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Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine | 
| Authors: Simon Singh, Edzard Ernst
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $12.97
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Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 1700
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.5 x 1.5
ISBN: 0393066614
Dewey Decimal Number: 610
EAN: 9780393066616
ASIN: 0393066614
Publication Date: August 18, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New. 100% money back guarantee. All books shipped from Strand Bookstore, New York City, USA.
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Product Description
The truth about the potions, lotions, pills and needles, pummelling and energizing that lie beyond the realms of conventional medicine.
Whether you are an ardent believer in alternative medicine, a skeptic, or are simply baffled by the range of services and opinions, this guide lays to rest doubts and contradictions with authority, integrity, and clarity. In this groundbreaking analysis, over thirty of the most popular treatments—acupuncture, homeopathy, aromatherapy, reflexology, chiropractic, and herbal medicines—are examined for their benefits and potential dangers. Questions answered include: What works and what doesn't? What are the secrets, and what are the lies? Who can you trust, and who is ripping you off? Can science decide what is best, or do the old wives' tales really tap into ancient, superior wisdom?
In their scrutiny of alternative and complementary cures, authors Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst also strive to reassert the primacy of the scientific method as a means for determining public health practice and policy. 16 illustrations.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Solid August 29, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
It's a good book, well-reasoned. The authors walk through acupuncture (not), homeopathy (not), chiropractic (limited but reservations), herbal medicine (mostly not, with good reasons). If you buy or contemplate buying any of these treatments, it's worth reading.
On the downside: one sloppy sentence (astrologers can't predict star signs) caught my eye; that's true because astrologers don't work with star signs. One wonders what other uninformed editing colored a sentence or two.
What I don't see discussed is the situation of N=1 not subject to double blind testing. Praying for other people may not objectively help those other people. But does it help the one who prays? Or does it help to pray for oneself? Can't test that. My own experience is that chiropractic works better than "conventional" treatment for the type of back pain I get. I've tested that enough.
Some of Micheal Pollan's work about the "American" diet demonstrates that for some variables, significant controlled studies are virtually impossible. For others (long term benefit of vitamin supplements), one pretty much has to decide for one's self or risk being on the wrong side if/when the answers do come in.
Conventional medicine fails in some major areas, long-term chronic pain control being one. Until conventional medicine can harness the placebo effect, there are people who need whatever else works.
I suspect readers will find in this book the evidence they need. It's reassuring to hear another voice about homeopathy; never tried acupucture myself and probably won't chose to pay for it. OTOH, I'll keep swallowing my supplements.
All alternative medicine users should read this book August 17, 2008
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
If you use any type of alternative medicine -- chiropractic, homeopathy, whatever -- you should read this book! Education, licensing, and other forms of regulation of alternative medicine practitioners DO NOT protect you from worthless treatments and physical harm (even death). An honest, factual risk-benefit analysis explained by your health care provider prior to treatment -- the cornerstone of informed consent in conventional medicine -- is virtually non-existant in alternative medicine. You must protect yourself with the type of unbiased, well-researched information this book provides. Don't worry about it being "too scientific." The authors do a fantastic job of explaining alternative medicine in easily understood language. Think about it: considering what you are paying for alternative treatments, isn't it worth the price of Trick or Treatment to find out if you're getting your money's worth? Or better yet, if you are risking your health for no good reason?
A healthy dose of sense and reason August 7, 2008
9 out of 16 found this review helpful
I find it perplexing the way some people simply assume to be correct what others tell them with no deeper inquisitiveness or afterthought. We know we cannot simply trust anyone otherwise we run the risk of being duped as we see from various successful scams.
What is more perplexing is how intelligent people can simply assume to be correct what their own gut feelings tell them or be tricked into actually believing they've experienced things that they haven't. I remember a study done a while ago where a group of random people took part in a psychological experiment. These people were shown a photo taken from their early childhood and asked to remember and describe the scene in it. The only problem was, some of the pictures had been cleverly doctored to show events that never actually took place, such as a hot air balloon ride! Many in the group, as you'd expect, drew blanks and were confused and could not recall the balloon ride. However, astonishingly, many of the participants after a while actually `recalled' this fake event and even `remembered' how elated they felt up there in the sky and how cold it was! (For those interested, it was the Wade et al 2002 study; link here: h--p://www.thepsychologist.org.uk/archive/archive_home.cfm?volumeID=21&editionID=162&ArticleID=1375)
We know we can't unquestioningly rely on strangers but worryingly, it seems not all of us can 100% rely on our own feelings! So then how do we find truth? Perhaps one way is to rely on the testimonials or opinions of the people around us. But is this totally wise, especially when we see that many people are not reliable sources of information? For me, this is where the scientific method of testing and evidence steps in and proves its absolute authority. Surely this is the best method we have of discovering what the truth is in any given situation; surely nothing can beat evidence derived from proper tests.
