Fortune magazine reported the Apple founder had tried to treat his condition with alternative therapies for nine months. When these efforts proved futile, he had a Whipple procedure, a liver transplant and surgery to remove a tumour. Walter Isaacson, who wrote Jobs’s authorised biography, has said publicly that Jobs understood at the end he had made a mistake.

It’s not clear from second-hand reports exactly what Jobs was doing, but it appears to have required at one point that meals be prepared without pans. This may sound like the kind of eccentricity we expect from genius but, disturbingly, a large number of mainstream Australians are putting their faith in unproven health treatments.

Vitamin company Blackmores courted controversy with its launch of a pharmacy-only range of what it described as “complementary treatments”, which it proposed would be recommended by pharmacists in conjunction with prescription medication. The company claimed the treatments were “products that are backed by scientific evidence”. Facing criticism that these products had no proof of efficacy, Marcus Blackmore argued: “Any criticism of their potential benefit highlights the need for further healthcare professional education.” Which basically means anyone who doesn’t agree with him needs to be educated on how to agree with him.

Blackmore went on to say: “Consumers are well protected by one of the strictest regulatory systems in the world under which every manufacturer must hold the evidence to support the claims they make.”

This claim is certainly true of companies that make actual medicine. It’s far less true of companies that sell “alternative therapies” and “complementary medicine”. Under Australian law, complementary medicines are not assessed for efficacy but companies must certify to the Therapeutic Goods Administration that they hold evidence of their claims.

Carol Bennett, chief executive of Consumers Health Forum, points out that the National Prescribing Service has reported that most producers fail to meet compliance requirements, 33 per cent have had their listing cancelled by the TGA and 15 per cent of products have been withdrawn when informed that TGA was investigating claims. She wrote in Crikey: “A large number of these products are little more than placebos. Almost all complementary medicines are able to obtain the [TGA’s] Australian label, whether they work or not.”

Ken Harvey of La Trobe University’s school of public health, writing in Australian Prescriber, summed up the problem as “a proliferation of products of dubious efficacy, with promotional claims that cannot be substantiated”.

Notwithstanding this, and despite criticism by the Australian Medical Association, most private health insurers cover complementary medicines including, for instance, homeopathy. Leaked reports recently suggested the National Health and Medical Research Council was considering declaring homeopathy baseless and unethical “for the reason that homeopathy (as a medicine or procedure) has been shown not to be efficacious”. Homeopathy is based on the principles of “like-cures-like” and “ultra-dilutions”. Which, in plain speaking, means you are treated with more of what’s making you sick, but in doses too small to have any possible impact. So it’s poison - which would be mad - but in microscopic quantities, so there’s no chance of you getting sick or, for that matter, better.

A 2010 evaluation of homeopathy by the British House of Commons science and technology committee declared it “scientifically implausible”. Not surprising, when the journal Spectrum of Homeopathy cites the use of cheetah’s blood for multiple sclerosis and tiger’s blood for depression. If people want relaxation services, good luck to them, but when it risks displacing real medicine this presents a serious problem for public health. There are countless tragic cases of people delaying or denying medical treatment in favour of quackery. Jobs is only a high-profile example of a growing problem.

Several industry bodies have recommended tighter regulation. Choice has proposed an independent evaluation on an opt-in, cost-recovery basis where approved products could get a mark of approval similar to the National Heart Foundation’s “tick” for healthy food.

The National Prescribing Service has supported the tighter regulation of alternative therapies, saying in a media release: “All health professionals have a responsibility to ensure these products are used safely.”

But the argument for greater regulation is flawed and dangerous. With the cost of public hospitals taking up about one-third of state government budgets, we do not have unlimited funds for public health.

Each dollar diverted from efficacious, proven treatment into what can at best be called nutritional supplements is a dollar less for drugs that have been proven to extend life for people with serious conditions.

Regulating products with no evidence base risks giving them a false credibility. Fifty-four per cent of people surveyed about alternative medicines think products listed by the TGA have been tested. Not only have they not, but the industry is marketing to people who risk making choices between real medicine and complementary products.

The simpler, cheaper, more honest solution would be to discontinue listing and regulating these products and confirm under the act that they are not medicine. Alternative medicine is an oxymoron; in the words of Australia’s leading sceptic pianist Tim Minchin, alternative medicines that have been proven to work are just called medicine.