Summary
Title: The Role of Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Accommodating Pluralism
Author: edited by Daniel Callahan
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 1589010167
Pro:
• Both skeptical and sympathetic perspectives represented
• Skeptics will benefit from something sympathetic without being unscientific
• Believers will benefit from something skeptical without being hostile
Con:
• Uneven quality in contributions
Description:
• Methodological problems in assessing CAM addresses and critiqued
• Eleven essays from fourteen scholars from a variety of academic fields
• Different cultural perspectives behind patients' choices in treatment options explored
Book Review
Understanding the disconnect between public perception and scientific standards is one of the principle questions which occupies an anthology of eleven articles edited by Daniel Callahan. All contributors, fourteen scholars from the fields of medicine, philosophy, sociology, and cultural and folklore studies, seem to agree, at the very least, that Complimentary and Alternative Medical treatments forces us and medical practitioners to re-examine our assumptions about medicine and to reconsider how medical science proceeds. This is, surely a good thing.
The contributors also are, by and large, sympathetic to CAM — but the quality of their essays is very uneven. David J. Hufford, for example, argues incorrectly that the failure to find scientific evidence for Qi should not qualify as evidence against its existence. Quite a lot of investigation has been performed on claims about Qi, and the topic has been defined sufficiently for proper research. Results of that research have been very negative, and that is indeed enough to dismiss further claims as very unlikely unless they are accompanied by new and strong evidence.
A couple of other essays adopt a similar, apologetical perspective, and as a consequence they are so conciliatory towards CAM that they fail to uphold rigorous scientific standards. Unfortunately, this is no favor to CAM — it needs to meet those standards if it is ever to accomplish much.
However, other essays in the collection are more solid and do not hold to CAM to lower or weaker standards than conventional scientific treatments. They do not generally criticize any specific forms of CAM but instead explain the importance of how scientific medicine should be performed and the standards to which CAM research must be consistently held.
Loretta M. Kopelman, for example, makes a case for the position that CAM is not fundamentally different in nature from conventional, scientific medicine, and therefore the method of testing cannot be fundamentally different either:
- First, a therapy, by definition, is intended to help and not harm, so when therapists present something as a therapy they not only should be sincere, but also have some basis for their claims that something is safe or effective.
Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Accommodating Pluralism
This is not, however, simply a matter of scientific disagreement and research. The importance of rigorous scientific standards is also a fundamentally ethical matter as well:
- Second, if therapists hold themselves out as providing therapy ...then their pledge to help and not harm creates certain duties to use safe or effective therapies ...if they know of no justification for their claims, they are being dishonest or deceptive. Third, the state has duties to protect the public when they cannot protect themselves and supply them good information when they cannot get it themselves.
