Do you believe in magic?: the sense and nonsense of alternative medicine

Description

Taking a look at alternative medicine -- Saving Joey Hofbauer -- Distrust of modern medicine. Rediscovering the past : Mehmet Oz and his superstars -- The lure of all things natural. The vitamin craze : Linus Pauling's ironic legacy -- Little supplement makers versus Big Pharma. The supplement industry gets a free pass : neutering the FDA ; Fifty-one thousand new supplements : which ones work? -- When the stars shine on alternative medicine. Menopause and aging : Suzanne Somers weighs in ; Autism's Pied Piper : Jenny McCarthy's crusade ; Chronic Lyme Disease : the Blumenthal Affair -- The hope business. Curing cancer : Steve Jobs, shark cartilage, coffee enemas, and more ; Sick children, desperate parents : Stanislaw Burzynski's urine cure -- Charismatic healers are hard to resist. Magic potions in the twenty-first century : Rashid Buttar and the lure of personality -- Why some alternative therapies really do work. The remarkably powerful, highly underrated placebo response ; When alternative medicine becomes quackery -- Albert Schweitzer and the witch doctor : a parable.;Medical expert Paul A. Offit, M.D., offers a scathing exposé of the alternative medicine industry, revealing how even though some popular therapies are remarkably helpful due to the placebo response, many of them are ineffective, expensive, and even deadly.