Incommensurable worldviews? Is public use of complementary and alternative medicines incompatible with support for science and conventional medicine?

ABSTRACT: Proponents of controversial Complementary and Alternative Medicines, such as homeopathy, argue that these treatments can be used with great effect in addition to, and sometimes instead of, 'conventional' medicine. In doing so, they accept the idea that the scientific approach to the evaluation of treatment does not undermine use of and support for some of the more controversial CAM treatments. For those adhering to the scientific canon, however, such efficacy claims lack the requisite evidential basis from randomised controlled trials. It is not clear, however, whether such opposition characterises the views of the general public. In this paper we use data from the 2009 Wellcome Monitor survey to investigate public use of and beliefs about the efficacy of a prominent and controversial CAM

SUBMITTER: Stoneman P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3559728 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature