Neal's Yard Remedies Offers Lethal Homeopathic Malaria Advice
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Unbelievably, nearly two years after BBC Newsnight exposed ten homeopaths offering dangerous advice to travellers about malaria protection, the BBC have found high street chain Neal's Yard Remedies offering sugar pills as protection against malaria.The BBC, in a press release, said,
The presenter of [BBC] Inside Out South West Janine Jansen was sold homeopathic remedies by the manager of Neal's Yard in Exeter and was advised that she could use them to help deal with malaria.
This is quite an extraordinary happening. The BBC first exposed the dangers of unregulated homeopaths offering lethal malaria advice on their Newsnight programme. The Society of Homeopaths, the largest members club in the UK, refused to discipline or even condemn any of its members caught out. Furthermore, it refused to offer proper guidance to homeopaths on this subject. What it did do was legally threaten me when I pointed out their lack of action, it issued guidance to its members to keep their mouths shut when answering queries about this, and issued thoroughly misleading press statements saying why it took no action.
Nonetheless, an enormous amount of bad publicity was generated and it cannot have gone unnoticed at Neal's Yard Remedies.
Neal's Yard is a very well known brand in the UK with operations now in Japan and the US. Founded in the trendy and touristy Covent Garden area of London, it is well known for its bath and shower products. It also thinks it is in the medical and healthcare market. Its web site shows it offering all sort of herbal and homeopathic remedies as well as in-store therapies. For example, it says it can offer Hopi Ear Candling and tells the fib that that it is "a traditional healing technique of the Native American Hopi Indians".
Neal's Yard Remedies is offering a Malaria 30C Homoeopathic Remedy on its web site. This is again breathtaking. In the past, people like Professor David Colquhoun have exposed the 'wicked scam' of such products, often sold overseas. We now see such products on the high street in the UK. A local newspaper has picked up on the story and interviewed Nicola Gillespie of Neal's Yard in Exeter who said, "Homeopathy can be used for that (treatment of malaria)", but then confusingly added, "We are not going to say they can prevent people from getting malaria".
Let's be quite clear. There is not a shred of evidence to suggest that homeopathic sugar pills can prevent or cure malaria. The suggestion is utterly implausible and is no different from witchcraft. Dr Ron Behrens, the Director of the Hospital for Tropical Diseases Travel Clinic in London, said
making claims that homeopathic remedies can prevent or treat malaria was potentially highly dangerous and it puts people's lives at risk.
Dr Peter Fisher, the Director of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital and the Queen's Homeopath, has previously said about such advice,
I'm very angry about it because people are going to get malaria - there is absolutely no reason to think that homeopathy works to prevent malaria and you won't find that in any textbook or journal of homeopathy so people will get malaria, people may even die of malaria if they follow this advice.
Unfortunately, whilst Dr Fisher is absolutely right that people will get malaria if they follow such advice, he is wrong that you cannot find it in homeopathic textbooks. I founnd a book in my local bookshop this afternoon carrying this crazy nonsense. Rob Hinkley at SemiSkimmed has written about this in detail in response to this story.
We can perhaps understand Neal's Yard's position here when you appreciate that their 'Director of Medicine', Susan Curtis, has herself written a book entitled, Homoeopathic Alternatives To Immunisation, which is promoted as,
An invaluable guide for all travellers. This book contains practical information on preventing and treating major infectious diseases, including hepatitis, flu, malaria, measles and whooping cough.
Staggering. All these diseases are killers, especially in poorer countries, and if you were a traveller, you would want prompt and good medical care. Susan is a Member of the Society of Homeopaths. Their code of conduct expressly forbids them from stating or implying that they can cure named diseases. However, we know that the SoH will never discipline any of its members or fellows for doing so. We cannot look to homeopath's 'professional' bodies to stamp out this insanity.
According to Healthwatch, Susan Curtis has no medical training. She was interviewed by the BBC but walked out after 15 minutes in a bit of a huff. The interviewer had to yell after her to ask if what she was doing was criminal. On the programme, Professor Edzard Ernst, Britian's only holder of a chair in CAM, said,
It's awful. I would not hesitate to call this criminal. I don't know whether this is legally criminal but, in my view, this is so amoral and unethical that I would not hesitate to call it criminal.
This statement stands in stark contrast as to how Neal's Yard likes to portray itself as 'the ethical brand'. It won the Sunday Times 'Best Ethical Brand' last year. Will it put itself forward this year?
