The Quackometer

As I write this, two married Australian homeopaths are spending their first nights in gaol as they begin prison sentences for six and four years respectively for the manslaughter of their baby daughter, Gloria.

This is a tragic, not least for the convicted parents. A nine month old baby died unnecessarily in the most horrific way because of her parent’s belief in the superiority and power of homeopathic sugar pills. Gloria suffered from severe eczema where the sores became severely infected. She constantly cried in pain and her skin became broken and oozing with fluid. She became malnourished and died.

This case has very important implications for those who are seeking better ways to regulate the so-called ‘complementary and alternative medicine’ (CAM) sector here in the UK. Understanding the nature of this tragedy will highlight the shortcomings of the approaches being taken by the government.

The parents of baby Gloria Thomas have been branded “cruel”, “arrogant” and “irresponsible”. The couple wept in the dock and it is easy to understand why. It is not just the loss of their daughter, or their impending incarceration, but almost undoubtedly their complete failure to understand what has happened to them.

This gulf may be difficult to grasp by those who do not understand the nature of homeopathy and see it just as a natural and safe complementary medicine. It is nothing of the sort. Whilst its pills are completely safe (they are just sugar pills), the homeopathic belief system is quite dangerous. Homeopathy does not define itself as complementary. It is not designed to assist treatments by real medicine. Homeopathy defines itself as ‘a compete system of medicine’ in its own right and, importantly, it defines itself in conflicting opposition to what homeopaths call ‘allopathy’ – or mainstream medicine. Homeopathy is strictly alternative.

The founder of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann, was keen to discover the universal laws of health and to create general and complete principles of healing. Homeopathy is the result. Indeed, Hahnemann saw chronic disease as actually being caused by other forms of non-homeopathic treatment and that deviations from the strict homeopathic doctrines as being disastrous for health. The Society of Homeopaths describe homeopathy on the front page of their site as a “complete system of medicine”. It describes how homeopathy can treat “all a patients symptoms”. This is a system that is not presented as a complement to other therapies, but a full system in its own right.

These belief systems persist for many interesting reasons. In two hundred years, the homeopathic principles have not been underpinned with an evidence base of any reliable sort. Worse, the principles have been shown to be in direct contradiction with well established principles of physics and chemistry. Homeopathy is magical in its nature, not scientific. The beliefs persist not because of their veracity but because they are taught within a cult-like atmosphere. The homeopath, Michael Bridger writes that,

The unwritten rule is not to be critical or try to define. No one has to publicly burn the books; you simply deify the inane and render critical thought unfashionable. Politically, this is a sophisticated form of authoritarianism; medically and clinically, it is the seeds of psychosis.

Recently, another homeopath has commented on Gimpy’s blog about the cult like nature of homeopathy. She describes it as a ‘pyramid scheme’, and like all successful pyramid schemes you need to ‘sell the dream.’ In her words, “We alone care about health – everyone else (Big Pharma, allopaths, EU, WHO, in conscious conspiracy, only wish to destroy health.” and, importantly for the case of Gloria, “You can be a part of saving the world’s health – but you have to be brave enough to tackle any case”.

I have recently received in the post some lecture notes from a UK homeopathy school accredited by the Society of Homeopaths. The notes describe a case of someone with a notifiable disease who was treated homeopathically without alerting the authorities, on the basis that the homeopath’s conscience dictated that he should not. To legally notify an allopath would be to alert the enemy, no doubt. When treating cancer homeopathically, the students are told to ‘trust and wait’. I will be writing more about this soon. Being trained to avoid medicine and trust only in homeopathy is mainstream thought in homeopathy, not exceptional.

The other cult-like aspect of homeopathy is its insistence in believing in a spiritual force that is being manipulated by the pills. According to Hahnemann, it is the ‘Vital Force’ that needs help with the pills. This is a vitalistic belief system with no place in modern science. As such, homeopathy is a spiritual belief which requires adherents to accept this quasi-religious world view.

In this light we can see that the parents of Gloria were doing what they were trained to do by the cult of homeopathy. If they had been trained well and had bought into the whole Hahnamanian philosophy then to take their seriously ill baby to an ‘allopath’ would have put it in danger. The only method to treat Gloria was with sugar pills. Homeopaths are taught that symptoms inevitably get worse when treated homeopathically. An ‘aggrevation’ is the remedy working the illness out of the body. No doubt as Gloria deteriorated, their training would have told them that this was a ‘good thing’ and that they should ‘trust and wait’. Her death must have been quite unexpected.

The parents of Gloria Thomas are not an exception. They are not an extreme. They have been good homeopaths and have merely been unlucky and had the misfortune to have the courage to stick with their beliefs. We can see on homeopathic discussion boards that tensions exist about resorting to real medicine when things look bad and that the choice of sticking with homeopathy is a question of “staying strong”. I have written before about the prominent UK homeopath Grace Da Silva-Hill MSc LCPH MARH MAAMET RGN who says about the fatal childhood illness of bacterial meningitis that “It requires a great deal of trust between patient and homeopath, for a serious acute to be treated solely with homeopathy.” Grace also is a supporter of homeopathic treatments for malaria in West Africa.

The implication in all of this is that even with very serious illnesses the homeopath has to stay true and believe in their cult and not betray their beliefs by accessing the outside world and their allopathic ways. Their education is full of denouncements of mainstream medical practice. It is a fundamental part of the creed that vaccinations are harmful and that chemotherapy is a killer. Medical drugs are a collection of side effects and not effective in their own right. Conspiracy theories abound about how ‘Big Pharma’ is out to destroy homeopathy. Harald Walach, Research Professor in Psychology at the University of Northampton has written that homeopaths should “Be proud, not afraid, fight back and don’t duck.” in light of the conspiracy theory that ‘Big Pharma’ is attacking them for homeopathic ‘successes’. Robert Davidson, a founder of one of the London homeopathy schools, describes how Pharmaceutical companies are trying to eliminate things like vitamins “to ensure sickness, so that everyone has to take drugs with no other choices available”. He says they are “evil, so totally evil”. Cults need their evil opponents to survive.

How many Gloria Thomas’s are there out there? It is difficult to know. We hope Gloria is at the extreme end of cases. But how many cancer patients needlessly delay treatment? How many chronic illnesses remain untreated due to such beliefs? Part of the problem is that homeopaths themselves do not collate the sort of records that would help us answer these types of questions. Sites such as What’s the Harm gathers news stories but these must be the tip of the iceberg. In Africa, where missionary homeopaths use homeopathic pills prophylactically to prevent malaria or even treat HIV we can have little idea how much harm is being done. The homeopathic belief is absolute. The current regulatory bodies such as the Society of Homeopaths refuse to discipline their members or even criticise them for taking part in such activities. Understanding homeopathy as a cult makes it easy to see why.

So how can we protect other Glorias? The homeopaths themselves will do nothing. There will be no response to this tragedy from the Society of Homeopaths, the medical Faculty of Homeopaths or even Prince Charles’ Foundation for Integrated Health. When criticism of homeopathy strikes, these organisation most often engage in bluster and obfuscation – or simply ignore the problem.

But, the government recognises that harm can be done by alternative medicine and that some sort of framework needs to be in place to protect the vulnerable. There could be no more vulnerable victim than Gloria, and indeed future infants like her deserve protection. And it is not just homeopaths we need worry about. Chiropractors display similar cult-like attitudes, and indeed much of alternative medicine appears to use similar anti-medical rhetoric to define itself and lock its members into cultish denial. You need only look at at sites such as What Doctors Don’t Tell You to understand the mentality of people attracted to such beliefs.

Unfortunately, UK government, like many other governments, appears to believe that regulating such practices is best done in a way similar to medical practitioners: registration and accreditation of training.

The folly of this is to believe that in doing this you are regulating health care professionals. You are not. You are trying to protect the public from health-threatening cultish beliefs. This is not medicine – it is pseudo-medicine with deluded practitioners. We do not protect people from Scientologists by formally recognising their leaders and giving their ‘Bishops’ seats in the House of Lords. And neither should we protect people from homeopaths by giving them protected title and a stamp of official approval from the Health Professions Council.

The government has pumped lots of money into a new organisation called the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (Ofquack) that claims its primary goal is to “protect the public by means of regulating practitioners on a voluntary register for complementary and natural healthcare practitioners”. It does this by ensuring their members have “undertaken a programme of education and training which meets, as a minimum, the National Occupational Standards for that profession/discipline”. It appears to think that by ensuring that an alternative therapist has been through training then people are protected. Gloria’s legacy should be to show us that this is not the case. Training is the problem, not the solution.

