the quackometer

Will the Government Bail Out Ofquack?

Monday, March 23, 2009

It does not take a lot of analysis to realise that the newly formed Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council is going to be in a desperate financial state quite soon. The CNHC, or Ofquack to its friends, was launched this year after being set up by Prince Charles' charity, the Foundation for Integrated Health, backed by funding of about £900,000 from the Department of Health.

Ofquack is the "national voluntary regulator for complementary healthcare practitioners in the UK". It was conceived to be a single place that the public could go to find out if their quack of choice was 'legit'. The whole project has been a farce with most alternative medicine trades refusing to play ball. Why should a quack subject themselves to any sort of regulation voluntarily when they have existing bodies that pretend to do the job already and will never, ever actually intervene in their work?

The Ofquack project was really dependent on the homeopaths to succeed. Homeopaths represent the largest group of alternative medicine cranks in the UK and if the various homeopathic factions had played ball, the CNHC could have been secure with subscriptions from many thousands of homeopaths. But the homeopaths dug their heels in, refused to relinquish any of their independence and squabbled amongst each other as what to do on their own. The Society of Homeopaths, I am sure, want to be seen as the sole regulator of their profession and have dropped their membership fees this year in an attempt to mop up the dregs that have joined smaller 'regulators', such as the Alliance of Registered Homeopaths. This refusal to take part in Ofquack has grassroots support amongst the trade: the Society are a trustworthy 'regulator' for them in that they will not uphold their own code of practice when their members make irrational and dangerous claims to be able to treat disease, even AIDS. This story has been repeated on smaller scales with other quack bodies.

So, the government funding to the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council has been burnt over several years in setting up the body. There cannot be a great deal left. Since launch in January, Ofquack will have been taking subscriptions from newly signed up members – and it is this income that it needs to survive.

What costs will Ofquack have? From their web site, it would appear that the organisation needs to support the activities of nine board members, a dozen committee members and three office administrators. Now, most of these people will not receive salaries. Undoubtedly, the office staff receive a salary (fairly modest, I would guess) and the senior board staff may do too. Let’s do some back of the envelope calculations and generously suggest that there are two senior full time equivalent salaries to pay and three more junior office staff – I suggest 2 x £50,000 plus 3 x £20,000. Now, as a rule of thumb, total costs for staff can be up to three times salaries when you take into account national insurance, benefit and pension payments, office space, heating, lighting, computing equipment and expenses. Let’s keep numbers down and say total costs are likely to be twice base salary and this gives us an estimated figure of £320,000 per year. Real costs may well be higher as I have not taken into account any of the costs of administering the register, including hosting costs, design, documentation, legal advice (the lawyers have had some work) and publicity.

What income can Ofquack expect this year? Their target was for 10,000 registered members. The registration fee is between £30 and £45 and an application fee of £15 is payable. So, let’s say average first year income per registrant is £50, then Ofquack could expect an income of £500,000, which looks like the sort of income required to self-finance the body.

Three months into the year and how are the CNHC doing? Until a few days ago, it was possible to use the Ofquack web site to list all registered members (including, rather naughtily, all addresses and telephone numbers, in breach of their own data protection policy). This list suggested that there were just over 150 members. This is staggeringly low, given the publicity they have had. I suggested a few weeks ago, that they would be lucky to make 1000 registrations this year. I may even have to revise my own pessimistic estimates sharply downwards. At the moment, the problem for Ofquack is that they can only take registrations from massage therapists and nutritional therapists. And as I have said before, at least for the nutritionists, I cannot see what joining such a body would do for them when they have such a cosy membership body already that lets them take kick backs on the vitamin pill sales they make and allows them to use dodgy diagnostic tests in order to help make the pill sales.

So, their income so far from membership is in the range of £7,500 against projected costs of greater than £300,000. This is known in the start up trade as ‘burning cash’.

How will the money be made up? Of course, there are still nine more months to register members. However, one would expect a sudden surge with all the publicity followed by a sharp decline. Why would a nutritionist join later when they have had the chance to join now? What will change? Secondly, the CNHC hope to be able to get new ‘disciplines’ on board and sign up new types of registrant, such as reiki practitioners and cranial therapists (both bonkers forms of quackery). It would be unlikely that these therapists would rush to Ofquack for several reasons: firstly, most sorts of practitioners were fairly hostile to Ofquack and held deep suspicious about it; secondly, the economic climate may well be commercially testing these practitioners as the worried well concentrate on balancing their check books rather than their chakras; and thirdly, why would any of them risk an external and voluntary regulator governing what they do in the first place? I cannot see how Ofquack can be self-funding from registration fees given the current rate of applications.

Could Ofquack increase its fees? It would have to do so substantially. Quacks, like homeopaths already pay their membership bodies hundreds of pounds per year. Pressure was put on the newly forming Ofquack to keep their fees as low as possible so as not to threaten the income to membership bodies. Without membership of the CNHC being compulsory, it is difficult to see how fees could be anything more than nominal. Even at the current small rate, it is not making registration desirable.

Prince Charles could step in. There must be pressure here as Ofquack is his baby. But would he really throw hundreds of thousands from his Princes Trust to save a dead duck? He would make an even bigger fool of himself. And additionally, cash from his businesses such as Duchy Originals is already suffering due to the economic slump as consumers realise their organic needs might not be quite so high.

Sooner or later, the CNHC will be attempting to take membership fees knowing that it will run out of cash and be unable to supply a service without a miracle cure being forthcoming. It would appear to be absurd that the Department of Health would continue to bung cash down this hole when it is quite clear the whole thing is a horribly misconceived adventure that was never going to work. When the bank is trying to bail out banks and small businesses, would the government really throw cash at this failing enterprise when the only person that really wanted it was Prince Charles?

Labels: CNHC, Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council, Natural Healthcare Council, ofquack

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The Society of Homeopaths: The Failure of Self Regulation

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

The Adverting Standards Authority has today found that a homeopath advertised their asthma clinic for kids by making untruthful, unsubstantiated and irresponsible claims. Archway House Natural Health Centre holds an Asthma and Eczema clinic for children, run by Julia Wilson, a member of the Society of Homeopaths.

Inasmuch, this is not news. The ASA make judgments like this every week. Their weekly published list today contains all sorts of findings against chiropractors and related quacks. But what makes this interesting is that this advert, in the form of a leaflet, has already been subject to a complaint directly to the Society of Homeopaths, who claim to regulate their members. Over a year ago, I was concerned that the Society's Code of Ethics was being widely ignored by their membership and there was no evidence that they took any steps to uphold their code which is designed to protect the public. If so, this was pretty serious. People would be visiting homeopaths under the impression that their membership of the Society of Homeopaths ensured that certain standards would be maintained and that they would not be misled or endangered as a result of the consultation.

