, some of the pictures had been cleverly doctored to show events that never actually took place, such as a hot air balloon ride! Many in the group, as you'd expect, drew blanks and were confused and could not recall the balloon ride. However, astonishingly, many of the participants after a while actually `recalled' this fake event and even `remembered' how elated they felt up there in the sky and how cold it was! (For those interested, it was the Wade et al 2002 study; link here: h--p://www.thepsychologist.org.uk/archive/archive_home.cfm?volumeID=21&editionID=162&ArticleID=1375)

We know we can't unquestioningly rely on strangers but worryingly, it seems not all of us can 100% rely on our own feelings! So then how do we find truth? Perhaps one way is to rely on the testimonials or opinions of the people around us. But is this totally wise, especially when we see that many people are not reliable sources of information? For me, this is where the scientific method of testing and evidence steps in and proves its absolute authority. Surely this is the best method we have of discovering what the truth is in any given situation; surely nothing can beat evidence derived from proper tests.

Trick or Treatment is about proving that the vast majority of alternative medicine doesn't work but it is also a celebration of the scientific method in the context of medicine. It begins fascinatingly by recalling various important historical moments when the scientific method first began to be used and how it then revealed such hugely important secrets that had eluded mankind for so long, particularly in the field of healthcare.

These introductions serve a very useful purpose, because the crux of the book is based on the results of many high quality scientific trials that render most alternative medicine completely ineffective or even dangerous. However, there are still many out there who, for some reason, don't accept the authority of the clinical trial / scientific method and these first few chapters provide an excellent case for counteracting this mistrust.

The rest of the chapters are devoted to one of the main types of CAM and begin by providing a detailed description and background to it. Then the authors bring in the mighty weight of a vast range of quality evidence (meaning evidence from the types of trials that eliminate all possibility of bias or erroneous results) to finally blow up any doubt in the rational mind that much of this stuff is childish nonsense and simply doesn't work.

As you'd expect, there's also a lot of fascinating information and evidence about the placebo effect and whether it is morally acceptable to sell it, and why, despite lack of evidence for and concrete evidence against, people continue to waste vast amounts of time and money on CAM and continue to steadfastly believe in it.

The book came out at a similar time to one by Rose Shapiro, Suckers - How Alternative Medicine Makes Fools of us All. It treads much the same ground but is an excellent companion piece to Trick or Treatment, as both books often both elaborate on details the other one glides over. However, Trick or Treatment is better for focusing on the available evidence and therefore acts as a great reference book.

Also, to the authors' credit, they don't back away from including the results of various high profile trials that bizarrely seemed to acknowledge the efficacy of some of the main types of CAM, For instance, the WHO trials that seemed to support homeopathy and a certain BBC documentary that seemed to show somebody undergoing major heart surgery without any anaesthetic, only acupuncture (shame on you BBC!). This may be quite disheartening for the rationalist as he/she reads through this but order is soon restored once we read that such trials or PR stunts were riddled with bias or faked and that meta-analysis in fact shows the opposite.

Trick or Treatment is an important book and it's hard to believe that millions of westerners still buy into much of this nonsense. The book won't change people's minds overnight; many will still cling to their anti-Big Pharma stance, egocentric fashionista lifestyle or desire for more mystery in the world. But for those of us who place more importance in what's actually true and don't want to be a dupe, this book is invaluable as well as a fascinating read.

2 out of 5 stars

Quackbusting the Quackbusters November 10, 2008
13 out of 20 found this review helpful

When one sets out to use clinical trials for the basis of an evaluation for any therapy it is essential that one know who designed the protocol, what did the protocol encompass, who paid for the study and was the protocol strictly adhered to.

