Neal's Yard Ethical Bullshit Remedy
Monday, April 28, 2008
Neal's Yard Remedies has announced that it is withdrawing is Malaria Officinalis 30C homeopathic remedy from sale. This is the absolute minimum it could have done given that its Exeter Branch was recently caught out by the BBC South West programme Inside Out selling this remedy as protection against malaria. (I wrote about this staggering event recently.)What reason do Neal's Yard give? Let's look at their press release in detail.
The BBC’s Inside Out programme - Homoeopathy and Malaria
We love the BBC, but we all know from time to time they can be guilty of naughty editing, especially when it comes to showing people apparently storming ‘out’. Our Medicines Director Susan Curtis was interviewed for the Inside Out programme last week, and unfortunately a lot of what she was trying to say was not shown. The most important point, and something we are very passionate about, it that as our health is so important, we advise that people seek professional advice on all matters of health.
So, we note that Neal's Yard remind us of how recently the BBC were discovered to be less than honest in their film report showing the Queen 'storming out' of the BBC filming of a documentary. So, Neal's Yard want to compare the 'misrepresented' Susan Curtis to the Queen. All I can suggest is that you watch the footage of the non medically qualified Medicine's Director 'hurriedly leaving' the interview. Make sure you pay attention during the bit where Susan Curtis rips of her microphone and says 'I have actually had enough" and then quickly leaves as the interviewer asks if what the company was doing was "criminal, unethical and dangerous". A full transcript can be found on 'thinking is dangerous'.
The statement claims that Neal's Yard ensures people "seek professional advice on all matters of health". We shall examine that a little more closely later.
Next in the press release,
We know there have been no clinical trials for the use of homoeopathy in the prevention of malaria but homoeopathy does have a good track record in preventing and treating other epidemic diseases. Susan said that there is no absolute guarantee that you will not get malaria with any treatment and that the most important factor is to take measures to prevent being bitten by mosquitoes.
Neal's Yard acknowledges that there is no good evidence that homoeopathy can prevent malaria. So, why does it sell it then? Malaria kills. By offering a prevention where there is no scientific evidence or reason to suppose that it will prevent malaria, you are simply putting lives at risk. Susan then claims that there is a "good track record in preventing and treating other epidemic diseases." This is bullshit of the highest order. There is no good evidence that homeopathy can prevent or cure any disease - it's just sugar pills. Homeopaths like to tell each other stories and myths about cholera epidemics in the 19th Century. Not good enough. Can you imagine a drug company offering evidence for a new drug based on 200 year old fairy stories? By saying that "no absolute guarantee that you will not get malaria with any treatment " it ignores the fact that there is good evidence that convential anti-malarials, properly prescribed, can do a great deal to protect you, whilst homeopathic sugar pills do absolutely nothing. Weasel words.
And on,
We do not advertise or sell the remedy as a prevention for Malaria. It is supplied on request by practitioners working in Neals Yard Remedies stores, and in fact, the practitioners have been trained to always explain that the remedy should not be considered as a guarantee of prevention of malaria. The name of the remedy is based on its latin name and not on its claim to cure or prevent an ailment.Now this is one of the most beautiful bits of bullshit I have yet come across. I purchased a tub of Neals Yard Malaria pills. A picture of the product is shown above. So, I am supposed to believe that when the word 'MALARIA' appears on the label it is actually a very technical latin name which a mere lay person like me could not understand and in fact has nothing to do with the deadly disease spelt using the same letters in the same order. Let us remind ourselves what MALARIA CO 30C actually is. It is a homeopathically prepared 'nosode' dilution of the malaria parasite designed with the like-cures-principle in mind. The product is specifically designed to prevent or cure malaria, but is so dilute that all you end up with is the plain sugar pill and so cannot possibly do anything. There is 1 part 'remedy' to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 parts water. (100 to the power of 30)
Well, did Neal's Yard sell this as a prevention or cure for malaria? The page from their web site has now gone. But, by the amazing powers of the interweb I can remind you what the page looked like here (also here). The product was being sold alongside Medicines Director Susan Curtis' book Homoeopathic Alternatives To Immunisation in which she describes how such a remedy could prevent malaria. And did my purchase come with a warning? Nothing. Not a word about the fact that I should be seeing my GP and taking anti-bite measures? Silence.
The press release ends,
However, as this is obviously a contentious issue which is causing customer concern, we have decided to withdraw the product, Malaria Officinalis 30c from sale with immediate effect.I have a feeling that the real reason might be to do with the fact that the BBC passed on their information to Trading Standards and the MHRA, the body who make sure all medicines are licensed and marketed appropriately. Selling a homeopathic remedy with claims, implied or otherwise, without a license is a criminal offense. Even if you do have a license, you are only allowed to make claims for conditions that do not normally require a doctor's attention, like 'feeling a bit under the weather'.
The product sold to me by Neal's Yard was manufactured by Ainsworth's, the homeopathic pill company. Their web site still contains the same product. I am sure there is some anxiety there that they do not want the MHRA telling them that they cannot sell this stuff. Let's hope the MHRA are not aware of this.
But back to the main issue. This press release is almost a complete string of bullshit statements designed to obscure the fact the Neal's Yard were selling dangerous products. The company likes to portray its ethical nature, and wants to fill the gap on the high street now that The Body Shop have been acquired by a big multinational. Is this press release a one-off? Sadly not.
Their previous press release was an attempt to discredit the Cochrane review of vitamin supplements that showed that there was little evidence that certain vitamin supplements did you much good and that they even could be shortening your life. The Vitamin Companies and Health Food Industry came out in a massive PR battle to rubbish this study - without even reading it. Ben Goldacre covered this in this Saturday's Guardian where he showed that the Health Food Manufacturers Association had roped in various clueless celebrities to condemn the work. It was obvious that none of the celebrities had either read the work or understood it. The vitamin pill salesman Patrick Holford started saying that it was a 'conspiracy' by vested interests to destroy the vitamin industry whilst neglecting to mention that the Cochrane collaboration is independent and forbids its members from taking corporate funding for its studies and that Holford himself had taken around half a million pounds from the vitamin industry over the past year or so.
The deliberate obfuscation of this serious report is shameful. All have been at it, from Holland and Barrett to the 'mad-as-a-box-of-frogs' website What Doctors Don't Tell You. All of their criticisms were shallow and idiotic. Rather than issue a press release that said they would be "studying the conclusions of this important study and seeing how it affected their business", as you might expect ethical and responsible businesses to do, there was nothing but a universal knee jerk reaction of the type you might expect of the asbestos or tobacco industries.
Neal's Yard Remedies were no different. Their press release did not even give specific criticisms of the Cochrane review but of a previous piece of work by the authors. The Cochrane review was in part a response to these previous criticism and was ten times longer than the study criticised by Neal's Yard. The press release concluded,
there is considerable documented evidence both for vitamin deficiencies in the general diet (particularly for specific at-risk groups), and for the health benefits of vitamin supplementation when taken at recommended doses. Those individuals who wish to take vitamin supplements to maintain good health should therefore continue to do so, and should not be discouraged by the shoddy scientific study by Bjelakovic et al.
That is a shameful statement to make. The only thing that is shoddy is Neal's Yard criticism of a gold standard review that it looks like it has not even read.
Neal's Yard is portraying itself as wearing the mantle of ethical business. It is marketing bullshit. It likes to be seen as green, organic and 'carbon neutral'. What can be ethical about selling overpriced cosmetics to the self-indulgent? What is ethical about selling useless sugar pills for lethal diseases? The business has a new Managing Director, Jonathan Hook. He says "Our ultimate aim is to be entirely organic". Ex mobile phone salesman Mr Hook was shoehorned in by owner Peter Kindersley as Hook's father was an organic farmer, and Kindersley likes that kinda stuff. The company is pleased with itself that it is now 'carbon neutral'. But these claims of being organic and ethical do not take into account the context of their business. Would an atomic bomb be ethical because it has a lower carbon footprint than 100,000 tonnes of TNT?
On the subject of the wild claims Neal's Yard make about their health products, Jonathan Hook shows a hint of doubt. He said in the Times,
“All our products have a therapeutic intent as well as being beautiful,” he says. “You can say: ‘This is really gentle, it will do good.' You can't say: 'It will cure eczema.'”
Therapeutic intent. That's nice. But it is also bullshit. What Neal's Yard sells is shiny blue bottles for the gullible. Any more claims to be ethical and I might start getting angry.
Labels: homeopathy, Neal's Yard Remedies
posted by Le Canard Noir at
7:52 PM
33 Comments:
What utter utter utter shits. No shits its too kind, they are c....
PS They say:
"The name of the remedy is based on its latin name and not on its claim to cure or prevent an ailment."
The latin genus of the malaria parasite is Plasmodium.
I had someone, who I can only describe as an idiot, come in with a packet of this very same homeopathic crap last week.