I picked on one homeopath from their register pretty much at random. Not only was Julia Wilson making claims to treat asthma (which would be in breach of the code) but also she has spent time in Kenya in a clinic that dishes out sugar pills to prevent malaria and to treat HIV. One would have thought that a responsible organisation would want to rein in such dangerous excesses. This homeopath appeared to be in breach of several points in their code including treating named diseases and advertising in a way that claimed superiority to real treatments.

You can read about the Society of Homeopath's response here. Julia Wilson defended herself by claiming that her adverts (see here) did not claim superiority of homeopathy over conventional treatment, that she made no stated or implied claim that homeopathy can treat asthma, and that no cure was implied. She also said that she could not be held responsible for the Kenyan clinic's claims on their website and that she did not claim to cure HIV or malria when working there. I would suggest you read the leaflet yourself and see if this defence merits any credibility. The Society of Homeopaths wrote to me to tell me that they were satisfied that no breach of their code had taken place and that "no action will be taken."

Well, the Society of Homeopaths did take action. Their solicitor wrote to my web hosts demanding that I take down web pages that commented on this and other aspects of their lack of concern for the dangerous practices of their members. When I wrote to the Society's CEO Paula Ross asking for an explanation, I got a threatening letter back from their solicitor. Naturally, bloggers on the web went crazy, reposting my articles and condemning the behavior of the society, calling them 'Cowards and Bullies".

The ASA read this leaflet and decided that on four counts it was in breach of the CAP rules on advertising for being unsubstantiated, untruthful and irresponsible. They decided the leaflet did imply a cure for asthma because it denigrated conventional treatment - "puffers can provide temporary relief, they're not offering your child a cure. Homeopathy is different...". They asked Archway House for evidence that their treatments 'helps alleviate the flaring skin and tightening lungs of your child's allergic reactions". They could not answer this to any degree of satisfaction. Most strikingly, the ASA found the leaflet was irresponsible because it was likely to dissuade parents from seeking medical advice. A testimonial read "I was frightened by how much my daughter relied on her inhalers". Damningly, Archway house could not provide any evidence that the testimonials on the leaflet were real.

I have emailed the Society of Homeopaths to ask why their conclusions were so different from the ASA. I have also asked if they will relook at the complaint and take action against their member as it is a requirement of their code that member's adverts do not breach Advertising Standards rules. Importantly, I have asked if the public can have confidence in their code of ethics and complaints process. (Update: response, so far, below)

Does this matter? Asthma is not a trivial disease. Asthma UK report that,

A person is admitted to hospital every 8 minutes in England because of their asthma. That's on average 185 people per day and one in six people require further emergency care again within two weeks, yet 75% of admissions for asthma are avoidable and could save the NHS in England an estimated £43.7 million a year.

It is estimated that there are 1,500 deaths and 74,000 emergency hospital admissions for asthma each year in UK. A child whose parents go a homeopathic route rather than following the management plan of their doctor is being put at risk. The Society of Homeopaths do not appear to care about this. But people in the UK quite rightly have choices. When homeopaths take their sugar pills to Africa and tell them that they are better and cheaper than medicine at preventing malaria and managing HIV, then the delusion of homeopathy becomes truly murderous. If you want to believe the homeopaths that they act responsibly over this, then you should see the latest newsletters from the Abha Light Foundation in Kenya where Julia Wilson worked. They are handing out homeopathic remedies to 1,500 families and telling them that they are malaria prophylactics. 34,000 people die in Kenya each year from malaria. Over a third of children die before their first birthday from Malaria. Telling families that magic water pills can protect them will reduce the likelihood that they will seek proven safe alternatives, such as mosquito nets for babies. The Society of Homeopaths have never spoken out against this terrible western delusion inflicted on Africa.

In the year 2000, the House of Lords looked into the question of regulation of Alternative Medicine and made a large number of recommendations about how various treatments should be controlled. Eight years on and the government strategy is in tatters. The homeopaths have actively campaigned to be exluded from greater regulation and decided that they can regulate themselves. This is clearly not true. The deluded cannot regulate the deluded if the public want to be protected. The government has set up the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (better know as Ofquack). This has failed for a number of reasons. Firstly, few alternative medicine groups have wanted to join. As Ofquack will have council members that are not part of the alternative medicine communities that they will regulate, none of the practitioners want to be judged by anyone who does not share their delusions. And secondly, as Ofquack has failed to get up and running and will be entirely voluntary, there has been no compulsion for quacks to subject themselves to any meaningful scrutiny.

Prince Charles has been deeply involved in trying to set up Ofquack. The Prince's Foundation for Integrated Health put one of their own people into a group that would try to unite the homeopathic profession and create a single register that could be effectively managed. The squabbling between homeopaths ensured this failed. Ofquack appears to have abandoned any pretense that it can now regulate vast swathes of the alternative medicine industry. The Society of Homeopaths have now stated that they intend to create their own 'single register' - a move that has angered the rest of the UK homeopaths and is doomed to failure too.

So, in the UK, when a member of the public seeks the services of an alternative medicine practitioner, they are likely to see someone with letters after their name and a web site that says that they are members of professional bodies with a strict code of conduct. This is a thoroughly misleading picture. Homeopaths and other practitioners may well sign up to a code of conduct, but in the knowledge that it will never be enforced.

In the Guardian recently, the same comment was made in an article entitled "A Question of Ethics". The article noted that one of the most senior member of the Society of Homeopaths was a strong advocate for providing homeopathic 'immunisations' - the belief that magic water can protect people from dangerous diseases. The arctile concluded, "It seems that codes of ethics are good for window dressing while pragmatism is better for profit. ". The Society responded with a press release,

The Society would like to advise Guardian readers that any suspected breach of The Society's Code of Ethics & Practice should be formally reported to its Professional Conduct Department where it will be fully investigated.

Investigated maybe. Enforced? Doubtful. The codes are an illusion and we are being taken for fools.

*****************************************************************************

Update

I have had a reply from Jayne Thomas, Chair of the Board of Directors at the Society of Homeopaths:

As we have not yet seen the findings of the ASA adjudication to which you refer, The Society of Homeopaths is unable to comment on the specifics of this case.

