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Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine | 
 enlarge | Authors: Simon Singh, Edzard Ernst
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $12.97
You Save: $12.98 (50%)
New (40) Used (10) from $12.97
Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 26009
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st American Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.5 x 1.5
ISBN: 0393066614
Dewey Decimal Number: 610
EAN: 9780393066616
ASIN: 0393066614
Publication Date: August 18, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New. 100% money back guarantee. All books shipped from Strand Bookstore, New York City, USA.
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Product Description
The truth about the potions, lotions, pills and needles, pummelling and energizing that lie beyond the realms of conventional medicine.
Whether you are an ardent believer in alternative medicine, a skeptic, or are simply baffled by the range of services and opinions, this guide lays to rest doubts and contradictions with authority, integrity, and clarity. In this groundbreaking analysis, over thirty of the most popular treatments—acupuncture, homeopathy, aromatherapy, reflexology, chiropractic, and herbal medicines—are examined for their benefits and potential dangers. Questions answered include: What works and what doesn't? What are the secrets, and what are the lies? Who can you trust, and who is ripping you off? Can science decide what is best, or do the old wives' tales really tap into ancient, superior wisdom?
In their scrutiny of alternative and complementary cures, authors Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst also strive to reassert the primacy of the scientific method as a means for determining public health practice and policy. 16 illustrations.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 The Truth About Alternative Treatments September 18, 2008
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Doctors have treated patients for thousands of years, and patients generally trusted their doctors. This was true when doctors based their treatments, like bleeding, on superstition rather than science, treatments that did nothing, or that even made things worse. Patients paid their fees and thought health had arrived, or at least was just around the corner. People don't change much: these days internationally they pay about $40 billion a year for "alternative medicine" that has little chance of making things better and some chance of making things worse. This is despite that we know how to test a treatment and we can tell scientifically if it works or not. _Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts About Alternative Medicine_ (W. W. Norton) is a serious look at how we can know which of these therapies are bunkum, but at the same time it allows how a very few might have potential for actual healing. The two authors make a winning team to create an informed and entertaining volume. Edzard Ernst is a medical doctor who at one time practiced the useless homeopathy, and received its treatments himself, and is a professor of complementary medicine. Simon Singh is a science journalist who has written fine layman's introductions to big subjects like _Fermat's Enigma_. Together they have produced an informative work to explain to readers how the science of telling good treatments from bad works, and how alternative medicine time and again does not. "Our mission," they say at the outset, "is to reveal the truth about the potions, lotions, pills, needles, pummelling and energizing that lie beyond the realms of conventional medicine, but which are becoming increasingly attractive for many patients." They have succeeded.
In a lucid first chapter, the authors set down the history and principles of evidence-based medicine. Experimenting to find what works seems to have first been practiced by James Lind, who in 1747 conceived the idea of taking groups of sailors suffering from scurvy and giving each group a different treatment to see which ones got better. It seems obvious to us now, but there was no precedent for such experimentation when the standard was to stick to traditional, and ineffective, treatments, no questions asked. Lind, of course, had no idea about vitamin C; this didn't matter, as he could tell which subjects got better on oranges and lemons without knowing the vital reason why. Another hero blazing the way toward evidence based medicine was Florence Nightingale. Famous as the founder of modern nursing, her role in the use of statistics is less well known but just as important in saving patients' lives. When she was assigned to a filthy hospital in Turkey in 1854, she pushed ahead with good food, clean linen, and fresh air for patients. She was adept at data display, inventing a variation of the pie graph, and she marshaled data and illustrations to demonstrate different outcomes for differently treated groups. Medical experimentation worked, and statistics demonstrated it. After an overview of how humans eventually came to understand how evidence based medicine was the way to go, the authors give four chapters about specific treatments which don't have the evidence to back them up: acupuncture, homeopathy, chiropractic, and herbal medicine. The authors are not universally condemnatory; experimental evidence shows, for instance, that some herbs have good effect, and chiropractors might help with a lower back problem (but it is dangerous to let them fiddle with your neck or with any other health conditions).
