ABSTRACT
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is a broad term encompassing various healthcare approaches developed outside standard science-based medicine. CAMs are often at the centre of highly polarised debates on their effectiveness and potential risks. Anti-CAMs views are often triggered by fraudulent pseudoscientific practices self-denominated as CAM (‘CAM-adjacent health scams’), which can be extremely harmful for patient safety, and have negative implications for public health policies. Media have a fundamental role in representing CAMs and CAM-adjacent health scams, as they can strongly influence people’s perceptions of medical interventions. This study integrates criminology and health psychology perspectives to analyse the media framing of CAM-adjacent health scams in UK media over 10 years. The analysis shows how UK media are relatively successful in framing some CAM-adjacent health scams as profit-driven fraudulent activities and in trying to protect vulnerable customers. However, the results also suggest that media can create confusion among the general public by muddling up very different CAM approaches when reporting on CAM-related issues, disregarding the scientific evidence on the effectiveness of different treatments or ignoring diverse levels of harms at stake.