However, we would like to reassure you that due process was followed in the handling of this case.

By their own admission, The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP), have been delayed in finding an expert to assess the evidence base for homeopathy, which was submitted to them earlier this year.

The Society of Homeopaths is therefore awaiting the outcome of this assessment to inform future guidelines to our members concerning the advertising of homeopathy

So, we will have to wait for a more detailed response. I must admit that I surprised that SoH have not seen the adjudication yet. The ASA release a preliminary report to all parties several weeks before publication to allow the advertiser to respond and make corrections. Did Archway House really not consult SoH both originally and on the preliminary finding? The advertiser would also have been aware of the final outcome about a week before publication too. How do the SoH know that the ASA could not find an 'expert' to help them? In what way have SoH been involved here?

Labels: ASA, homeopathy, Natural Healthcare Council, ofquack, Society of Homeopaths

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Andy Burman Resigns From Ofquack

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Andy Burman, Chief Executive of the British Dietetic Association, appears to have resigned his post from the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (Ofquack).

This news follows my recent criticism on this site of the BDA for not doing enough to educate the public about the difference between pseudoscientific Nutritional Therapists (as to be 'regulated' by Ofquack) and professionally trained and regulated dietitians (as currently represented by the BDA). This came in the wake of the news that a brain damaged woman had been given £810,000 by the insurers of self-styled nutritionist Barbara Nash. I commented that the situation was being made worse by the emergence of the ill-conceived, government sponsored and Prince Charles driven, CNHC. Ofquack will not protect the public from the practices and commercial motives of Nutritional Therapists and will do nothing to improve the public understanding of nutritional science - indeed, it will substantially undermine it.

It was therefore something of a shock to read a comment left on my blog that said that Andy Burman, Chief Executive of the BDA, was on the board of directors of the newly emerging Ofquack. The commenter said, "Instead the management of the BDA is actively undermining their own members." My simple response was that the BDA was therefore doomed.

It would appear that I have poked a sharp stick into a dyke of sleeping dogs and unleashed a hornet's nest of discontented angry bear dietitians. What became clear, by further comments on my web site, was that many grass roots dietitians were livid about the situation. A selection of some of the comments follows:

I wonder how much time Dieticians spend disabusing the general public of some wacky notion they have picked up from non evidenced based nutritional practitioners?

Might as well all raise a white flag to McKeith, Holford et al and face the fact that evidence based nutrition is a dead duck.

Is the chief exec of the BDA further providing legitimacy to the very nutritional therapists that are a danger to the public and in doing so professionally humiliating his own members?
Yes.
Should dieticians now be demanding a change of direction and chief exec at the BDA or just abandoning the pointless organisation?
Yes.

I am a proud HPC registered Dietitian and up till recently I was also a proud member(albeit diminishing) of the BDA. However on discovering that my very own Chief Exec Andy Burman is, a member of the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council's Federal Regulatory Council I am truly mad and embarrassed.

It looks like a storm was brewing. Indeed, Andy Burman appeared to feel it necessary to leave his own comment on my blog. In that comment, Mr Burman defended his role at Ofquack and the need for the organisation itself. Also, on his biography on the Ofquack website, he says,

Andy is committed to voluntary self regulation within complementary healthcare and honoured to be part of this new development.

This defense did not appease his critics. Further comments ensued.

I'm sorry - I find the response from the Chief Exec of the BDA beyond belief. How can you possibly maintain standards for stuff that doesn't work? All you will do is provide legitimacy to those practitioners who do not maintain the high standard of your own members (who, by the way - must be absolutely livid that you are choosing to tacitly support quack therapists by providing legitimacy to them via regulation).

Ladies and Gentlemen It's time to reclaim the place that is rightfully ours and maybe look at who we choose to represent us -because let's face it in any other business our PR agency would have been well and truly fired by now!

I'm also very concerned at the news about Andy Burman. Maybe we should be reviewing his position as CEO of the BDA.

I think Andy has made his position untenable - the membership is mad as hell. Those of us who work in the private sector have all dealt with clients that have seen these therapists - some of the rubbish they sprout is quite unbelievable. The new council I think is a sham - and the NTs themselves do not want any more reg because they will end up halfing their income from all the supplements they sell [The BANT code of 'ethics' explicitly allows Nutritional Therapists to take commissions on supplements they sell. - LCN]

The final comment today from an anonymous dietitician reads,

I understand that Andy Burman has resigned from OfQuack. Good news for dietitians.

Although, I have not has direct confirmation of this yet, it is backed up by the disappearance of his biography on the Ofquack web site (compare the current version with Google's cache). This was the very least that should have happened. It is obvious that some people believe that the involvement with Ofquack has undermined his role as Chief Executive at the BDA.

Ofquack was founded as a result of a monumental governmental mistake. The House of Lords, in 2000, recommended the government look into the proper regulation of alternative medicine. It was concerned that the public was not sufficiently protected from the alternative medicine trade and recommended that ways were sought to ensure practitioners were well trained, safe and effective in what they did. In an act of blazing naivity, the government saw fit to hand over this responsibility to Prince Charles and his bizarre organization, the Foundation for Integrated Health. The task defining what regulation should look like was handed over to the very people that cause the problem with their loony beliefs.

The result was predictable. FIH took to the task with gusto, forming important looking committees and consultations. The only thing dropped from the Lord's recommendations was the question of efficacy. Ofquack are only interested in showing that boxes can be ticked regarding training. It does not matter one iota that the practices of those they seek to regulate do not work.

Indeed, this was against the very wishes of the House of Lords. In their summary they said,

Many CAM therapies are based on theories about their modes of action that are not congruent with current scientific knowledge. That is not to say that new scientific knowledge may not emerge in the future. Nevertheless as a Select Committee on Science and Technology we must make it clear from the outset that while we accept that some CAM therapies, notably osteopathy, chiropractic and herbal medicine, have established efficacy in the treatment of a limited range of ailments, we remain sceptical about the modes of action of most of the others. We therefore emphasise that in recommending the regulation of training in CAM we specifically exclude training in the asserted modes of action of many CAM therapies. We do so because regulation could lead to a misleading public perception of improved status; such regulation is in fact an attempt to safeguard the public. (My emphasis)

It looks like our vestigial feudal wing of government can duly show wisdom and insight when required, even in the face of their overlord, Prince Charles. Magna Carta rocks.

