To the Editor: Court, Bergh and Södersten raise the issue of why and how some therapies with prima facie evidence for their efficacy have a significant take-up by medical practitioners, while others are allowed to languish, sometimes for decades.1

It is 6 years since Bergh and colleagues conducted their Swedish trial on eating disorders, with significant encouraging results.2 Again they report — albeit this time with a non-randomised but local sample — above-average outcomes.1 Again, the fact that their patients had had previous treatments that failed renders the results compelling. We have to ask why no one has found the time, money or inclination to attempt to reproduce their findings or examine which elements of their intervention are successful. It would be ironic if the answer is that medical researchers are afraid of the unusual.

While Australian medical research and public health ignore this mandometer treatment, some private health funds have been prepared to contribute up to $60 000 per patient for it, suggesting that they view it as better value for money than alternative therapies.