Suckers (book)

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Suckers: How alternative medicine makes fools of us all
Suckers Cover.jpg
Author Rose Shapiro
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Subject Alternative medicine
Publisher Harvill Secker
Publication date
2008
Pages304
ISBN 0-09-952286-1
OCLC 190777228

Suckers: How Alternative Medicine Makes Fools of Us All is a book about alternative medicine written by author and health journalist Rose Shapiro. It was published by Harvill Secker in 2008. It covers very similar ground to Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst's book Trick or Treatment? , but is written in a more journalistic and polemical style. It provides substantial detail regarding alternative treatments offered to cancer patients.

In the book, Shapiro stressed that homeopathy was not evidence-based medicine and said it should be removed from the National Health Service. Shapiro said that alternative medicine should be under “the same strictures as the pharmaceutical industry” and not be permitted to refer to treatments as 'food supplements'. She advised better enforcement of the Cancer Act, to protect patients from unscrupulous providers, and said the government should stop subsidizing universities that cover alternative medicine in their curriculum. [1]

Reception

Suckers was reviewed by several writers in 2008.

Writing for The Guardian in February, Steven Poole described Suckers as a "vigorous polemic" against alternative medicine with the key theme that its practices (such as homeopathy and ear candling) are "not just stupid but dangerous." [2]

Damian Thompson reviewed Suckers for The Daily Telegraph and said that Shapiro “expertly describes the pathology of medical counter knowledge". [3]

Natalie Haynes, writing in New Humanist, described the book as a "potted history of alternative medicine, as well as a thorough rebuttal of it, and her research is both fascinating and illuminating." Haynes said that Shapiro harbored the greatest anger for "snake-oil merchants who knowingly prey on the weak", in particular those with terminal cancer. [4]

Boyd Tonkin, then the literary editor for The Independent, called the book a "ferocious assault" on proponents of alternative medicine that was a "bracing tonic" but he criticized the tone of the writing for its "sneery arrogance that (as with the Ayurvedic tradition) can only bother to caricature its few substantial foes." [5]

In a joint review of Suckers and Trick or Treatment? , Olivia Laing said Suckers was a "troubling book" filled with horror stories of alternative practitioners where Shapiro "takes a delight in exposing alternative medicine's wackier tenets". Laing said the book's title "casts consumers as gullible and practitioners as vampiric in a way that many will find intensely irritating" while both books harbor "an acute awareness of the need for medicine to be evidence-based, a belief shared by the more sensible alternative practitioners." [6]

Simon Singh, co-author of Trick or Treatment?, said that although he shared Shapiro's "general skepticism" and found the book an "interesting read" he noted two weaknesses. Singh said Shapiro takes a "very aggressive stance against alternative medicine" using a title that is designed to be hostile and second, that she "tends to focus on the truly wacky end of the alternative spectrum" and does not "devote enough space to more complex and subtle issues surrounding some of the more sensible forms of alternative medicine." [7]

Related Research Articles

Alternative medicine is any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine despite lacking biological plausibility, testability, repeatability, or evidence from clinical trials. Unlike modern medicine, which employs the scientific method to test plausible therapies by way of responsible and ethical clinical trials, producing repeatable evidence of either effect or of no effect, alternative therapies reside outside of medical science and do not originate from using the scientific method, but instead rely on testimonials, anecdotes, religion, tradition, superstition, belief in supernatural "energies", pseudoscience, errors in reasoning, propaganda, fraud, or other unscientific sources. Frequently used terms for relevant practices are New Age medicine, pseudo-medicine, holistic medicine, unorthodox medicine, fringe medicine, and unconventional medicine, with little distinction from quackery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homeopathy</span> Pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine

Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine. It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Its practitioners, called homeopaths, believe that a substance that causes symptoms of a disease in healthy people can cure similar symptoms in sick people; this doctrine is called similia similibus curentur, or "like cures like". Homeopathic preparations are termed remedies and are made using homeopathic dilution. In this process, the selected substance is repeatedly diluted until the final product is chemically indistinguishable from the diluent. Often not even a single molecule of the original substance can be expected to remain in the product. Between each dilution homeopaths may hit and/or shake the product, claiming this makes the diluent remember the original substance after its removal. Practitioners claim that such preparations, upon oral intake, can treat or cure disease.

Sucker may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Naturopathy</span> Form of alternative medicine

Naturopathy, or naturopathic medicine, is a form of alternative medicine. A wide array of pseudoscientific practices branded as "natural", "non-invasive", or promoting "self-healing" are employed by its practitioners, who are known as naturopaths. Difficult to generalize, these treatments range from outright quackery, like homeopathy, to widely accepted practices like certain forms of psychotherapy. The ideology and methods of naturopathy are based on vitalism and folk medicine rather than evidence-based medicine, although practitioners may use techniques supported by evidence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quackery</span> Promotion of fraudulent or ignorant medical practices

Quackery, often synonymous with health fraud, is the promotion of fraudulent or ignorant medical practices. A quack is a "fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill" or "a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to have skill, knowledge, qualification or credentials they do not possess; a charlatan or snake oil salesman". The term quack is a clipped form of the archaic term quacksalver, from Dutch: kwakzalver a "hawker of salve". In the Middle Ages the term quack meant "shouting". The quacksalvers sold their wares at markets by shouting to gain attention.

