Consumer's Guide to Alternative Medicine

by Kurt Butler

Book Overview

Butler disposes of the myths and madness perpetrated by fringe practitioners, bogus nutritionists, "health pornographers," and the "quackery mafia." Laying bare the absurdities and dangers of some... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0879757337
• ISBN13: 9780879757335
• Release Date: June 1992
• Publisher: Prometheus Books
• Length: 308 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.9" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Excellent resource

This book is an excellent resource for people who do not want to be duped by "alternative" medicine peddlers. I see all the negative reviews by the AltMed merchants. As usual, they do not offer specific rebuttals; because they cannot. Some of them whine about Stephen Barrett (MD) who was not the author! Get a clue. A Consumer's Guide to "Alternative" Medicine belongs in every library.

There can be no 'Alternative' in science. Either something works or it doesn't.

You can't have 'alternative' biology and 'alternative' physics, but yet the Cult of 'Alternative' medicine seems to think they are immune to scientific analysis, empirical testing, facts and all those other "nuances" that get in the way of their faith. I see the majority of the reviews come from this Cult of true believers who no doubt found this searching for more scripture to preach to them. "What's this? Something that goes against my preconceived notions? Blasphemy!" In actuality this book is NOT an attack-piece. It is a series of findings compiled by licensed professionals taken from well-documented, peer-reviewed, established sources such as JAMA and many other medical journals who used methods such as double-blind testing and chemical analysis to reach their conclusion. You see in science, the conclusion comes AFTER the research. This is the fatal flaw in the 'alternative' medicine field: much like with so called 'Christian' science, they have established the conclusion first and then seek to bend the 'evidence' to reach their pre-conceived end. (i.e. The Earth is only 600 years old this is why carbon-dating MUST be inaccurate). That is, of course, when they even ATTEMPT to use science to explain their outrageous beliefs. More often than not 'alternative' health is based on secondary sources (my friends mother swears the blood of a virgin cured her hangnail!) or ancient scripture (what worked in 16th century rural Asia MUST be better than today because those Asians were SO in tune with their bodies and so mystical and wise!) and ignores all evidence to the contrary (hangnails clear up naturally and 16th century rural Asia wasn't the healthiest place to be.) Unfortunately this belief has permeated into society and has gotten away with a lot of fraud and false-hope by becoming an unquestioned 'alternative' to serious treatment. The book focuses in on how this developed as well as what causes a person to accept the irrational claims made by 'alternative' medicine con artists like Deepak Chopra and Andy Weil. The information in this book can be a great source of knowledge and comfort for any person who is seeking a truthful and honest look at alternative medicine and finds themselves awash in a sea of new age health books written with no sources or references and 'alternative' health gurus and self-proclaimed 'doctors' who speak like children and never back anything up.

Excellent guide

Don't eat fat, do eat fat, everything can be treated by acupuncture (thought the Chinese were never able to overcome serious disease with it and today are using western medicine) or everything can be treated with herbs, diagnosing everything by looking at the iris of your eye is "treating the whole person" - it doesn't take a genius to see that there is something seriously wrong with "alternative medicine." This book cuts through the miasma of hucksterism and gives very useful information on what it's all about. The "true believers" won't like it, of course, but that's understandable.

The "alt-med" emporer has no clothes

I'm so glad that the medical community is finally fighting back and attempting to educate consumers to the research highlighing the massive failure of alternative medicine to support its claims.Contrary to what alternative medicine fans would have you believe, science is not just another "way of looking at things." Scientific research methodology is the only way to fully distinguish coincidence from cause and effect. Only scientific research methods can prevent the placebo effect, subject validation, wishful thinking, and all sorts of logical fallacies from invalidating the results of a study.Don't let your health become a matter of "opinion", like the alt-med gurus would have you believe. Do your homework, read this book and other sources, like http://www.quackwatch.com and http://www.skepdic.com/ and you'll see that alternative medicine is, by and large, a new spin on snake oil and faith-healing.

Only worthwhile book on alt med

This book is the only useful book I have seen on alternative medicine. Anybody considering alt med or special diets or thinks they have a lot of food allergies should read this book. Thank you, Kurt Butler, for writing this book. I can't recommend this book enough. Read it and learn why alt med can be dangerous and useless and a waste of money. I don't know what that other reviewer meant by "spurious and low grade info", I guess conclusions based on hard science are "spurious and low grade info" while make believe feel-good "science" is high grade worthwhile info. If you're happy being ignorant, by all means, don't read this book.