Nutritional Therapists Call for Equal Statutory Footing with Dieticians.

2nd December, 2014 31

In a surprise move, the British Association for Applied Nutrition & Nutritional Therapy (BANT) have formally written to the Health & Care Professions Council (HCPC) requesting that the register of dietitians is modified to allow for the entry of nutritional therapists. This would give Nutritional Therapists equal statutory footing to Dieticians and give them all the privileges and protections that only Dieticians currently have. In a notice to their members, BANT says, [read more…]

Professional Standards Authority Gives Accreditation to Ofquack

11th October, 2013 12

Ofquack, or the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC) (www.ofquack.org.uk), has been approved as an Accredited Voluntary Register by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA). So now, craniosacral therapists, ear acupuncturists, reflexologists and reiki healers can claim to be covered by similar professional standards as doctors and nurses. This development is deeply worrying. It aims to protect the public from risks associated with such practices, but it will do not such thing. Indeed, by [read more…]

Society of Homeopaths Seeks Accreditation from the Professional Standards Authority

8th May, 2013 27

Health regulators do an important thing: protect the public from the potential risks that health care providers and their practices pose to their clients. Risks cannot be avoided in health care. For any treatment that will have effects, there is the risk that there will be detrimental effects which may outweigh any benefit. If a patient is informed of these risks and benefits, good decisions can be made. Alternative medicine [read more…]

Which? Uncovers Dangerous Advice from Nutritionists.

16th January, 2012 28

Having just had a baby girl and moving house, I thought I would subscribe to Which? magazine as I knew I needed to make a few critical spends over the coming months. Which? is a consumer rights organisation that publishes reports and reviews into consumer issues. Online reviews of products and services can often be misleading as you do not know anything about the reviewers motives and depth of experiences. [read more…]

Margaret Coats to join Zombie Regulator, Ofquack.

9th August, 2011 8

I first wrote about Ofquack, or the Complementary and Natural Health Council, during its formation in early 2008. I predicted it would not survive – and I was wrong. Ofquack was set up by the now defunct quackery lobby group founded by Prince Charles, the Foundation for Integrated Health. The aim was to provide voluntary ‘regulation’ for practitioners of superstitious and pseudoscientific therapies. I predicted it would fail as such [read more…]

When the Regulator Believes in Fairies, Who Protects the Public?

22nd January, 2011 37

It would appear to be a common mistake in the regulation of alternative medicine to assume that those trained in the subject, and who practice it, can be considered experts in the subject. And that those experts can help formulate good regulatory practices. The nature of expertise has plagued philosophers since the time of Plato, whose Socratic dialogues explored how you could tell a doctor from a quack. Plato struggled [read more…]

Doctor’s Data and Bogus Tests

7th July, 2010 35

This week in The Lawyer, Robert Dougans and David Allen Green wrote about the emerging phenomenon of ‘wiki litigation’ where there is large scale scrutiny and participation in legal proceedings using the web as a shared medium. They used the example of the British Chiropractic Association’s libel case against science writer Simon Singh. This was not just the web watching the case – but actively participating by the scrutiny of [read more…]

Meddling Princes, Medical Regulation and Licenses to Kill

10th December, 2009 6

The Eighteenth Century in England was the Golden Age of Quackery, with London being a world capital for mountebanks, charlatans and other practitioners of irregular medicine. Consumers in Georgian England had access to an unparalleled selection of medical entrepreneurship from regular doctors, lay quacks, foreigners with exotic elixirs, and even preachers such as John Wesley (as we saw a few weeks ago). So popular were these various tonics and treatments [read more…]

MP David Tredinnick calls for more Government Funding of Medical Astrology and Remote Energetic Healing

15th October, 2009 24

Yesterday, the House of Commons saw a debate on the funding of medical astrology. Yes. Medical Astrology. The Hansard Report of the debate has a seventeenth century feel to it. Tredinnick asserts that the phase of the moon influences the number of accidents and stops blood from clotting. He has tales of eastern lands that use astronomical signs to influence health care and governments that have official astrological systems. Britain [read more…]

Protecting future ‘Baby Glorias’ from Homeopathic Beliefs

28th September, 2009 18

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. [read more…]

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