Killing Us Softly: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine
A medical expert — the Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia — offers a scathing expose of the alternative medicine industry, revealing how its popular therapies are ineffective, expensive and even deadly.A half a century ago, acupuncture, homeopathy, naturopathy, Chinese herbs, Christian exorcisms, dietary supplements, chiropractic manipulations and traditional Indian remedies were once considered on the fringe of medicine. Now, these practices—known as alternative, complementary, holistic, and integrative medicine—have become mainstream, used by those seeking to burn fat, detoxify livers, shrink prostates, alleviate colds, stimulate brains, boost energy, reduce stress, enhance immunity, eliminate pain, prevent cancer, and enliven sex.But as Paul Offit reveals, alternative medicine – an unregulated industry under no legal obligation to prove its claims or admit its risks – can actually be harmful to our health. In Killing Us Softly he exposes how:• Homeopathic asthma preparations and bogus cancer cures have replaced life-saving medicines.• Indian remedies have contained dangerous quantities of heavy metals.• Chinese herbs have caused kidney failure and bone marrow suppression.• Acupuncture needles have pierced hearts, lungs, and livers and transmitted viruses, including hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and HIV.• Chiropractic manipulations have torn arteries.• Dietary supplements have caused uncontrolled bleeding, heart failure, hallucinations, arrhythmias, seizures, coma, and death.• Megavitamins increase the risk of cancer and heart disease—a fact well known to scientists but virtually unknown to the public.Using dramatic real-life stories, Dr Offit separates the sense from the nonsense, showing why any therapy – alternative or traditional – should be scrutinized. As he writes, “There’s no such thing as alternative medicine. There’s only medicine that works and medicine that doesn’t.”
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To all the science writers, science advocates, and science bloggers who have dared proclaim that the emperors of pseudoscience have no clothes
When religion was strong and science weak,
men mistook magic for medicine.
Now, when science is strong and religion weak,
men mistake medicine for magic.
—THOMAS SZASZ
Contents
Prologue: Taking a Look at Alternative Medicine
Introduction: Saving Joey Hofbauer
Part I: Distrust of Modern Medicine
1. Rediscovering the Past: Mehmet Oz and His Superstars
Part II: The Lure of All Things Natural
2. The Vitamin Craze: Linus Pauling’s Ironic Legacy
Part III: Little Supplement Makers Versus Big Pharma
3. The Supplement Industry Gets a Free Pass: Neutering the FDA
4. Fifty-One Thousand New Supplements: Which Ones Work?
Part IV: When the Stars Shine on Alternative Medicine
5. Menopause and Aging: Suzanne Somers Weighs In
6. Autism’s Pied Piper: Jenny McCarthy’s Crusade
7. Chronic Lyme Disease: The Blumenthal Affair
Part V: The Hope Business
8. Curing Cancer: Steve Jobs, Shark Cartilage, Coffee Enemas, and More
9. Sick Children, Desperate Parents: Stanislaw Burzynski’s Urine Cure
Part VI: Charismatic Healers Are Hard to Resist
10. Magic Potions in the Twenty-First Century: Rashid Buttar and the Lure of Personality
Part VII: Why Some Alternative Therapies Really Do Work
11. The Remarkably Powerful, Highly Underrated Placebo Response
12. When Alternative Medicine Becomes Quackery
Epilogue: Albert Schweitzer and the Witch Doctor: A Parable
Notes
Selected Bibliography
People love alternative medicine. They go to their acupuncturist or chiropractor or naturopath to relieve pain. They take ginkgo for memory or homeopathic remedies for the flu or megavitamins for energy or Chinese herbs for potency or Indian spices to boost their immune systems. Fifty percent of Americans use some form of alternative medicine; 10 percent use it on their children. It’s a $34-billion-a-year business. In the EU, alternative remedies are also popular; more than 100 million people use them. My friends are no different. One uses cold laser therapy for his allergies, another takes a homeopathic remedy named oscillococcinum to cure her colds, and a third swears that acupuncture is the only thing that relieves his back pain.
Furthermore, alternative medicine—which in the 1960s was denigrated as fringe or unconventional medicine—has entered the mainstream. Hospitals have dietary supplements on their formularies or offer Reiki masters to cancer patients or teach medical students how to manipulate healing energies. In 2010, a survey of six thousand hospitals found that 42 percent offered some form of alternative therapies. When asked why, almost all responded, “patient demand.” In the United Kingdom, five homeopathic hospitals work within the National Health Service. Big Pharma is also jumping in. On February 27, 2012, Pfizer acquired Alacer Corporation, one of the country’s largest manufacturers of megavitamins.
The reason alternative therapies are popular is simple. Mainstream doctors are perceived as uncaring and dictatorial, offering unnatural remedies with intolerable side effects. Alternative healers, on the other hand, provide natural remedies instead of artificial ones, comfort instead of distance, and individual attention instead of take-a-number-and-wait-your-turn inattention.
Like many people who have spent time in today’s health-care system, my experiences have been largely disappointing.
I was born with clubfeet. Within hours, both feet were put in casts; the left foot healed; the right didn’t. When I was five years old, a surgical procedure was performed on my right foot; one of the first of its kind, my case was later written up in a medical journal. The good news is that my right foot no longer turns awkwardly down and inward. The bad news is that walking is always somewhat painful for me.
While in medical school, I volunteered for a twenty-five-mile walkathon for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. After completing the walk, the pain in my foot was so bad I had to use crutches for a few days. I visited an orthopedist, who told me I had severe osteoarthritis and that my X-ray looked like that of a seventy-year-old man. I was twenty-four. For most of my adult life, I’ve tried conventional nonnarcotic pain medicines without relief.
When I was in my thirties, I noticed a small dark spot—no bigger than the head of a pin—on the front of my nose. I ignored it. Twelve years later, my wife suggested I have it removed. The procedure was fast and painless. But a few days later, the dermatologist called with some bad news. He had received a report from the pathologist. The diagnosis: metastatic malignant melanoma. A death sentence.