She was going somewhere in Sub-Saharan and her actual question was
"Can I take this instead of Malarone, as it is cheaper"
I thought she was taking the piss. Presumably somebody who has spent a few thousand on a holiday can spring £50, or so, for some antimalarials.
I looked over her shoulder for Jeremy Beadle, then realising he was dead, thought how best to answer....
The best I could do was, "Well, you could but you are quite likely to get malaria and possiby die."
In the end she decided she'd buy a box of Avloclor (£2) as she had taken that when she went to the Dominican Republic((!) I wasn't happy to sell that so I sent her on her way.
It is very worrying how little some people know about science and medicine. I'm sure some people still believe that Earth is flat.
No gimpy, the remedy is aptly named. If you take it you get malaria.
....'malaria' meanwhile is apparently rooted in the italian 'mala' (bad) 'aria' (air) supposedly coined by a late C17th Italian physician Francisco Torti when the disease was wrongly linked to the bad air of marshy (mosquito-y) districts. Hmm, you learn something new every day. Apart from the fact that Neal's Yard are apparently morally bankrupt, which is now old news...
Forming a perfectly mixed ethical bullshit cocktail, the Neal's Yard news page is peddling MMR/autism nonsense "MMR: Major mumps outbreak proves the vaccine doesn’t work - What Doctors Don’t Tell You, 10 April 2008 [uh-oh, WDDTY: loony source alert] At a time when health officials are quietly admitting that there could be a link between the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine and autism [no, they're admitting nothing of the sort], a new study has also discovered that it doesn’t work....". Gah, there's a reason doctors don't tell you that: and the reason is that it's bollocks.
Not that the news page's antivaccination nonsense should give the impression Neal's Yard aren't interested in promoting scientific healthcare. Not at all. For the low low price of £4000 they can make you fully qualified in using nice smells to make people feel better.
Yes Rob, it's unbelievable that NYR trot out WDDTY canards as if it is a reliable source of information. I would have gone on about this bullshit but my post was already too long. Methinks their Medical Director is an utter liability to the companies expansion plans. I give her six months.
Excellent LCN. My own blog on this is definately the Tabloid to your broadsheet!
May I raise the question which "malaria parasite" this sugar pill contains? As P. falciparum is the deadliest one, but P. vivax and P. ovale can also kill.
Another thing is that all these species developed many sub species througout the world. So it is quite fascinating that not only the "like cures" by 'principle' but but also "something which has at least the name in common can cure".
Good to see homeopathy is developing day-by-day.
Only just found this site. a question, not exactly to do with the above story but homepatheic:
homeopaths take water and the ‘active ingredient’ and dilute it down and down and down X 30 so that there is little if any left. The argument is that the memory of the water is the trick etc etc So far so good, less is more yada yada.
So: is the water H2O? that is two hydrogen atoms to one oxygen, no more no less. Is it pure water? Bottled? Hard? Soft? From the tap? Collected from the inner thighs of virgins? You get the drift. There must be so much ‘other stuff’ in there that it must be contaminated. Has this issue ever been tested? Considering that it’s a straightforward question - why not?
Then…. If the water is considered OK for the purposes of the treatment then it has to be activated by tapping shaking or whatever to set that memory? [great get out of jail card there homeopaths] so what’s stopping it picking up bits of the bottle it’s in, the stopper, seal or anything else ? or have they been purified too?
I suppose/suspect alchohol/sugar pills/earwax subjected to the same treatment will end up the same too – ie much the same as before.
Talk about having your cake and eating it.
ukridge - it is not fair to say that homeopathic malaria treatments do not progress. The first nosode remedy was made from decaying marsh vegetation in 1862 because nasty smells woz wot caused malaria - as becky has pointed out. This created the Malaria officinalis remedy - the one NYR claimed to have stopped selling.
In 1889 the Malaria co remedy was invented by using the malaria parasite (undisclosed which species). This was the remedy I bought and is pictured above.
It looks like NYR are so incompetent that they did not even know which malaria remedy there were stopping selling. Which version of a blank sugar pill they were flogging.
Apparently, Helios and Ainsworths Malaria Co consists of the four malaria plasmodia (Falciparum, Vivax, Ovale and
Malariae). No homeopathic proving has ever been made of them. It is just pure blind faith in their delusions that NYR depend on.
If a doctor exposed patients to risk in this way, I presume they would not only be struck off but also vulnerable to charges of criminal malpractice, gross deception and even - if their patient subsequently contracted malaria - GBH.