The National Occupational Standards scheme has tried to draw up standards for homeopathic education. These standards are to ensure that practitioners have the right “knowledge and understanding”. But as Professor David Colquhoun says, “no attention whatsoever is paid to the little problem of whether the “knowledge and understanding” are pure gobbledygook or not.” The problem is caused by the fact that these standards were set up in consultation with the Society of Homeopaths; the very people whose members’ beliefs the next baby Gloria needs protecting from. I once complained to the Society of Homeopaths about a homeopath who set up an eczema and asthma clinic. Despite obvious breaches of their own code of ethics, and that the Advertising Standards Authority concluded that this homeopath made “untruthful, unsubstantiated and irresponsible claims”, the Society decided there was no case to answer. The Society of Homeopaths believed that their time was better spent attempting to sue me.

In France, it is illegal to practice Homeopathy without a medical license. There is no such thing as lay homeopathy there and the Society of Homeopaths would be an illegal organisation. How much this protects people though is debatable. France has an enormous over-the-counter homeopathy trade through pharmacies, with Boiron, a homeopathic sugar pill manufacturer, making hundreds of millions of Euros from their big vat of sugar pills. The French self-medicate with homeopathy and their doctors are free to dish them out, although the state is fortunately reducing the amount it reimburses people for sugar pills. At least if a doctor prescribes a sugar pill when a placebo treatment is not required, then the regulatory bodies could well step in.

In the UK, we appear to be moving in the direction of legitimising various forms of quackery through various forms of state approval and recognition through statutory regulation. It is a disastrous move. There are currently reviews taking place for the regulation of acupuncture and herbal medicine. The same problems exist there with degree courses in Chinese medicine teaching students how to weasel word around regulation when making claims to treat cancer. Regulation of this style will put people at risk. The chiropractors have already achieved protected title and statutory regulation. This may not last much longer though as the regulator buckles under the weight of hundreds of complaints about chiropractors bogusly claiming to treat children’s illnesses in the light of the Simon Singh affair.

I believe a significant part of the answer is already with us. We do not need new regulation and statutory recognition of pseudo-medical cults. We need prosecution.

We already have the laws that say you cannot make false claims when selling goods and services. The Trading Standards laws are explicit in saying you cannot make false medicinal claims. What is not happening is enforcement of these laws as Trading Standards do not appear to have the training to go after these sorts of breaches. I would think it would be far more cost effective to provide this training rather than set up useless regulatory regimes for registering quacks.

The other change that would greatly help is for the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency(MHRA) to drop its ridiculous stance on believing you only have to ensure homeopathic medicines are safe. No one disputes sugar pills are intrinsically safe – there is nothing in them. The MHRA though allow homeopaths to submit pseudoscientific ‘traditional’ evidence for a pill’s effectiveness so that they can make claims on packets. The MHRA legitimises dangerous quackery with homeopathy and it undermines its authority in doing so.

In summary, protecting future children like baby Gloria will require authorities to abandon the belief that they need to regulate homeopaths like medical practitioners and instead treat them according to the more accurate picture of them being a pseudo-medical and mystical cult with dangerous and irrational beliefs.

Labels: CNHC, Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council, homeopathy, ofquack, Society of Homeopaths, SoH, the law

 

The last time I said that, the Society tried to sue me and my web hosts for defamation. So let’s say it again. They are a shambles and a bad joke. Worse, their irresponsible behaviour puts lives at risk.

Today the World Health Organisation condemned the use of homeopathy for dangerous diseases such as malaria, AIDS and childhood diarrhea. It has taken a very long time for them to do this and has been a result of a campaign by the Voice of Young Science to draw attention to the murderous practices of Western homeopaths in Africa who dish out useless sugar pills in an attempt to prevent and cure these fatal diseases.

The Society of Homeopaths have been at the root of the problem here. Many of the homeopaths involved in this dangerously misguided enterprise are members of the Society and they have done nothing to stop their members from exporting their healing fantasies to some of the most vulnerable people in the world. Indeed, the Society hold conferences highlighting the use of sugar pills for such illnesses. They refuse to uphold their own code of conduct when these excesses are pointed out and they legally threaten people like me who shine a light into their shenaningans.

So, how do the Society respond to the WHO issuing this warning? Their press release is a text book example of disingenuousness, cherry picking and diversion.

They say,

[B]oth the BBC and WHO have failed to acknowledge the evidence base for the use of homeopathy in the treatment of childhood diarrhoea in which, using randomised, double-blinded trials, the results were significant versus placebo(1).

They then cite two studies and a meta-analysis. It is worth quoting them in full…

Treatment of acute childhood diarrhoea in Nicaragua
This trial involved 81 children aged from 6 months to 5 years in a randomised, double-blind trial of intravenous fluids plus placebo versus intravenous fluids plus homeopathic remedy individualised to the patient. The treatment group had a statistically significant decrease in duration of diarrhoea.
Jacobs J. Treatment of acute childhood diarrhoea with homeopathic medicine: a randomized clinical trial in Nicaragua. Pediatrics 1994; 93: 719-725.

Treatment of acute childhood diarrhoea, repeated in Nepal
In a replication of a trial carried out in Nicaragua in 1994, 116 Nepalese children aged 6 months to 5 years suffering from diarrhoea were given an individualised homoeopathic medicine or placebo. Treatment by homoeopathy showed a significant improvement in the condition in comparison to placebo.
Jacobs J., Jimenez M., Malthouse S., Chapman E., Crothers D., Masuk M., Jonas W.B., Acute Childhood Diarrhoea- A Replication., Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 6, 2000, 131-139.

A meta-analysis of childhood diarrhoea trials
This meta-analysis of 242 children showed a highly significant result in the duration of childhood diarrhoea (P=0.008). It should be noted that the World Health Organisation consider childhood diarrhoea to be the number one public health problem today because of the millions of children who die every year from dehydration from diarrhoea.
J. Jacobs, WB Jonas, M Jimenez-Perez, D Crothers, Homeopathy for Childhood Diarrhea: Combined Results and Meta-analysis from Three Randomized, Controlled Clinical Trials

Let’s be a little bit more comprehensive. The Society have cherry picked their studies and failed to acknowledge the sticking points.

Here are all the trials published on childhood diarrhoea and homeopathy, including the ones the Society failed to mention.

1. Jacobs J, Jimenez LM, Gloyd SS, et al. Treatment of acute childhood diarrhea with homeopathic medicine: a randomized clinical trial in Nicaragua. Pediatrics. 1994;93:719–725.
2. Jacobs J, Jimenez LM, Malthouse S, et al. Homeopathic treatment of acute childhood diarrhea: results from a clinical trial in Nepal. J Altern Complement Med. 2000;6:131–139.
3. Jacobs J, Jimenez LM, Gloyd SS, et al. Homeopathic treatment of acute childhood diarrhea: a randomized clinical trial in Nicaragua. Br Homeopath J. 1993;82:83–86.
4. Jacobs J, Guthrie BL, Montes GA et al. Homeopathic combination remedy in the treatment of acute childhood diarrhea in honduras. J Altern Complement Med. 2006;12:723-32.

The obvious thing is that they have all been done by the same author. So, an alarm bell should ring that these studies have not been independently replicated.

The first of these studies was perhaps the most important, being published in a real journal, and not a CAM comic, and showing a 'significant' effect. The next issue of the journal contained a rather damning critique,

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/96/5/961

Analysis of Homeopathic Treatment of Childhood Diarrhea by Sampspon and London.

They concluded,

"In summary: 1) The study used an unreliable and unproved diagnostic and therapeutic scheme; 2)There was no control for product adulteration; 3)Treatment selection was arbitrary; 4) The data were placed into odd groupings without explanation, and contained errors and unexplained inconsistencies; 5) The results were not clinically significant and were probably not statistically significant; 6) There was no public health significance; 7) Selection of references was incomplete and biased to support the claims of the article, and references were quoted inaccurately; and 8) Editorializations were inappropriate."

When Jacobs did her own metaanalysis of the first three trials she acknowledged the lack of statistical power in these studies and recommended larger trials. She did the fourth larger trial (which was also of better quality) and surprise surprise,

The homeopathic combination therapy tested in this study did not significantly reduce the duration or severity of acute diarrhea in Honduran children.

