Edzard Ernst in MJA on Integrative Medicine, 2016

here, some excerpts and my musings:

001. at mja.com.au, Edzard Ernst writes in "Integrative Medicine: More than the Promotion of Unproven Treatments?" (2016-03-21):

"alternative medicine became complementary medicine and now it seems to have morphed into integrative (or integrated) medicine [...which] made its debut in the mid-1990s with the slogan 'the best of both worlds' [...]";

marketing, marketing, marketing.

"the United States Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine and Health and others  [...are] stressing that the modalities used must be 'informed by evidence'. But why only 'informed by' and not 'based on' evidence? [...]";

excellent question.  Evidence and science as garnish.

"it has been claimed that integrative medicine is merely a rebranding exercise for alternative medicine, and a critical assessment of the treatments that integrative clinics currently offer confirms this suspicion. The vast majority of such establishments advertise alternative therapies that lack a solid evidence base. Many of them offer homeopathy, for instance, about which the National Health and Medical Research Council recently concluded that: 'homeopathy should not be used to treat health conditions that are chronic, serious, or could become serious. People who choose homeopathy may put their health at risk if they reject or delay treatments for which there is good evidence for safety and effectiveness.'  Promoting such questionable therapies under the guise of integrative medicine seems neither ethical nor in line with the currently accepted standards of evidence-based practice [...]";

hear, hear.

"integrative medicine is an ill-conceived concept which turns out to be largely about the promotion and use of unproven or disproven therapies. It thus is in conflict with the principles of both evidence-based medicine and medical ethics [...]";

and it continues, unfettered...