Besides the main chapters, there is an appendix which gives one page summaries of other therapies, including magnets, leeches, crystals, ear candles, and more. The authors explain how most of these can have no effectiveness, but in each case they summarize what evidence is available and what the risks of such treatment are. It seems that their decisions are judicious, in that they accept that certain relaxation techniques or massage might have specific usefulness. The book is wittily dedicated to HRH The Prince of Wales, and it would be nice to think that Prince Charles might benefit from its contents as well as from its dedication. He has, after all, been a major force in the advocacy for alternative treatments, but the authors show that his advocacy has been misdirected. They quote Michael Baum, a cancer specialist who was frustrated by the Prince's role: "The power of my authority comes with a knowledge built on 40 years of study and 25 years of active involvement in cancer research. Your power and authority rest on an accident of birth." You won't find the authors themselves saying anything quite that scornful. They have done a splendid job of their own advocacy here, advocacy for rationality, experimentation, and evidence. Anyone who is considering spending money on an alternative treatment ought to read this book carefully first. Even if you are at no risk for throwing your money away in that fashion, you will find this an entertaining tour of the power of applied good sense.
 Learned Men Often Can Be Blind September 15, 2008
2 out of 18 found this review helpful
Learned men often can be blind to the efficacy of a given treatment. They may be unfamiliar with the culture the treatment has successfully been used in. They don't know nor do they understand the thinking in the culture, it's beliefs and levels of faith and knowing of how things work there. These guys easily dis Auyervedic . . . my goodness, could Deepak Chopra be wrong all these years on the amazing things in this branch of medicine? They also dis Feng Shui . . . an understanding of energy flows and movements just by whose subtlety these guys are left far behind. Accupuncture comes out of a culture 1000s of years older than ours . . . they just might know something that our few 100 year old culture doesn't know. Accupuncture broke my 103 degree fever in minutes where a western medicine internist couldn't do a thing. The single element these guys have no belief in is the capability of the mind in itself. It's power is vast, and we're only now touching in to that. If you've no sense of faith, of possibilities, of believing things, anything, can be better or different, then this book is for you. It thinks precision and absolutes are all there is . . . hmm, I wonder if they're atheists? Or if they believe in God how they explain faith?
 Solid August 29, 2008
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
It's a good book, well-reasoned. The authors walk through acupuncture (not), homeopathy (not), chiropractic (limited but reservations), herbal medicine (mostly not, with good reasons). If you buy or contemplate buying any of these treatments, it's worth reading.
On the downside: one sloppy sentence (astrologers can't predict star signs) caught my eye; that's true because astrologers don't work with star signs. One wonders what other uninformed editing colored a sentence or two.
What I don't see discussed is the situation of N=1 not subject to double blind testing. Praying for other people may not objectively help those other people. But does it help the one who prays? Or does it help to pray for oneself? Can't test that. My own experience is that chiropractic works better than "conventional" treatment for the type of back pain I get. I've tested that enough.
Some of Micheal Pollan's work about the "American" diet demonstrates that for some variables, significant controlled studies are virtually impossible. For others (long term benefit of vitamin supplements), one pretty much has to decide for one's self or risk being on the wrong side if/when the answers do come in.
Conventional medicine fails in some major areas, long-term chronic pain control being one. Until conventional medicine can harness the placebo effect, there are people who need whatever else works.
I suspect readers will find in this book the evidence they need. It's reassuring to hear another voice about homeopathy; never tried acupucture myself and probably won't chose to pay for it. OTOH, I'll keep swallowing my supplements.
All alternative medicine users should read this book August 17, 2008
17 out of 18 found this review helpful
If you use any type of alternative medicine -- chiropractic, homeopathy, whatever -- you should read this book! Education, licensing, and other forms of regulation of alternative medicine practitioners DO NOT protect you from worthless treatments and physical harm (even death). An honest, factual risk-benefit analysis explained by your health care provider prior to treatment -- the cornerstone of informed consent in conventional medicine -- is virtually non-existant in alternative medicine. You must protect yourself with the type of unbiased, well-researched information this book provides. Don't worry about it being "too scientific." The authors do a fantastic job of explaining alternative medicine in easily understood language. Think about it: considering what you are paying for alternative treatments, isn't it worth the price of Trick or Treatment to find out if you're getting your money's worth? Or better yet, if you are risking your health for no good reason?
