Trick or Treatment

I was not very confident of my decision when I picked Trick or Treatment on my last trip to Crosswords. The subtitle said 'Alternative Medicine on Trial' and frankly I had not given the topic a single thought before. I bought it nonetheless, mainly because Simon Singh is a co-author and I am fan of his books. The book covers four main alternative therapies, Acupuncture, Homeopathy, Chiropractic theory and Herbal medicine. The authors analyze the scientific evidence available for the efficacy of these. The book is really well written (but that is to be expected from Mr.Singh), with interesting digressions into topics such as history of clinical trials and placebo effect. I have one axe to grind though, the authors often repeat themselves, something which takes away from the readability. And here is the grand conclusion, none of the alternative therapies mentioned above is worth the hype it generates. Marginal benifits have been shown under specific conditions, but cure-all claims are largely baseless. But such information is not widely available, and with the size of the global Alternative Medicine industry crossing $40bn, we really need that info.