The desire of very sick patients to try even an unproven therapy is understandable.

Singh and Ernst assert that Britain spends £500 million each year on unproven or disproven alternative therapies.

Patients want answers and, as the explosion of alternative medicine suggests, are increasingly willing to try unproven therapies.

Patients have come to my office demanding unproven therapies or expensive, unnecessary tests simply because they have located testimonials on the Web or in newsgroups.

Others put their faith in techniques known as forced holding or facilitated communication and other unproven therapies.

While patients may seek unproven therapies, he said, doctors should not put themselves in the position of sanctioning treatment with unproven and potentially highly toxic drugs.

The choice of speakers at these conferences have led critics to accuse both organizations of promoting unproven therapies and harmful quackery.

The entries listed below vary between theoretical therapies to unproven controversial therapies.

Among their concerns were that the commission did not "appropriately acknowledge the limitations of unproven, invalidated" alternative therapies, or examine how to limit their riskiness.

But Dr. Sledge said this stimulation was an unproven therapy for avascular necrosis.