The result of this careful study was that the homeopathic treatment was no better than a placebo. But the homeopath authors do not conclude that homeopath did not work, they speculate the tablets had not been stored properly or that the wrong combination of sugar pills was made. At no point do they propose as a possibility that homeopathy can have absolutely no effect on a third-world child with the squits. And joking aside, diarrhea kills hundreds of thousands of children around the world, so intellectual honesty in studies like this, is not an optional add-on.

The Society of Homeopaths have failed to note these severe shortcomings. I can only conclude that the Society of Homeopaths are intellectually dishonest and only interested in misrepresenting science for the sake of their shabby trade.

The Society cannot be trusted to give meaningful health advice and to rein in the dangerous practices of their members. In giving out this misleading press release, the Society once again endanger children’s lives.

Labels: homeopathy, Society of Homeopaths, SoH

 

Appearing on the Society of Homeopath’s web site is a report that a member has been struck off their register. This is the first instance that I am aware of where the self-regulating body has taken the step of removing someone from their register regarding matters of their practice.

(Yes, SoH has removed people before and you can see a report on the same page, but this looks as if it was an offence concerning more to do with ‘relationships’ with a customer, rather than as a result of their direct practice.)

So, Ms. Alex Christie RSHom has been removed from the register. She is of course still free to practice and will simply be relieved of having to pay SoH her subscription fees. She may well join one of the other 'regulators' or just continue to practice without registration in her work at Neal’s Yard Remedies.

What was Ms Christie’s offence? The Society do not make this clear. There is no press release about this. No statement to warn the public about the nature of the problem. No reminder to homeopaths about the boundaries of what they should be doing.

What we do get is a list of rules that Christie has supposedly broken. We can see that she broke the rule that said that:

A competent homeopath identifies those occasions when a patient’s condition is:

• Beyond the present limits of their clinical competence and expertise
• Likely to receive more immediate, effective benefit from another form of treatment
• Showing signs and symptoms suggestive of an underlying condition which requires referral for investigation and other medical diagnosis

Of course, the problem with this rule is that homeopaths are systematically incompetent. By believing rather arrogantly that sugar pills are a ‘complete system of medicine, suitable for everyone’, as the Society describes homeopathy, then naturally we might see few expressed limits on competence. Indeed, we see wild claims that sugar pills can cure everything from hay fever, autism to cancer. One might jest that a client is ‘likely to receive more immediate, effective benefit from another form of treatment ‘ when they are simply ill. This rule, if honestly applied, could strike off any homeopath at any time for making claims that cannot be justified.

Given that homeopaths actually believe their sugar pills work magic, then it is difficult to see how a panel of homeopaths can decide that another homeopath is practicing beyond their expertise. The Society of Homeopaths has held conferences of homeopathic treatments for AIDS and shows no signs that this might be dangerous and murderous nonsense. Their directors believe sugar pills can replace childhood inoculations and even replace vaccines for dangerous third world diseases. Whatever Christie did, she must have really upset someone within the Society.

Tellingly, we are told that Christie broke the rule that says “When dealing with cases of a serious and possibly terminal nature, ensure that the patient is fully aware of the advisability of keeping their GP informed of their condition.” Homeopaths are renowned for denouncing modern medicine. Their founder, Samual Hahnemann, defined homeopathy in opposition to medicine and indeed blamed medicine for chronic illness. This paranoia and hostility is openly evident still on homeopathic discussion forums. Homeopaths are in denial of two hundred years of medical progress.It is no wonder that members might give misleading advice to their clients.

What is quite remarkable about this is that the Society of Homeopaths has received lots of complaints over the past year or so about homeopaths blatantly breaching their code of ethics, giving dangerous advice about their magic versions of vaccination and selling sugar pills as a malaria prophylactic and all these have been met with stonewalling, obfuscation and a refusal to recognise the problem.

So, why act now? That is a bit of a mystery. We know that the Society want to hand over their regulation activities to the Health Professions Council. Perhaps they are trying to appear to carry out what they say they carry out.

Perhaps thought there is more to this story that will reveal itself over time and that this move is tactical. That would be my bet. We shall surely find out soon.

Labels: regulation, Society of Homeopaths, SoH

 

This is an open letter to all homeopaths in the UK.

It has been a bit of a surprise to me to learn that the Society of Homeopaths is wanting to lobby the Health Professions Council to include homeopathy within its regulation remit. As such, you will receive protected title (only registered homeopaths will be able to call themselves that) and be held against a code of standards and ethics.

Why do you want to do this? I can guess some of the reasons.

Homeopathy has always battled to be recognised – both as a science and as a healing profession. Deep within the homeopathic mindset is a belief that you hold a valuable principle of healing, if not the fundamental theory of healing. Over two centuries you have battled to gain acceptance and validation against what you see as a hostile (even conspiratorial) medical profession. You call the medical profession allopaths and define yourselves in opposition to your own picture of them.

Undoubtedly, you see that statutory regulation will put yourself at least on a par with doctors. You will no longer legally be invisible in the healing professions. But there are other more economic reasons too. Being statutorily registered will make it easier to gain referrals from the huge source of cash that is the NHS. It will also make it easier to get payments from private health insurers. You won’t have to pay VAT, although I doubt many of you make enough to have to worry about that. Universities have recently said that they will not teach BSc courses to train homeopathic practitioners unless they achieve statutory regulation.

So, the prize appears to be huge. Recognition, financial gain and the secured future of your profession through accredited education. The Society of Homeopaths can free itself of the tedious burden of having to pretend to regulate you and instead become something like the BCA and concentrate more on trying to sue its critics.

But what of the cost? Such rewards will come at a price – and I am amazed that the Society of Homeopaths believes you will wish to pay that price.

First, before we look at what this might all mean for homeopathy, I would suggest that the path to Statutory regulation will not be easy. I am sure you are aware that there are many people who think such a step would be absurd, myself included. Homeopathy has failed in two hundred years to make any progression in showing that it is nothing other than a inert treatment based on pre-scientific and magical thinking. The basic science to show that your principles are true is not there. My own simple challenge to homeopaths to demonstrate their fundamental propositions has not been taken up in 85 weeks. More damningly, in the two hundred years since homeopathy was invented, our scientific understanding of medicine, chemistry and physics has moved on enormously and it clearly shows that homeopathy is not just implausible but is utterly contradicted by everything we know about the world. Homeopathy lies outside of reason and science. It is a pseudo-medicine and is just a placebo therapy. It is just not tenable to hold any other position.

To gain statutory regulation, you will have to demonstrate that it is indeed possible to have meaningful standards in education and training for a pseudoscientific subject. That is not impossible – the current government has on the whole failed to see the problem with regulating absurd treatments. It is funding Ofquack, the Prince Charles backed Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council, as a voluntary regulator for a rag bag of quack practitioners. The government does not appear to see that upholding such people to high degrees of training and competence is problematic when such people believe in absurdities. I would suggest though that the HPC may well be tougher judges than Prince Charles.

So, onto the costs. In order to appreciate what such regulation might mean for homeopaths it is worth looking at what it has done for other statutorily regulated alternative medicines. Chiropractic would be a good example.

The regulation of chiropractic was not without its controversy. The Society of Homeopaths claim that 65% of its members support the route to such regulation. The Society of Homeopaths only represents 65% of homeopaths, so we can only be sure that 42% of homeopaths support such a route. Even then, this survey was taken in 2006 and a lot has changed since then. I would be very surprised if this support has grown. Are the majority of you in favour of this move? Chiropractors were also split when the Chiropractic Act was brought in. Many saw it as an attempt to control their practice and restrict what they could do. Chiropractic philosophy appears to embrace a libertarian stance and many resented passing control of their work to people who may not share their beliefs and views. Some were worried that the move had conspiratorial overtones of the medical community trying to suppress an alternative to them. There were quite a few who refused to be registered and had to cease calling themselves chiropractors and instead called themselves simply spinal manipulators or even the grand sounding osteomyologists.

Over a decade later, the political infighting still continues. Many resent that the McTimoney Chiropractors were let into the exclusive regulated club. McTimoney is seen as a chiropractic heresy where bones are not cracked so violently and training takes place through part-time courses. It is not seen as being real chiropractic and the practitioners as being undertrained – through cheaper courses. It represents a threat to the chiropractors who will have invested well over £40,000 in fees for their training at one of the other two ‘real’ chiropractic colleges.

The General Chiropractic Council, the regulatory body, appears to be popularly despised by the ordinary chiropractor. It is seen as heavy handed in its regulation, costly and not in tune with chiropractors’ needs (to be left alone). It has no duty to promote chiropractic but only to protect the public and enforce its code of conduct. It is also increasingly dominated by lay representatives – chiropractors are getting a smaller voice in its running. Much of this resentment has been well documented on the chiropractic blog chiropracticlive.com.

