Customer Reviews

A Consumers Guide to Alternative Medicine: A Close Look at Homeopathy, Acupuncture, Faith-Healing, and Other Unconventional Treatments

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I wish the author had cut the bombast and bluster and been more dispassionate -- explaining exactly what each "cure" was and why it didn't work. Instead he goes on about he quacks and expects us to take him at his word that the remedy is no good. I bought this book so I could understand exactly why certain remediesdidn't work, why they were quackery, partly to head off a friend. Instead I get told something is no good, but not why and not what should be used instead. I'm still searching for a good up-to-date book on the current fads and fallacies.

Calling this book a "Consumer's Guide" is definitely a misnomer---it's published by Prometheus Books, the preeminent skeptical/secular humanist publisher. So that should tip you off that the book takes a definite "negative" stance toward nearly all forms of "alternative medicine." But once you understand that, the book contains some interesting and useful information.

The author, Dr. Kurt Butler, is also the author of The New Handbook of Health and Preventive Medicine and The Best Medicine: The Complete Health and Preventive Medicine Handbook.

He wrote in the Introduction to this 1992 book, "Health fraud, especially nutrition fraud, seems to enjoy a privileged status in our society... there is almost no protection from fake cancer cures, bogus arthritis remedies, miracle diets, and scores of other snake oils that are worthless, dangerous, or both... The health-fraud industry is large, entrenched, and institutionalized... Pyramid-style organizations are creating armies of zealots intent on getting rich by selling herbs, vitamins, and weight-loss products to their friends and neighbors... Almost anyone with an 'alternative' health-related product, procedure, pill, diet, or book is free to market it with little or no social opposition or government regulation... In the areas of nutrition and health care, you can follow the flock and get fleeced. Or you can learn to see through the schemes and scams, and to stay healthy without all the paranoia, pills, potions, and paraphernalia now in vogue."

Here are some additional quotations from the book:

"Macrobiotics is more than just a diet; it offers a mystical system of medicine. Its dangers include more than malnutrition; they include misdiagnosis, inappropriate treatment, and unnecessary injury and death." (Pg. 22)
"Gary Null, who bills himself as 'America's #1 Health Crusader,' is in reality one of America's foremost promoters of dangerous health misinformation and a peddler of supplements as well." (Pg. 42)
"Most chiropractors cling tenaciously to century-old philosophy for which there never has been any evidence or theoretical support and which has been disproved beyond reasonable doubt... As with astrology, chiropractic has established no scientific standards... There are dozens of different methods, none of which has been scientifically validated or proved better or worse than the rest." (Pg. 64)
"Nor is there evidence that chiropractic treatment can relieve pain as well as the commonly used pharmaceuticals (though for some chronic pain, the risk of using drugs may outweigh the benefit)." (Pg. 77)
"Ayurvedic medicine is traditional Hindu folk medicine. It is vigorously promoted in the United States and other Western countries by Marahishi Mahesh Yogi's trancedental meditation (TM) movement. Physicians and lay followers of the guru market a line of products as well as services."

You can't have 'alternative' biology and 'alternative' physics, but yet the Cult of 'Alternative' medicine seems to think they are immune to scientific analysis, empirical testing, facts and all those other "nuances" that get in the way of their faith.

I see the majority of the reviews come from this Cult of true believers who no doubt found this searching for more scripture to preach to them. "What's this? Something that goes against my preconceived notions? Blasphemy!"

In actuality this book is NOT an attack-piece. It is a series of findings compiled by licensed professionals taken from well-documented, peer-reviewed, established sources such as JAMA and many other medical journals who used methods such as double-blind testing and chemical analysis to reach their conclusion. You see in science, the conclusion comes AFTER the research. This is the fatal flaw in the 'alternative' medicine field: much like with so called 'Christian' science, they have established the conclusion first and then seek to bend the 'evidence' to reach their pre-conceived end. (i.e. The Earth is only 600 years old this is why carbon-dating MUST be inaccurate). That is, of course, when they even ATTEMPT to use science to explain their outrageous beliefs. More often than not 'alternative' health is based on secondary sources (my friends mother swears the blood of a virgin cured her hangnail!) or ancient scripture (what worked in 16th century rural Asia MUST be better than today because those Asians were SO in tune with their bodies and so mystical and wise!) and ignores all evidence to the contrary (hangnails clear up naturally and 16th century rural Asia wasn't the healthiest place to be.)

Unfortunately this belief has permeated into society and has gotten away with a lot of fraud and false-hope by becoming an unquestioned 'alternative' to serious treatment. The book focuses in on how this developed as well as what causes a person to accept the irrational claims made by 'alternative' medicine con artists like Deepak Chopra and Andy Weil. The information in this book can be a great source of knowledge and comfort for any person who is seeking a truthful and honest look at alternative medicine and finds themselves awash in a sea of new age health books written with no sources or references and 'alternative' health gurus and self-proclaimed 'doctors' who speak like children and never back anything up.

