Ernst’s law
I have to admit that I had little hope it would come. But after sending my ‘open letter’ twice to their email address, I have just received this:
Click to enlarge
As you might remember, the AACMA had accused me of an pecuniary undeclared link with the pharmaceutical industry. Their claim was based on me having been the editor of a journal, FACT, which was co-published by the British Pharmaceutical Society (BPS). When I complained and the AACMA learnt that the journal had been discontinued, they retracted their claim but carried on distributing the allegation that I had formerly had an undeclared conflict of interest. When they finally understood that the BPS was not the pharmaceutical industry (all it takes is a simple Google search), and after me complaining again and again, they sent me the above email.
The full details of this sorry story are here and here.
So, the AACMA have done the right thing?
Yes and no!
The have retracted their repeated lies.
But they have not done this publicly as requested (this is partly the reason for me writing this post to make their retraction public).
More importantly, they have not apologised !!!
Why should they, you might ask.
- Because they have (tried to) damage my reputation as an independent scientist.
- Because they have not done their research before making and insisting on a far-reaching claim.
- Because they have shown themselves too stupid to grasp even the most elementary issues.
By not apologising, they have, I find, shown how unprofessional they really are, and how much they lack simple human decency. On their website, the AACMA state that “since 1973, AACMA has represented the profession and values high standards in ethical and professional practice.” Personally, I think that their standards in ethical and professional practice are appalling.
Yesterday, a press-release about our new book has been distributed by our publisher. As I hope than many regular readers of my blog might want to read this book – if you don’t want to buy it, please get it via your library – I decided to re-publish the press-release here:
Governments must legislate to regulate and restrict the sale of complementary and alternative therapies, conclude authors of new book More Harm Than Good.
Heidelberg, 20 February 2018
Commercial organisations selling lethal weapons or addictive substances clearly exploit customers, damage third parties and undermine genuine autonomy. Purveyors of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) do too, argue authors Edzard Ernst and Kevin Smith.
The only downside to regulating such a controversial industry is that regulation could confer upon it an undeserved stamp of respectability and approval. At best, it can ensure the competent delivery of therapies that are inherently incompetent.
This is just one of the ethical dilemmas at the heart of the book. In all areas of healthcare, consumers are entitled to expect essential elements of medical ethics to be upheld. These include access to competent, appropriately-trained practitioners who base treatment decisions on evidence from robust scientific research. Such requirements are frequently neglected, ignored or wilfully violated in CAM.
“We would argue that a competent healthcare professional should be defined as one who practices or recommends plausible therapies that are supported by robust evidence,” says bioethicist Kevin Smith.
“Regrettably, the reality is that many CAM proponents allow themselves to be deluded as to the efficacy or safety of their chosen therapy, thus putting at risk the health of those who heed their advice or receive their treatment,” he says.
Therapies covered include homeopathy, acupuncture, chiropractic, iridology, Reiki, crystal healing, naturopathy, intercessory prayer, wet cupping, Bach flower therapy, Ukrain and craniosacral therapy. Their inappropriate use can not only raises false hope and inflicts financial hardship on consumers, but can also be dangerous; either through direct harm or because patients fail to receive more effective treatment. For example, advice given by homeopaths to diabetic patients has the potential to kill them; and when anthroposophic doctors advise against vaccination, they can be held responsible for measles outbreaks.
There are even ethical concerns to subjecting such therapies to clinical research. In mainstream medical research, a convincing database from pre-clinical research is accumulated before patients are experimented upon. However, this is mostly not possible with CAM. Pre-scientific forms of medicine have been used since time immemorial, but their persistence alone does not make them credible or effective. Some are based on notions so deeply implausible that accepting them is tantamount to believing in magic.
“Dogma and ideology, not rationality and evidence, are the drivers of CAM practice,” says Professor Edzard Ernst.
Edzard Ernst, Kevin Smith
More Harm than Good?
1st ed. 2018, XXV, 223 p.
Softcover $22.99, €19,99, £15.99 ISBN 978-3-319-69940-0
Also available as an eBook ISBN 978-3-319-69941-7
END OF PRESS RELEASE
As I already stated above, I hope you will read our new book. It offers something that has, I think, not been attempted before: it critically evaluates many aspects of alternative medicine by holding them to the ethical standards of medicine. Previously, we have often been asking WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE FOR THIS OR THAT CLAIM? In our book, we ask different questions: IS THIS OR THAT ASPECT OF ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE ETHICAL? Of course, the evidence question does come into this too, but our approach in this book is much broader.
The conclusions we draw are often surprising, sometimes even provocative.
Well, you will see for yourself (I hope).