When the British Chiropractic Association decided to sue Simon Singh for criticising the lack of evidence base for the treatments it was promoting, I doubt they understood the difficulty they would be putting their members in because of the very fact that they were statutory regulated. The ensuing debate has exposed the non existent foundations of much of chiropractic care and this has led to an unprecedented number of complaints being made to the GCC about chiropractors misleading the public on their websites for the effectiveness of the treatments they offered. There are now perhaps 20-30% of the entire chiropractic profession undergoing statutory complaints procedures which could result in the loss of their registration and their ability to practice.

The mistake the government and chiropractors made in accepting statutory regulation was allowing it to go ahead before chiropractors could demonstrate that they were not simply a vestigial remnant of Victorian back cracking quackery. Now, chiropractors find themselves being held to the highest forms of professionalism and practice without an evidence base for pretty much anything they do. It is now possible that chiropractic in the UK will not survive the current onslaught of professional complaints and trading standards investigations being pursued against them. What will come out the other side is pretty much anyone's guess, but I am pretty sure it is not a situation that the majority of chiropractors would have wished for in their quest for recognition.

And this is what I find extraordinary about the attempt by homeopaths to join the HPC. At present, the nightmare that is happening to chiropractors cannot happen to homeopaths. Despite what you say, you have had the freedom of living without any form of genuine regulation. The Society of Homeopaths has never ruled against a homeopath for the way they practice when when faced with clear breaches of the code of ethics. Homeopaths have been free to indulge in whatever delusions they fancy without fear of sanction. You have claimed to treat malaria and AIDS and have done so without a single voice of censure from within the lay homeopathic trade. You have no idea what it is like to be regulated and to be subject to a real code of ethics and practice. I suggest you pop along to your nearest chiropractor to find out what it is like.

And I must say that chiropractors have it fairly easy. Their treatments (at least for lower back pain) have an air of plausibility and some evidence for effectiveness. Homeopaths lack these luxuries of plausibility and reliable evidence for anything. What makes your situation worse is that your belief set is acutely in conflict with those who will become your statutory medical colleagues. You regularly undermine public healthcare messages about childhood inoculation and believe your sugar pills are an alternative. You show no sense of boundaries for what you can reasonably hope to achieve and make claims to be a superior treatment for everything from asthma and swine flu to autism and cancer. Do you really believe you could continue with your alternative beliefs in a statutory world? And they are alternative. Whilst you denounce the side effects of real medicine as being avoidable by homeopathy you pitch yourself against the medical world. And I doubt that a regulated profession could last long with such rhetoric.

Homeopaths. You have never had it so good. And you do not realise it. You are pretty much free from any constraint on what you say and do. You may moan about the continuous criticism you get from people like me – but that is the worst you have to suffer at the moment – criticism. If by some fluke you do manage to achieve full regulation, expect your cosy world to come crashing down very fast. Your quest for regulatory recognition will be hubris. It took over fifteen years for the chiropractors to realise they had been practising on borrowed time. Your regulatory nemesis will come much quicker.

Labels: British Chiropractic Association, chiropractors, CNHC, Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council, homeopathy, regulation, Society of Homeopaths, SoH, the law

 

Just in case you were wondering, here is the letter I wrote to the Society of Homeopaths, asking them just why they were so upset about me.

This letter was written about in the Guardian newspaper on Saturday October 20th.

You can follow the story on BadScience, DCScience, Respectful Insolence, Gimpy's and Randi, plus many more too numerous to mention.

URGENT

For the attention of Paula Ross, Chief Executive of the Society of Homeopaths

Dear Ms Ross,

I have just received the email below from my web site hosting company. I believe they originally forwarded the email to an incorrect address and so today is the first day I have been able to respond to it. My name is Andy Lewis and I am the owner of the domain quackometer.net and I write the blog that can be found on that site. As such, I would very much like to make sure that I fully understand your concerns expressed in the fax to netcetera and I am keen to see that we can resolve any concerns and reach an amicable understanding for all.

I understand you are unhappy about this post, http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2007/08/gentle-art-of-homeopathic-killing.html. This post was written to highlight my concerns and opinions that the Society of Homeopaths is not taking a firm enough stand, and taking enough action, to ensure its members do not use homeopathy where it is totallyinappropriate. Furthermore, the widespread denigration of evidence-based medicine amongst homeopaths is something that the Society should be seeking to reduce should it truly wish to be complementary. It is my opinion thatthe Society should have done a lot more after the BBC Newsnight sting on homeopaths and malaria. As Dr Peter Fisher of the London Homeopathic Hospital said, "people may even die of malaria if they follow this advice". Hence, the title of my post. I have similar concerns about the role of homeopathy in managing AIDS and the advocacy for such treatment that so many homeopaths appear to make. The stark difference of opinion between medical homeopaths, such as Fisher, and your lay membership is concerning.

I hope you understand that my concerns are genuinely held and my motive is the wider highlighting of a problem that may well end in harm or even death to people unless action is taken. I am sorry you have felt it necessary to ask my web hosting provider to take down the page in question. If you could tell me urgently what the wording is that you feel is incorrect, defamatory or not fair comment I will examine it immediately and will ensure a friendly and swift resolution of this matter. In addition, if you wish to respond to my concerns on the site, I will be more than happy to prominently publish your thoughts in full on my web site.

I am sure we can come to a quick and happy conclusion here, but should you feel it necessary to follow a legal route directed at me rather than my hosting company, then please can I suggest you initiate the appropriate pre-action protocols to help ensure we all have the right information and communications. http://www.justice.gov.uk/civil/procrules_fin/contents/protocols/prot_def.htm

I am sure you are aware that, being scientifically trained, I am sceptical of homeopathic claims. However, as you might see from my site, I believe that homeopaths could play an important role in healthcare in the UK, but that a good, healthy debate amongst all opinions would be required to get there. I would be humbled to think that I could play a small part in that. I look forward to your
response,

Yours,

Andy Lewis

The Quackometer

Labels: Society of Homeopaths, SoH

 

Homeopathy is fun. Pretending you can cure minor self-limiting ailments with magic water and sugar pills obviously brings countless hours of pleasure to lots of people and I, for one, would not want to take their ball away. Hey! You can even make some money out of it too, as lots of people like to join in and pay money to play patient and be part of the fantasy. But like all fantasy games, there really ought to be some pre-arranged agreement on limits; someone to shout a code word, or hold up a red card, when it looks like things might be going a bit too far, and where someone might get hurt. All participants can then step back, have a laugh, a cup of tea, and re-start tomorrow with some more bumps and bruises.

I have written many times on this blog that there appears to be nobody in the homeopathic community who really wants to take on this role of referee. Without someone to blow the whistle, people may actually get so deep into the homeopathic game that they really start believing they can cure serious illnesses, like malaria and AIDS. And, as part of the role playing is to pretend that real doctors are nasty, conspiratorial and in it for the Big Pharma money, some of the patients may also start crossing the safety boundaries.

There are a number of homeopathic members' clubs out there that have ethics codes and complaints committees, but after the BBC Newsnight/Sense about Science malaria sting which resulted in little visible change, one has to wonder how effective these procedures are? As Simon Singh, the science writer and broadcaster, said at the time,

I was shocked that there was such willingness to give advice and sell products that would leave people exposed to a highly dangerous disease… Beforehand I suspected that one or two homeopaths might offer pills to protect against malaria, but it turned out that ten out of ten were guilty of such irresponsible practice. This makes me think that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way homeopaths are regulated.

Now, Peter Chappell, you may remember, claims to be able to do wonders for just about everything, including AIDS and cancer, with not only his own magic homeopathy concoctions, but downloadable homeopathic MP3 files. Peter sports the designation FSHom (Fellow of the Society of Homeopaths) in a number of places, so, I rattle off a quick letter to them to see what they make of his practices. The Society of Homeopaths complaints officer, Patricia Moroney, replies that Peter is 'no longer a member of the Society of Homeopaths and therefore is not bound by our Code of Ethics and Practice. He is not entitled to FSHom."

My mistake.

