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    Shadow medicine : the placebo in conventional and alternative therapies / John S. Haller Jr.

    • Title:Shadow medicine : the placebo in conventional and alternative therapies / John S. Haller Jr.
    •    
    • Variant Title:Placebo in conventional and unconventional therapies
    • Author/Creator:Haller, John S., Jr., 1940- author.
    • Published/Created:New York : Columbia University Press, [2014]
    • Holdings

       
    • Library of Congress Subjects:Alternative medicine.
      Placebos (Medicine)
    • Medical Subjects: Placebos.
      Complementary Therapies.
      Evidence-Based Medicine.
      Placebo Effect.
    • Description:xxix, 255 pages ; 24 cm
    • Summary:Can Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) and Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) find common ground? A distinguished historian of medicine, John S. Haller Jr., explores the epistemological foundations of EBM and the challenges these conceptual tools present for both conventional and alternative therapies. As he explores a possible reconciliation between their conflicting approaches, Haller maintains a healthy, scientific skepticism yet finds promise in select complementary and alternative (CAM) therapies. Haller elucidates recent research on the placebo effect and shows how a new engagement between EBM and CAM might lead to a more productive medical practice that includes both the objectivity of evidence-based medicine and the subjective truth of the physician-patient relationship. Haller's book tours key topics in the standoff between EBM and CAM: how and why the double blinded, randomized clinical trial (RCT) came to be considered the gold standard in modern medicine; the challenge of postmodern medicine as it counters the positivism of evidence-based medicine; and the politics of modern CAM and the rise of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. He conducts an in-depth case study of homeopathy, explaining why it has emerged as a poster-child for CAM, and assesses CAM's popularity despite its poor performance in clinical trials. Haller concludes with hope, showing how new experimental protocols might tease out the evidentiary basis for the placebo effect and establish a foundation for some reconciliation between EBM and CAM.
    • Notes:Includes bibliographical references and index.
    • ISBN:9780231169042 (cloth : alk. paper)
      0231169043 (cloth : alk. paper)
      9780231537704 (ebook)
    • Contents:Machine generated contents note: 1. Evidence-Based Medicine
      Normative Science
      Big Pharma
      Cochrane Collaboration
      Cochrane Complementary Medicine
      Ethics and Equipoise
      2. Postmodernist Medicine
      Psychosomatic Medicine
      Spirituality
      Open Door
      CAM Popularity
      American Medical Schools
      3. "The Powerful Placebo"
      Beecher's Discovery
      What and How
      Doctor as Drug
      Factor of Trust
      Assumptive World
      4. Politics of Healing
      Office of Alternative Medicine
      Wayne Jonas
      Quantitative Methods Working Group
      NCCAM
      White House Commission
      Institute of Medicine Report
      Next Decade
      5. Complementary and Alternative Medicine's Challenge: A Case Study
      More of Less Is More: Homeopathy
      Homeopathic Practice
      Matter and Energy
      Ships in the Night
      To RCT or Not to RCT
      Rebuttal
      Dilemma
      6. Reassessment.
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