The ‘Dr Rath Foundation’ just published a truly wonderful (full of wonders) article about me. I want to publicly congratulate the author: he got my name right [but sadly not much more]. Here is the opening passage of the article which I encourage everyone to read in full [the numbers in square brackets refer to my comments below].
Professor Edzard Ernst: A Career Built On Discrediting Natural Health Science? [1]
Professor Edzard Ernst, a retired German [2] physician and academic, has recently [3] become a prominent advocate of plans that could potentially outlaw [4] the entire profession of naturopathic doctors [5] in Germany. Promoting the nonsensical idea that naturopathic medicine somehow poses a risk to public health, Ernst attacks its practitioners as supposedly having been educated in “nonsense” [6]. Tellingly, however, given that he himself has seemingly not published even so much as one completely original scientific trial of his own [7], Ernst’s apparent attempts to discredit natural healthcare approaches are largely reliant instead on his analysis or review of handpicked negative studies carried out by others [8].
- When I was appointed at Exeter to research alternative medicine in 1993, I had already been a full professor at Hannover, Germany and subsequently at Vienna, Austria. If anything, coming to Exeter was a big step down in terms of ‘career’, salary, number of co-workers etc. (full details in my memoir)
- I am German-born, became an Austrian citizen in 1990, and since 2000 I am a British national.
- I have been critical about the German ‘Heilpraktiker’ for more than 20 years.
- This refers to the recent ‘Muensteraner Memorandum’ which is the work of an entire team of multidisciplinary experts and advocates reforming this profession.
- ‘Heilpraktiker’ are certainly not doctors; they have no academic or medical background.
- This is correct, and I stand by my statement that educating people in vitalism and other long-obsolete concepts is pure nonsense.
- Since I am researching alternative medicine, I have conducted and published about 40 ‘scientific trials’, and before that time (1993) I have published about the same number again in various other fields.
- This refers to systematic reviews which, by definition, include all the studies available on a defines research question, regardless of their conclusion (their aim is to minimise random and selection biases) .
I hope you agree that these are a lot of mistakes (or are these even lies?) in just a short paragraph.
Now you probably ask: who is Dr Rath?
Many reader of this blog will have heard of him. This is what the Guardian had to say about this man:
Matthias Rath, the vitamin campaigner accused of endangering thousands of lives in South Africa by promoting his pills while denouncing conventional medicines as toxic and dangerous, has dropped a year-long libel action against the Guardian and been ordered to pay costs.
A qualified doctor who is thought to have made millions selling nutritional supplements around the globe through his website empire, Rath claimed his pills could reverse the course of Aids and distributed them free in South Africa, where campaigners, who have won a hard-fought battle to persuade the government to roll out free Aids drugs to keep millions alive, believe Rath’s activities led to deaths.
The Dr Rath Foundation focuses its promotional activities on eight countries – the US, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, Spain, France and Russia – claiming that his micronutrient products will cure not just Aids, but cancer, heart disease, strokes and other illnesses…
I am sure you now understand why I am rather proud of being defamed by this source!
A recent comment by a chiropractor told us this:
“If the critics do not take step 2 [point out what’s right and support] then they are entrenched carpet bombers who see reform and reformers as acceptable collateral damage. That makes them just as much a part of the problem when it comes to reform as the subbies.”
Similar words have been posted many times before.
So, are we critics of chiropractic carpet bombers?
Personally, I find the term very distasteful and misplaced. But let’s not be petty and forget about the terminology.
The question is: should I be more supportive of chiropractors who claim to be reformers?
I feel that the claim to be a reformer is hardly enough for gaining my support. I prefer to support clinicians who do the right things. And what would that be?
Here is a list; clinicians would receive my support, if they:
- adhere to the principles of evidence-based medicine;
- follow the rules of medical ethics.
What does that mean in relation to chiropractic?
I think it means that clinicians should:
- use interventions that demonstrably do more good than harm,
- make no false claims,
- advocate the best available treatments for their patients,
- abstain from treating patients for which their therapy is not demonstrably effective,
- obtain fully informed consent from their patients which includes information about the nature of the condition, about the risks of their treatments, about other therapeutic options.
As soon as I see a chiropractor or a group of chiropractors who fit these criteria, I will support them by publicly stating that they are doing alright (as should be normal for responsible healthcare practitioners). Until this time, I reject being called a carpet bomber and call such name-calling a stupid defence of quackery.
Nobody really likes to be criticised; it can be painful. Painful but often necessary! Criticism produces progress. Criticism is therefore important. So, let’s think about criticism for a moment.
Obviously I am not talking of criticism such as ‘YOU ARE AN IDIOT’. In fact, that’s not criticism at all; it’s an insult. I am also not thinking about criticism like ‘YOUR ARGUMENT IS IDIOTIC’. I prefer to focus on criticism that is constructive, well-argued and based on evidence.
In healthcare, there is plenty of that type of criticism – luckily, I hasten to add. Its aim is to improve healthcare of the future. We need criticism to make progress. Without it, things come to a standstill or regress. This is why all the major medical journals are full of it, and many medical conferences are entirely or partly focussed on such aspects . For instance, frequently-cited papers in the BMJ, Lancet, NEJM, etc. point out that:
- much of the current medical research is unreliable,
- many therapies in current use have severe adverse effects,
- patients frequently do not get the optimal treatment in a timely fashion,
- modern medicine is too often inhumane.
The hope is that by disclosing these and many other deficits, appropriate actions can be found and taken to improve the situation and make progress. This process is hardly ever straight forward. All too often it is slow, inadequate and impeded by logistic and other obstacles. Therefore, it is crucial that constructive criticism continues to be voiced. Many clinicians, researchers and other experts have dedicated their lives to this very task.
Now, let’s look at the realm of alternative medicine.
There is certainly not less to criticise here than in conventional medicine. So, are all the journals of alternative medicine full of criticism of alternative medicine? Are there regular conferences focussed on criticism? Are alternative practitioners keen to hear about the weaknesses of their beliefs, practice, etc.?
The short answer is, no!
Yet, advocates of alternative medicine are, of course, not adverse to voicing criticism. In fact, they criticise almost non stop – at least this is the impression I get from reading their comments on this blog and from continually discussing with them since 1993.
But there is a fundamental difference: they criticise (often rightly) conventional medicine, and they criticise those (sometimes rightly) who criticise alternative medicine. When it comes to criticising their own practices, however, there is an almost deafening silence.
In my view, these differences between alternative and conventional medicine are far from trivial. In conventional medicine:
- There is a long tradition of criticism.
- Criticism is published and discussed prominently.
- Criticism is usually well-accepted.
- Criticism is often taken on board and appropriate action follows.
- Criticism thus can and often does lead to progress.
By contrast, in alternative medicine almost nothing of the above ever happens. Criticism is directed almost exclusively towards those who are outside the realm. Criticism from the inside is as good as non-existent.
The consequences of this situation are easy to see for everyone, and they can be dramatic:
- The journals of alternative medicine publish nothing that could be perceived to be negative for the practice of alternative medicine.
- Self-critical thinking has no tradition and has remained an almost alien concept.
- The very few people from the ‘inside’ who dare to criticise alternative practices are ousted and/or declared to be incompetent or worse.
- No action is taken to initiate change.
- The assumptions of alternative medicine remain unaltered for centuries.
- Progress is all but absent.
It is time that the world of alternative medicine finally understands that constructive criticism is a necessary step towards progress!
If you feel that, on this blog and elsewhere, some sceptics sometimes use harsh language, you haven’t recently read what ‘the other side’ of the debate regularly publish. A good example is ‘NATURAL NEWS’; slander and insult seem to be the daily fare of this publication. A good example is this recent article [02/02/2017: url disrupted by Admin because of suspected malware]; it is so disgustingly vile that I cannot resist showing you a few passages.
START OF QUOTE
Meet the ultimate pharma whore and vaccine-toxin apologist, Dr. Paul ‘Profit’ Offit
Possibly one of the most dangerous doctors on planet Earth is Paul Offit, a man capable of creating, promoting and profiting from the most toxic “medicine” known to mankind – experimental vaccines. Not only is injecting neurotoxins into children extremely dangerous, but the whole vaccine industry is loosely regulated, and the CDC requires no proof of safety or efficacy for immunizations.
Plus, the vaccine industry has their own rigged court system so that families cannot sue the manufacturers. Anyone who lets their children be injected with mercury, formaldehyde, aluminum and MSG (contaminants found in nearly every vaccine and flu shot), is putting a ton of faith in something they should not have any faith in. The inoculation industry as a whole has been making fraudulent medical claims for more than 60 years. Vaccines and prescription medications are fast-tracked through the FDA and CDC without any tests for safety or efficacy.
That’s why about one sixth of all Americans (about 50 million) have sought out holistic care of some sort, at least once already. People are fed up with pediatricians who know nothing about nutrition or quality, non-invasive, non-chemical care. They’re also realizing that prescription meds come with side effects that are worse than the conditions being treated. That’s where scare tactic “professionals” and criminal propagandists come into play, like Dr. Paul Offit.
