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Dan
Rogers of St. Petersberg, FL, asks:
Are doctors and scientists mostly supportive of alternative medicine?
Dr.
Marcia Angell responds:
There is a difference between clinicians and scientists. Doctors who
are clinicians have had some training in the scientific method, but
it may have been minimal. Many clinicians are supportive of alternative
medicine, often on the theory that it may work, or at least make patients
feel better, and it cannot do much harm. I believe scientists are more
critical. They demand verifiable evidence before accepting a treatment,
and they should.
Dr.
George Lundberg responds:
Up to now most US scientists have done little work with alternative
medicine. Few funds have been available to stimulate and support research
and many of the alternative medicine modalities have been an object
of derision scientifically. We are hoping that such will change now
and that much good research will be done and published so we can settle
some of these issues. US physicians have been taught little about alternative
medicine so they have been largely ignorant of much of it and naturally
opposed to much. This is rapidly changing now that physicians understand
that many of their patients use alternative medicine and that they must
communicate with each other about that.
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