The scientists who pronounced from on high on the dangers of complementary medicine are all extremely distinguished in their fields, I'm sure, but I fear that they are failing to grasp why this field of medicine is growing so fast in popularity.
Earlier this week, 13 senior doctors wrote to every NHS chief executive in the country urging them not to suggest anything but evidence-based medicine for their patients. Signatories to the letter included Sir James Black a winner of the Nobel prize for medicine, and Michael Baum, an emeritus professor of surgery at University College London.
There was something of the traditional elitism about these giants of the medical establishment - one of the most rigid of elites - lecturing the country from their august heights. In sweeping terms, they lumped all kinds of complementary therapies together. Yet some of those, such as osteopathy and acupuncture, now have a good evidence base; others, such as massage, clearly have palliative benefits for many kinds of chronic pain.
But in this letter, and the way it was reported, all such therapies were dismissed and the repeated failure of one of them, homeopathy, to demonstrate evidence of effectiveness in clinical trials was emphasised.
No one is disputing that scientific methods have reaped great breakthroughs in medical science. It's just that there are other dimensions to be considered: how human beings experience pain, the nature of the relationship between practitioner and patient; the psychosomatic processes involved and how the mind and body interrelate; and about how all healing is delivered within cultural contexts that can themselves affect outcomes.
These are huge areas where much work needs to be done, it seems to me. How can we explain the capacity of some people to tolerate levels of that others cannot? What kinds of emotional reserves can help strengthen immunity? And if they do, how can those emotional reserves be mobilised? There are some people whose presence is therapeutic in ways we sometimes find hard to identify, whose qualities of presence, calmness and attentiveness can heal another.
Some dismiss all this as nonsense. But the obsession with technology, managerialism and throughput in the NHS has left many health professionals hugely frustrated that they have no time for the very qualities of relationship they believe are so critical to the healing process. And this is the gap in the NHS that therapists, in their increasing numbers, are filling.
If the NHS were to be bullied into cutting back on complementary therapies, the people who would lose out are those with the limited financial and personal resources; the well off will continue to flock to their complementary therapists, and are prepared to pay for the benefits they experience in improved wellbeing.
What will get hit is the innovative NHS projects, where such benefits are being brought within reach of new groups, such as the elderly receiving acupuncture to relieve arthritic pain or those getting osteopathy for chronic back pain.
What we need to take on board is that the most powerful medical treatment available for much of human history has been the placebo; basically, believing you will get better can actually contribute to making you so. We need a much better understanding of this phenomenon, and how ancient medical traditions used it, before we start dismantling those pioneering projects that are working to integrate western medicine with older healing systems.