Never trust someone who can ‘vote themselves rich’ – like Dr. Paul ‘Offit-for-Profit’
One of the biggest scams of the century is the “RotaTeq” rotavirus vaccine. Invented by, patented by, promoted by, and worth millions in profit to Offit, the extremely toxic (oral) vaccine contains live rotavirus strains (G1, G2, G3, G4 and P1), plus highly toxic polysorbate 80 and fetal bovine serum. Scared yet? There’s more. This insane inoculation contains parts of porcine circovirus, a virus that infects pigs! This is all per the Merck website’s list of ingredients, in case you’d like to check for yourself. Want to infect your infant with all of this and help “Profit-Offit” get richer, so he can infect more infants?
Bill Gates promotes Offit in their combined attempt to mass-vaccinate the whole world and decrease the population by several billion, by injecting cancer-causing carcinogens and toxins that cause infertility. That’s the plan.
Offit works at the Children’s hospital of Philadelphia (appropriately nicknamed CHOP), and he is a founding advisory board member of the Autism Science Foundation. All this in spite of the fact that autism has been directly linked to the MMR vaccine, which contains, not coincidentally, many of the same ingredients as the RotaTeq vaccine.
The Rotavirus vaccine has never been proven to work, yet Offit made tens of millions of dollars when he sold the patent. Offit has direct financial ties to Merck, and formerly served on the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a position which has come into question as an extreme conflict of interest. That job entailed Offit creating the market for the rotavirus vaccine, which means he basically voted himself rich in the process.
Paul “Profit” Offit is quoted as saying he could get “10,000 vaccines at once” and be fine, knowing even a dozen would probably kill him or maim him for life…
END OF QUOTE
Such extreme diatribe does, of course, not deserve a comment. However, I want to stress that Paul Offit is one of the leading paediatrician and immunization expert in the US; his reputation is undisputed (except, of course, in circles of deranged loons) and he recently published a book on alternative medicine, entitled ‘DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC’, that I highly recommend.
This seems to be the question that occupies the minds of several homeopaths.
Amazed?
So was I!
Let me explain.
In 1997, Linde et al published their now famous meta-analysis of clinical trials of homeopathy which concluded that “The results of our meta-analysis are not compatible with the hypothesis that the clinical effects of homeopathy are completely due to placebo. However, we found insufficient evidence from these studies that homeopathy is clearly efficacious for any single clinical condition. Further research on homeopathy is warranted provided it is rigorous and systematic.”
This paper had several limitations which Linde was only too happy to admit. The authors therefore conducted a re-analysis which, even though published in an excellent journal, is rarely cited by homeopaths. Linde et al stated in their re-analysis of 2000: “there was clear evidence that studies with better methodological quality tended to yield less positive results.” It was this phenomenon that prompted me and my colleague Max Pittler to publish a ‘letter to the editor’ which now – 15 years later – seems the stone of homeopathic contention.
A blog-post by a believer in homeopathy even asks the interesting question: Did Professor Ernst Sell His Soul to Big Pharma? It continues as follows:
Edzard Ernst is an anti-homeopath who spent his career attacking traditional medicine. In 1993 he became Professor of Complementary Medicine at the University of Exeter. He is often described as the first professor of complementary medicine, but the title he assumed should have fooled no-one. His aim was to discredit medical therapies, notably homeopathy, and he then published some 700 papers in ‘scientific’ journals to do so.
Now, Professor Robert Hahn, in his blog, has made an assessment of the quality of his work… In the interests of the honesty and integrity in science, it is an important assessment. It shows, in his view, how science has been taken over by ideology (or as I would suggest, more accurately, the financial interests of Big Corporations, in this case, Big Pharma). The blog indicates that in order to demonstrate that homeopathy is ineffective, over 95% of scientific research into homeopathy has to be discarded or removed!
So for those people who, like myself, cannot read the original German, here is an English translation of the blog…
“I have never seen a science writer so blatantly biased as Edzard Ernst: his work should not be considered of any worth at all, and discarded” finds Sweden’s Professor Robert Hahn, a leading medical scientist, physician, and Professor of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care at the University of Linköping, Sweden.
Hahn determined therefore to analyze for himself the ‘research’ which supposedly demonstrated homeopathy to be ineffective, and reached the shocking conclusion that:
“only by discarding 98% of homeopathy trials and carrying out a statistical meta-analysis on the remaining 2% negative studies, can one ‘prove’ that homeopathy is ineffective”.
