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Basic Alternative Medicine “Baffles Britons”

June 12, 2009

Many people in the UK are unable to identify the location of their major chakras, a study warns. A team at the Institute of Magical Thinking found public understanding of basic alternative medicine has not improved since a similar survey was conducted 40 years ago. Less than 50% of the more than 700 people surveyed could correctly place the anahata chakra, Moonbat’s Holistic Drop-in Centre says. Under one-third could place their gall bladder meridian in the correct location, but more than 85% got their kidney meridian points right. 37% did not know what 37% meant. There are concerns that the British public’s poor grasp of pseudoscience could potentially compromise the struggling alternative health industry. WHERE ARE YOUR RENAL REFLOXOLOGY PRESSURE POINTS? The researchers asked more than 700 people to...

McTimoney Chiropractors told to take down their web sites

June 10, 2009

By Andy Lewis

This letter has been issued from the McTimoney Association to all its members… Date: 8 June 2009 09:12:18 BDT Subject: FURTHER URGENT ACTION REQUIRED! Dear Member If you are reading this, we assume you have also read the urgent email we sent you last Friday. If you did not read it, READ IT VERY CAREFULLY NOW and – this is most important – ACT ON IT. This is not scaremongering. We judge this to be a real threat to you and your practice. Because of what we consider to be a witch hunt against chiropractors, we are now issuing the following advice: The target of the campaigners is now any claims for treatment that cannot be substantiated with chiropractic research. The safest thing for everyone to do is as...

How the British Chiropractic Association Targets Children

June 9, 2009

By Andy Lewis

How the British Chiropractic Association Targets Children

The British Chiropractic Association do not appear to be too hot on evidence. Given that they are suing Simon Singh, a science writer, for saying that they promoted treatments for children’s ailments, such as asthma and colic, when there was no good evidence, you would have thought that they would have been quick to publish any evidence that existed. In fact, despite the BCA telling us that there is a plethora of evidence for the chiropractic treatment of these conditions, they have still failed to make their case public. Strangely, they have made that alleged evidence available to the court. Some of us are beginning to doubt that the evidence will stand up to much scrutiny. Two of the central criticisms of chiropractic are that they promote improperly evidenced...

Homeopathy Awareness Week, 14 – 21st June 2009

June 9, 2009

By Andy Lewis

Are you a journalist or presenter looking for someone to discuss Homeopathy Awareness Week? Then please get in touch. The Society of Homeopaths are promoting “Homeopathy – a natural approach for the symptoms of hay fever” Did you know there is no convincing evidence that homeopathy can help with hayfever, or for any other condition? Did you know that homeopaths do not just treat mild self-limiting conditions such as hayfever, but they believe that they can treat serious diseases around the world such as malaria and HIV? Did you know that the charity Sense About Science has recently called on the World Health Organisation to condemn the use of homeopathy in the developing world for life threatening disease? In a letter to the World Health Organisation today, early career...

The University of Wales is Responsible for Enabling Bogus* Chiropractic Claims to be Made

June 5, 2009

By Andy Lewis

The Simon Singh/BCA libel case is having the unintended consequence of the media being full of reports of the strange beliefs of chiropractors. They are a cult like body of people and are demonstrating that they are unwilling to discuss matters of evidence but very happy to call their lawyers to get at their critics. In this way they show behaviour more readily expected from scientologists than a responsible health profession. Another unintended consequence of the BCA decision to sue Simon Singh is that an army of bloggers, scientists and sceptics have been scouring leaflets, advertising and web sites of chiropractors resulting in hundreds of complaints being made to the Advertising Standards Authority, Trading Standards and directly to the General Chiropractic Council. What was once considered a strength of...

Simon Singh to Appeal Bogus Decision

June 3, 2009

By Andy Lewis

“The law has no place in scientific disputes” Simon Singh is to appeal the absurd and astonishingly illiberal ruling made by Sir David Eady in the libel case brought about by the British Chiropractic Association. This is a brave decision by Simon, but an important one as there are issues at stake that go well beyond one case. Today, the charity Sense about Science is launching a campaign to highlight the issues raised by the Simon Singh libel case. I am very please to support this campaign and be one of the first signatories to the following statement: We the undersigned believe that it is inappropriate to use the English libel laws to silence critical discussion of medical practice and scientific evidence. The British Chiropractic Association has sued...

Chiropractic: A Joke

June 1, 2009

By Andy Lewis

Apologies… There were two doctors in a bar, spending the evening moaning about the current state of the NHS, government interference, hospital managers, crap IT, abusive patients, litigious patients, rotas, paperwork, overwork, lack of time with patients who need it – you get the picture. The first says, “You know what? It has got to the state where I want to jack it all in and get into alternative medicine. Frankly, I quite fancy being a chiropractor.” “A chiroquacktor?” Laughs the second doctor. “You have to be kidding?” “No, I’m serious.”, says the first. “Think about it. I can keep my “Dr” title and a have brass plaque on the front door of my own private practice. I can see a string of patients with mainly back...

A Carnival of Bogus* Chiropractic

May 19, 2009

By Andy Lewis

One of the side effects of the BCA vs Chiropractic libel case is that there are a growing number of people who now realise that Chiropractic is bogus*. Even though Simon Singh may well have suffered a set back from a judge who according to the law can define words as he sees fit, we are now seeing increasing exposure to the bogus* practices of the chiropractic trade. One way to show the ridiculousness of the legal decision and of chiropractic would be to have a little blog carnival on the bogus* nature of chiropractic claims and practices, and so I suggest that sceptical bloggers and writers help out by doing the following… 1. Find a chiropractic claim from an association or practitioner and examine the evidence for it...

Bogus Law

May 15, 2009

By Andy Lewis

The University of Oxford recent completed a report into the comparative costs of defamation proceedings across Europe. Its conclusions were that the costs of libel proceedings in England and Wales are about 140 times higher on average than those found across Europe. The reasons for this boil down the large number of lawyers that get involved, the length of the proceedings, the adversarial nature of English law, and the take up of Conditional Fee Arrangements (CFAs), “no win no fee”. The result of this is that the legal costs involved are likely to be hugely disproportionate to any potential damage done. Defending a case of libel, even if the damages only amount to a few thousand pounds, could result in the losing party facing legal bills of six...

Scepticism is the New Rock’n’Roll

May 13, 2009

By Andy Lewis

Last night we held the first evening of the Oxford branch of Skeptics in the Pub. Come 6.15 and the bar we had booked was already filling up. By Seven o’clock it was packed and unfortunately not everyone could see or hear. And what had people come to hear? A talk by Ben Goldacre about medical statistics. Yes. Let’s be clear. Over a hundred people, sat through several hours of discussion about funnel plots and publication bias, baseline manipulation, subgroup analyses and inappropriate controls – and it was huge fun. Ben was describing how pharmaceutical companies manipulate trial data in order to make their products look better than they are. It was a lecture he normally gives to medical students in London and we had the pleasure of it...

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Uncategorized

Basic Alternative Medicine “Baffles Britons”

McTimoney Chiropractors told to take down their web sites

How the British Chiropractic Association Targets Children

Homeopathy Awareness Week, 14 – 21st June 2009

The University of Wales is Responsible for Enabling Bogus* Chiropractic Claims to be Made

Simon Singh to Appeal Bogus Decision

Chiropractic: A Joke

A Carnival of Bogus* Chiropractic

Bogus Law

Scepticism is the New Rock’n’Roll

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