JREF Swift Blog

... just a very bad wizard.

During a recent episode of The Dr. Oz Show, Oz discussed Reiki — an alternative medicine that Oz says might be the “most important alternative medicine treatment of all.” Oz explained to the audience that his wife was a Reiki master, and from time to time she uses the treatment on him. “I can’t even tell when she’s treating me. Sometimes she secretly treats me,” says Oz. After a brief introduction to this alternative “energy medicine,” Oz introduces Reiki master Pamela Miles. At this point, there is a lady from the audience — with a headache — sitting in a chair in front of Miles. Before Miles treats the headache she explains, “Reiki is a balancing practice, and so rather than addressing the headache or whatever else is the problem, what it does is influences the person’s overall system towards balance.” After a brief intro on basic Reiki, Miles performs her magic, and presto: The lady’s headache is gone.

Vandervaart et al. (2009) conducted a systematic review to try to evaluate whether Reiki produces a significant treatment effect. The researchers concluded, “The serious methodological and reporting limitations of limited existing Reiki studies preclude a definitive conclusion on its effectiveness. High-quality randomized controlled trials are needed to address the effectiveness of Reiki over placebo.” Lee et al. (2008) conducted a systematic review with the aim of critically evaluating the evidence for the effectiveness of Reiki. The researchers found insufficient evidence to suggest Reiki as an effective treatment for any condition. Assefi et al. (2008) looked to see whether Reiki was a beneficial fibromyalgia treatment. Surprise, surprise the study found that Reiki offered no therapeutic effects. There is no valid evidence that shows Reiki is beneficial for any condition. Of course, in uncontrolled, non-blinded studies, there could be some benefit via placebo effect.

Why does Oz make these types of pseudo-scientific claims? It might have something to do with TV. ratings and big money.

More words of wisdom from (and about) Oz from “The Not So Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” at skeptologic.com:

Alternative medicines, Dr. Oz says, deal with the body’s energy — something that traditional Western medicine generally does not. “We’re beginning now to understand things that we know in our hearts are true but we could never measure,” he says. “As we get better at understanding how little we know about the body, we begin to realize that the next big frontier … in medicine is energy medicine. It’s not the mechanistic part of the joints moving. It’s not the chemistry of our body. It’s understanding for the first time how energy influences how we feel.”

Not quite what you would expect from a scientist. However, the fancy rhetoric seems to work on many people. Oz attracts a large audience, sells tons of books, and might just be Oprah’s favorite doctor.