Protect Patients From Exploitation By Alternative Medicine Industry

It is time to protect patients from "vile and cynical exploitation" by the alternative medicines industry, argues a cancer expert in this week's BMJ.

It is estimated that up to 80% of all patients with cancer take a complementary treatment or follow a dietary programme to help treat their cancer, writes Jonathan Waxman, Professor of Oncology at Imperial College London.

Yet the rationale for the use of many of these approaches is obtuse