ABSTRACT
Given the growth in the last twenty years of the professional literature on bioethics, readers might legitimately ask whether it is necessary to devote an entire book to the ethics of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). After all, the side effects and risks of complementary medicine are generally perceived to be lower than in conventional medicine. So many people now consult CAM practitioners that this would suggest high levels of patient satisfaction. To the extent that ethical issues arise, are these any different to the issues arising in other health care relationships? Could an ethically curious therapist not simply extract the necessary information from a conventional health care ethics text, substituting the words ‘complementary therapist’ for ‘doctor’ or ‘nurse’?