Despite Prince Charles FIH’s stated commitment to evidence based alternative medicine being ‘integrated’ with real medicine they avoid the evidence base like the plague. They embrace nonsense healing rituals like homeopathy and reflexology without appearing embarrassed about the utter lack of credibility for these techniques. Just check out their site. Can you spot any alternative medicine that Prince Charles says to avoid because of its lack of a credible scientific evidence base? I can see no reason why the claims of nutritional therapists will not be treated in exactly the same manner. As long as they can claim to hold some sort of training they well get the Ofquack seal of approval. The content of that training will not be important.

Andy Burman, in my opinion, is making the same mistake that everyone in the sorry tale of Ofquack is making - that the way to protect the public is to regulate the trades of alternative medicine in the same manner that you might regulate real medicine. The flaw with this idea is that you cannot regulate nonsense. Professor David Colquhoun has demonstrated the central weakness of Ofquack in the THES and on his own blog (1) (2). Is a homeopath a safer practitioner because they have successfully completed the modules that teach them that illness is caused by imbalances in the Vital Force and that a medicine's effectiveness increases with more dilution? Does a Nutritional Therapist, after completing professional development courses in Hair Mineral Analysis or Allergy Testing offer a better service to their punters or allow them to fleece the public better with fraudulent pill selling techniques?

We do not provide astrologers and psychics with state money to set up their own self-regulatory bodies. Instead we allow existing mechanisms to ensure the worst of their practices are curbed by using the Advertising Standards Authority and Trading Standards to warn and prosecute where necessary. And it does not matter if a quack genuinely believes that reflexology foot massages can help you with constipation (or whatever). Many people genuinely believe pyramid selling schemes can get you rich. We do not offer accreditation and state regulation to the owners of pyramid schemes - no, we educate the public about their dangers and prosecute those who profit.

If we believe the public should have some protection from quacks, the answer is two-fold: public education and prosecution. Not accreditation and meaningless self-regulation that only serves to aggrandise. And in anycase, Ofquack is a dead duck and is doomed to whither, mainly because the quacks do not want to be regulated by any sort of outside body and self-regulation cannot compell them to become registered. In short, a monumental folly.

The BDA could and should be offering more public education. Every time there is some self-appointed and under-educated nutritionist on the day time television couches, the BDA should be ensuring the producers know what unstable ground they are on. In Germany, they fire TV nutritionists who spout nonsense and self-servingly promote their own quack products. We should be doing the same here. The BDA should be ensuring that the public see dietitians as the first port of call for dietary advice - not the last, after the nutritionists nuts have filled peoples' heads with dietary nonsense. And the BDA should be assisting the authorities where necessary to enforce existing advertising and trading standards legislation. The legislation is not perfect, but is a damn good start.

Can Andy Burman do an about turn and work with his colleagues at the BDA to this end? Let's hope so.

Labels: Natural Healthcare Council, nutritionist, ofquack, Prince Charles

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Alleged Victim of Oxford Nutritionist 'Detox Diet' wins £810,000

Monday, July 07, 2008

Barbara Nash is a nutritionist based near Oxford. Dawn Page was overweight and sought the advice of Nash. It is alleged she was put on a 'detox diet' which included drinking lots of water and consuming no salt. If true, the result was very predictable.

Mrs Page suffered 'uncontrolled vomiting and a fit' and was rushed to intensive care. The Oxford Mail now reports she has brain damage. Her husband sued Dawn Nash and her insurers have paid out £810,000 in a settlement for compensation.

It is worth noting that Nash's barrister said she was a.

"privately trained nutritionist", and emphasised she continued to deny she was in any way to blame for what happened.

Barbara Nash appears not just to offer detox diets but also sells on her web site kitchen smoothie makers, blenders and juicers that cost more than a thousand pounds.

Anyone can call themselves a nutritionist. Only Dietitians are guaranteed by their training and professional memberships to be fully competent in what they do. Sadly, the proliferation of under trained and badly trained nutritionists is growing unchecked. Universities are in on the act taking money from students to train them as 'nutritional therapists'. Such degrees, from the likes of the University of Westminster School of Magic, are a disgrace. Privately owned colleges appear to offer legitimate diplomas, but their standard of training is unchecked.

But the TV and the Sunday supplements are full of the stupid and dangerous advice about detox and vitamin pills and superfoods and allergy tests. It is quack nutritionists, rather than medical dietitians, who own the media and the attention of the public. It is a handy commercial partnership of supermarkets, quacks, health shops and pharmacies selling pills and tonics and books and over prepared foods.

And the government is not helping. Their new Prince Charles sponsored body Ofquack intends to regulate nutritional therapists. It will give them a veneer of professionalism without protecting the public one little bit. Ofquack refuses to regulate the practice of their members (what they believe and do) and only certify that they have been trained by other quacks and carry insurance.

Personally, I think the British Dietetic Association cannot escape some blame here for the growing rise of nutriquacks. This is the proper organisation that regulates real dietitians. They should be as mad as hell that their turf has been invaded by anti-science know-nothings. I am sure their members have to deal with the catastrophic results of patients who have been misinformed by nutritionists everyday. Where is the noise they ought to be making? Why are they not telling the public and government that something is terribly wrong here with they way we view food and the self-appointed gurus who profit from our confusion?

Until this is sorted out, I expect we will be seeing an ever increasing number of stories just like this.

Labels: barbara nash, detox, Natural Healthcare Council, nutritionist, ofquack, the law

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Medical Astrology - Forseeing the Future of Regulated Alternative Medicine

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Part of the wonderful new world of regulated alternative medicine is the insistence that all registered practitioners undergo Continuous Professional Development. Just like in real professions, quacks will be expected to attend a certain number of hours per year in keeping their skills up to date and learning about the latest developments in their field.

The Prince of Wales and his new Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council are right behind this initiative and, with the government, there are going to be lots of shiny new 'training standards' for their members. Existing non compulsory 'regulators', such as the Society of Homeopaths also insist in Continuous Professional Development.

So, what do we expect homeopaths to learn? The latest meta analyses and why scientific results do not support homeopathy? Basic chemistry lessons and why no atoms means no effect? No.

Let me show you an example. This evening, homeopaths can earn on of their CPD certificates by going to a talk in St Albans given by Myriam Shivadikar. The talk is entitled, MEDICAL ASTROLOGY FOR HOMEOPATHS.

Every ancient civilisation used astrology for forecasting events, promoting health and in the prevention of disease. The alchemists used astrology and based prescriptions on the patient’s planetary constitution. As a physician, we need to understand patients in order to treat them. The best physician can predict a disease before it occurs- Why wait for a person to get sick?