In my defence, Peter Chappell carries the FSHom designation all over the web. Surely the Society of Homeopaths will be furious that he is still promoting himself as FSHom, whilst outrageously breaking their own code of practice, and try to do something about it? So furious in fact, that there could be no way that they would still be promoting his book on the society web site, under "Recommended Reading", and describing him as FSHom and 'a Registered Member and Fellow of the Society"? And so furious that there is no way that they would be holding an AIDS symposium on the 1st of December (World AIDS day) which will specifically give a platform to Peter Chappell's ridiculous healing ideas?


The second complaint I made was regarding Julia Wilson RSHom who holds a homeopathic asthma clinic and says that she has worked in a Kenyan homeopathic AIDS, TB and malaria clinic. In my opinion, her advertising literature advocated specific homeopathic cures for asthma that are superior to real medicine. The Society of Homeopaths found that no breach of their code had been made.

Let me repeat what I believe to be one of the difficult sections of the leaflet.

Conventional medicine is at a loss when it comes to understanding the origin of allergies. ... The best that medical research can do is try to keep the symptoms under control. Although creams and puffers can provide temporary relief, they are not offering your child a cure.

Homeopathy is different, it seeks to address the triggers for asthma and eczema. It is a safe, drug free approach that helps alleviate the flaring of skin and tightening of lungs...

Leaving aside the self-contradictory nature of these claims about suppressing symptoms, it appears to me that Julia is saying that homeopathic approaches can do things that medicine cannot and that it offers a better approach. Julia, in her defence, says that 'absolutely no cure is implied'. Please re-read the above to make your own mind up. Specifically, she says to the SoH complaints officer that 'my leaflet makes no claims, stated or implied, that homeopathy can treat asthma...Absolutely no cure is implied' and SoH accepts this. "No further action will be taken". What do you think?

The response to my complaint also pointed out that the leaflet made clear that 'it does not claim superiority over conventional treatment, it is at pains to make it clear that homeopathy can be integrated with conventional treatment'. The only section that goes anywhere near such a statement is 'Homeopathic treatments are safe for children – and they work alongside conventional medicines such as creams and puffers.' Is that 'going to great pains' and advocating 'integration'? I think not. Is this why she talks of a 'drug free approach'?

As for her involvement in the Kenyan homeopathy clinic that claims to be a centre for treating AIDS and malaria, "[I] did not, at any point, claim to cure malaria, HIV/AIDS or TB. ... Not only would such a claim contravene section 72 of the Code of Ethics & Practice, it would of course, be counter to the very way in which homeopaths practice'. It is well worth visiting the Abha Light Foundation's web site and attempt to understand if that is what Abha believe too.

I wish I could point you to a relevent page on the SoH website that publicised the outcomes of the above investigations, but their ethics and complaints procedures appear to be private and closed. It is worth comparing and contrasting this with the GMC and their conduct enquiries in doctors' standards. Full details of their current investigations and decisions can be found on their site. I would argue that the GMC was better protecting patients' interests by being open and public.

In closing, when dealing with homeopaths, it does look like we have to be very careful about words. Their world view is so far from reality that we can never be sure we are talking about the same thing. Many homeopaths do not recognise illnesses like AIDS, malaria and TB and their pathogenic origins . They see these illnesses as being symptoms of underlying imbalances in mystical energies, miasms, or fairy dust, or something. These 'life-force problems' are what homeopaths claim to be treating - not the disease. When they talk about 'treating' and 'curing' they are talking about the 'underlying reason' and the 'whole person'. Such pseudo-scientific subtlety will be lost on most people. And so, what look like contradictory thought process to us, make perfect sense in their Humpty Dumpty world. In a world where words mean whatever you want them to mean, it is difficult to see how any complaint against you could ever be upheld.

Labels: homeopathy, Society of Homeopaths, SoH

 

Some of you around here may have noticed that homeopaths are feeling a little threatened at the moment. Some have responded to the perceived threats with rather impolite and aggressive behaviour. Others are setting up new campaigns.

A new web site has appeared in the last few days called Homeopathy: Medicine of the 21st Century. (I won't link to it, they do not need the Google points, but you can find it here: www.hmc21.org). Now, leaving aside the obvious mistake that they have put a 21 in their name rather than an 18, their rational for setting up the site is as follows:

H:MC21 was set up in September 2007 to inform the public about homeopathy and its relation to orthodox medicine. It will do this through research, publication and campaigning. Our first project is to counter the wave of negative publicity by collecting signatures to the following declaration.

When you go to the declaration, you are presented with the following form to describe your homeopathic experience:

For me, nothing sums up homeopathic thinking more than this. It is the blind refusal to accept anything other than that homeopathy can be a positive experience. There is no acknowledgment that homeopathy needs to have boundaries and can pose dangers, if not practiced within its limited scope. Those of us who criticise homeopathy fully acknowledge that people can have positive experiences with it: the placebo can work wonders on some minor, self-limiting conditions, and a nice hour long chat with a 'caring' person is a wonderful thing. That is not our complaint.

Our complaint is that homeopaths appear to lack any insight into what they are doing. There is almost no critical self-appraisal of their own work. There is widespread denigration of 'allopathic' real medicine and you set yourselves up as an alternative panacea without the slightest shred of reliable evidence for this, and very good reasons to think that homeopathic theory is utter nonsense. In that climate, harm will be done. People may shun effective treatments and homeopaths may attempt to manage dangerous conditions on their own. The BBC/Sense about Science report into homeopathic advice on malaria prevention was a scandal that should have galvanised the homeopathic community into action. The silence was deafening. And it gets worse, with conferences being held on the management of AIDS with homeopathy which give platforms to people who really ought to be subjected to heavy criticism because people will unnecessarily suffer and even die.

The worldwide criticism of homeopathy will not stop because homeopaths cover their ears, or worse, reach for their lawyers. It will stop when someone within the homeopathic community has the courage and leadership to tackle these issues head on. I believe that there is possibly a useful role for a homeopathic community to offer a genuine and responsible complementary therapy in the 21st Century.

But, where is that responsible and courageous leadership going to come from? Can anyone see where?

Labels: homeopathy, SoH

 

After several decades of increasing popularity, the homeopathic community is finding itself under growing pressure. There is an increasing level of criticism of the practice coming from many quarters, including Richard Dawkins recent Channel 4 programme, lots of bloggers and academics too.

Importantly, homeopathy is not being seen as as benign as its adherents' propaganda suggests and that there are real dangers in the belief in magic water and sugar pills. It's not all bad news for homeopaths, there is unexpected support in some quarters. So, why is there so much pressure on them at the moment and where will this leave the homeopaths in the UK? More importantly, what should homeopaths being doing if they want to survive in any meaningful and respected way?

To make an attempt at answering this question, we need to understand a little history of homeopathy in the UK. The man considered responsible for introducing homeopathy into Britain was a Dr F H F Quin. He first starting touting his remedies in the 1830's, and being of aristocratic origin, his patients were the upper classes and nobility of British Society. He was keen to keep homeopathy within the medical profession and with the high paying aristocracy.

Another strand of homeopaths emerged in the wake of the ever increasing regulation and scientific nature of the medical profession. Lay homeopaths started emerging in the later half of the 19th century. These practitioners were not medical qualified and were from the start associated with more radical approaches to homeopathy. Despite offering their services to the lower echelons of society, radical lay homeopathy found it difficult to gain a foothold and homeopathy never really achieved mass popularity like it did in other countries.

The twentieth century saw the reversal of this picture with medical homeopaths in decline and lay homeopaths in ascendancy. The vestigial remnants of institutional medical homeopathy are now mainly centred within a few remaining homeopathic hospitals, and interestingly, they still have their aristocratic ties. Dr Peter Fisher of the London Homeopathic Hospital is proud to be called the Queen's physician. Homeopaths see this as a big stamp of approval for their quackery, although the HRH support says more about our royals than about the efficacy of homeopathy. When did we last see a Prince of the Realm educated in a science subject at university? We are much more likely to see them being trained in history, agriculture and how to kill foreigners.

But of course, the shocking thing is that homeopathy and these hospitals are funded by the NHS. It is a bit like finding a room in the cellars of a modern city hospital that still had working tanks for breeding leeches. This ghost of Victorian patriarchal medical quackery lurking within a modern public health service is of course an absurdity, and this is increasingly being pointed out both by senior academics and medics and the hospital managers who want to spend their limited budgets as wisely as possible. Medical homeopaths recognise the threat and are trying to campaign to save their funding. Even with their attempts to court members of parliament, it would look likely that those tasked with spending NHS money will make medical homeopathy an interesting modern historical anomaly. NHS Homeopathic hospitals are doomed by the simple asymmetry of their position. Stopping funding and closing hospitals is a fairly easy decision to make. Arguing for increased homeopathic provisioning and opening new hospitals looks almost impossible in today's climate. Would you want to argue for massive increased funding of contentious, unproven quackery in front of parliament? No, medical homeopathy will dwindle and die and be left with just a few GPs dabbling on the side.

