Every year millions of people flock to complementary and alternative therapists offering a vast array of treatments ranging from acupuncture to biofeedback to urine injections. Millions more purchase over-the-counter alternative medications, such as glucosamine, herbs, and homeopathic remedies. While consumer motivations for turning to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) vary, there is one common element among them all: a belief in their effectiveness. This belief appears to be prevalent among all elements of society, from scientists and physicians to celebrities such as Prince Charles and Oprah Winfrey to clerical workers and senior citizens. Do these therapies actually work? And if they work, how do they work? This book is about the science of complementary and alternative medicine, about how that science is conducted, how it is evaluated, and how it is synthesised to arrive at a conclusion about whether CAM therapies work. It is also about the phenomenon of the placebo effect, and the extent to which it is at play in a given CAM therapy's efficacy. Are CAM therapies in fact nothing more than creatively packaged placebos? In exploring this question, Barker Bausell provides an authoritative and engaging look at the nature of scientific evidence and at the logical, psychological, and physiological impediments that can confound such evidence in the world of CAM research. Ultimately, the book is not so much opposed to CAM as to the shoddy science upon which CAM claims are based, and in fact it closes with a chapter about how one might maximise the placebo effect that Bausell asserts is the main 'ingredient' of most CAM therapies. This book is a learned, witty examination not just of the scientific process as it is applied to CAM but also of the wonders of the human mind/body system.

Hailed in the New York Times as "entertaining and immensely educational," Snake Oil Science is not only a brilliant critique of alternative medicine, but also a first-rate introduction to interpreting scientific research of any sort. The book's ultimate goal is to illustrate how the placebo effect conspires to make medical therapies appear to be effective--not just to consumers, but to therapists and poorly trained scientists as well. Bausell explores this remarkable phenomenon and explains why research on any therapy that does not factor in the placebo effect (and other placebo-like effects) will inevitably produce false results. Moreover, as the author shows in an impressive survey of research from high-quality scientific journals, studies employing credible placebo controls do not indicate positive effects for alternative therapies beyond those attributable to random chance. Readers will come away from this book with a healthy skepticism of claims about the latest "miracle cure," be it St. John's Wort for depression or acupuncture for chronic pain.