Trick or Treatment is about proving that the vast majority of alternative medicine doesn't work but it is also a celebration of the scientific method in the context of medicine. It begins fascinatingly by recalling various important historical moments when the scientific method first began to be used and how it then revealed such hugely important secrets that had eluded mankind for so long, particularly in the field of healthcare.
These introductions serve a very useful purpose, because the crux of the book is based on the results of many high quality scientific trials that render most alternative medicine completely ineffective or even dangerous. However, there are still many out there who, for some reason, don't accept the authority of the clinical trial / scientific method and these first few chapters provide an excellent case for counteracting this mistrust.
The rest of the chapters are devoted to one of the main types of CAM and begin by providing a detailed description and background to it. Then the authors bring in the mighty weight of a vast range of quality evidence (meaning evidence from the types of trials that eliminate all possibility of bias or erroneous results) to finally blow up any doubt in the rational mind that much of this stuff is childish nonsense and simply doesn't work.
As you'd expect, there's also a lot of fascinating information and evidence about the placebo effect and whether it is morally acceptable to sell it, and why, despite lack of evidence for and concrete evidence against, people continue to waste vast amounts of time and money on CAM and continue to steadfastly believe in it.
The book came out at a similar time to one by Rose Shapiro, Suckers - How Alternative Medicine Makes Fools of us All. It treads much the same ground but is an excellent companion piece to Trick or Treatment, as both books often both elaborate on details the other one glides over. However, Trick or Treatment is better for focusing on the available evidence and therefore acts as a great reference book.
Also, to the authors' credit, they don't back away from including the results of various high profile trials that bizarrely seemed to acknowledge the efficacy of some of the main types of CAM, For instance, the WHO trials that seemed to support homeopathy and a certain BBC documentary that seemed to show somebody undergoing major heart surgery without any anaesthetic, only acupuncture (shame on you BBC!). This may be quite disheartening for the rationalist as he/she reads through this but order is soon restored once we read that such trials or PR stunts were riddled with bias or faked and that meta-analysis in fact shows the opposite.
Trick or Treatment is an important book and it's hard to believe that millions of westerners still buy into much of this nonsense. The book won't change people's minds overnight; many will still cling to their anti-Big Pharma stance, egocentric fashionista lifestyle or desire for more mystery in the world. But for those of us who place more importance in what's actually true and don't want to be a dupe, this book is invaluable as well as a fascinating read.
Excellent analysis of "alternative" and "complementary" medicine August 4, 2008
13 out of 17 found this review helpful
I have been meaning to write a review of Trick or Treatment for some months now and had a lot of sophisticated ideas how to phrase it. In the meantime, I had sent my mother a "care package", with dried cranberries, organic Earl Grey tea and a copy of Trick or Treatment. She called me last weekend and said:
"This book is so full of suspense and so extraordinarily well written. I understand what you mean now. I guess I will have to give up my beloved Arnica globules then. It *does* make sense that they cannot work if there is nothing in them. To bad that the German version does not come out until next year, I have some friends who should read this book."
There, that sums it up: Singh and Ernst obviously struck the right tone and paced the book appropriately for the educated user of "alternative medicine" to follow and accept the conclusions of many careful trials. That is excellent, because I myself somehow never muster the patience to go through the details, why this or that "alternative" is not even worth trying.
The only point that I found irritating (and so did my mum) is the sparseness of literature. Few sources are cited and they only refer to the chapter rather than a specific statement. This is something that would be worth amending in future printings and/or in other language additions. I want all necessary references in the book I am reading and don't want to be refered to another book of the author for background.
A must read for:
Any person in the medical field, so they understand who and what contributes to healing (the colour of the pill often as much as the ingredient).
Anyone with a longer lasting medical condition (since they are the prime "target" for most of the CAM methods and practitioners).
Any parent (most CAM products are essentially "Wellness" and parents should realize that they can generate "Wellness" for their child without the stringent rules of homeopathy, or the potentially dangerous upper spine manipulations of a chiropractor).
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