Is alternative medicine effective?

Anyone can portray themselves as an alternative therapist

Question: Is alternative medicine effective?
Position‹3 of 3: Alternative medicine can cause serious harm
Argument1 of 4›: Anyone can portray themselves as an alternative therapist

Unlike the years and years of intensive education, ongoing supervision and high levels of regulation that doctors, nurses and pharmacists undergo, anyone can set up shop as an alternative therapist or healer.

The argument

This argument locates the danger of alternative medicine in the absence of gatekeeping rather than in the content of any particular therapy. Although many alternative therapists have undergone training, the regulations governing them are very loose, and traditional, complementary and alternative medicines remain largely unregulated. The consequence is that the title carries no guarantee: anyone can portray themselves as an alternative therapist, because there is no licensing body with the authority to say who may not. Two features of that situation make it hazardous. The first is that patients cannot distinguish between practitioners. Where a profession is regulated, registration itself conveys that minimum standards have been met, and a patient need not assess the practitioner's competence directly. Without that signal, a trained therapist and a self-proclaimed one present themselves identically to someone seeking help. The second is that nothing restrains the treatment offered, since practice is not defined by any enforceable standard of care. The consequences can be fatal. Aiden Fenton, a diabetic seven-year-old Sydney boy, died after attending one of self-proclaimed Chinese healer Hongchi Xiao's "slapping therapy" workshops, in which patients are slapped, often to the point of bruising, in order to "unblock poisons." The case illustrates each element of the problem at once: a practitioner whose standing was self-conferred, a procedure no regulator had assessed, and a patient with a serious medical condition for whom the alternative on offer displaced treatment that was not. The risk is widening rather than contained. Online health gurus and influencers increase the reach of charlatans and quackery, extending their audience among vulnerable people well beyond any consulting room. Because anyone can pose as an alternative therapist, alternative medicine can cause serious harm.

Premises

[P1]Alternative and complementary medicine is largely unregulated, so almost anyone can portray themselves as an alternative therapist despite minimal oversight. [P2] This lax regulation lets charlatans harm vulnerable people — as when seven-year-old Aiden Fenton died after a self-proclaimed healer's "slapping therapy" workshop — a risk amplified by online health gurus and influencers. [C] Because anyone can pose as an alternative therapist and endanger patients, alternative medicine can cause serious harm.

Counter-arguments

Many groups such as chiropractictioners and osteopaths study a recognised, degree level curriculum and have a professional regulatory body.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Many practitioners are educated and regulated to some level.