Unwittingly Professor Ernst raises the spectre of an uncomfortable idea which is the thought of thousands of women allowing themselves to

Unwittingly, Professor Ernst raises the spectre of an uncomfortable idea, which is the thought of thousands of women allowing themselves to be duped by an ersatz science because they feel happier believing than not. Professor Edzard Ernst, who carried out the trials on acupuncture at Exeter University, has plans to investigate the Bach Flower Remedies, among them the Rescue Remedy, that perennial in the handbag of the urban woman. There is a need to be more critical and more rigoro us and not just to reject that as a male response.” Despite Prince Charles’ words, the battle between two schools of thought may have only just begun. She claims women are ap t to be more “intuitive” and men more “cerebral” When you’ve heard this a few times it gets irritating Coward sums up the feelings of the critical observer “It doesn’t show women in their best light. “People like Anita Roddick have made a career on the idea that women have some connection with nature that men don’t,” observes Coward. It’s a stereotype of women oft repeated in the world of complementary medicine. Margot McCarthy of the Neal’s Yard Therapy Rooms (about two-thirds of her clients are women) became a homeopath while her brother became a scientist.

Like the placebo acupuncture tests, evening primrose oil was shown to work because people thought it worked, not because of anything inherent in the product. A 1995 study of homeopathy published in the British M edical Journal found the same thing. Alternative treatments, on the other hand, “stress words and phrases such as ‘whole ‘ person, ‘total’ well-being, harmony and purity.” Qualities often associated with women and that some women like to believe about themselves. Conventional science has come to be linked with p atriarchy, a notion first planted by the natural childbirth lobby of the Seventies, and associated with “chemicals, pollutants, technology, sin, corruption and toxicity”.

When I asked Tom Griffin of the company Plexus Bio-Energetics whether he would submit his work to scientific analysis he retorted: “Eighty per cent of people are not happy with conventional medicine That’s the reality. Why should we have to pander to [the scientific establishment's] viewpoint?” Ros Coward is the author of The Whole Truth: the Myth of Alternative Health, in which she argues that health has taken over as the new moral battleground and CAM has taken on an almost religious ideology. For me, it has more to do with religion and seeking something else.” In fact, alternative health is a belief system in itself which inspires remarkable strength of feeling. And they pay you a lot of attention.” But she a dded, “There’s something more, which has to do with the spiritual gap which traditional remedies have failed to solve.