Last week, the Times Higher Education Supplement has published accusations that some British universities are offering "bogus" degrees in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).
The comments were made by Edzard Ernst, the University of Exeter's
professor of complementary medicine. His team claim that 155
"unscientific" courses, in subjects such as Aynrvedic medicine, Naad
yoga and homeopathy, are being offered by 43 institutions. The
University of Westminster was deemed as the worst offender.
"The lack of engagement from the worst offending universities has
motivated us to draw up this league table...we want to embarrass them
into acknowledging the pseudo-scientific degrees they are offering,"
Ernst was quoted as saying.
Ernst is probably the acknowledged global expert on the subject,
being the word's first professor of CAM . He has had over 700 papers
published in scientific journals and recently attracted headlines
when he criticised the Prince of Wales' misrepresentation of the
scientific validity of many alternative practices during the
publication of his book Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial, written with Simon Singh.
One of the universities criticised, Middlesex, responded by saying,
"It is difficult to see how anyone could consider the healthcare system
of Ayurveda as ‘non-scientific'. People from India and Sri Lanka have
considered it science for thousands of years."
Alternative medicine is a controversial subject, with its exponents
and detractors approaching debate with equal vigour. Richard Dawkins,
of The God Delusion fame, wrote in his 2003 book A Devil's Chaplain:
"Alternative medicine is defined as that set of practices which cannot
be tested, refuse to be tested or consistently fail tests. If a healing
technique is demonstrated to have curative properties in properly
controlled double-blind trials, it ceases to be alternative. It simply,
as Diamond explains, becomes medicine."
You can check out the industry's website here. Our own fact sheet on aromatherapy can be found here.