This simple yet effective system of astrology is based on ancient wisdom using Planetary Cycles and popularised by Robin Murphy. You do not need to have prior knowledge of ‘Western Astrology’ to use this system.

Western Astrology? I thought 'Western' was bad and allopathic? Fortunately, you do not need prior knowledge of anything before attending this course. Trainees need not have prior knowledge of the differences between their arse and their elbow.

What new skills will homeopaths pick up?

Your constitutional 3 main planets based on your date and time of birth
The 7 sacred planets
7 year cycles – How to predict and prevent diseases.
Diseases and remedies associated with each planet

Marvelous. This is for real. Adults appear to believe this stuff.

The event is being put on by Gala Homeopathy (slow load). Gala appears to specialise in charging homeopaths to attend events in exchange for their CPD certificates. In a few weeks, you can hear a talk by Lionel Milgrom who believes quantum mechanics explains homeopathy. It's utter nonsense of course, but the homeopaths lap it up. You can also learn about Live Blood Analysis, a technique that I have discussed recently and has been described as 'High-Tech Hokum' and a 'money making scheme'.

This event simply demonstrates that the whole approach of regulation by 'box ticking' is deeply flawed. The Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (Ofquack) appears to believe that simply ensuring that homeopaths and other quacks are properly trained will protect the public. The important question is; what are they being trained in? No one wants to address this question. All Ofquack will be doing is endorsing nonsense. Once you have accepted that it is quite alright to accredit training in the nonsense foundations of most alternative medicine you loose the ability to sensibly decide what is good training and bad training. Offering training in delusion can only make quacks more efficient at fleecing their customers and engaging in meaningless or even dangerous practices.

I now think that the only way to tackle regulation of alternative medicine is by using prosecution under trading standards legislation. Everything else appears to legitimise the nonsensical, deluded and even fraudulent. Fortunately, despite the best efforts of Prince Charles and the many bodies representing alternative medicine, this is going to be the regime we will get. Time will tell if it is effective.

Labels: BPSDB, Natural Healthcare Council, ofquack, pseudoscience, regulation

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The Empire of Homeopaths Strike Back

Monday, February 25, 2008

We know it is going to be a fun year for watching Homeopaths. The fight is well and truly on for who gets to pretend to regulate the profession. The beleaguered Society of Homeopaths have today gone on the offensive for total and unyielding control.

The year started off with Prince Charles and the Foundation for Integrated Health announcing the arrival on the scene of the government backed Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council, or Ofquack. This was something of an ambush on the various factions of homeopaths. They have been fighting amongst each other, trying to poach members and accusing each other of dastardly crimes and not being true homeopaths, but on one thing they appear to be unanimous: their opposition to CNHC and 'federated regulation'. What this means is that they do not want to be regulated by non-homeopaths. Heaven forbid someone who does not 'understand' homeopathy, ever tell them what they can and cannot do.

But the CNHC know that the various groups' objections to Ofquack do not mean that individual homeopaths will object. There may well be advantages of being seen to be regulated by the Princes' organisation, not least of all that it might well be a lot cheaper then the subs that the SoH demand. So, CNHS have been ploughing on as if there is no problem and appearing in newspapers and on the radio telling the world that homeopaths are happy and ready to join.

No so fast.

Today, the Society of Homeopaths have upped their game and issued a press release to tell the world that they, and they alone, are ready to set up a single register. If the CNHC succeed, SoH may well cease to exist in a year or two. They are planning their counter attacks.

Consultation commences today on regulation of homeopaths.

The Society of Homeopaths resolves to divest regulatory framework from its membership organisation to create the UK’s first independent single register and regulatory body for homeopaths

The Society of Homeopaths, Britain’s largest professional association of homeopaths, today announced that it has begun a wide-ranging consultation as it prepares to launch the UK’s first independent single register and regulatory body for homeopaths. Following a recent meeting with the Department of Health, the Board of the 30 year old Society resolved to divest its self-regulation and governance arm from its membership and continuing professional development functions in order to create a first-class regulatory body, which will govern the professional practice of an
expanding number of homeopathy practitioners.

What this means is, at the moment, a bit confusing. First of all, what is new? SoH already have the largest single register and if it wasn't for those pesky, breakaway splitters, the Alliance of Registered Homeopaths, they would have a near monopoly. They make no mention of working with other homeopaths groups and so we must assume that it this is an initiative solely within the Society and aimed at wrong footing the CNHC. How will they get ARH splitters to join the new SoH backed register and not Ofquack? My guess is that SoH believe that ARH will fold quicker than a spineless internet service provider as soon as members stop renewing their subscriptions.

There is also the implication that they are doing this with the approval of the Department of Health. But we know we have to be dead careful with Society press releases. Things should not be taken at face value. We know that the Department of Health are planning to bankroll CNHC for the next year and so it is unlikely they are supporting both initiatives. We must assume that the Society mean exactly what they say: they had a meeting with the DoH and then they embarked on this initiative. Two unrelated facts. They might have well have said that they had a bowl of cornflakes, brushed their teeth, and then decided to divest themselves of their self-regulatory powers.

The press release then goes on to praise the high level of self-regulation within the Society of Homeopaths. Regular readers here will know how difficult that is to accept. Despite obvious, numerous and well documented breaches of their code of ethics, there is little evidence of the Society ever making any adjudications and disciplining any of their members. They say in press releases that they have a "transparent complaints process". Can you find a list of their cases considered on their web site? We know complaints have been made. Where is the transparency?

So what is going to happen? Well, it looks like there is going to be a consultation,

Commenting on the Board’s resolution and the consultation process, Chair designate, Jayne Thomas said: “Today marks an important watershed in our profession. The consultation is to be widespread. We are seeking the views of patients, other homeopaths, the many colleges and universities that train the professionals, other organisations in the homeopathy field and of course politicians from all parties.

The one group that is conspicuously absent is scientists and the medical profession. And in that we see that this is one more futile bit of gesture and power politics. This is about control of the profession and not about protecting the public. My guess is that my opinion will not be welcome at this consultation.

If protecting the public was paramount then any regulatory structure must take into account the quality of advice that is given out by homeopaths. Both the CNHC and SoH want to control training standards but neither want to take on the content of that training. We know there is a deep problem within the homeopathic community that their training makes them systematically incompetent. They are trained not to recognise and actively reject normal standards of scientific evidence. They are trained to accept unquestioningly the teachings of their founder Samuel Hahnemann as if it was revealed truth. And in doing so they pose a real danger to their patients that they will offer useless or even dangerous advice, and worse, they will undermine the relationship that they might have with their GP. The failure of the Society of Homeopaths to tackle the problem of members giving out dangerous anti-malaria advice effectively rules them out as a competent body in regulating the profession.

