The prince and the professor
http://www.100md.com
《英国医生杂志》
EDITOR—Professor Baum's open letter in response to the Prince of Wales's speech at a research symposium on complementary therapies and cancer care at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists sparked off some 80-odd responses.1 Practitioners of conventional medicine and of alternative and complementary medicine (sometimes both), former and current patients (who have much to say to recommend both approaches), journalists, social workers, clerics, and scientists worldwide all responded.
Those who agree unanimously with Professor Baum reject Prince Charles's proposals in no uncertain terms. But a count reveals that they are not the majority—and neither are those who fervently defend exclusively complementary approaches to cancer care. Most correspondents, regardless of which side of the fence they may be on, interpret the prince's speech as advocating an integrated approach, not the abandonment of reason, asking for complementary and alternative medicines to undergo the same rigorous trials as conventional treatments. The prince and the professor in the same boat?
Some correspondents are concerned that the media bias public opinion through a lack of critical reporting and by giving certain fashionable treatments and celebrities more column inches than conventional scientists, thus giving them a prominence they do not deserve. Maybe alternative health columns should be published with a health warning?
Correspondents who have personal experience of all manner of complementary and alternative therapies are particularly convinced that these may be tomorrow's science and are mostly in favour of conducting trials. Many correspondents have no objection to rigorous scientific testing but point out that funding may be a problem or that such funds might be used more effectively elsewhere.
A few correspondents think that the two directions cannot be integrated and complementary therapies can therefore not be trialled. Their measurements are different and cannot satisfy the criteria of modern medicine, although they may coexist comfortably as long as neither tries to claim supremacy.
Several correspondents remind us that traditional Chinese medicine, ayurveda, and many other traditional medical systems around the world that we today call "complementary" or "alternative" are in fact thousands of years old, whereas our own "conventional" approach has been around for a mere few hundred years. Consequently, the debate about what science is and about scientific methods, objectivity, deduction, reproducibility, generating hypotheses, and the arbitrariness of statistical measures forms most of the debate. There are no proved results in science as all facts are to a greater or lesser degree provisional.
Or, to quote Krishna Badami, a specialist in transfusion medicine: "Today's orthodoxy could well end up as tomorrow's heresy and vice versa."
Birte Twisselmann, technical editor
BMJ
Competing interests: None declared.
References
Electronic responses. An open letter to the Prince of Wales: with respect, your highness, you've got it wrong. http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/329/7457/118 (accessed 30 Aug 2004).
Those who agree unanimously with Professor Baum reject Prince Charles's proposals in no uncertain terms. But a count reveals that they are not the majority—and neither are those who fervently defend exclusively complementary approaches to cancer care. Most correspondents, regardless of which side of the fence they may be on, interpret the prince's speech as advocating an integrated approach, not the abandonment of reason, asking for complementary and alternative medicines to undergo the same rigorous trials as conventional treatments. The prince and the professor in the same boat?
Some correspondents are concerned that the media bias public opinion through a lack of critical reporting and by giving certain fashionable treatments and celebrities more column inches than conventional scientists, thus giving them a prominence they do not deserve. Maybe alternative health columns should be published with a health warning?
Correspondents who have personal experience of all manner of complementary and alternative therapies are particularly convinced that these may be tomorrow's science and are mostly in favour of conducting trials. Many correspondents have no objection to rigorous scientific testing but point out that funding may be a problem or that such funds might be used more effectively elsewhere.
A few correspondents think that the two directions cannot be integrated and complementary therapies can therefore not be trialled. Their measurements are different and cannot satisfy the criteria of modern medicine, although they may coexist comfortably as long as neither tries to claim supremacy.
Several correspondents remind us that traditional Chinese medicine, ayurveda, and many other traditional medical systems around the world that we today call "complementary" or "alternative" are in fact thousands of years old, whereas our own "conventional" approach has been around for a mere few hundred years. Consequently, the debate about what science is and about scientific methods, objectivity, deduction, reproducibility, generating hypotheses, and the arbitrariness of statistical measures forms most of the debate. There are no proved results in science as all facts are to a greater or lesser degree provisional.
Or, to quote Krishna Badami, a specialist in transfusion medicine: "Today's orthodoxy could well end up as tomorrow's heresy and vice versa."
Birte Twisselmann, technical editor
BMJ
Competing interests: None declared.
References
Electronic responses. An open letter to the Prince of Wales: with respect, your highness, you've got it wrong. http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/329/7457/118 (accessed 30 Aug 2004).