Killing Us Softly

Title: Killing Us Softly - The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine

Author: Paul Offit

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2013 (First)

ISBN: 9780007532964

Pages: 322

Mankind is at present going through the most prosperous era of its existence on the planet. Even while sustaining the largest population ever, many of them are well fed and taken care of. Hunger is, of course, still a curse to reckon with, but it is a legacy of the past and persists where unsettled conditions generated by civil war and turmoil prevail. An average person lives many years, if not decades, more than his forefathers did three or four generations ago. This revolution in life expectancy was achieved with spectacular progress in agriculture, medicine and technology. Needless to say, this explosion in productivity was made possible by shrewd application of scientific principles in these fields. However, people in modern societies are developing an aversion to science and its methods. They crave for organic farming and natural fertilizers, while wanting to throw out chemical fertilizers and pesticides. In the medical field, the overarching concern is with harmful side effects of medicines used for life-threatening diseases. What organic farming is to agriculture is what alternative medicine is to healthcare. A long list of recipes and products are trumpeted in the conventional media and on the Internet. Most of the products advertised by homeopathy, Ayurveda and chiropractic offer solace little more than placebos. But these formulations can sometimes turn deadly too, as they demand their followers to shun modern medicine altogether. Not counting the exorbitant amounts they charge from patients, the atmosphere of scientific denialism associated with these practices is cause for concern. This book provides an overall view of the leading figures of alternative medicine and how it is practiced with its snake oil formulations. Paul Offit is a pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases and an expert on vaccines, immunology and virology. He is a professor of vaccinology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Alternative medicine has earned more respect than skeptics credit them and the author mentions that 42 per cent of US hospitals offer some form of alternative therapies. Patient demand is cited as the reason for this shift from established custom. This is in turn emphasized by the widespread notion – even among educated people – that mainstream medicine offers unnatural remedies with intolerable side effects, while alternative medicine employ natural substances which are safe by corollary. Nothing can be more distant from the truth. Offit lists a number of natural products which are deadly toxins even in trace quantities. In fact, all therapies should be held to the same high standard of proof or we’ll continue to be hoodwinked by healers who ask us to believe in them rather than in the science that fails to support their claims. There is no such thing as conventional, or alternative, or complementary medicine. There’s only medicine that works and medicine that doesn’t. The best way to sort it out is by carefully evaluating scientific studies, and not by visiting Internet sites, reading magazine articles or simply talking to friends. Extensive clinical tests should be the sole basis for introducing or discarding a new drug. Of the 51000-odd nutritional supplements on the market, only four might be of some benefit proved by testing. Appeals on the long ancestry of alternative therapies like acupuncture and Ayurveda shall fool no one. The very fact that a system had stayed unchanged for millennia only proves its inadequacy to treat modern ailments.

Endorsement by celebrities is another trick by which charlatans captivate people’s minds. Scientists renowned in their field of research sometimes side with dubious products. The book tells the case of Linus Pauling, who was the only person to win two unshared Nobel Prizes – for chemistry and peace. Unfortunately, at the height of his reputation, he turned an advocate of quackery. He believed that vitamin C is the antidote of many diseases from common cold to cancer. Advocates of the megavitamin industry advised astronomically huge dosages in the range of 18000 mg per day. But studies show intake of vitamins in large doses increases the risk of heart diseases and cancer. The bitter irony was that Pauling’s wife died of stomach cancer and Pauling himself suffered from prostate cancer and passed away as a result. Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple and one of the world’s leading innovators, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. His was a neuroendocrine tumour and had excellent chances of recovery with early surgery. But, Jobs was a man of strange beliefs and practices. He used acupuncture, herbal remedies, bowel cleansings and a special cancer diet of carrots and fruit juices for nine crucial months after diagnosis! By the time he agreed to surgery, time was definitely not on his side. The cancer had spread and the innovator died of a treatable disease.

Quacks and shamans had always tried to sell their products to a gullible public. Statutes to regulate this trade began to be enforced by early twentieth century. This book contains an interesting narrative of the acts came into being in the US in spite of the hurdles put in its way. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 made it mandatory for the manufacturers to list out the ingredients of each recipe. The Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act of 1938 required safety testing before drugs were sold. The Kefauver – Harris Amendment of 1961 to the 1938 act forced the manufacturers to show that drugs were not only safe but effective. However, legal control began to loosen thereafter. The Proxmire Amendment of 1974 took FDA out of pursuit of the megavitamin industry. The ace regulation that gave the food supplement industry free rein was the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994. This statute so thoroughly defanged the FDA that the law was mockingly referred to as the Snake Oil Protection Act.

As the book nears the end, one question comes up prominently on the reader’s mind. If the alternative remedies are so harmful and bad for health, then why do people flock to them with good results at least occasionally? Also, for terminally ill patients who have been forsaken by modern medicine, what’s wrong in trying out alternative medicine? Offit anticipates these questions and earmarks two chapters to explain this paradox. Alternative medicine works solely by the placebo effect, in which the patient feels confidence in the doctor and believes that the medication given to him will cure the disease and the feeling sometimes cures him! Often, even sugar pills and plain water can heal many maladies. The mechanism of betterment is analyzed in detail. If the alternative practitioners had left it at that, there was no problem. However, the author identifies four ways in which placebo medicine crosses the limit to quackery. The first is by recommending against conventional therapies that are helpful. Then they promote potentially harmful therapies without adequate warning. The third is that they drain the patient’s money. Most of these treatments are very costly. The fourth and lasting method is by promoting magical thinking, scientific denialism and encouragement of neglect of sound scientific principles.

The book is very easy to read with a thoroughly humorous presentation and complex concepts neatly explained. It attacks the false premise that doctors are evil and mainstream medicine can’t be trusted. Marketing hype with the terms ‘organic’, ‘natural’ and ‘antioxidant’ are examined threadbare and effortlessly routed. What the book lacks is a front-on attack on the bogus principles of homeopathy and the use of heavy metals in ayurvedic remedies. Both these topics get only scant attention and the caveats given by the author are fleeting. One or two chapters detailing these subjects would add much interest to future editions. The book provides a huge collection of notes compiled at the end.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star