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False Hope for a Cure for Retinitis Pigmentosa

Richard G. Weleber, MD

Arch Ophthalmol. 1996;114(5):606-607.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

IN MEDICINE, whenever a chronic disease lacks a proven effective treatment, the opportunity exists for practitioners to offer unproven therapies to patients who are desperate for a cure. Often these therapies, which are usually without any scientific basis, are available only in countries where consumer and medical regulations that safeguard the public are either nonexistent or unenforced. With the rise of alternative medicine, some practitioners of unproven methods claim their therapies are beyond the understanding of conventional medicine and are therefore exempt from scientific evaluation. Such unsubstantiated claims are understandably met with great skepticism by the medical community.

Practitioners of unproven therapies commonly refuse to provide scientific data to corroborate the safety and efficacy of the treatment modality they are promoting. Such was the case in London for the bee venom treatment for retinitis pigmentosa (RP). The practitioner of this therapy was so emotionally persuasive that even well-educated men and . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
Portland, Ore

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