Rolfing is a form of alternative medicine originally developed by Ida Rolf (1896–1979) as Structural Integration. Rolfing is marketed with unproven claims of various health benefits. It is based on Rolf's ideas about how the human body's "energy field" can benefit when aligned with the Earth's gravitational field.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allopathic medicine</span> Term for science-based, modern medicine

Allopathic medicine, or allopathy, is an archaic and derogatory label originally used by 19th-century homeopaths to describe heroic medicine, the precursor of modern evidence-based medicine. There are regional variations in usage of the term. In the United States, the term is sometimes used to contrast with osteopathic medicine, especially in the field of medical education. In India, the term is used to distinguish conventional modern medicine from Ayurveda, homeopathy, Unani and other alternative and traditional medicine traditions, especially when comparing treatments and drugs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simon Singh</span> British physicist and popular science author (born 1964)

Simon Lehna Singh, is a British popular science author, theoretical and particle physicist. His written works include Fermat's Last Theorem, The Code Book, Big Bang, Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial and The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets. In 2012 Singh founded the Good Thinking Society, through which he created the website "Parallel" to help students learn mathematics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Null</span> American talk radio host and author who advocates for alternative medicine

Gary Michael Null is an American talk radio host and author who advocates pseudoscientific alternative medicine and produces a line of questionable dietary supplements.

Anthroposophic medicine is a form of alternative medicine based on pseudoscientific and occult notions. Devised in the 1920s by Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) in conjunction with Ita Wegman (1876–1943), anthroposophical medicine draws on Steiner's spiritual philosophy, which he called anthroposophy. Practitioners employ a variety of treatment techniques based upon anthroposophic precepts, including massage, exercise, counselling, and substances.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edzard Ernst</span> German academic physician and researcher (born 1948)

Edzard Ernst is a retired British-German academic physician and researcher specializing in the study of complementary and alternative medicine. He was Professor of Complementary Medicine at the University of Exeter, allegedly the world's first such academic position in complementary and alternative medicine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Siddha medicine</span> System of traditional medicine originating in southern India

Siddha medicine is a form of traditional medicine originating in southern India. It is one of the oldest systems of medicine in India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Regulation and prevalence of homeopathy</span> Alternative medicine

Homeopathy is fairly common in some countries while being uncommon in others. In some countries, there are no specific legal regulations concerning the use of homeopathy, while in others, licenses or degrees in conventional medicine from accredited universities are required.

The Ministry of Ayush, a ministry of the Government of India, is responsible for developing education, research and propagation of traditional medicine systems in India. Ayush is a name devised from the names of the alternative healthcare systems covered by the ministry: Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sowa Rigpa, and Homeopathy.

The Foundation for Integrated Health (FIH) was a controversial charity run by King Charles III founded in 1993. The foundation promoted complementary and alternative medicine, preferring to use the term "integrated health", and lobbied for its inclusion in the National Health Service. The charity closed in 2010 after allegations of fraud and money laundering led to the arrest of a former official.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Fisher (physician)</span> British doctor

Peter Antony Goodwin Fisher, FRCP was an English physician who served as physician to Queen Elizabeth II for 17 years.

<i>Trick or Treatment?</i> 2008 book by Singh and Ernst

Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial is a 2008 book by Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst. The book evaluates the scientific evidence for alternative medicines such as acupuncture, homeopathy, herbal medicine, and chiropractic, and briefly covers 36 other treatments. It finds that the scientific evidence for these alternative treatments is generally lacking. The authors concluded that homeopathy is merely a placebo.

Rose Shapiro is a British writer who contributes regularly to several publications including The Independent, The Observer, The Guardian, Time Out, Good Housekeeping and the Health Service Journal. She wrote the book Suckers: How Alternative Medicine Makes Fools of Us All.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kimball Atwood</span> American medical doctor, researcher and alternative medicine critic

Kimball C. Atwood IV is an American medical doctor and researcher from Newton, Massachusetts. He is retired as an assistant clinical professor at Tufts University School of Medicine and anesthesiologist at Newton-Wellesley Hospital.

References

  1. Shapiro, Rose (2008). Suckers : How Alternative Medicine Makes Fools of Us All. London: Harvill Secker. p. 258. ISBN   978-1-84655-028-7.
  2. Poole, Steven (9 February 2008). "Quack work". The Guardian . London. Retrieved 24 May 2010.
  3. Thompson, Damien (11 February 2008). "Making quackery credible". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 1 March 2012.
  4. Haynes, Natalie (4 March 2008). "Suckers: How Alternative Medicine Makes Fools Of Us All by Rose Shapiro". New Humanist . Retrieved 10 April 2016.
  5. Tonkin, Boyd (14 March 2008). "Paperback: Suckers, by Rose Shapiro". The Independent. Retrieved 2023-04-02.
  6. Laing, Olivia (3 May 2008). "Quacks on the rack (review of Suckers)". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 April 2016.
  7. Singh, Simon (29 February 2008). "Poor alternative". Financial Times. Retrieved 2023-04-02.