In other words, all supposedly negative homeopathic meta-analyses which opponents of homeopathy have relied on, are scientifically bogus…
Who can you trust? We can begin by disregarding Edzard Ernst. I have read several other studies that he has published, and they are all untrustworthy. His work should be discarded…
In the case of homeopathy, one should stick with what the evidence reveals. And the evidence is that only by removing 95-98% of all studies is the effectiveness of homeopathy not demonstrable…
So, now you are wondering, I am sure: HOW MUCH DID HE GET FOR SELLING HIS SOUL TO BIG PHARMA?
No? You are wondering 1) who this brilliant Swedish scientist, Prof Hahn, is and 2) what article of mine he is criticising? Alright, I will try to enlighten you.
PROFESSOR HAHN
Here I can rely on a comment posted on my blog some time ago by someone who can read Swedish (thank you Bjorn). He commented about Hahn as follows:
A renowned director of medical research with well over 300 publications on anesthesia and intensive care and 16 graduated PhD students under his mentorship, who has been leading a life on the side, blogging and writing about spiritualism, and alternative medicine and now ventures on a public crusade for resurrecting the failing realm of homeopathy!?! Unbelievable!
I was unaware of this person before, even if I have lived and worked in Sweden for decades.
I have spent the evening looking up his net-track and at his blog at roberthahn.nu (in Swedish).
I will try to summarise some first impressions:
Hahn is evidently deeply religious and there is the usual, unmistakably narcissistic aura over his writings and sayings. He is religiously confident that there is more to this world than what can be measured and sensed. In effect, he seems to believe that homeopathy (as well as alternative medical methods in general) must work because there are people who say they have experienced it and denying the possibility is akin to heresy (not his wording but the essence of his writing).
He has, along with his wife, authored at least three books on spiritual matters with titles such as (my translations) “Clear replies from the spiritual world” and “Connections of souls”.
He has a serious issue with skeptics and goes on at length about how they are dishonest bluffers[sic] who willfully cherry-pick and misinterpret evidence to fit their preconceived beliefs.
He feels that desperate patients should generally be allowed the chance that alternative methods may offer.
He believes firmly in former-life memories, including his own, which he claims he has found verification for in an ancient Italian parchment.
His main arguments for homeopathy are Claus Linde’s meta analyses and the sheer number of homeopathic research that he firmly believes shows it being superior to placebo, a fact that (in his opinion) shows it has a biological effect. Shang’s work from 2005 he dismisses as seriously flawed.
He also points to individual research like this as credible proof of the biologic effect of remedies.
He somewhat surprisingly denies recommending homeopathy despite being convinced of its effect and maintains that he wants better, more problem oriented and disease specific studies to clarify its applicability. (my interpretation)
If it weren’t for his track record of genuine, acknowledged medical research and him being a renowned authority in a genuine, scientific medical field, this man would be an ordinary, religiously devout quack.
What strikes me as perhaps telling of a consequence of his “exoscientific” activity, is that Hahn, who holds the position of research director at a large city trauma and emergency hospital is an “adjungerad professor”, which is (usually) a part time, time limited, externally financed professorial position, while any Swedish medical doctor with his very extensive formal merits would very likely hold a full professorship at an academic institution.
END OF QUOTE
MY 2000 PAPER THAT SEEMS TO IRRITATE HAHN
This was a short ‘letter to the editor’ by Ernst and Pittler published in the J Clin Epidemiol commenting on the above-mentioned re-analysis by Linde et al which was published in the same journal. As its text is not available on-line, I re-type parts of it here:
In an interesting re-analysis of their meta-analysis of clinical trials of homeopathy, Linde et al conclude that there is no linear relationship between quality scores and study outcome. We have simply re-plotted their data and arrive at a different conclusion. There is an almost perfect correlation between the odds ratio and the Jadad score between the range of 1-4… [some technical explanations follow which I omit]…Linde et al can be seen as the ultimate epidemiological proof that homeopathy is, in fact, a placebo.
And that is, as far as I can see, the whole mysterious story. I cannot even draw a conclusion – all I can do is to ask a question:
DOES ANYONE UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY ARE GOING ON ABOUT?
Regular readers of this blog will have noticed: I recently published a ‘memoir‘.
Of all the books I have written, this one was by far the hardest. It covers ground that I felt quite uncomfortable with. At the same time, I felt compelled to write it. For over 5 years I kept at it, revised it, re-revised it, re-conceived the outline, abandoned the project altogether only to pick it up again.