This book takes a broad spectrum attack on everything the author considers to be quackery. In his opinion unless anything is not proven by science it is false. This is plain ignorance. There are shortcomings to the scientific method as any true skeptic would know. For instance one of the main tenents of science is that of repeatability to verify causal relationships. If a thing has no repeatable cause and effect relationship, it must be false and a coincidence. However using this argument science can deny some of its own claims. Why hasnt anyone argued that because penicillin hasnt cured some of the diseases it has cured before, then it must be a quack medicine. It has failed the test of repeatability. The hypocrisy is evident, and it shows through in this book. Scientific method is nothing more than skepticism in an empirical mode. I have nothing against the scientific method and skeptical inquiry, since this is nothing more than common sense. However, I do have a problem with pseudo skeptics and scientists who hide under the banners of science and skepticism to promote junk as this author wrote. I will agree that there are frauds and liars in the alternative health field, but this is true of any field. This book is nothing more than the promotion of a new religion which is scientism. As is true with any religion, you will have fanatics who will believe what they want, no matter what the evidence is for the other side. This book is so biased that its only worth is in presenting the other side. This is why I gave it only two stars. Wise men will look at both sides of an issue to discover the truth. This book is far from that ideal.

I'm so glad that the medical community is finally fighting back and attempting to educate consumers to the research highlighing the massive failure of alternative medicine to support its claims.

Contrary to what alternative medicine fans would have you believe, science is not just another "way of looking at things." Scientific research methodology is the only way to fully distinguish coincidence from cause and effect. Only scientific research methods can prevent the placebo effect, subject validation, wishful thinking, and all sorts of logical fallacies from invalidating the results of a study.

Don't let your health become a matter of "opinion", like the alt-med gurus would have you believe. Do your homework, read this book and other sources, like http://www.quackwatch.com and http://www.skepdic.com/ and you'll see that alternative medicine is, by and large, a new spin on snake oil and faith-healing.

This book is the only useful book I have seen on alternative medicine. Anybody considering alt med or special diets or thinks they have a lot of food allergies should read this book. Thank you, Kurt Butler, for writing this book. I can't recommend this book enough. Read it and learn why alt med can be dangerous and useless and a waste of money. I don't know what that other reviewer meant by "spurious and low grade info", I guess conclusions based on hard science are "spurious and low grade info" while make believe feel-good "science" is high grade worthwhile info. If you're happy being ignorant, by all means, don't read this book.

I don't deny that there are sharks out there waiting to swindledesperate people who have exhausted all mainstream avenues oftreatment, but that doesn't prove that the whole field is a sham. Mr. Butler cites one or two anecdotes of abuse by alternative practitioners and then generalizes these few isolated examples to condem an entire field. He does this to Chiropractic, then he will move on to the next area and repeat his childish name calling. There are more than a few mainstream doctors and dentists that have sexually abused patients. Does this prove that all of them are predators? Of course not. Yet this is exactly the kind of fallacious argument that Mr. Butler makes. It is basically guilt by association, a la Mccarthy, that he uses to smear people. There are crooked people in every profession. when doing a hitpiece on homeopathy, he claims that most of the deans of america's pharmacy schools told him that homeopathy did not work and should be banned. A few questions during a telephone interview constitute scientific proof? He conveniently failed to mention that all of america's establishment medical schools receive enormous amounts of research funds from drug companies. Besides, how can a pharmacist who has no knowledge of homeopathy give a worthwhile opinion? People like Mr. Butler say there is no scientific proof to substanciate the claims of alternative treatments. But when proposals are made to study alternative treatments, people like Mr. Butler say there is no need becuase they already know it does not work. This betrays establishment medicine for what it is, a secular religion. When someone viciously attacks his opponents, as Mr. Butler does, it is painfully obvious he cannot win his argument.

If you are looking for an informed criticism of alternative therapies you will not find it here. All topics deserve a critical view, but that view must be WELL INFORMED and not based on spurious, low grade information. Funny thing is in all the time that I've been involved in alternative modalities Ive never found any skeptic who actually had a depth of knowledge. I have found several people who set about gaining a knowledge of a specific modality with the intention of "proving" it false. Guess What, after they are really educated few still want to criticize so harshly.

Don't eat fat, do eat fat, everything can be treated by acupuncture (thought the Chinese were never able to overcome serious disease with it and today are using western medicine) or everything can be treated with herbs, diagnosing everything by looking at the iris of your eye is "treating the whole person" - it doesn't take a genius to see that there is something seriously wrong with "alternative medicine." This book cuts through the miasma of hucksterism and gives very useful information on what it's all about. The "true believers" won't like it, of course, but that's understandable.

This book is an excellent resource for people who do not want to be duped by "alternative" medicine peddlers. I see all the negative reviews by the AltMed merchants. As usual, they do not offer specific rebuttals; because they cannot. Some of them whine about Stephen Barrett (MD) who was not the author! Get a clue.

A Consumer's Guide to "Alternative" Medicine belongs in every library.