Professor Dame Joan Higgins, who set up the CNHC, suffers from the same problem. Professor Higgins has recently given a presentation reviewing progress and expectations. One slide notes that there has been 'press criticism' that CNHC will 'endorse quackery'. Well I never! How does she respond to this criticism?

FWG role was not to evaluate the effectiveness of CAM and it did not have the capacity to do so. Its task was to establish a regulatory structure to protect the public not to promote CAM. This does not mean that it was positive/negative about CAM. It did not take a view.

This statement is somewhat disingenuous in that no one would expect them to evaluate the effectiveness of CAM, or at least homeopathy. That evaluation has already been done. Homeopathy is the ritualised prescription of plain sugar pills for all illnesses. As such, it is pure placebo and the best clinical evidence to date suggest that this is just the case. It is not a hard problem to understand. In principle, it is perfectly possible to draw up a set of regulations that take this into account.

So, Professor Higgins also washes her hands of the rather inconvenient problem that homeopathy does not work as described but practitioners are too deluded to work competently within the boundaries set by that knowledge. Whilst we have all these fighting organisations struggling to come out on top as the pretend regulators of the profession, we will have no one prepared to protect vulnerable people from homeopaths who practice their 'healing art' without care as to what is true and what is not true.

I wonder what is going to happen next?

Well, the CNHC will be late in setting up. There are already signs of slippage. There has only just been an advert go out to look for a Chair of the body. For an organisation that has stated it is ready to go in April, that looks rather late. A new chair may not be up and running until mid Summer at the earliest.

It's all going to be a complete shambles.

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Your contribution to the consulation can be made by sending thoughts to consultation@homeopathy-soh.org

Labels: Natural Healthcare Council, regulation, Society of Homeopaths

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Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Professor Joan Higgins, Chair of the Federal Working Group on Complementary Therapies, is in charge of setting up the Natural Healthcare Council (Ofquack). From April, this will be a voluntary self-regulated body that will be tasked with protecting the public from the dangers of alternative medicine. The Professor wrote to the Guardian today to complain about Polly Toynbee's straight talking article,

I am sorry that Polly Toynbee feels that the creation of a new regulator "gives non-science a new authority". As a lay person, I am certainly not able to judge the scientific validity of these therapies and this is not what my working group (to which she refers) was set up to do. I would ask her to consider an alternative scenario. Complementary therapists have been in practice for many years. There is public demand for their services and there is no move to stop therapists offering their services to sometimes quite vulnerable people. If complementary therapy is not to be banned, is it not, therefore, wise to regulate it and offer the public some measure of protection and a body to whom to complain if things go wrong?

The problem is that the Professor is not the only person who is 'certainly not able to judge the scientific validity of these therapies'. No one involved appears to want to tackle the inconvenient problem that most alternative therapies do not work. But without acknowledging this, how can a regulator protect the public? If a homeopath advises a mother that sugar pills can be used to 'treat' their child's asthma will the homeopath be in breach of any code? Their training as a homeopath may be thorough, their professional conduct may be solid - but their medical advice is appalling. Who is going to set the standards of what is good practice? Who is going to guard the standards that Ofquack guard?

Professor David Colquhoun is tackling this problem and is using the Freedom of Information Act to get to the bottom of this. His most recent blog post on the (Un)-Natural Healthcare Council is hilarious.

Professor Colquhoun believes that the whole regulatory infrastructure is unnecessary and that a strengthening of existing legislation would suffice. I would tend to agree with him and I have commented on these pages about the shortcomings of Trading Standards and the Advertising Standards Authority in dealing with quackery.

However, there may be other options. The Financial Services Authority has created huge upheavals in banking and lending over the last decade. In short, they have forced anyone offering financial advice to conform to standards of disclosure and product information. Anyone offering financial services must make an initial disclosure to their clients outlining the nature of the service they are offering, the method by which they will receive payments and commissions, how the service provider is regulated and how to make a complaint. When recommending a financial product, the advisor must present a Key Facts Illustration (KFI) document that outlines in standard terms the features of the products, the risk associated with the product, and full costs.

I see merit in exploring this idea for alternative medicine. In fact, this would bring CAM practitioners more in line with their hospital colleagues - it is giving their clients the information required to make informed consent.

In the USA, California have already introduced a similar scheme: California Senate Bill SB577 . The reason for introducing this bill though was rather different. Before that, people like Homeopath Dana Ullman got arrested for practicing medicine without a license. The Bill allowed people to practice CAM but within a legally controlled framework. This is not the same as self-regulation. This is external regulation.

There are some pretty sound elements to it, like making it illegal to:

recommend the discontinuance of legend drugs or controlled substances prescribed by an appropriately licensed practitioner.
...shall disclose in the advertisement that he or she is not licensed by the state as a healing arts practitioner.

Importantly, they have to perform a disclosure:

(1) Disclose to the client in a written statement using plain language the following information:

(A) That he or she is not a licensed physician.
(B) That the treatment is alternative or complementary to healing arts services licensed by the state.
(C) That the services to be provided are not licensed by the state.
(D) The nature of the services to be provided.
(E) The theory of treatment upon which the services are based.
(F) His or her educational, training, experience, and other qualifications regarding the services to be provided.

(2) Obtain a written acknowledgement from the client stating that he or she
has been provided with the information described in paragraph

I would go further than that list. For example, any attempt to undermine this disclosure or denigrate or undermine a person's GP or their advice would be an offense.

As I believe that the biggest threat to homeopathy is people finding out what it is. I would suggest that the CAM Key Facts Illustration contained two extra elements: the theory behind the therapy and whether it is supported by science and the evidence base for effectiveness of the treatment. Obviously, such statements could not come from the practitioner themselves. We are trying to protect people from their non-medically qualified practitioners delusions. The MHRA could possible provide such statements for each therapy in the same way that the Financial Services Authority provide sample paragraphs for inclusion in mortgage documents.

