UK patients spend £1.6B per year on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). The NHS funds nearly ten per cent of this. Americans spend more than $34 billion a year on CAM. The French spend €279 million for homeopathic remedies alone. Is this wise? Are resources being wasted? Could available funds be better spent on improving conventional care? Are patients being misled? Are funders being defrauded?
Patients who turn to CAM (camees), camists who practice camistry, doctors, nurses, conventional healthcare practitioners, politicians, health commissioners, funders and the public all need to consider alternative medicine critically and make wise decisions. Patients must have full information if they are to give meaningful consent to treatment.
In Real Secrets of Alternative Medicine Richard Rawlins combines his insights as a magician and member of the Magic Circle with experience as a doctor and specialist surgeon to expose how alternative medicine works - and how to avoid being quacked and defrauded.
There is much more that can be done to foster and enhance those age-old qualities of human kindness and compassion.
HRH Prince Charles
Richard Rawlins has written a most valuable addition to the literature. His book is well-researched, well-written and well-considered. Alternative medicine attracts many gullible consumers. This volume could be the ideal cure for gullibility.
Edzard Ernst
Emeritus Professor of Complementary Medicine, Exeter
I wish I had this wonderful book when I was a student and young practitioner.
Professor Tazi Husain
Founding Editor, Emirates Medical Journal
A very useful book that will help patients, practitioners, politicians and the public grapple with the fascinating and bizarre world of pseudo-medicine.
Alan Henness
Director of the Nightingale Collaboration
Most people would rather die than think, and many of them do.
Lord Bertrand Russell
