Suckers (book)

Suckers: How alternative medicine makes fools of us all

Author	Rose Shapiro
Language	English
Subject	Alternative medicine
Publisher	Harvill Secker
Publication date	2008
Publication place	United Kingdom
Pages	304
ISBN	0-09-952286-1
OCLC	190777228

Suckers: How Alternative Medicine Makes Fools of Us All is a book about alternative medicine written by author and health journalist Rose Shapiro. It was published by Harvill Secker in 2008. It covers very similar ground to Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst's book Trick or Treatment?, but is written in a more journalistic and polemical style. It provides substantial detail regarding alternative treatments offered to cancer patients.

In the book, Shapiro stressed that homeopathy was not evidence-based medicine and said it should be removed from the National Health Service. Shapiro said that alternative medicine should be under “the same strictures as the pharmaceutical industry” and not be permitted to refer to treatments as 'food supplements'. She advised better enforcement of the Cancer Act, to protect patients from unscrupulous providers, and said the government should stop subsidizing universities that cover alternative medicine in their curriculum.^[1]