The Quackometer

Let’s run with an idea and see where it goes.

The 10:23 campaign has now had loads of publicity and Boots have failed to address any of the central concerns: mainly, that homeopathy is a daft pseudoscience. Moreover, the pharmacy profession and the drugs regulator have remained silent.

In all likelihood, Boots will not withdraw their sugar pills and pharmacists will continue to take your money in exchange for pseudo-medicine. An immediate capitulation was never on the cards – the world does not work like that. But the Boots brand has been damaged as thousands of people have become aware of just what they are prepared to sell you in order to make money.

And let us also take on board the homeopaths argument that banning homeopathy would ‘restrict customer choice’. (Even though 10:23 did not seek to ‘ban’ homeopathy, only remove it from the pharmacy counter and, perhaps, into the health food shop next to the crystals.)

The campaign was really about making sure people understood what homeopathy is: it is not a herbal medicine, as herbs are often not used and any content gets diluted to the point where there is often nothing left. You are buying sugar pills that have had ritual magic performed on them.

As I have said, the villains here are the medicine regulators who allow deceptive labelling of these products. The MHRA say that they test the labels to make sure the public understand what they are buying. This is not true, as their recent submission to the House of Commons revealed. Nothing in their testing asked if customers understood they were buying pills that stated they contained an ingredient but that actually contained nothing, and that there was no reason to believe the pills did anything other than act as a placebo.

The legal blogger Jack of Kent has done a superb job of deconstructing the language on the labels.

Other industries have to battle with the problem with how to convey important information to the consumer that may affect buying considerations based on health: notably the food industry. In the last few years we have seen ‘traffic lights’ highlighting, for example the amount of salt in a ready meal.

Why shouldn't the packaging of items in the pharmacy not be subject to the same clear labelling requirements?

As Edzard Ernst, Professor of Complementary medicine, has said,

My plea is simply for honesty. Let people buy what they want, but tell them the truth about what they are buying. These treatments are biologically implausible and the clinical tests have shown they don't do anything at all in human beings. The argument that this information is not relevant or important for customers is quite simply ridiculous. If [pharmacists] are unable to stick to their ethical code, then they should change their code and be clear that it is alright to put profits before patients.

If we were expecting pharmacists to be honest, what would a typical homeopathic product label looks like? I suggest the following:

This quickly gets the key facts across that distinguish the product from others that might have survived some testing. After reading this, most people ought to be able to make an informed decision, and if you are the sort of person who uses crystals for deodorant then you still have your ‘right’ to buy this stuff. Everybody is happy.

Could we ever see such labelling? Somehow I doubt it, for a number of reasons.The government appears to be incapable of taking a position on pseudoscience. Indeed it has recently said that "The government does not find it helpful to define pseudoscience."

I am sure the businesses behind the pharmacies would resist such a move fiercely as it might be difficult to see how any reasonable person would purchase a product labelled as such. The pharmacists would undoubtedly resist it as it would expose them as having being flogging worthless shit for years. Plus, their ranks appear to be filled with supporters of pseudomedicines. The recently departed president of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, the regulatory body of pharmacists, is now doing this. (Please empty your mouth of liquids before clicking link as otherwise your screen will get wet.)

Plus, and this is a big one, I would imagine that the majority of products for sale in a pharmacy such as Boots, homeopathic, complementary or regular, would be more likely to have red circles than green ones.

The fact that we could, in principle, have such a scheme and the distance we appear from being able to adopt something like this tells us how little our modern pharmacies have progressed from the quack’s apothecary of old.

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Update

Thanks to Richard's suggestion in the comments that the homeopathy in Boots simply be moved to a section labelled 'Placebos'.

Of course we get into a dilemma then when the professionals tell you they are giving you a placebo as is so well observed in the (hugely underrated) Smack the Pony sketch...

Labels: 10:23 campaign, boots the chemist, homeopathy

Thanks to Lee Warren, the Purple Magician, who saw this in King’s Cross, London.

Trust Boots to be complete idiots.

Double Idiots.

Labels: boots the chemist

Labels: boots the chemist, NHS, pseudoscience

NBTY is a leading vertically integrated manufacturer and retailer of a broad line of high quality, value-priced nutritional supplements in the United States and the United Kingdom.

The company is currently listed as about the 800th largest firm in the US, has a market capitalisation of about $2 billion and is in the top twenty pharmaceutical firms in the US. In the UK, it is cheerfully endorsed in adverts by that 80's pop star favourite, Kim Wilde. This is a company that is quite happy to make a healthy living by selling products that trade on the myths of 'natural' and 'alternative'.