I see the challenges here are with how to enforce this sort of regulation. What is to be avoided is any sort of licensing as this implies government approval. Can we find a way to carry out licensing in a way that does not imply endorsement? For example, Oxford City Council licenses a sex shop on the Cowley Road, apparently. (Ben Goldare tells me there is one there.) This does not imply that Oxford approves of any the appliances found therein. Do we need licensing? Trading Standards does not need a list of licensed plumbers to enforce various regulations. Who would pay for the extra demands on local councils? Maybe Sue Blackmore's proposals to Tax the homeopaths would be required in parallel.

Discuss.

Labels: David Colquhoun, Natural Healthcare Council, regulation

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Is Statutory Self-Regulation the Answer for Homeopathy?

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

The ambush by the Prince of Wales on the various factions of Alternative Medicine by announcing the set up of the Natural Healthcare Council, Ofquack, is starting to have effects. In the Guardian yesterday, Polly Toynbee ran an article entitled, Quackery and superstition - available soon on the NHS. She argues that we should,

Put not your trust in princes, especially not princes who talk to plants.

and despairs how all this non-science will be given new authority. She says,

All this might just be funny but harmless. Does it matter if people waste £130m a year on potions? It matters that the NHS spends £50m on alternative treatments, a figure expected to rise soon to £200m. It matters that Newsnight found homeopaths advising patients visiting malaria areas not to take anti-malarial drugs. And that patients are told not to give their children the MMR jab. The alternative lobby replies that conventional medicine can also do more harm than good.

Now, the Society of Homeopaths have been fairly quiet of late, but they have decided to respond in their usual way with a rushed out press release. It gives more insight into their thinking about Ofquack. Paula Ross, Chief Executive, starts off,

The proposed regulation is actually about control of the practitioners rather than the therapy and its primary aim is rightly protection of the public.

This confirms what we have thought a the quackometer is their greatest fear - others controlling their therapy. "It is fine to keep a list, but don't meddle with our beliefs."

But their fears go further,

Whilst The Society welcomes the creation of a Natural Healthcare Council, it is greatly concerned at its proposed inclusion of homeopathy, notably without consultation since, as a profession, in 2006, homeopathy unanimously concluded that this voluntary register was not appropriate for its needs and the public who use it.
This is because homeopathy was already far more advanced in self-regulation than the other therapies involved; it has (as identified by The House of Lords Select Committee on Science & Technology) a self-contained system for diagnosis and treatment of individual rather than being complementary; its training is far longer and educational outcomes much higher.
Through The Society of Homeopaths, homeopathy already has a far more rigorous regulatory process in place than anything proposed to date by the Foundation. And what’s more, our members want much more than voluntary regulation: they want statutory regulation. Hardly the behaviour of charlatans.

So, no need to include the homeopaths because we are tons better than the other flaky lot.

This is quite an interesting statement. The Society makes it clear that it does not consider itself to be a complementary therapy. Homeopathy is strictly alternative, or in their words a 'complete system of medicine'. Homeopaths define themselves in opposition to real medicine. They derogatorily call doctors 'allopaths' and accuse them of being in the pay of pharmaceutical companies, and that all they are interested in is 'alleviating symptoms, keeping people sick and using very dangerous drugs on patients that kill them'.

It is for this very reason that homeopaths should never be allowed to self-regulate. The reason is not that I believe homeopaths to be 'charlatans', but rather the far more scary prospect that they actually believe what they say.

Let us look at the original reasons the House of Lords used to look into the regulation of non-medically qualified health care workers. The noble Lords saw homeopaths as being a special case within the CAM world,

Of all the professions in our Group 1, homeopathy carries the fewest inherent risks in its practice, at least in relation to the consumption of homeopathic medicines. We are also aware that there is unusually strong contention about the evidence available for its efficacy. These two points could be seen as arguments against statutory regulation which could be considered unnecessary due to the limited risks and could also be seen as awarding a degree of legitimacy to a therapy about which much of the conventional scientific world has strong doubts and reservations.

But, an ermine clad warning is given to the homeopaths,

While the practice of homeopathy may itself be free from risk, it does create an opportunity for diverting conventional diagnosis and treatment away from patients with conditions where conventional treatment is well-established, as some patients seem to see it as offering a complete alternative to conventional medicine. Such attitudes mean that homeopaths are in a position of great responsibility. It is imperative that there is a way of ensuring that this position is handled professionally, that all homeopaths are registered, that they know the limits of their competence, and that there are disciplinary procedures with real teeth in place.

The Lords wonder if protection of title would help in this role. As a result of the review, the homeopaths were sent packing to get their house in order. They have failed spectacularly. The Lords are quite clear in their report that a non-statutory self-regulated profession needs a single register and accountable practices. The homeopaths are showing no signs of being able to cope with either. Despite being in a 'position of great responsibility', the danger to the public from their strictly alternative beliefs still remains.

The Lords urge the Society of Homeopaths to consider statutory regulation. From the above press release, it looks as if that is what they are now doing. They do not want anything to do with the Natural Healthcare Council as that would just be humiliating. But there are a number of stumbling blocks. The Society do not speak for all homeopaths, there is no single register and so no defined path to achieving this goal. It is not yet clear what SoH want to do. Maybe they just want to wait and see other Homeopath groups, like the Alliance of Registered Homeopaths, fail or merge. Maybe they wait in the hope that someone will just ask them to step into the role of sole Regulator.

However, I believe allowing any homeopathic group to become a sole regulator, statutory or not, would be a huge mistake as it would not meet the simple requirements that a regulator should meet. First and foremost is the protection of the public. As the House of Lords recognised, homeopaths carry great responsibility as many people see them s being primary and sole healthcare providers. The big problem is, and this is missed by the Lords, is that homeopaths see themselves in this role too.

What self-regulation for homeopaths would fail to do would be to allow any objective and evidence-based criteria to be used to judge homeopathy's effectiveness. This blog and others have been hugely critical of homeopaths for their dangerous advice to their customers about malaria treatment, AIDS treatments and the vaccination of children. Homeopaths actively disparage real medicine and its practitioners, they wean their customers of their GP prescribed medications without medical supervision and spread unfounded fear about MMR and other vaccinations.

The Society of Homeopaths say in their press release that they have a "rigorous regulatory process in place". Many would now strongly dispute that. It is a regulatory process that lacks transparency, that fails to act against the dangerous practices of its members, is willing to publicly misrepresent its actions, and is openly flouted by the Societies directors, fellows and members. To allow this ethos of regulation to become statutorily endorsed would be a grave mistake.