What Neal's Yard and Ainsworth's are doing is criminally stupid; why is it not criminal? And why has no NY patient who subsequently contracted malaria sued the pants off them?
I like how it says keep out of reach of children. Presumably to prevent hyperactivity from all that sugar in the sugar pills. Actually, I noticed this same warning on the homeopathic crap sold at my local chemists (I really should stop going there).
On top of that, it costs a mint for a single dose of the magic water. Maybe I should just sack it all in and become a homeopathic remedy wholesaler in some sort of elaborate Sokal style hoax. Cut price homepathic remedies straight from the tap.
Well there is 'Fair Deal Homeopathy'
http://www.fdhom.co.uk/index.asp
Strapline - "Nothing works as well as Fair Deal Homeopathy"
I see that China 30C is still available and 'used for...malaria'. Dispicable, utterly dispicable.
"What is ethical about selling useless sugar pills for lethal diseases?"
Evil, evil, evil. Anyone who claims to have therapeutic intent and sells pills they must know are ineffective is not simply a bullshitter - they've gone way beyond that point and I think Gimpy had it right in the very first comment on this post.
Yes will - the China 30C - I was going to come onto that! It demonstrates how little they have actually reflected on what they are doing. They did not know even which version of the MALARIA nosode they were selling. Their action looks like a damage limitation exercise.
But this does not surprise me. The stores on the high street are offering a range of plainly fraudulent services, including applied kinesiology and allergy testing. Charlatans.
I have been following this kind of thing (pseudoscience, quackery et c.) for a while now. The more I read the more puzzled I get. I can sympathise (to a certain extent) with the public not knowing who to trust, who baffles me are the pseudoscientists themselves. They have to be either very, very stupid and really think they are helping people; or they have to be the nastiest, most vicious lot out there; quite frankly with blood on their hands (contributing to the spread of AIDS and malaria et c.). My problem is that I just can't accept that in 2008 people could be that bone-headed; or that they could be that vicious that they'd literally kill people for a fast buck.
Perhaps I'm very naive!
You are showing your Sociopathic side again for all the world see Mr Cox.
Lets hope all this deep seated anger and sociopathy does not make you ill.
1960s measles party survivor, how did i do it along with millions of others.
When are you going to warn us about the next immenent measles epedimic sacremongering, maybe if you keep doing it each year you may be right one day.
Og and Mr Cox do look up the term IATROGENIC death rates, it may help you to do your day job a bit better and protect the public, that is what you get for right?
Andrew, I was going to post a cutting reply to your comment but then I read your own blog where you express your concern that "The olympic logo is a fine example of the deception by the puppets and lackeys of the satanic controllers or New World Order [...] Divine awaken human beings scare them silly as they are no match for a multi dimensional being.[...] The media is helping to focus negative energy at the logo which suits the powers that be fine as they need all that negative energy to enpower the logo. One can use radionics or sympathetic magic to cancel out these satanic logos".
I genuinely think you are suffering from delusions, and hope you find appropriate professional help.
I'd love to know an representative example of just what "30C" dilution is... One drop in an Olympic standard swimming pool? One drop in a lake a mile wide? What? I used to work with someone (in a hospital, no less!) who was way into all this quackery - homeopathy, feng shui, massage therapy, etc. and I'd like to be able to use a mental picture if I encounter another like her.
To get one molecule of remedy in the water, you would need a sphere of water 381,000,000,000,000,000 meters in diameter. Which, correct me if I am wrong anyone, is about ten times further away than the nearest star, alpha centauri.
"[at 30C] To get one molecule of remedy in the water, you would need a sphere of water 381,000,000,000,000,000 meters in diameter. ... about ten times further away than the nearest star, alpha centauri."
Not sure about that, Mr Duck. My own hasty calculations show that at 30C, to find a single molecule of active ingredient, you'd need a sphere of water "only" 40,000,000 km in diameter: roughly a quarter of the way from the Earth to the Sun.
(workings-out: You'd need 10^60 molecules, which is about 1.6x10^36 moles. 1 litre of water contains approx 56 moles, so 1 cubic kilometre of water contains 56x10^12 moles. Dividing 1.6x10^36 moles by 56x10^12 moles/km3 means we need approx 3x10^22 km3 of water. A sphere that volume is about 40,000,000 km in diameter.)
You may well be correct. In which case, it makes homeopathy a hell of a lot more plausible. probably.
