Are We Being Hoodwinked by Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst?

In the Daily Mail, under a similar title, these two state:

“And yet it is only comparatively recently that they have developed an approach that allows them to separate the effective from the ineffective, and the safe from the dangerous.”

Are you really serious about this!?! There is no way that conventional medicine has proven that it’s standards prevent inneffective or dangerous drugs and procedures from coming to market! Look at Ezetimibe,  Vioxx, many implants, surgical techniques and recently simple cough syrups and lets not forget thalidomide. These were all “vetted” by double blind studies and the standards that these two are promoting. The danger from these drugs has in hind site unfortunately been proven. The danger from alternatives is opinion. 

It is estimated that four per cent of all hospital beds in the UK are taken up with patients who have had bad effects from conventional medical treatment and drugs. These two ignore that and keep spouting their misguided and one sided opinions in the guise of “science”. They don’t tally the cost of this mess.

But they have effectively jumped on the bandwagon of bashing alternative medicine and selling lots of books, articles and gaining fame. Misguiding the public into believing that something that has not been proven dangerous  (alternatives) is, and that something that is proven to be dangerous (many but not all conventional treatments and drugs) is not, is what I would call the real “hoodwinking” of the public.