That leaves the question of the future of lay homeopathy. Although somewhat antagonistic towards each other, lay homeopaths depend on their dwindling medically trained colleagues for a certain amount of credibility. However, lays have their own set of problems and these are mostly self-inflicted. Lays prefer to be called Professional Homeopaths as this gives them the appearance of, err, professionalism. However, their central problem is that they lack any sort of professional ethos whatsoever. Medical homeopaths are registered mainly with the Faculty of Homeopathy. However, they are ultimately accountable to their medical colleagues and can suffer severe penalty if they transcend their medical codes. Lay homeopaths are under no such sanction. This would explain the different attitudes of Dr Peter Fisher and his lay colleagues to the treatment of malaria with homeopathic pills. Fisher condemns the practice in the strongest terms whilst the Society of Homeopaths take absolutely no action to take their members to task over the widespread practice.

One could predict that without the constraints of either legislation, professional sanction or a commitment to rational enquiry that lay homeopaths will go off the deep end with ever increasing absurdity in their delusions. And that is just what we see. Not content with trying to treat a few headaches and grazed knees, their healing fantasies spread across the medical spectrum. Homeopaths take great pride in their work in 'helping' Africans with malaria or HIV. They proudly set themselves up as real alternatives to the medical profession and will tell their patients that. They splinter into factions with some saying that the only true homeopathy is that set out by Hahnemann whilst others take on more radical and 'progressive' approaches. Ever more 'inventive' remedies are produced from weird substances like hyena saliva, bewick swan and stone circles. Some are totally unconstrained and start believing they can make homeopathic mp3 files. Despite the various organisations that represent lay homeopaths expressly forbidding practices like these, no action ever appears to be taken. Homeopathic solidarity appears to be more important than constraining their members' out of control actions.

Of course, there is debate about these issues between homeopaths. One remedy at a time? Or multiple remedies? But having rejected the normal standards of scientific evidence and methodology that would normally settle such medical disputes, there are no ways of reaching consensus and so the community settles into its little-enders and big-enders groupings. Science has to be rejected as when it is used it consistently shows all homeopathic flavours to be equally as deluded. There is equivalence in all homeopathic delusions. And without a rational approach and mindset, homeopaths are free to drift off into deep and dangerous nonsense, best exemplified by the recent scandals of their advocacy of treatment of malaria and AIDS. This is not fringe behaviour. The Society of Homeopaths, the biggest register of lay homeopaths in the UK, is holding a symposium in London in December on the treatment of AIDS with homeopathy.

Criticism of homeopaths is widely seen as a conspiracy of vested interests and pharmaceutical company evil that is 'frightened of alternatives to their money making obsessions'. This is, of course, nonsense. Critics are just deeply concerned about the behaviour and consequences of the purveyors of unfettered nonsense setting themselves out to have healing responsibilities. This handy ready-made excuse of 'Big Pharma' prevents homeopaths having to think critically about what their detractors are saying. Few engage with the outside world and try to tackle their genuine concerns in a meaningful way.

There is, however, widespread recognition that they do need to get their house in order. There does need to be the appearance of a professional set of people able to look after their own affairs. Looking at other alternative medical practices, and seeing external regulatory pressures being put on them, homeopaths fear the consequences of either UK or European pressure to sort themselves out or restrict their activities. There has been a recent attempt to create a body that will oversee a single register of homeopaths as the first step towards a unitary self-regulatory body. However, the newly created body, CORH, recently collapsed with unpaid debts after some of the member bodies refused to pay dues and after widespread squabbling about what exactly homeopathy was. A new body is feebly trying to raise out of the CORH ashes, but the question of funding such a register is still undecided.

Regulation and legislation under the Blair Woo government has been lax and sometimes favourable. By giving fake pill manufacturers like Nelson's the ability to sell sugar pills as treatments for named conditions like hayfever and teething pains, homeopathy certainly gained some credibility and some profits for companies like Boots. This is unlikely to be maintained or strengthened under less 'new age' governments and after the torrent of criticism directed at the MRHA on the issue.

Attitudes of both the public and regulatory bodies tends to be fairly neutral towards homeopathy. It is seen incorrectly as a form of herbal medicine by some, or a benign nonsense by others and so not worth wasting effort on. Homeopathy rather slips under the radar and is not seen as something that can cause harm. What direct harm is done appears to be exported to developing nations with huge health care problems. Pretending you can cure AIDS with magic water will, of course, kill people. But it is tolerated in the UK by a society that likes the anti-establishment nature of it and the supposed self-empowerment. Jeanette Winterson writes in the Times about her first publisher, Philipa Brewster's attempts to export murderous delusion to Botswana without a hint of the controversy that such an action deserves.

Whether renewed UK or EU regulatory bodies wake up and take notice of homeopaths in the same way that they are curbing the excesses of vitamin pill sellers remains to be seen. What would be far preferable would be to see homeopaths take control of their own profession and reform it in meaningful ways. I must say that I see this as most unlikely as I cannot identify any leadership that could unite the majority of practitioners and take them towards a new vision. The depths of delusion, the resistance to criticism and the distrust of the wider medical community make my hopes rather futile.

But what sort of reform would be required? Well, there are perhaps a couple of levels of reform that could be made:

The first step would be to embrace the data. Just as the medical profession have spent the last five decades relinquishing their personal authority to the democratic pool of scientific evidence, so too homeopaths need to recognise that what they do is indistinguishable from providing placebos. That is what the data says, consistently. If homeopaths were to practice within the boundaries of that knowledge then almost all criticism would vanish overnight. Of course, homeopaths would have to start to understand placebos and let go of their more mystical notions of self-healing. Placebos have limits. Many complaints, and especially serious conditions, are not placebo responsive and so there would be no more dangerous nonsense about treating cancer, malaria or AIDS. Homeopathy could happily survive in a limited form if this was taken on board. At best, homeopaths could offer a lay complementary therapy alongside real medicine. At worse, it would be no different from any cranky new age crystal healer or aromatherapist. Maybe it would be just a bit of tolerated nuttiness.

The second and bigger step would be to fully recognise that the benefit that homeopaths give to their clients is all in the consultation. They are counsellors. Recognising this would mean abandoning the mumbo-jumbo of 'like-cures-like' and their crazy dilution/succussion rubbish. The homeopathic community represents a huge pool of people who are good at listening to people with health problems in a way that the GP cannot. Developing these skills, retraining and finding a way to integrate and exploit this pool would undoubtedly provide real complementary medical service within the UK, and almost certainly deserving of NHS funding.

They might not call themselves homeopaths anymore, but our society would benefit from a more rounded, effective, rational, caring, and, dare I say, holistic approach to health care.

And then pigs might fly.

Labels: homeopathy, Society of Homeopaths, SoH

 

Peter Chappell (10 Canards) is a founder member of the Society of Homeopaths, he is a Fellow of the Society and has written several influential books on homeopathy. He describes himself as an inventor and a visionary, a charity worker and teacher. He also appears to be dangerously deluded.

Chappell makes his name by producing his own homeopathic preparations. His idea is to produce specific remedies to cure named diseases, despite this being very much against the rules of the Society of Homeopaths. His breakthrough is something called 'resonance healing'. I think you have to buy one of his books if you want some clues as to what this is. Apparently, he only 'partially reveals' methods. Cunning.

Peter Chappell's PC Remedies are clearly not normal homeopathic remedies. Whatever they are though, the Society of Homeopaths appears to want to give his ideas a big airing as they are being discussed at a special SoH symposium to be held in December 2007 in London on the treatment of HIV/AIDS with homeopathy. Chappell advocates the use of his remedies on his website. You will have to log in as a homeopath and answer secret questions that only a homeopath could answer to view this stuff, but it is well worth it (clue: Hahnemann, Kent, Pulsatilla). You will also have to offend the souls of your ancestors by ticking a few declarations, but in order to find out how prominent homeopaths are advocating mad treatments in Africa for deadly diseases then I think my gran will understand.

Chappell is selling remedies for not just AIDS, but just about everything including:

• Bilharzia
• Diarrhoea in infants and children in Africa
• Malaria
• Leprosy
• Nagasaki and Hiroshima Atomic Trauma
• Snake Bites Antidote
• Mobile Phone Toxicity
• Bed Wetting in children
• Religious Fanaticism
• Pornography

and so on.

