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Letters to the Editor
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Complementary medicine
An emperor with no clothes
From Dr R. J. Woodward, MRPharmS
I am pleased to see the complementary health care debate continue with
Edzard Ernst’s letter on “proven and disproven” complementary
treatments (PJ, 10 June, p677). His letter demonstrates a naivety that
ill becomes a professor. Does he really believe that “proven” and “disproven” are
defined the same way by those on the opposing sides of the complementary
health care debate? Professor Ernst surely understands that biological
systems demonstrate variations which, even with sophisticated modern
methodology, can lead to experimental results capable of several interpretations
dependent on the bias of the researchers, methods, peer reviewers and
critics.
Prince Charles’s idea of proven benefits from a complementary remedy
or procedure is unlikely to satisfy the demands of Professor Ernst and
his friends in “evidence (as defined by them) based medicine”.
I recall two independent published trials on vitamins where results of
one reached the significant 95 per cent probability level while the other
missed 95 per cent by a whisker. Proven benefit was claimed but the opponents
of complementary and alternative medicine said the second trial disproved
the first, even after meta-analysis of similar trials confirmed the positive
benefits of the first trial. No progress for CAM, but I wonder if such
results would have prejudiced an allopathic treatment? I doubt it — a
public outcry for availability on the NHS would have been likely. CAM
cannot win on this playing field.
My opinion of Professor Ernst, his elaborately presented journal, department
and conferences remains unchanged. He is the “emperor with no clothes” and
is certainly no ally of Prince Charles’s ideas on CAM. He should
receive no support for his research from those involved in complementary
health care.
The opponents of complementary health care will always have closed minds.
We should pity them but never pay them. In any case, the opponents are
already funded by some of the most powerful financial and vested interests
in the world although their front-men may hide the fact.
Robert Woodward
Liss,
Hampshire
Eleven million people cannot all be misguided
Mr D. B. Needleman, MRPharmS
Once again we are confronted with a letter written by Edzard
Ernst (PJ,
10 Jun, p677). I should like to know who financed the letter to which
he refers and of which he is a signatory.
Professor Ernst claims that only evidenced-based medicine should be used
in the NHS. Is he aware that most GPs agree that only 15 per cent of
what they do is evidenced-based? Should they all give up? Does he also
wish to exclude such drugs as aspirin and amoxicillin from the NHS on
the grounds that they have never been clinically trialled and are therefore
not evidence based?
It is a real shame that he is always attempting to undermine that which
he is employed to promote, and seems to spend his time devising “research
projects” that are intended to prove that things do not work instead
of actually finding out how they work.
Please, Professor Ernst, keep it up! Every time you go into print my
practice increases as the general public are less stupid that some realise.
Eleven million people use complementary medicine in the UK every year.
They cannot all be misguided.
David Needleman
Pharmacist and Homoeopath
Stanmore,
Middlesex
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