Edzard Ernst Quotes
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Slowly but surely I became resigned to the fact that, for some alternative medicine zealots, no amount of explanation would ever suffice. To them, alternative medicine seemed to have mutated into a religion, a cult whose central creed must be defended at all costs against the infidel.
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What I vehemently disagreed with was the implication that, simply because pharmaceuticals often have serious side effects, the risks of alternative medicine should be spared scrutiny. This seemed to me to be a total non sequitur.
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Alternative medicine had begun its remarkable ascent in a general climate of unreason. Incrementally, over the past two decades, we have seen the emergence of a culture that is curiously indifferent to the concept of truth. There is not one truth now, but many—all of them interchangeable, all of them of equal weight, and all deserving of equal consideration. In this Wonderland of relative facts, parallel truths and intellectual legerdemain, basing an argument on flawed reasoning does not automatically disqualify or even devalue it. To the contrary: logical fallacies are tolerated—indeed, often celebrated—as manifestations of a much-needed diversity.
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The notion that only those who preach the gospel of integrated medicine are able to perform the art of medicine is as ridiculous as it is insulting to everyone in healthcare who does his/her best to meet the needs of their patients. The assumption that unproven or disproven treatments become acceptable simply because they are often administered in a kind and caring fashion is quite simply not true.
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The fact that any person or institution, however well respected, praises or adopts something never constitutes proof of anything. It might merely illustrate that even well-educated people or powerful institutions can sometimes commit the silliest and most obvious of mistakes.
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Getting vehemently attacked by homeopaths for not having any formal qualifications in homeopathy is hilarious considering that, in the UK (and in many other countries), no qualifications whatever are required to practise or research homeopathy.
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We should listen less to the opinions of those who either overtly promote or stubbornly reject complementary and alternative medicine without acceptable evidence. The many patients who use complementary and alternative medicine deserve better. Patients and healthcare providers need to know which forms are safe and effective. Its future should (and hopefully will) be determined by unbiased scientific evaluation.
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Any effective treatment—effective beyond placebo that is—will generate a specific effect plus a placebo effect, provided that clinicians administer it with sufficient time, dedication, compassion and empathy.
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There is no such thing as alternative medicine; there are just treatments that work, and those that don’t.
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The claim of alternative practitioners to not treat disease labels but the whole patient...allows alternative practitioners to live in a fool's paradise of quackery where they believe themselves to be protected from any challenges and demands for evidence.
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An uncritical scientist is a contradiction in terms: if you meet one, chances are that you have encountered a charlatan. By contrast, a critical clinician is a true rarity, in my experience. If you meet one, chances are that you have found a good and responsible doctor.
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If there were indeed effective natural, alternative cancer cures known to—but suppressed by—oncologists, no oncologist, nor any friend, colleague or family member of an oncologist, would ever die of cancer.