CAM in Modern Medical Care

When it comes to the integration of CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) into modern medical care two questions immediately come to mind. Is it safe? And does it work?

Contrary to the beliefs of most CAM proponents. There are not two types of medicine. There is only medicine that has been tested and found to be safe and effective. And everything else. The everything else is things that either have not been proven to be safe and effective. Or things that have been tested and found to be either not safe or not effective.
A few examples if I may. Aspirin: Tested and found to be both safe and effective. Antibiotics: Tested and found to be both safe and effective. The smallpox vaccine: Tested and found to be both safe and effective. Homeopathy: Tested and found to be safe yet ineffective. Acupuncture: Tested and found to be safe (provided sterile technique is used) and no more effective than sticking random needles in anywhere.

If a modality is proven to be both safe and effective it then becomes medicine.
So what about modalities that are safe but ineffective? If this is what the patient wants, should the medical profession offer these treatments to patients?

The first question is whether or not it is ethically responsible to offer a patient a treatment that provides no actual benefit? In effect should a doctor administer a placebo? This is a tricky issue and one that I'm not in the least bit capable of doing justice to. But it is my opinion that it isn't right for doctors to offer treatments they know have no benefit other then placebo when an effective treatment exists. Full disclosure requires, in my opinion, that the doctor explain that the treatment being sought is in fact proven ineffective. And I think all efforts should be made to convince the patient that a proven, effective treatment would be in their interest. Even in the case where no known effective treatment exists. It is still wrong to offer an ineffective treatment that may create false hope in the patient.  

The second question is should such modalities even have a presence in modern medical care? My preference is no. Modern medicine should be science based. Training and practice should be limited to treatments and care that has backing and basis for proven safety and efficacy. However. If quacks, the deluded and the general con artists insist on promoting and practicing unsafe and ineffective modalities. And the public continues to see these as acceptable forms of treatment. And even sometimes viable and equal alternatives to real medicine! Would it not be better to at least being them into the supervision of qualified medical professionals. So that when the inevitable intervention is required. It can be administered quickly and competently? On this issue I am tempted to say yes. But I have strong objections on two grounds.
First. I feel that this would severely weaken the scientific base upon which modern medicine stands. And would be an enormous waste of health care resources.
Second. Such a move would seem to legitimise CAM as an acceptable medical option. This would have a severe negative impact on the public understanding of science and the role it plays in medicine.

The danger of CAM when practiced outside of legitimate medical supervision, (if it needs to be stated) is that it both delays, or entirely prevents, real and effective medical intervention. Which has the possibility of causing severe injury or death. And it contributes greatly to the public misunderstanding of science and it's role in society. Which in turn leads to a public that is less scientifically literate as a whole.  

So what is the solution? I think that the only answer is to raise the public understanding of science and the role it plays in our modern medical system. There needs to be a better general understanding of why CAM persists and why it isn't the legitimate competitor to medicine that some believe it to be. This can only be done through positive public education on the subject.

Proponents of CAM often site the broken medical system that we have now as justification for pushing their alternatives. In reality, the actual medical system has nothing to do with the science. If the science is solid then it speaks for itself. Those same people will often grossly underestimate the profits involved in CAM. Homeopathy is itself a billion dollar industry. There is enormous profit in selling water to the deceived. The supplement industry makes billions selling pills that will have no effect. Other than causing you to produce expensive urine. CAM is not an alternative to big business. It is big business. The largest producers of CAM "medicine" are the same companies that produce the science based medicine.

Magic and superstition may have served us in the past. But there is a better alternative now. One that has been proven to work and been more successful than any other method of investigation in human history.
Science is the best tool we have for investigating the world and distinguishing what is real from what we want to be real. This is why we base our medicine in science. This is why our average life span in the developed world has doubled. And it's why things like malaria, AIDS and Cancer no longer mean automatic death. To disregard all this in favor of magic is to reject reason itself.