Examining Alternative Medicine: An Inside Look at the Benefits & Risks

This is an excellent book outlining the two main approaches in medical practice today: a Western science-based approach and a whole host of alternative practices including: Taoism, ayurvedism, chiropractic, "going natural", homeopathy, postmodernism approaches, Therapeutic Touch, and "Prayer is good science." An intern in the 1980s, Paul Reisser noticed the sudden popularity of alternative medicine and predicted it would soon fade like flowers in the field. Yet Christians who were orthodox in their religious beliefs were willing to consider unorthodox healing methods. They were asking pragmatic questions--Does it work? Do I feel better? They were not asking reality-based questions he thought were more likely to bring them to the truth: Does it make any sense? Is there any reasonable proof? What worldview is this healing system based upon? Does this practice conflict with my faith? Then in 1998, critics of alternative practices, Marcia Angell, M.D. and Jerome Kasirer, M.D., editorialized in the New England Journal of Medicine, "It is time for the scientific community to stop giving alternative medicine a free ride. There cannot be two kinds of medicine--conventional and alternative. There is only medicine that has been adequately tested and medicine that has not, medicine that works and medicine that may or may not work. Once a treatment has been tested rigorously, it no longer matters whether it was considered alternative at the outset. If it is found to be reasonably safe and effective, it will be accepted. But assertions, speculations, and testimonials do not substitute for evidence. Alternative treatments should be subjected to scientific testing no less rigorous than that required for conventional treatments." (p. 29) And the choir said "AMEN!" But the rest of America disagreed with this...