Of course, that's only for a 30C dilution. I tried working out how big a droplet of the commonly used 200C dilution would be required to find a single molecule of active ingredient but couldn't put a definite number on it because the maths got silly. Suffice to say it would have to be a droplet mind-bogglingly billions of billions times larger than the entire universe.
Thanks for illuminating the immense scale of what a "30C" homeopathic preparation really means - I can certainly use it next time I discuss plausibility with another true-believer in homeopathy!
When the remedy's total lack of active ingredient is pointed out, the true believer's response is usually to invoke the notion that "energy" or "vibrations" or "healing information" is being transferred instead of mere molecules. But in the 200 years that homepathy's been around nobody has ever detected, or measured, or isolated or even properly defined what these might be.
My my, how peculiar: Neal's Yard are still selling the same things, but they've just removed the word "malaria" from the descriptions on their website. They still sell
a book titled 'Homoeopathic Alternatives To Immunisation' which they used to describe as containing "practical information on preventing and treating major infectious diseases, including hepatitis, flu, malaria, measles and whooping cough". But now is described as containing "practical information on preventing and treating major infectious diseases, including hepatitis, flu, measles and whooping cough". Same book, containing the same bad advice, but they've just deleted the word "malaria" from its description on the website. Ditto with China 30C Homoeopathic Remedy, currently advertised as "Traditionally used for exhaustion, bloating, flatulence, diarrhoea and fever", used to say (Google cache, 19 Apr 2008) that it is "Traditionally used for exhaustion, bloating, flatulence, diarrhoea, malaria and fever". For that matter, good old fashioned diarrhoea kills lots of people every year - I wonder how ethical it is to sell a magic sugar pill to people as treatment, instead of recommending rehydration and conventional doctoring.
Wow, what a staggering act of mendacity.
I have emailed Mr Hook of NYR to ask if he believes that his sugar pills can prevent dangerous illnesses. Also, I have asked what medical due diligence is done on such claims.
"based on its Latin name" - what does that mean? The name of the product is based on its Latin name? So, the Latin name for a product called "Malaria" is "Malaria"? I'm confused.
I sought to clarify by going to a Latin>English translator. I got "Malaria = Jaw". So the product they're selling is "jaws"??!!!
So I went to the source of all knowledge, Wikipedia, to see if it shed any light on this Latin origin issue. It didn't. But it does contain the following statement which is crying out for a calrification:
"Of interesting historical note is the observation by Samuel Hahnemann in the late 18th Century that over-dosing of quinine leads to a symptomatic state very similar to that of malaria itself. This lead Hahnemann to develop the medical Law of Similars, and the subsequent medical system of Homeopathy."
Is Homeopathy a "medical system"? Is that entire statement either interesting or responsible given that what Hahnemann witnessd presumably had nothing to do with Malaria?
Someone with appropriate knowledge and editing privileges might want to visit wikipedia - malaria.
I really like that the label warns to keep the sugar pills out of reach of children. How cute.
I've just had a thought about the subtle rewording on the NY site (see my comment above). Neal's Yard, and I think homeopathic vendors more widely, advertise their remedies as being "traditionally used for" treating diseases in order to avoid claiming that the pills are actually "effective against" anything. And they say that the "traditionally used for" labelling makes no claim of effectiveness (eg their press release claim that "We do not advertise or sell the remedy as a prevention for Malaria"). In which case, if Neal's Yard is now acknowledging that these pills are ineffective against malaria, why remove the claim from the China 30C pill that it's been traditionally used for malaria? After all, the pill has been traditionally - albeit ineffectively - used for malaria. Removing that description seems like an implicit acknowledgement that the "traditionally used for" wording is a claim of effectiveness, or at least that it will be perceived as such by customers.
I find it amazing that traders in alt med like Neals Yard do not appeared to be worried about the new trading standards laws which become effective in about three weeks. Weasel words like 'treat' will no longer offer a get out. Even is something is true ' homeopathy has been used to treat malaria' - it will still be a criminal offence to mislead by omission - 'but is completely useless'.
This may have been explored before, but I've never seen any one mention it...
With regard to homeopathy's claim that the beneficial effects of remedies come about from their "energy", "vibrations" or "healing information" etc, is it not claimed that said beneficial effects are transferred to the water by contact?
Surely then, every homeopathic remedy, known or as yet unknown, has come into "contact" with every molecule of water on the planet by now.
Don't buy these expensive crap based magic sugar remedies, just have a drink of tap water and hey presto, you'll be immune to everything and live forever.
Or am I missing something?
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