Andrew Weil
Against allopathy Alternative medicine |
Clinically unproven |
Woo-meisters |
Dr. Andrew Weil (1942–) is a promoter of complementary alternative medicine and other such woo, though he is also a certified medical doctor (and a Brave Maverick Doctor) based in Tucson, Arizona. Most notably, he founded and directs the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, an institution promoting proven medicinal treatments alongside homeopathic and other New Age remedies.[1] His institute, and thus he himself, was at the forefront of making the New Age movement and alternative medicine popular in the latter part of the 20th century.[2]
Dr. Weil also has written numerous books promoting, among other things, crank dietary beliefs and so-called self-healing, and has, recently, promoted changing the scientific method for alternative medicine, in favor of so-called "uncontrolled clinical observations" over double-blind, randomized trials.[3]
He has been the foremost advocate for establishing an American Board of Integrative Medicine, which (as an alternative medicine counterpart to the American Medical Association) would serve as an official system of board certification for people pushing alternative medicine.[4] This is pointless because any medical provider practicing medicine proven to work is just called a doctor. Why create a board to certify people to practice things that work, and a separate board to "certify" people to practice things that don't work? What's the point in "certifying" the latter group?
Books
Weil has written forewords to a lot of books. There are the books that Weil has written as the primary author:
- The Natural Mind: An Investigation of Drugs and the Higher Consciousness (1972)
- Marriage of Sun and Moon: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Consciousness (1980)
- Health and Healing (1983)
- From Chocolate to Morphine: Everything You Need to Know about Mind-Altering Drugs (1983)
- Spontaneous Healing (1995)
- Natural Health, Natural Medicine (1995)
- Eight Weeks to Optimum Health (1997)
- Eating Well for Optimum Health (2000)
- The Healthy Kitchen (2002)
- Healthy Aging (2005)
- Why Our Health Matters (2009)
- Spontaneous Happiness (2011)
- True Food: Seasonal, Sustainable, Simple, Pure (2014)
- Fast Food, Good Food: More Than 150 Quick and Easy Ways to Put Healthy, Delicious Food on the Table (2015)
- Mind Over Meds: Know When Drugs Are Necessary, When Alternatives Are Betterand When to Let Your Body Heal on Its Own (2018) ISBN 0316352969.
External links
- A Trip to Stonesville: Some Notes on Andrew Weil, M.D. (1988) by Arnold S. Relman (March 10, 2002) Quackwatch
- Andrew Weil/AAFP Article Rejected by Slate by Harriet Hall (October 30, 2012) Science-Based Medicine
References
- ↑ The institute's website
- ↑ Some notes on Andrew Weil
- ↑ Resistance is futile by David Gorski (June 30, 2008) Science-Based Medicine.
- ↑ 2011 archive of: "Quacks react to Andrew Weil's proposed board certification in woo"