From Melanie Oxley
Edzard Ernst is right to point to lack of funding and expertise as the main
obstacles to progress in research into complementary/alternative medicine (CAM)
(Forum, 18 April, p 49).
He is equally right to state that “evidence-based CAM
must not remain a contradiction in terms”. However, he has been saying this for
a long time and has still not come up with solutions. Surely his own department
at the Postgraduate Medical School in Exeter has the expertise necessary to
conduct clinical trials into CAM. It is also in a position to attract funds,
unlike the CAM organisations.
Ernst must stop lumping all CAM therapies together. Each is at its own stage
of evolution. Let’s have a therapy-by-therapy investigation, starting with those
that are most sought by patients—namely homeopathy and
acupuncture—that still fall outside government regulation.
The allegation that until CAM is proved safe, it must be considered unsafe,
is not sustainable. And how about testing the safety of many conventional drugs,
the damage from which many CAM practitioners are regularly asked to treat? We
urgently need to move away from arrogant positions on CAM, and combine our
resources in some exciting research.
Alresford, Hampshire