But is just not the 'health' food shops that cash in on alternative medicine. Boots the Chemist is the largest and most respected high street chemist in the UK. It is something of a national institution and is seen as a reliable, trustworthy retailer. More the shame then that it has a large voodoo section next to its other medicines. It sells a full range of food supplements, herbal cures and copper bracelets, much as Holland and Barrett does. It also, has a nice section devoted to Bach Flower Remedies and, most gallingly, homeopathy remedies, both branded and own brand.

Now homeopathy has been aptly described as the pons asinorum (the bridge asses have to cross) of alternative medicine. If you struggle to see why homeopathy is utter nonsense and that claims made of it are ridiculous, then we are not going to get much further on our journey together.

Homeopathy is based on two so-called laws:

• The Principle of Similars - like causes like - re-create the symptoms of the disease somehow and you can cure the disease.
• The Law of Infinitesimals - the more dilute an ingredient is the greater the effect it will have.
  

A Dr Hahnemann (1755-1843) dreamed up these laws. In the two hundred years since his inspiration, no one has managed to show that they are indeed true. In fact, the massive advancement in science since then would suggest only one thing - that these so-called laws should be dumped in the great landfill site of bonkers ideas and covered in seagull shit.

The dilution of homeopathic treatments is really the most ridiculous part. In Boots, preparations are available that are labelled as 30C. This means that the original substance has been diluted to the extend that it is impossible that any active ingredient remains. If you look a the contents label of each 'medicine', Boots actually admit it. In each pill there is nothing but sugar. You might as well pop next door to Woolworths and pick up some Smarties - at least you would get some chocolate.

This means that if you went into Boots and emptied all the pills on the floor, there is not an analytical technique in the world that could tell the pills apart. No amount of measurement would tell you which was which. There is not a machine sensitive enough and no nano-measurement technique that would spot any active ingredient. They are identical. Just expensive sugar pills. You really have to wonder if Boots goes to all the trouble and expense of going through the shamanic ritual of diluting the supposed active ingredient to the required level when they could just scoop a tub full of generic pills into an appropriately labelled pot. No-one would ever know the difference.

So, either all of physics and chemistry is horribly wrong or homeopathy is utter quackery. Place your bets.

But what if I am wrong? People do say it works - they can't all be wrong. Maybe. All the effects of homeopathy can be attributed to the placebo effect. When properly controlled large trials of homeopathy are done, using double-blind randomised techniques, you cannot tell placebo groups from homeopathy groups. Its just sugar pills as we thought.

So, what happens when you write to Boots saying that you are disappointed in their promotion of quackery? Well, you get a letter back like this one I received a little while ago...

Thank you for your recent e mail.

I am sorry to hear that you feel unable to shop with us because we sell homeopathic products and other alternative remedies.

Boots prides itself on offering customers choice and, whilst some people may not believe in the products, a large number of our customers continue to find homoeopathy products beneficial for them.

Whilst this is the case and whilst the MHRA, the government's own regulatory body, continue to regard the product as medicines that are safe for our customers to use, we will continue to offer them in our shops.

I hope this explains our decision to stock this type of product.

Thank you again for taking the trouble to e-mail us.

Kind regards.

Boots Customer Care
PO Box 5300
Nottingham

If you respond to this email pointing out your unhappiness with this answer then silence ensues.

So what are Boots saying here?

Boots prides itself on offering customers choice
Obviously, choice is good, even if the choice made might be a very bad one.

whilst some people may not believe in the products
Like the whole of medical science, physics and chemistry and I would wager most of your own pharmacists and scientists.

a large number of our customers continue to find homoeopathy products beneficial for them
How beneficial? About as beneficial as a smarty would be my guess. If you have proof of efficacy over and above this then your scientists will be up for a Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Whilst this is the case and whilst the MHRA, the government's own regulatory body, continue to regard the product as medicines that are safe for our customers to use
No-one is disputing their safety! If they were dangerous, that would be as much as a miracle as if they worked. What is dangerous is Boots giving these pills an endorsement that may discourage people from seeking proper care.

we will continue to offer them in our shops
whilst sections of the public are uninformed enough to buy them, it is not illegal, and we can make big bucks from little bits of sugar.

I hope this explains our decision to stock this type of product.
Yep, you've said it all.

Thank you again for taking the trouble to e-mail us.

If you are outraged by Boots actions too, why not drop them some feedback at this URL?

Labels: boots the chemist, homeopathy