This is what he says about his HIV vaccine:

This is my attempt to produce a vaccination. No one has tried to use it yet, I think. The ideal scenario is to give it to teenagers in one village and watch the HIV rate over a year compared to a similar village. It should be given daily for a month. That’s it.

Now, as with all homeopaths, what Chappell is missing is the slightest bit of evidence that anything he is offering is effective. He makes staggeringly bold claims, such as "it works in urgent situations in seconds or minutes. " For his AIDS work he says,

we have no proof in scientific terms that the AIDS treatment is effective, in practice it is very reliable and thousands of people have recovered

This is difficult to understand. On one hand he is quite clear he has no evidence for any healing claims but then says it works anyway. This is typical homeopath double-think. There is the belief that scientific evidence is only one form of evidence when in reality it is the only sort of evidence that is justifiable to use when playing with the lives of desperate people. For homeopaths, their personalised 'evidence' of anecdotes, delusions and wishful thinking trump real objective evidence - and that is why they are deadly dangerous. The behaviour of homeopaths cannot be constrained by reason. People who are fooled by this narcissistic nonsense will have deaths on their hands.

But Peter Chappell FSHom does not stop at African healing delusions. He has another web site where he claims that he can capture his homeopathic resonances and implant them in mp3 music clips that you can listen to and download. Healingdownloads.com gives you a free sample, but then you have to fork out for further remedies. But, apparently you can cure pretty much everything including cancer. This is almost undoubtedly in breach of the Cancer Act of 1939.

The resonances are not audible of course. You just get some jazz clips whatever illness you have. Also, there is some special 'copy protection' to stop you healing your friends without paying. Damn. Don't you hate Digital Rights Managament? In his FAQ, he acknowledges that all this is pretty difficult to believe,

When Faraday suggested electricity and magnetism were connected, the scientists scoffed.

Yes, people find it hard to believe when claims are made that Elvis is still alive, the moon is made of cheese and sane adults can really believe all this homeopathy nonsense.

Chappell makes great play of all this being done for charity. If money is not the answer, then why not start broadcasting resonance-loaded tunes over Nairobi radio, or distributed via iTunes?

After all this, I just have to wonder what a homeopath would actually have to do or claim for the Society of Homeopaths to actually take action, strike off and disown one of their fold?

Labels: homeopathy, Society of Homeopaths, SoH

 

11 October 2007 11:47am

My web hosting company Netcetera have received a complaint from the legal representation of the Society of Homeopaths about this posting. On the request of my hosting company, I have taken down this post while I try to understand the concerns of the Society of Homeopaths.

Update
26 October 2007

The Society of Homeopaths have still not responded to requests to explain their position. To see everything on this site about the Society of Homeopaths, click here.

If you are interested in finding out the history of this problem, a good place to start would be on the blog of Professor David Colquhoun FRS.

My letter to the Society of Homeopaths to find out the nature of the problem, and a discussion, can be found on Ben Goldacre's BadScience

James Randi discusses the affair here with some insight into potential problems.

The homeopath named in this article was subject to an official complaint. You can find out how the complaint was dealt with here.

The Guardian Newspaper has reported on the issues raised by the response of the Society of Homeopaths and compares it to how evidence-based medicine deals with criticism.

The Society of Homeopaths responded with a press release and letter to the Guardian (so far unpublished) and gives some insight into their thinking.

I have written to the Society of Homeopaths again about this press release as I believe it contains some incorrect and misleading information about the BBC Newsnight/Sense about Science malaria sting. No response so far.

Their thoroughly misleading statements in their letter to the Guardian and on their web site are discussed here.

The Gentle Art of Homeopathic Killing

It is now over a year since Sense about Science, Simon Singh and the BBC Newsnight programme exposed how it is common practice for high street homeopaths to tell customers that their magic pills can prevent malaria. The Society of Homeopaths have done little to stamp out this dangerous practice apart from issue a few ambiguously worded press statements.

The SoH has a code of practice, but my feeling is that this is rarely used to censure homeopaths and is therefore liable to mislead the public. If the SoH cannot deal with the malaria issue raised by Newsnight can the public expect them to deal with wider issues? .

As a quick test, I picked a random homeopath with a web site from the SoH register to see if they flouted a couple of important rules:

48 • Advertising shall not contain claims of superiority.
• No advertising may be used which expressly or implicitly claims to cure named diseases.

72 To avoid making claims (whether explicit or implied; orally or in writing) implying cure of any named disease.

The homeopath I picked is called Julia Wilson and runs a practice from the Leicestershire town of Market Harborough. What I found rather shocked and angered me.

Straight away, we find that Julia M Wilson LCHE, RSHom specialises in asthma and works at a clinic that says,

Many illnesses and disease can be successfully treated using homeopathy, including arthritis, asthma, digestive disorders, emotional and behavioural difficulties, headaches, infertility, skin and sleep problems.

Well, there are a number of named diseases there to start off. She also gives a leaflet that advertises her asthma clinic. The advertising leaflet says,

Conventional medicine is at a loss when it comes to understanding the origin of allergies. ... The best that medical research can do is try to keep the symptoms under control. Although creams and puffers can provide temporary relief, they are not offering your child a cure. Homeopathy is different, it seeks to address the triggers for asthma and eczema. It is a safe, drug free approach that helps alleviate the flaring of skin and tightening of lungs...

Now, despite the usual homeopathic contradiction of claiming to treat causes not symptoms and then in the next breath saying it can alleviate symptoms, the advert is clearly in breach of the above rule 47 on advertising as it implicitly claims superiority over real medicine and names a disease.

Asthma is estimated to be responsible for 1,500 deaths and 74,000 emergency hospital admissions in the UK each year. It is not a trivial illness that sugar pills ought to be anywhere near. The Cochrane Review says the following about the evidence for asthma and homeopathy,

The review of trials found that the type of homeopathy varied between the studies, that the study designs used in the trials were varied and that no strong evidence existed that usual forms of homeopathy for asthma are effective.

This is not a surprise given that homeopathy is just a ritualised placebo. Hopefully, most parents attending this clinic will have the good sense to go to a real accident and emergency unit in the event of a severe attack and consult their GP about real management of the illness.

However, a little more research on her site reveals much more serious concerns. She says on her site that 'she worked in Kenya teaching homeopathy at a college in Nairobi and supporting graduates to set up their own clinics'. Now, we have seen what homeopaths do in Kenya before. It is not treating a little stress and the odd headache. Free from strong UK legislation, these missionary homeopaths make the boldest claims about the deadliest diseases.

A bit of web research shows where Julia was working (picture above). The Abha Light Foundation is a registered NGO in Kenya. It takes mobile homeopathy clinics through the slums of Nairobi and surrounding villages. Its stated aim is to,

introduce Homeopathy and natural medicines as a method of managing HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria in Kenya.

I must admit, I had to pause for breath after reading that. The clinic sells its own homeopathic remedies for 'treating' various lethal diseases. Its MalariaX potion,

is a homeopathic preparation for prevention of malaria and treatment of malaria. Suitable for children. For prevention. Only 1 pill each week before entering, during and after leaving malaria risk areas. For treatment. Take 1 pill every 1-3 hours during a malaria attack.

This is nothing short of being totally outrageous. It is a murderous delusion. David Colquhoun has been writing about this wicked practice recently and it is well worth following his blog on the issue.

Let's remind ourselves what one of the most senior and respected homeopaths in the UK, Dr Peter Fisher of the London Homeopathic Hospital, has to say on this matter.

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.

Malaria is a huge killer in Kenya. It is the biggest killer of children under five. The problem is so huge that the reintroduction of DDT is considered as a proven way of reducing deaths. Magic sugar pills and water drops will do nothing. Many of the poorest in Kenya cannot afford real anti-malaria medicine, but offering them nonsense as a substitute will not help anyone.

Ironically, the WHO has issued a press release today on cheap ways of reducing child and adult mortality due to malaria. Their trials, conducted in Kenya, of using cheap mosquito nets soaked in insecticide have reduced child deaths by 44% over two years. It says that issuing these nets be the 'immediate priority' to governments with a malaria problem. No mention of homeopathy. These results were arrived at by careful trials and observation. Science. We now know that nets work. A lifesaving net costs $5. A bottle of useless homeopathic crap costs $4.50. Both are large amounts for a poor Kenyan, but is their life really worth the 50c saving?

