No longer is it enough to turn on, tune in and drop out, now it is turn on, log on, and drop in on your GP and give the poor infantry something else to worry about from some crazy website. Actually, it could be worse than that. This one compounds IPOS by castigating all conventional medicine as wrong and hateful, and why don't YOU know, recognise and acknowledge that anything natural must be better, safer, and in tune with the world. Facts, just give us the facts Bandolier is fed up with reading the guff that comes with our national newspapers, TV, radio, and, increasingly, the Internet. It is time for a spirited defence, and there is only one defence - facts, just give us the facts.
Facts depend on quality, and quality can help sort the wheat from the chaff.
In the first few months of 2000, Bandolier will search out systematic reviews of alternative therapies. Many good and many bad reviews have been published in the last few years. Bandolier will examine their quality and hold them up for inspection. It fails to take account of sources of bias, includes non randomised studies, mixes outcomes or glissades over their clinical relevance. One such in this issue is a review of music therapy for dementia .