A healthy dose of sense and reason August 7, 2008
11 out of 18 found this review helpful
I find it perplexing the way some people simply assume to be correct what others tell them with no deeper inquisitiveness or afterthought. We know we cannot simply trust anyone otherwise we run the risk of being duped as we see from various successful scams.
What is more perplexing is how intelligent people can simply assume to be correct what their own gut feelings tell them or be tricked into actually believing they've experienced things that they haven't. I remember a study done a while ago where a group of random people took part in a psychological experiment. These people were shown a photo taken from their early childhood and asked to remember and describe the scene in it. The only problem was, some of the pictures had been cleverly doctored to show events that never actually took place, such as a hot air balloon ride! Many in the group, as you'd expect, drew blanks and were confused and could not recall the balloon ride. However, astonishingly, many of the participants after a while actually `recalled' this fake event and even `remembered' how elated they felt up there in the sky and how cold it was! (For those interested, it was the Wade et al 2002 study; link here: h--p://www.thepsychologist.org.uk/archive/archive_home.cfm?volumeID=21&editionID=162&ArticleID=1375)
We know we can't unquestioningly rely on strangers but worryingly, it seems not all of us can 100% rely on our own feelings! So then how do we find truth? Perhaps one way is to rely on the testimonials or opinions of the people around us. But is this totally wise, especially when we see that many people are not reliable sources of information? For me, this is where the scientific method of testing and evidence steps in and proves its absolute authority. Surely this is the best method we have of discovering what the truth is in any given situation; surely nothing can beat evidence derived from proper tests.
Trick or Treatment is about proving that the vast majority of alternative medicine doesn't work but it is also a celebration of the scientific method in the context of medicine. It begins fascinatingly by recalling various important historical moments when the scientific method first began to be used and how it then revealed such hugely important secrets that had eluded mankind for so long, particularly in the field of healthcare.
These introductions serve a very useful purpose, because the crux of the book is based on the results of many high quality scientific trials that render most alternative medicine completely ineffective or even dangerous. However, there are still many out there who, for some reason, don't accept the authority of the clinical trial / scientific method and these first few chapters provide an excellent case for counteracting this mistrust.
The rest of the chapters are devoted to one of the main types of CAM and begin by providing a detailed description and background to it. Then the authors bring in the mighty weight of a vast range of quality evidence (meaning evidence from the types of trials that eliminate all possibility of bias or erroneous results) to finally blow up any doubt in the rational mind that much of this stuff is childish nonsense and simply doesn't work.
As you'd expect, there's also a lot of fascinating information and evidence about the placebo effect and whether it is morally acceptable to sell it, and why, despite lack of evidence for and concrete evidence against, people continue to waste vast amounts of time and money on CAM and continue to steadfastly believe in it.
The book came out at a similar time to one by Rose Shapiro, Suckers - How Alternative Medicine Makes Fools of us All. It treads much the same ground but is an excellent companion piece to Trick or Treatment, as both books often both elaborate on details the other one glides over. However, Trick or Treatment is better for focusing on the available evidence and therefore acts as a great reference book.
Also, to the authors' credit, they don't back away from including the results of various high profile trials that bizarrely seemed to acknowledge the efficacy of some of the main types of CAM, For instance, the WHO trials that seemed to support homeopathy and a certain BBC documentary that seemed to show somebody undergoing major heart surgery without any anaesthetic, only acupuncture (shame on you BBC!). This may be quite disheartening for the rationalist as he/she reads through this but order is soon restored once we read that such trials or PR stunts were riddled with bias or faked and that meta-analysis in fact shows the opposite.
Trick or Treatment is an important book and it's hard to believe that millions of westerners still buy into much of this nonsense. The book won't change people's minds overnight; many will still cling to their anti-Big Pharma stance, egocentric fashionista lifestyle or desire for more mystery in the world. But for those of us who place more importance in what's actually true and don't want to be a dupe, this book is invaluable as well as a fascinating read.
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