Curtis is well aware that there is no scientific evidence to suggest that magic sugar pills have any role in preventing or treating malaria. She is able to justify the sale herself by suggesting there is 'evidence by extension'. What this means is that homeopaths 'know' homeopathy works. They do not need real and direct evidence. They can just 'extend' their delusions in any direction they wish. Criminal? Definitely, irresponsible beyond belief.One area of law breaking that does need to be fully explored is to see if Neal's Yard Remedies are in breach of the MHRA rules on medicines. Homeopaths have recently been given special dispensation to tell lies on the labels of their products, but as long as it is only for minor illnesses and after they have submitted a 'dosier of delusions' to the MHRA. The BBC have passed on their evidence to the MHRA to see if an offense has been committed. There are two possibilities - Neal's Yard are selling such products without a license; the MHRA have given a license (which I doubt). Both would be a disgrace.
In the meantime, what will Neal's Yard do? On their web site they say their values are to "take great care to be responsible in everything we do." The only responsible thing to do right now would be to fire their Medicines Director, Susan Curtis, withdraw their homeopathy products, conduct a thorough review and get back to the business of selling perfumed bathroom products.
Something tells me this will not happen.
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A full transcript of the programme is now available at Thinking Is Dangerous.
See the follow up post to this at "Neal's Yard Ethical Bullshit Remedy."
And how the MHRA has clobbered them.
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Labels: homeopathy, Neal's Yard Remedies, Society of Homeopaths
posted by Le Canard Noir at
8:00 PM
10 Comments:
I read this blog entry in its entirety. Therefore, by extension, I have read the entire internet.
I don't think Susan Curtis' conscience has a conscience
They never learn do they? How stupid do you have to be to repeat advice that has got the profession into trouble before? One might begin to think that the homeopaths say one thing in public but, because they fervently believe in their healing delusions, in private will say something entirely different. They aren't to be trusted or entrusted with the power to advise on any aspect of healthcare.
Gimpy, are they all deluded? So many just simply lie I conclude that many are cynical fraudsters.
Acleron, they lie because they cannot face the truth that their potions do not work. They have bought in, heart and soul, to a system that they believes heals. Because they cannot renounce their belief they see conspiracy and suppression whenever they are challenged. They cannot imagine their critics act in good faith and honesty because they know they are right. They think they are being smart, outwitting their critics, because they can apparently appease some of the criticism with silken platitudes and the occasional bit of grandstanding.
Interesting post.
I think there’s more insanity behind the “named disease” issue than you realise. The homeopath actually thinks that named diseases are a nasty reductionist allopathic idea, whilst homeopathy treats the whole person, nudging the vital force so that the whole is healed. When they use terms like “treats malaria” they are using it as a convenient short hand for the above in the same way biologists use “evolved to” as short hand for “those with trait X tended to survive long enough to mate because of Y and so trait X increased in the population”. That’s why the SoH code of ethics is so insidious. It looks to any sane person like it is constraining the claims homeopaths are allowed to make, but in a homeopaths eyes it is simply stating the obvious: namely that they do not treat named diseases.
One quick way to find out if she is deluded or a fraudster would be to ask her to take her prophylaxis and then be bitten my malaria infected mozzies in the lab. If she declines she is a liar, if she accepts she is a fool.
Derek - you are ansolutely right about the problem with what they mean by 'treating named diseases'. I have written about this humpty dumpty approach to language a few times.
Thye problem is that their customers (I do not call them patients) do believe in real diseases but homeopaths tend not to set forth their true beliefs on the matter, e.g. their belief in magic miasms and life-forces and their refusal to accept the science of simple things like 'germ theory'. For them, the HIV virus in not the cause of AIDS but a result of a perturbed life force.
Sorry, I’m getting in your way again on the LMSO blog again. Will bow out, sock it too them I say.
Is there a way of finding out how many, if any, people die of malaria each year after travelling to malaria zones taking just homeopathic prophylaxis for malaria? If you have young gap year students, their whole life before them, dying of preventable disease, then you have a hell of a story. If actually most people who are using homeoprophylaxis are taking conventional medicine as well in a fanciful belts and braises approach then there is no story, but mercifully little harm done. I’d like to know which it is but I don’t know where to start.
To be frank, my hope is that this is quite a minor problem in the UK. Most UK travellers who get malaria do not die as they get proper treatment. The point of this fight is that companies like NYR are wanting to undergo huge expansion and this sort of thing is worth nipping in the bud.
Where, I guess, there is real harm is homeopaths in developing countries telling their porkies to local people. Malaria is utterly preventable, cheaply, but maybe not quite as cheap as a sugar pill. Homeopaths in africa and india look back to blighty as an example and confirmation of their murderous practice. Let's not let that be too easy.
This is horrible. I've been meaning to boycott Neal's Yard ever since I saw a "MMR: the debate" leaflet in there (er, which debate would that be..?) but unfortunately they do really fantastic skincare/shampoo stuff. Still. After seeing this I think my principles are going to have to come first - I can't honestly justify giving them my money any longer. Grr, why couldn't they just stick to cosmetics?
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