DOCTORS who prescribe alternative therapies - and health funds that offer rebates for them - are misusing taxpayer funds, a professor of medicine has argued.

University of New South Wales John Dwyer said that doctors should be ''the bastions of evidence-based approaches to health care'' and not offer unproven treatments, in an opinion piece published in The Medical Journal of Australia.

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''Medicare dollars are precious, and it is surely unethical to ask the taxpayer to foot the bill for unproven, highly suspect or useless treatments,'' he said.

Professor Dwyer said consumers were ''bombarded with fraudulent advertising telling them vitamins cure stress and provide energy, weight loss is guaranteed with this herbal preparation, glucosamine will take you from the wheelchair to the golf course [and] foot vibrators will cure your ankle oedema''.