When it eventually was finished, we had to find a suitable title. This was far from easy; my book is not a book about alternative medicine, it is a book about all sorts of things that have happened to me, including alternative medicine. Eventually we settled for A SCIENTIST IN WONDERLAND. A MEMOIR OF SEARCHING FOR TRUTH AND FINDING TROUBLE. This seemed to describe its contents quite well, I thought (the German edition is entitled NAZIS, NADELN UND INTRIGEN. ERINNERUNGEN EINES SKEPTIKERS which indicates why it was so difficult to put the diverse contents into a short title).
Then a further complication presented itself: at the very last minute, my publisher insisted that the text had to be checked by libel lawyers. This was not only painful and expensive, following their advice and thus changing or omitting passages also took some of the ‘edge’ off it.
Earlier this year, my ‘memoir’ was finally published; to say that I was nervous about how it might be received must be the understatement of the year. As it turned out, it received so many reviews that today I feel deeply humbled (and very proud), particularly as they were all full of praise and appreciation. In case you are interested, I provide some quotes and the links to the full text reviews below.
[Ah, yes! Some people will surely claim that I did all this for the money. To those of my critics, I respond by saying that, had I done paper rounds or worked as a gardener or a window-cleaner during all the time I spent on this book, I would today be considerably better off. As it stands, the costs for the libel read are not yet covered by the income generated through the sales of this book.]AND HERE ARE THE PROMISED QUOTES
Times Higher Education Book of the Week
Times Higher Education – Helen Bynum, Jan 29, 2015
“[F]or all its trenchant arguments about evidence-based science, the second half of A Scientist in Wonderland remains a very human memoir, and Ernst’s account of the increasingly personal nature of the attacks he faced when speaking to CAM practitioners and advocacy groups is disturbing… Ben Goldacre’s 2012 book Bad Pharma created a storm via its exposure of the pharmaceutical industry’s unhealthy links with mainstream medicine. Ernst’s book deserves to do the same for the quackery trading under the name of complementary and alternative medicine.”
Spectator article
The Spectator – Nick Cohen, Jan 31, 2015
“If you want a true measure of the man, buy Edzard Ernst’s memoir A Scientist in Wonderland, which the Imprint Academic press have just released. It would be worth reading [even] if the professor had never been the victim of a royal vendetta.”
The Bookbag review
The Bookbag – Sue Magee, Jan 28, 2015
“Ernst isn’t just an academic – he’s also an accomplished writer and skilled communicator. He puts over some quite complex ideas without resorting to jargon and I felt informed without ever struggling to understand, despite being a non-scientist. I was pulled into the story of his life and read most of the book in one sitting… I was impressed by what Ernst had to say and the way in which he said it.”
Science-Based Medicine review
Science-Based Medicine – Harriet Hall, Feb 3, 2015
“Edzard Ernst is one of those rare people who dare to question their own beliefs, look at the evidence without bias, and change their minds… In addition to being a memoir, Dr. Ernst’s book is a paean to science… He shows how misguided ideas, poor reasoning, and inaccurate publicity have contributed to the spread of alternative medicine… This is a well-written, entertaining book that anyone would enjoy reading and that advocates of alternative medicine should read: they might learn a thing or two about science, critical thinking, honesty, and the importance of truth.”
Nature review
Nature – Barbara Kiser, Feb 5, 2015
“[T]his ferociously frank autobiography… [is] a clarion call for medical ethics.”
Times review
The Times – Robbie Millen, Feb 9, 2015
“A Scientist in Wonderland is a rather droll, quick read… [and] it’s an effective antidote to New Age nonsense, pseudo-science and old-fashioned quackery.”
AntiCancer review
AntiCancer.org.uk – Pan Pantziarka, Feb 19, 2015
“It should be required reading for everyone interested in medicine – without exception.”
Mail Online review
Mail Online – Katherine Keogh, Feb 28, 2015
“In his new book, A Scientist In Wonderland: A Memoir Of Searching For Truth And Finding Trouble, no one from the world of alternative medicine is safe from Professor Edzard Ernst’s firing line.”
James Randi Educational Foundation review
James Randi Educational Foundation – William M. London, Mar 9, 2015
“The writing in A Scientist in Wonderland is clear and engaging. It combines good storytelling with important insights about medicine, science, and analytic thinking. Despite all the troubles Ernst encountered, I found his story to be inspirational. I enthusiastically recommend the book to scientists, health professionals, and laypersons who like to see nonsense and mendacity exposed to the light of reason.”
The Pharmaceutical Journal review
The Pharmaceutical Journal – Andrews Haynes, Mar 26, 2015
“This engaging book is a memoir by a medical researcher whose passion for discovering the truth about untested therapies eventually forced him out of his job… [This] highly readable book concentrates on fact rather than emotion. It should be required reading for anyone interested in medical research.”
