This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

We enjoyed the article by Smolle et al¹ that discussed a randomized clinical trial of homeopathy for warts. We strongly agree with the statement in their introduction that ". . . scientific methods are valuable tools for distinguishing helpful alternative medical methods from superstition and quackery."

Scientific methods do not necessarily require a randomized trial. We can argue that sometimes a randomized trial is harmful. When a trial is performed, a test of statistical significance is done, such as a t test. The standard in clinical medicine for a statistically significant result is a P value less than or equal to .05. Accepting a P value of .05 means that there is a 1 in 20 chance that a therapy without merit could be shown to be significant. One way to decrease the likelihood of getting a spurious result is to limit trials to topics that have a potentially medically . . . [Full Text of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Exploration of "Alternative" and "Natural" Drugs in Dermatology
Levin and Maibach
Arch Dermatol 2002;138:207-211.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT