Ethical and legal issues at the interface of complementary and conventional medicine

To the Editor: Although Kerridge and McPhee stress the need to find an evidence base (if there is any) for CAM, they nevertheless claim “medical practitioners and students no longer have any choice but to gain some knowledge about CAM and the interface between conventional and complementary medicine.”1

I suppose that archaeologists, geologists, palaeontologists and biologists now need to gain some knowledge about the interface between Darwinism and Creation Science. And our astronomers need some knowledge about the interface between astronomy and astrology.

Science, including effective medical care, is not advanced by pandering to unscientific consumerism about unproven theories, especially if it manages to get the law on its side. Galileo was persecuted for “his heretical view” that the earth revolved around the sun. Have we learnt nothing from his experience?