The prince and the professor

Editor—In his personal view on the Prince of Wales's speech, Baum takes the view that only evidence based practices should be used, such as those of orthodox medicine.¹ Brighthope reminds us that 85% of medical treatments are not supported by solid scientific evidence and only about 1-5% of articles published in medical journals are “scientifically sound,” concluding that poor medical evidence supports most medical practices, including surgery (Baum's specialty).² Accusing complementary and alternative medicine of being unproved is hypocritical.

The Prince of Wales did not promote any alternative treatments. Rather, he mentioned examples of what he had heard from patients who used juices or the Gerson diet to highlight the importance of looking at the evidence of such anecdotal reports.

Baum has “much time for complementary and alternative medicine that offers improvements in quality of life or spiritual solace.” Perhaps he has difficulty believing that it may also have biological actions and cure disease (the domain of orthodox medicine)? That biological methods are the domain of medicine implies that behind the debate on complementary and alternative medicine are issues of professional power and medical autocratism, as well as ignorance and prejudice.

Some complementary and alternative therapies have side effects, can be dangerous, and are a waste of money, effort, and energy. But until that can be said with confidence, we cannot take away from patients the increased hope that such treatments can provide or their right to decide what their treatment will include. If all were great with orthodox medicine, would patients need to turn elsewhere?

Our duty and responsibility is to protect patients from harm and provide more choice and broaden the limits of medicine by integrating complementary therapies that are potentially important in managing illness.