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Pseudomedicine


Pseudomedicine is medicine which claims to be effective for diagnosing or treating specific medical conditions, but which has been disproven or which is unproven and the mainstream scientific opinion is that it will not be proven to be effective. It is distinct from experimental medicine, which is medicine that has not yet been proven but which is undergoing the process of either being proven and becoming accepted, or being disproven and being discarded.

PSIRAM has defined pseudomedicine as referring to "treatments that claim to be working concepts of medicine that have no objectively verifiable benefit or are incompatible with the current state of knowledge in the field of science-based medicine."

Historically, the term was used in the early 20th century by the American Medical Association when, as part of the effort to gain establishment status, it combated what it called quackery and pseudomedicine, thus differentiating itself as a professional organization of experts distinct from charlatan practitioners.

The National Council Against Health Fraud has said that the existence of pseudomedicine results from the effect of market forces: on the one hand a desire for quick fixes rooted in alienation from mainstream medicine, and on the other hand businessmen only too willing to meet that demand.


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