BMJ  2004;329:858 (9 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7470.858-a

Letter

The prince and the professor

With respect, Professor Baum, you've got it wrong

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—In his personal view on the Prince of Wales's speech, Baum takes the view that only evidence based practices should be used, such as those of orthodox medicine.¹ Brighthope reminds us that 85% of medical treatments are not supported by solid scientific evidence and only about 1-5% of articles published in medical journals are "scientifically sound," concluding that poor medical evidence supports most medical practices, including surgery (Baum's specialty).² Accusing complementary and alternative medicine of being unproved is hypocritical.

The Prince of Wales did not promote any alternative treatments. Rather, he mentioned examples of what he had heard from patients who used juices or the Gerson diet to highlight the importance of looking at the evidence of such anecdotal reports.

Baum has "much time for complementary and alternative medicine that offers improvements in quality of life or spiritual solace." Perhaps he has difficulty believing that it may also . . . [Full text of this article]

School of Nursing Midwifery and Health Visiting, University of Manchester, Manchester alex.molassiotis@man.ac.uk

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