Appeal to reason to win back the 'suckers'

THE review of Suckers by Roger Fletcher (M Star June 15) about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) raises interesting points.

Many people have called for more testing of CAM, as they believe that this would validate a lot of methods.

But many traditional medical practitioners are, both by training and belief, hostile to CAM.

Many doctors seem to believe that the only "scientific" validation is the double-blind trial, as this is the way to eliminate the placebo effect.

As a qualified remedial masseur and manipulative therapist, I realise how inappropriate such tests are for "hands-on" therapies.

You cannot, for example, massage one group and only pretend to massage another.

A few years ago, the consultant orthopaedic surgeon at the university hospital in Nottingham held a trial comparing yoga and traditional physiotherapy in the treatment of non-specific low back pain.

Authorised by the ethics committee and with the practical arrangements completed, the physiotherapists withdrew co-operation and refused to participate.

Since a 1996 trial between physiotherapy and chiropractic which demonstrated the superiority of the latter in the treatment of back pain, physiotherapists seem particularly unwilling to allow any objective evaluation.

Without a control group, the results of the yoga trial could not be published, but they did, apparently, show a high level of patient satisfaction.

I am unusual within my profession in that I was able to work for a while for the NHS at a GP surgery during the fund-holding period and, for three years afterwards, for a primary care group, until funding cutbacks.

CAM is usually labour intensive and expensive, so it is the middle classes who use it. Working-class people often have no other choice than the GP.

Let us have tests, using appropriate methods, and make those techniques that are validated generally available on the NHS.

KEVIN WADDINGTON
King's Lynn