Snake Oil Science

R. Barker Bausell, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore, was Research Director of a National Institutes of Health-funded Complementary and Alternative Medicine Specialized Research Center.

Introduction ; 1. The Rise of Complementary and Alternative Therapies ; 2. A Brief History of Placebos ; 3. Natural Impediments to Making Valid Inferences ; 4. Impediments That Prevent our Physicians and Therapists From Making Valid Inferences ; 5. Impediments that Prevent Poorly Trained Scientists from Making Valid Inferences ; 6. Why Randomized Placebo Control Groups Are Necessary in CAM Research ; 7. Judging the Credibility and Plausibility of Scientific Evidence ; 8. Some Personal Research ; 9. How We Know that the Placebo Effect Exists ; 10. A Bio-Chemical Explanation for the Placebo Effect ; 11. Do CAM Therapies Work Or Are They Placebo Effects? Evidence From High Quality Randomized Placebo Controlled Trials ; 12. Do CAM Therapies Work Or Are They Placebo Effects? Evidence From High Quality Systematic Reviews ; 13. How CAM Therapies Are Hypothesized to Work ; 14. Tying Up a Few Loose Ends ; Notes ; Index