Title : Do You Believe in Magic?:
The Sense and Nonsense of
Alternative Medicine
Author : Paul A. Offit
Pages : 336
Publisher : Harper
Published : June 18, 2013
Price : $ 15.98
ISBN : 10:0062222961
A half century ago, acupuncture, homeopathy, naturopathy, Chinese herbs, Christian exorcisms, dietary supplements, chiropractic manipulations, and ayurvedic remedies were considered on the fringe of medicine. Now these practices, known variably as alternative, complementary, holistic, or integrative medicine, have become mainstream, used by half of all Americans today seeking to burn fat, detoxify livers, shrink prostates, alleviate colds, stimulate brains, boost energy, reduce stress, enhance immunity, eliminate pain, prevent cancer, and enliven sex.
Paul Offit’s new book, Do You Believe in Magic? The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine is a smoothly written, highly readable take on some important topics from the ever-changing complementary-and-alternative-medicine (CAM) territory. Offit’s primary theme is that treatments can harm as well as help, true of conventional medicine and its potential side effects, but even more true of unconventional treatments, with their untested effects. At several points in the book, Offit repeats the important dictum: there is really no such thing as “alternative” medicine, if it hasn’t been shown to be safe an effective, there’s no point in calling a treatment “medicine”.
Offit begins the book with chapters considering two factors that help convince the public that an alternative treatment is a good idea: one is the belief that if a substance or procedure is part of an ancient tradition, it must be beneficial, and the other is the belief that whatever is “natural” is good for you. Obviously, these beliefs are unsupported by evidence. We read with horror of the devastation of the Black Death, of scurvy on sailing ships, of death and deformity from smallpox and polio.
Offit’s final chapter, “The Remarkable, Highly Underrated Placebo Response”, addresses the fact that people sometimes do get better when given alternative treatments. He refers briefly to several explanations of the placebo effect, including cognitive dissonance and regression to the mean. But what I’d hoped for from this chapter does not materialize. I would have liked to see some discussion of the effect of spending time with a patient and of personal interactions that may go a long way to explain the occasional effectiveness of implausible treatments.
Situations where the patient does not “feel better” in spite of treatment are situations that open the door to alternative practitioners. If the patient subsequently “feels better”, the alternative practitioner counts this as a success for his or her method and may report this or publish it in a journal dedicated to alternative medicine. But, in most comparisons of alternative and conventional treatments, the influential common factors go unconsidered. However difficult we might find it to assess warmth, empathy, and so on, it’s reasonable to say that less contact means less exposure to the common factors.
Paul A. Offit, M.D., is Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, as well as the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. An expert in the field of vaccines, he is a recipient of many awards, including the J. Edmund Bradley Prize for Excellence in Pediatrics from the University of Maryland Medical School. His books include the recent Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure. Visit his website at www.paul-offit.com.
Review Courtesy: http://childmyths.blogspot.in
http://www.amazon.com
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