Trick or Treatment…

Last may, when I went to Greece i picked up a few books at the book store within the airport. One of these books was the book “Salvekvick och kvacksalveri”, which is the Swedish translation of Singh & Ernst’s book “Trick or Treatment”.

I liked that book a lot! I just picked it up because i found the title funny, but I did not regret reading it. The combination of the authors is a match in heaven since they both strive to give a fair and open-minded overview as well as review of the most common alternative medicine practices.

Edzard Ernst is an MD and PhD and one of the first in the world to hold a professor chair in alternative medicine. He is also well versed in alternative medicine, being a practitioner who (as i could discern from this book) he has received training in acupuncture, herbalism, acupuncture and massage therapy.

The second author, Simon Singh, is a science writer with a PhD in particle physics. Together they approach alternative medicine with an open, yet critical, mind. Evidence and science being the focus. If something works, then it can be proven to do so after all… doesn’t it?

After an introduction chapter where the scientific method is explained in detail, both its workings and the logic behind it, the authors continue into examining the 4 major alternative medicine therapies. Namely, acupuncture; homeopathy; chiropractic treatment and herbal medicine, by dedicating one chapter to each and one of them. The last chapter wraps it all up by summarizing, and by addressing the issue – “So we found out the truth, through the scientific method, but does the truth matter?”.

Also the book includes a very nice appendix, listing a big part of herbal remedies, and whether they have proven effects or not, as well as further reading suggestions.

I highly recommend reading this book to anyone who’s interested in alternative medicine!

So… I read this book in May… why am I picking it up now? I was thinking of writing about it back in may, but work and traveling kept me away from blogging, so I forgot about it untill I read my Forskarfeministens (aka modebloggarens 😉 ) post “Homeopati och Nobelpristagare“.

It’s amazing how many hoops people will jump through in order to keep their beliefs in treatments who does not work. This book included many examples of “wishful thinking” in examining scientific results. Also many examples of pure fraud… as well as people hitting below the belt. Resorting to slandering of their opposers in order to discredit their opinions. As seen also by the reactions of the homeopath society when the Swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang took an extreme “overdose” of homeopathic sleeping drug (which of course did not affect him… since there is no active ingredients in those pills) the strategy of trying to discredit the opposers is commonly used…

And that’s where the final question of the authors of Trick or treatment come in:

“Does the truth matter?”

Well my answer is NO… In a battle between truth and belief – truth does not matter. Truth will always lose when faced with a firm and heavily rooted belief. I can respect that, but then let’s be honest and also admit that it is a belief. Be straight and say: I don’t care what the evidence says I BELIEVE this. It’s anyone right and a standpoint one has to respect even if he disagrees.