Edzard Ernst

Edzard Ernst is a German-British physician and researcher who held the world's first academic chair specifically in complementary medicine, at the University of Exeter's Peninsula Medical School, from 1993 until his retirement in 2012 (when he became Emeritus Professor). He holds an MD and PhD from the University of Munich and a habilitation from Hannover Medical School. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Royal Society of Biology, and the Royal Colleges of Physicians in both London and Edinburgh. His publication record includes over 1,000 peer-reviewed papers and more than 50 books, with an h-index of 153, making him one of the most productive academic researchers on the subject of alternative medicine.

Ernst spent his career conducting systematic reviews and clinical trials of alternative therapies — acupuncture, homeopathy, herbal medicine, chiropractic, and dozens of other modalities — applying rigorous evidence-based methodology. His overall finding, reached after decades of evaluating the evidence, is that approximately five percent of alternative medicine treatments are supported by credible evidence, while the remainder either lack evidence or are contradicted by it. In 2008, he co-authored Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial with Simon Singh, a landmark popular account of the evidence for and against the most widely used alternative therapies. His memoir A Scientist in Wonderland (2015) documents his professional conflict with royal and institutional support for alternative medicine in the UK, and his book Charles, the Alternative Prince (2022) examines King Charles III's longstanding promotion of complementary treatments.

Ernst is unique in the field of alternative medicine criticism because he approaches it from inside the academic discipline: he was trained in homeopathy early in his career and initially practiced some alternative therapies before his systematic research led him to strongly skeptical conclusions. This insider credibility, combined with a prolific output of primary research, has made him one of the most authoritative scientific voices on the subject internationally. He was awarded the 2015 John Maddox Prize by Sense About Science and Nature for courage in standing up for science.