Fraudulent, harmful, or at best useless pharmaceutical and therapeutic approaches


developed outside science-based medicine have boomed in recent years, especially due to


the commercialisation of cyberspace. The latter has played a fundamental role in the rise


of false ‘health experts’, and in the creation of filter bubbles and echo chambers that have


contributed to the formation of highly polarised debates on non-science-based health


practices—online as well as offline.


By adopting a multidisciplinary approach, this edited book brings together


contributions of international academics and practitioners from criminology, digital


sociology, health psychology, medicine, law, physics, and journalism, where they critically


analyse different types of non-science-based health approaches. With this volume, we aim


to reconcile different scientific understandings of these practices, synthesising a variety


of empirical, theoretical and interpretative approaches, and exploring the challenges,


implications and potential remedies to the spread of dangerous and misleading health


information.


This edited book will offer some food for thought not only to students and academics


in the social sciences, health psychology and medicine among other disciplines, but also


to medical practitioners, science journalists, debunkers, policy makers and the general


public, as they might all benefit from a greater awareness and critical knowledge of the


harms caused by non-scientific health practices.