Dr Linus Pauling, who had extensive positive clinical experience with vitamin C and collaborated with Nobel Laureates, Hoffer and Szent-Gyorgyi in furthering the knowledge of the benefits of this essential nutrient, designed a protocol for a government funded Mayo Clinic control study. Pauling was stunned when he discovered that the Mayo did not follow his protocol (sabotage?) and arrived at a conclusion that ran counter to the findings of some of the greatest and most respected researchers in the field. The erroneous findings of the Mayo study, for all intent and purpose, closed the door on the future therapeutic use of vitamin C in mainstream allopathic medicine. High dose vitamin C therapy was reviled and cast aside, in spite of its previously documented dramatic benefits. To this day, as a result of the rigged conclusions of the Mayo Clinic vitamin C study, this essential nutrient has the ridiculous government approved minimum daily requirement of only 60 mg. The reality is that 1000 - 2000 mg daily are required for robust health and doses up to 10,000 - 15,000 mg are needed to help cure disease that has a C deficiency causal factor (certain cardiovascular diseases, cancers, etc).

This is only one example of what has been going on for a very long time when allopaths are tasked with rating alternative therapies. Granted, there is much snake oil being pushed upon the public by unscrupulous merchants. This creates a high noise to signal ratio for those seeking out the valid benefits and truths of alternative treatments.

Since over 100,000 people die annually in the US from reactions to properly prescribed prescription drugs, it seems disingenuous for academically trained allopaths to sit in judgment of therapies that they have not personally experimented with in their own bodies, for this is ultimately the only source of real objective knowledge. Since statistics play a big part in therapeutic analysis, It begs the question; have the authors compared the mortality rate numbers of alternative therapies against the frightening numbers generated by their own professional brothers in mainstream medicine. There is a huge disparity which, when viewed objectively, indicates that whether effective or not, Most alternative health and nutritional supplementation is far less dangerous than the pundits can allow us to believe.

I had tried several types of chiropractic treatment for chronic lower back pain for which the medical doctors could offer only pain pills and surgery. Then, over thirty years ago, I visited a NUCCA (National Upper Cervical Chiropractic Association) trained chiropractor. Their focus on the proper alignment of the upper cervical, specifically the relationship of the C1 to the skull, ended my chronic pain once and for all. To those practitioners I am forever grateful. Not only did their therapy correct my back pain, but it gave an enormous boost to the immune system. I would not defend 90% of those practicing chiropractic today, but those few doctors trained in the NUCCA discipline are in possession of a very important piece of knowledge of a basic requirement for robust health. It is a weak signal in a wall of noise, but it can be found if one perseveres.

Likewise, there is much demonization over the use of silver as a broad spectrum antimicrobial, as well there should be. The health food stores are filled with questionable nostrums containing silver, BUT, I discovered the groundbreaking work of a small biotech company in Utah which had developed and patented a novel method of creating nanoparticle sized pure elemental silver (not ionic, as is commonly found on the store shelves) in the purest of water. This company had amassed an impressive volume of scientific and clinical data, human, animal and in vitro, attesting to their product's non-toxicity, safety and efficacy. Much of their science is peer reviewed and published*. I began taking their products 9 years ago. Since that time I have not suffered one infection of any sort, nor have I taken any antibiotics in that time - or needed to. Can any of you say the same?

Since "alternative" therapy covers such a vast area of methods and ingredients, I do not place much value in those who skim over the extant research and draw conclusions from that data. Oriental and Ayurvedic herbal medicines have been keeping large populations healthy since pre-history, I would not be so hasty to dismiss them. I also would not jump right into the "latest" fad treatment based on these ancient practices.

If one wants to discover the realities of alternative health, much personal research should be required before self experimentation. But only through gathering objective observations of any substance or therapy, actually used on oneself, can real knowledge be acquired. It is obvious that for the authors of this book, this level of awareness did not factor into their conclusions.

The latest American life expectancy statistics were released a few weeks ago. The life expectancy of the American male has now dropped below 70. This is one of the worst in the 1st world, given that the US has the most expensive health care on the planet.

The truth is out there. It is seldom easy to find. Persistence, discernment and due diligence will eventually lead you to it.

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