One Irish woman with cancer was so convinced that "alternative" medicine was better than conventional treatment that she refused chemotherapy and went on a tour of Europe, seeking a magic cure. She tried something in Italy involving magnets. She died.
In Limerick, parents bought a "herbal" cream for eczema and applied it to their babies' tender skins, only to discover the cream was full of harmful steroids and had been made by a quack.
In Co Mayo, Jacqueline Alderslade died after an asthmatic attack last July. It emerged at the inquest that she had written in her diary that a homeopath had told her to stop the medication for her condition, except for a Ventolin inhaler, while she tried the alternative treatment.
The homeopath, Mineke Kamper, who failed to attend the inquest, denied to gardaí that she had taken Alderslade off the medication.
One Irish "healer" claims to be able to cure people by post. Just send your money and your hopes.
Experiences such as these highlight the urgent need for regulation of the alternative- healthcare sector, to protect not only consumers, but also responsible practitioners.
Many sellers of "cures" are good talkers who sound convincing but lack the medical evidence to back them up.
As a consumer, how do you know the person treating you alternatively is genuine? How do you know it's not just a lot of hot air?
The Irish College of General Practitioners has warned that GPs frequently see patients who have been disappointed "at what they perceive to have been false hopes following alternative-medicine treatments".
These may demand harsh regimes that cause "grave inconvenience to the patient and their families".
Some alternative practitioners belong to voluntary registers. The Irish Society of Homeopaths and the Irish Reflexologists' Institute are among those who are attempting to regulate their fields.
Lua McIlraith, who chairs the reflexology institute, wants statutory regulation to be introduced as soon as possible, so "we can be seen as upright, honest people who are not in the business of killing people".
The new regulation scheme will include the all-important testing of the efficacy of the therapies offered.
If a medical doctor offered you a treatment or drug that had not been clinically proven, you wouldn't accept it, so why pay an alternative or complementary practitioner for treatment that lacks medical proof?