To offer statutory regulation to homeopaths would be to give official endorsement to their delusional beliefs that they offer a genuine alternative to conventional, evidence-based medicine. That cannot be in the best interests of the public. Voluntary self-regulation for homeopaths has been tried and has failed. To now offer statutory self-regulation to homeopaths would just offer state-approval to that failure without addressing the reasons for failure.

What is going to happen next is anyone's guess. The Princes Foundation for Integrated Health must now surely be aware of the massive problems here. The whole programme of FiH is in jeopardy because its whole ethos is about finding common ground between conventional medicine and the complementary non-medically qualified health workers (quacks). The largest group, the non-medically qualified homeopaths, have made it quite clear that they will not be taking part and that they are deeply hostile to the integrative programme.

To think they ever would be was just plain naivety.

Labels: Natural Healthcare Council, ofquack, regulation, Society of Homeopaths

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Curing Homeopathy

Saturday, January 05, 2008

How should homeopaths be regulated? I am not sure I have made up my mind yet about what I would like to see and I am not convinced there is a perfect solution. However, I hope some debate has been kicked off by all the goings on last year, here and on various other blogs and forums. One thing I am pretty sure of is that homeopaths have pretty much ruled themselves out of the discussion. Adults only from now on.

And the reason for this is that they have had their chance - and a good shot at trying to regulate themselves. Indeed, this was the stated aim of the Society of Homeopaths last year. Two of their annual goals were:

To facilitate the smooth handover of Society regulatory processes to a new regulatory and registration body

and,

To uphold and review The Society’s professional standards especially in relation to the development of a new regulatory and registration body (NRRB)

They failed miserably at both.

The farce of creating a single homeopaths' single register is being documented at gimpy's blog. Squabbling about money made sure the register did not get off the ground. I believe this reflected deeper rivalry between the various homeopaths' groups based on philosophical differences and also just plain old human power struggles.

The Society also demonstrated that their code of ethics could not protect the public from the worst delusional beliefs of their members. Their utter two-faced failure to tackle the problems posed by members offering anti-malaria advice led to the Society being prepared to directly misrepresent their own actions to the papers. They were also last year promoting homeopathic intervention in HIV people in Africa. It is difficult to think of more exploitative, deluded and dangerous actions.

So, to start off - what are we trying to protect against? Ben Goldacre has been quite clear about the dangers of alternative medicine - bullshit. And that bullshit manifests itself in a couple of dangerous ways with homeopaths. Firstly, they may delay a customers access to effective treatment - in the case of serious illness this can be fatal. Secondly, they may present themselves as serious alternatives to real medicine. We have found this most shocking when homeopathic missionaries tell vulnerable African people with HIV that they can treat them. Homeopaths use the denigration of medicine as a standard marketing tool. Homeopaths stand out in the alternative medicine crowd in their anger and hostility towards real doctors and medical practices. It is how they define themselves and what makes them most dangerous to the public. They most definitely are not a 'complementary medicine'.

It is not that I want people to stop visiting homeopaths and other therapists. People often do get benefit from the self-indulgent friendly chat that a GP is just not in a position to offer. Homeopaths ought to be in a prime position to offer this as I have said before. However, in visiting a practitioner, we need to consider how the public may be protected against two main problems we find in quackery: being exploited financially, and being given inappropriate and dangerous medical advice.

One potential solution is coming from Prince Charles and his Foundation for Integrated Health. FIH is looking into setting up a Natural Healthcare Council that will offer regulatory functions to the broad church of complementary and alternative therapies. The Times reports that this new voluntary register should be established this year and,

will be able to strike off errant or incompetent practitioners. It will also set minimum standards for practitioners to ensure that therapists are properly qualified.

Their hope is that,

all practitioners will be forced to join or lose business as the public will use the register as a guarantee of quality. The council will register only practitioners who are safe, have completed a recognised course, are insured and have signed up to codes of conduct.

Funnily enough, the homeopaths appear to be deeply hostile to this move. "The homeopathy profession has been unanimous in rejecting federalisation as an option for regulation" reports the Alliance of Registered Homeopaths. But, as I have said, I am not really interested in what they think - their only motives in discussing regulation appear to be self-interest and survival.

So, will the chief tree-talker's ideas be a good move? Should Prince Charles' organisation be allowed to succeed?

I have some serious reservations.

Firstly, by what standards will the Natural Healthcare Council set for competence and training? Professor David Colquhoun has documented the training dilemma of alternative medicine by noting that most alternative therapies are based on nonsense ideas that have no scientific and objective merit. "It cannot be expected that a universities will provide a course that preaches the mumbo jumbo of meridians, energy lines and so on... Can any serious university be expected to teach such nonsense as though the words [of alternative medicine] meant something? ". Since, homeopaths cannot even agree amongst themselves what homeopathy is and what are its essential elements (not surprising, as it is not based on reality) then the Council risks either alienating large swathes of practitioners or being completely arbitrary in its criteria. Either will not protect the public. Setting education standards for homeopaths is like trying to accommodate Hogwarts into the National Curriculum.

Secondly, by what standards will practitioners be judged in handling complaints and when upholding professional standards? Should we uphold a homeopath to standards of homeopathy, aromatherapy, reiki or - heaven forbid - evidence and science? This is important. In deciding whether a homeopath has crossed a line of ethics in offering malaria prophylactics, who will judge them? If homeopaths are involved, the the public will not be protected as they have dangerous and delusional ideas about their magic sugar pills. However, if they are to be judged by the standards of best evidence, then no homeopath will join the organisation as they know that they cannot practice within their strongly held beliefs. In either case, the Council will fail to protect the public. You might think that homeopaths would be willing to disengage from their wilder healing fantasies in order to gain the credibility of the name of Prince Charles, but all my experience says that homeopaths are fiercely proud, angry and determined not to be constrained by any external forces (probably orchestrated by 'allopaths').

And if the Council do uphold the strongest standards and do this in a transparent and accountable way, will the UK suddenly be free from rogue practitioners? Well, no. My recent example of the the ASA upholding a complaint against Osteomylogist, Robert Delgado, showed that even statutorily registering complementary therapists has big loopholes. This non-statutory and voluntary registered body, the Natural Healthcare Council, will have even less power over practitioners.

But what it will achieve is that Prince Charles' name will give credibility to all sorts of unproven therapies and wacky non-medically qualified people to go out there and pretend to be healers. And at the same time, offer no guarantee of protection to the public.

I don't think this is the answer and I think it will even lead to a greater threat to the public.

Labels: Ben Goldacre, homeopathy, Natural Healthcare Council, regulation, Society of Homeopaths