This blog is now almost 13 years old. In well over 3 000 (!) posts, I have been trying to alert consumers to the things that are wrong with much of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM). In this new series of posts entitled ‘WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? …’ I intend to re-visit some of my early posts and ask: WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
This might show us
- what has changed,
- what has remained the same
- and what needs to change.
Here we go:
In my blog post of 17/12/2012 about Craniosacral Therapy (CST) I concluded that:
1) ineffective therapies, such as CST, may seem harmless but, through their ineffectiveness, they constitute a serious threat to our health;
2) bogus treatments become bogus through the false claims which are being made for them;
3) seriously flawed studies can be worse than none at all: they generate false positive results and send us straight up the garden path.
Almost 13 years after writing this, I fear that the notion ‘SCAM MAY BE INEFFECTIVE BUT IT CANNOT DO ANY HARM!’ is still as popular as it was before. Equally, the dismal quality of research into SCAM is still a problem. And, of course, CST is still around with unsupported, often dangerous claims.
So, has anything changed at all?
I am not sure.
If nothing much has changed, what does that mean for me, my motivation and this blog?
When I started my blog I already had ~20 years experience in full-time SCAM research. If that experience had taught me anything at all, it was not to expect too much. SCAM is a most resistant phenomenon. I don’t see my blog as an instrument for abolishing SCAM (an outright impossibility, in my view). I prefer to think of it as a means of damage limitation.
Having said all this, I must admit that the often dismal quality of research and the tolerance of pseudoscience by journal editors and consumers do disappoint me. But my conclusion is not to give up and resign but to work a bit harder trying my best to prevent harm!
” No-one made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.” Edmund Burke
There are two main groups of culprits here, the journals and the regulators. As we well know, there are so many predatory journals out there that is possible to get any rubbish published somewhere. In the UK at least, reducing the effectiveness of regulators has been a political policy for some time. I would put in 3rd place the universities, who practise a cult of quantity rather than quality. Then there are the grant givers, some of whom are happy to support unethical research. Oh I nearly forgot, there are the ethics committees as well, who often seem to have little idea of what constitutes research ethics. I could go on!
It’s of course impossible to calculate the number of people, general readers like us who follow your blog, who have been educated and warned about all the various health scams going on in the world today. Because of excellent content like yours Dr. Edzard Ersnst , there is no doubt in my mind that you have undoubtedly saved many from serious harm or possibly even death.
Please never stop writing and exposing truth! Sometimes I cry, sometimes I laugh at the exchanges, but always I come away a little more informed.
You have made a tremendous contribution to the health of man on a worldwide scale. You have exposed over and over again the folly of these numerous scams that so many blindly put their trust in, all based on so-called “studies”.
At the end of the day , I’d say that’s pretty darn good. Pretty darn good indeed!
thanks – you made my day!
I guess another Ockham award is due for Edzard.
However, Edzard already has been awarded this esteemed gong. Therefore, I would suggest going along with CAM awards tradition and award him an Ockham gold medalist first class.