I am sure we are going to hear the usual homeopath bleat that this is just a campaign by Big Pharma to discredit unpatentable homeopathic remedies. Are we to add to the conspiracy Big Net manufacturers too?

It amazes me that to add to all the list of ills and injustices that our rich nations impose on the poor of the world, we have to add the widespread export of our bourgeois and lethal healing fantasies. To make a strong point: if we can introduce laws that allow the arrest of sex tourists on their return to the UK, can we not charge people who travel to Africa to indulge their dangerous healing delusions?

At the very least, we could expect the Society of Homeopaths to try to stamp out this wicked practice? Could we?

Labels: homeopathy, Society of Homeopaths, SoH

 

Right, let's get serious. It's the end of Homeopathy Awareness Week and enough of the jokes. You might be surprised, but actually, I don't have too big a thing against homeopathy. If people want to pop into Boots the Quack and buy a tub of sugar pills and give one to little Timmy when he falls off his bike with a 'there, there' and a kiss on the forehead, then I would be really Mr Grumpy Spoil-Sport to object. If someone with a longstanding health complaint wants to spend an hour chatting to a homeopath and get lots of fuss and attention in a way that the NHS could never provide then I hope it turns out to be a valuable talking therapy session. After all, its just sugar pills and the placebo effect and, as we are constantly reminded, there are no side-effects. But mainly because there are no effects too. Fine. All good and dandy.

It's not the pills that upset me. Its the dangerously deluded thinking that goes with it, the rejection of rational ways of understanding health, and the refusal to hold any sort of meaningful debate about what role complementary treatment might really play. Head in the sand. Three Wise Monkeys. It is this lack of self-appraisal and the refusal to draw boundaries that is scary. We saw this earlier with the Sense-About-Science and Simon Singh sting on homeopaths where the researchers asked several homeopaths for anti-malarial advice and without exception, got appalling, negligent and dangerous nonsense back. The homeopaths were quite prepared to send their 'patients' into high-risk malarial areas without protection and sensible precautionary advice. That sort of consultation could easily kill. The Society of Homeopaths initial response to this situation was bizarre and frightening, essentially denying that there was an issue that needed addressing. It responded in a confusingly contradictory way later on, with a little better advice.

It is not homeopathy necessarily that is quackery. It is the homeopathists' lack of awareness of the boundaries and limits to what they do that constitutes quackery. And dangerous quackery too. Here is another way that this recklessness has manifested itself and follows on from my earlier posting on homeopathic first-aid kits.

Homeopathic First Aid kits appear to drag homeopathy into an area that is far from its origins. Homeopathy has survived because it is a mostly harmless intervention for non-life threatening, self-limiting conditions, e.g. tiredness, headaches and minor aches and pains. Thus, the standard tricks of the mind, such as post hoc reasoning, misattributed placebo responses, regression to the mean, and so on, are systematically interpreted as proof of the effectiveness of the intervention.


But get into a First Aid situation and, by definition, you are dealing with medical emergencies where the immediate course of action can have far reaching consequences. It is life or death stuff. Homeopathic First Aid kits are manufactured by 'Big Alt.Pharma' companies like Helios in the UK. I first spotted the kit being sold through a distributor that was also selling the fraudulent Q-Link pendant. Their web site said the following:

An essential first-aid remedy kit for the home, car and workplace specifically formulated to be used in even the most severe emergency and accident situations.

I was somewhat alarmed that there was serious suggestion that homeopathy was a suggested course of action in the 'most severe emergency and accident situations'. First Aiders are trained to save lives by establishing airways and circulation and preventing shock. Sugar pills have no part here. So, I wrote off to a few people to see what I could do about it.

First, the manufacturers, Helios, responded as follows:

Thank you for your e-mail and comments. We have amended the information on our web site to clarify the intended use of this kit.

Please note it is well within the scope of homoeopathy to prescribe routinely for acute injury situations as they have have well defined similar symptom pictures in most cases. Within the range of remedies in the kit there is room for differentiation for the knowledgeable prescriber, paramedic or first aider for whom this kit is designed.

As a matter of precaution we have amended the wording on our site to include:“An essential first-aid remedy kit for the home, car and workplace specifically formulated to be used by first aiders and the more experienced user of homeopathy, for accident and emergency situations that require higher potencies.” The kit also comes with a comprehensive leaflet which in the introduction clearly states the following under the title of ‘Safety First’:"Serious injuries and illnesses should never be treated without seeking expert advice. Use your instincts and common sense; if you are worried call for help first then give the appropriate remedy whilst you are waiting for help to arrive. In cases which are less serious or urgent, if symptoms show no improvement or return always seek professional help."

I hope this allays you concerns.

Allay them? Partially. At least their web site, and their distributors' web sites, appear to have a less aggressive statement about their product. But, their belief is still that sugar pills have a role in "acute injury situations". I wonder what evidence there is for this? How do they avoid the homeopathic healing crisis that is talked about in an already critical situation? And aren't remedies supposed to 'take time to work'? Importantly, someone fiddling around in their little green box for the right 'remedy' is abdicating the prime responsibilities of the first aider. It is absurd to think there is a role in life critical situations for delusional healing fantasies.

So, I also wrote to the Society of Homeopaths. This body likes to think of itself as a professional regulatory body and surely, it would not endorse any practices within its remit that could injure patients. Surely, this is about as serious as it gets in he misuse of homeopathy.

I wrote,

Does the society endorse such products? If not, would a suitable announcement be important to alert the public that these products may not be in the best interests of injured people?

The response I got back was,

As to whether The Society of Homeopaths endorses these or any other products, the simple answer is that we do not. Our Code of Ethics &Practice states that 'no member may use their Society membership in the commercialisation of any product or remedy". We do have long standing relationships with all the homeopathic pharmacies, with a link to them from our own website. However, this does not extend to endorsing their products.

I hope this clarifies this situation for you.

With kind regards

Yours sincerely

Paula Ross

Chief Executive

So, my question about warning the public was ignored and they appear to be quite happy linking to the sites and saying you can buy first aid kits there. I found this quite alarming, so I wrote back to Paula Ross,

Application of homeopathy, or any other unnecessary intervention in 'severe emergency and accident situations', would be strictly counter to the immediate needs of the situation and could even be harmful.

So questions,

1. Is this a statement you would agree with?

2. By linking to the Helios and stating you can buy first aid kits there, are you not implicitly endorsing these products?

3. Should you agree with statement 1, should the Society be taking steps to ensure that it distances itself from such products and alerts its own members, and the public who may visit your site, that this is a dangerous and irresponsible use of homeopathy?

Surely as a recognised complementary therapy, users of homeopathy should be well aware of the boundaries of its complementarity and an emergency situation is one that should be left to trained paramedics and first-aiders?

I look forward to your response,

The response I got back was...

nothing.

It would look like the Society of Homeopaths does not give damn if the public or its member are under the impression that homeopathy can be used in critical situations.

This does not surprise me in the slightest. When you are immersed in a subject that is impervious to critical debate, evidence and reason then the boundaries around what might be good practice and what might be poor practice become totally arbitrary. There are no standards that you might apply to decide where to draw the limits. If you accept the ability for homeopathy to treat hayfever on very poor standard of evidence, why not accept that it can treat malaria, cancer and road traffic accident victims too? Indeed, the easiest path of all is to draw no boundaries whatsoever. Why get embroiled in a debate with your delusional members? It could only reduce membership levels after all.

The Society of Homeopaths would like to see itself as a regulatory body for the profession. Indeed, some members believe it is. But it is no more a regulatory body than a golf club is a regulatory body for golfers. It is a members club, a registrar of the delusional, and a cosy members club too. How many members ever get struck off? What would they have to do to earn the society's wrath?

So, does this sort of quack belief in the ability to treat acute situations ever really do any harm? There was case recently of a midwife that allegedly got in the way of paramedics to apply olive oil to the feet and herbal remedies to a baby in urgent need of resuscitation. The baby survived, but with severe brain damage. Yes, not homeopathy, but a person with the same bonkers belief that magic can be used to cure in life critical situations.

Homeopathy, with its ridiculous pseudo-scientific explanations, is not a complementary therapy. Its belief system is in direct opposition to evidence based medicine and rational approaches to treatment. It instills a distrust in the medical profession and their 'allopathic ways' and their iatrogenic deaths. It is only a small step towards thinking that trained first aiders and paramedics need to step aside for their caring, more gentle homeopath.


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Labels: homeopathy, Society of Homeopaths, SoH