Skepticat review
Skepticat – Maria MacLachlan, Apr 18, 2015
“A Scientist in Wonderland is more than an autobiography and I’m not sure I can do justice to the riches to be found in its pages. Sometimes it’s reminiscent of a black comedy, other times it’s almost too painful to read.”
Spiked! review
Spiked! – Robin Walsh ,May 15, 2015
“Ernst’s book is a reminder of the need to have the courage to tell the truth as you understand it, and fight your corner against those in authority, while never losing a compassion for patients and a commitment to winning the debate. ”
Australasian Science review
Australasian Science – Loretta Marron, Jun 10, 2015
“Edzard Ernst is a living legend… The book is easy to read and hard to put down. I would particularly recommend it to anyone, with an open mind, who is interested in the truth or otherwise of CAM.”
Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine Review
JRSM – Michael Baum, June 2015
“This is a deeply moving and deeply disturbing book yet written with a light touch, humour and self-deprecation.”
THE BUFFALO NEWS
These enlightening books await summer readers. 21 June 2015
“Medical researcher Edzard Ernst spent most of his career stepping on toes. He first exposed the complicity of the German medical profession in the Nazi genocide. Then he accepted appointment as the world’s first chairman of alternative medicine at England’s University of Exeter. There he studied systematically the claims of the proponents of complementary medicine, a field dominated by evangelic and enthusiastic promoters, including Prince Charles. Needless to say, they did not take kindly to his exposures of many of their widely accepted therapies. His book, “A Scientist in Wonderland: A Memoir of Searching for Truth and Finding Trouble,” is a charming account of a committed life.”
Skeptical Inquirer
http://www.csicop.org/si/show/truth_trouble_and_research_exposing_alt_med?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Chris French
“The book is first and foremost a memoir. Even those of us who have long followed Ernst’s research may well find a few surprises here…[Ernst] did not quite behave as many people expected him to after taking up his post in Exeter. He was committed to carrying out high-quality research into the efficacy and safety of CAM, not simply promoting its use in an uncritical manner. This admirable attitude won him much respect in the eyes of fellow scientists and the wider skeptical community.
Here is another short passage from my new book A SCIENTIST IN WONDERLAND. It describes the event where I was first publicly exposed to the weird and wonderful world of alternative medicine in the UK. It is also the scene which, in my original draft, was the very beginning of the book.
I hope that the excerpt inspires some readers to read the entire book – it currently is BOOK OF THE WEEK in the TIMES HIGHER EDUCATION!!!
… [an] aggressive and curious public challenge occurred a few weeks later during a conference hosted by the Research Council for Complementary Medicine in London. This organization had been established a few years earlier with the aim of conducting and facilitating research in all areas of alternative medicine. My impression of this institution, and indeed of the various other groups operating in this area, was that they were far too uncritical, and often proved to be hopelessly biased in favour of alternative medicine. This, I thought, was an extraordinary phenomenon: should research councils and similar bodies not have a duty to be critical and be primarily concerned about the quality of the research rather than the overall tenor of the results? Should research not be critical by nature? In this regard, alternative medicine appeared to be starkly different from any other type of health care I had encountered previously.
On short notice, I had accepted an invitation to address this meeting packed with about 100 proponents of alternative medicine. I felt that their enthusiasm and passion were charming but, no matter whom I talked to, there seemed to be little or no understanding of the role of science in all this. A strange naïvety pervaded this audience: alternative practitioners and their supporters seemed a bit like children playing “doctor and patient”. The language, the rituals and the façade were all more or less in place, but somehow they seemed strangely detached from reality. It felt a bit as though I had landed on a different planet. The delegates passionately wanted to promote alternative medicine, while I, with equal passion and conviction, wanted to conduct good science. The two aims were profoundly different. Nevertheless, I managed to convince myself that they were not irreconcilable, and that we would manage to combine our passions and create something worthwhile, perhaps even groundbreaking.
Everyone was excited about the new chair in Exeter; high hopes and expectations filled the room. The British alternative medicine scene had long felt discriminated against because they had no academic representation to speak of. I certainly did sympathize with this particular aspect and felt assured that, essentially, I was amongst friends who realized that my expertise and their enthusiasm could add up to bring about progress for the benefit of many patients.
During my short speech, I summarized my own history as a physician and a scientist and outlined what I intended to do in my new post—nothing concrete yet, merely the general gist. I stressed that my plan was to apply science to this field in order to find out what works and what doesn’t; what is safe and what isn’t. Science, I pointed out, generates progress through asking critical questions and through testing hypotheses. Alternative medicine would either be shown by good science to be of value, or it would turn out to be little more than a passing fad. The endowment of the Laing chair represented an important mile-stone on the way towards the impartial evaluation of alternative medicine, and surely this would be in the best interest of all parties concerned.
