BMJ  2005;331 (15 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7521.0-h

Editor's choice

Keep politics out of it

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

Are complementary and alternative medicines cost effective? Patients are increasingly voting with their feet, despite having to pay out of their own pockets, so governments and health plans must decide whether these treatments should be provided alongside conventional health care. The much leaked and now somewhat improved Smallwood report concludes that they should be funded, arguing that they will help patients and save money. In their editorial (p 856) Trevor Thompson and Gene Feder are perplexed about some aspects of the report—in particular the inclusion of asthma as one of the "effectiveness gaps" of conventional medicine. But overall they conclude that complementary medicine should be included in clinical guidelines despite limited evidence of cost effectiveness.

As an example of how poor the evidence is, Peter Canter and colleagues present a systematic review of cost effectiveness analyses of complementary treatments (p 880). They found only five rigorous . . . [Full text of this article]

Fiona Godlee, editor

(fgodlee@bmj.com)


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Rapid Responses:

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NICE blight
Andrew Hagley
bmj.com, 14 Oct 2005 [Full text]
Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.
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