Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies
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Focus Alternat Complement Ther©2005 Pharmaceutical Press
Focus Altern Complement Ther 2004; 9:
Dear Editor,
Professor Ernst says in his Editorial for the September 2004 issue: ‘Provided that, for a given condition, more than one treatment exists, we should really find out how the CAM option compares to competing treatments. In other words, we should determine the risk–benefit profile of one therapy in comparison with the other.’1
No doubt some marginal benefit is obtained however a research project is structured, but the environment in which CAM operates, as must be evident from the word ‘complementary’, is not the either/or one that the above seems to assume is the one to be researched. CAM in practice operates in conjunction with orthodox medicine (for the most part; environmental medicine seems to be one exception) and for all we know, its benefits are dependent on this circumstance.
If one were to be rigorous to the point of pedantry, research undertaken on the above premise would be strictly worthless. Maybe research into combinations is impractical beyond large-scale patient audit but the point has to be respected and to lapse so prominently into assuming that the normal situation is an adversarial one is disappointing in an editor of a journal in FACT’s position. As a registered CAM practitioner in the UK I do not only wish to see that my clients have seen their doctor where appropriate, I am required to by my Code of Conduct.