To me, all this seemed an entirely reasonable approach, particularly as it merely reiterated what I had just published in an editorial for The Lancet entitled “Scrutinizing the Alternatives”.
My audience, however, was not impressed. When I had finished, there was a stunned, embarrassed silence. Finally someone shouted angrily from the back row: “How did they dare to appoint a doctor to this chair?” I was startled by this question and did not quite understand. What had prompted this reaction? What did this audience expect? Did they think my qualifications were not good enough? Why were they upset by the appointment of a doctor? Who else, in their view, might be better equipped to conduct medical research?
It wasn’t until weeks later that it dawned on me: they had been waiting for someone with a strong commitment to the promotion of alternative medicine. Such a commitment could only come from an alternative practitioner. A doctor personified the establishment, and “alternative” foremost symbolized “anti-establishment”. My little speech had upset them because it confirmed their worst fears of being annexed by “the establishment”. These enthusiasts had hoped for a believer from their own ranks and certainly not for a doctor-scientist to be appointed to the world’s first chair of complementary medicine. They had expected that Exeter University would lend its support to their commercial and ideological interests; they had little understanding of the concept that universities should not be in the business of promoting anything other than high standards.
Even today, after having given well over 600 lectures on the topic of alternative medicine, and after coming on the receiving end of ever more hostile attacks, aggressive questions and personal insults, this particular episode is still etched deeply into my memory. In a very real way, it set the scene for the two decades to come: the endless conflicts between my agenda of testing alternative medicine scientifically and the fervent aspirations of enthusiasts to promote alternative medicine uncritically. That our positions would prove mutually incompatible had been predictable from the very start. The writing had been on the wall—but it took me a while to be able to fully understand the message.
Hard to believe but, in the last 35 years, I have written or edited a total of 49 books; about half of them on alternative medicine and the rest on various subjects related to clinical medicine and research. Each time a new one comes out, I am excited, of course, but this one is special:
- I have not written a book for several years.
- I have worked on it much longer than on any book before.
- Never before have I written a book with is so much about myself.
- None of my previous book covered material that is as ‘sensitive’ as this one.
I started on this book shortly after TRICK OR TREATMENT had been published. Its initial working title was ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE: THE INSIDE STORY. My aim was to focus on the extraordinary things which had happened during my time in Exeter, to shed some light on the often not so quaint life in academia, and to show how bizarre the world of alternative medicine truly is. But several people who know about these things and who had glanced at the first draft chapters strongly advised me to radically change this concept. They told me that such a book could only work as a personal memoire.
Yet I was most reluctant to write about myself; I wanted to write about science, research as well as the obstacles which some people manage to put in their way. So, after much discussion and contemplation, I compromised and added the initial chapters which told the reader about my background and my work prior to the Exeter appointment. This brought in subjects like my research on ‘Nazi-medicine’ (which, I believe, is more important than that on alternative medicine) that seemed almost entirely unrelated to alternative medicine, and the whole thing began to look a bit disjointed, in my view. However, my advisers felt this was a step in the right direction and argued that my compromise was not enough; they wanted more about me as a person, my motivations, my background etc. Eventually I (partly) gave in and provided a bit more of what they seemed to want.
But I am clearly not a novelist, most of what I have ever written is medical stuff; my style is too much that of a scientist – dry and boring. In other words, my book seemed to be going nowhere. Just when, after years of hard work, I was about to throw it all in the bin, help came from a totally unexpected corner.
Louise Lubetkin (even today, I have never met her in person) had contributed several posts as ‘guest editor’ to this blog, and I very much liked her way with words. When she offered to have a look at my book, I was thrilled. It is largely thanks to her that my ‘memoire’ ever saw the light of day. She helped enormously with making it readable and with joining up the seemingly separate episodes describes in my book.
Finding a fitting title was far from easy. Nothing seemed to encapsulate its contents, and ‘A SCIENTIST IN WONDERLAND’, the title I eventually chose, is a bit of a compromise; the subtitle does describe it much better, I think: A MEMOIR OF SEARCHING FOR TRUTH AND FINDING TROUBLE.
Now that the book is about to be published, I am anxious as never before on similar occasions. I do, of course, not think for a minute that it will be anything near to a best-seller, but I want people with an interest in alternative medicine, academia or science to read it (get it from a library to save money) and foremost I want them to understand why I wrote it. For me, this is neither about settling scores nor about self-promotion, it is about telling a story which is important in more than one way.
