{"id":958,"date":"2009-09-02T22:15:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-02T22:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/wpblog\/2009\/09\/the-mhra-and-their-double-failure-over-homeopathy.html"},"modified":"2009-09-02T22:15:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-02T22:15:00","slug":"mhra-and-their-double-failure-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/2009\/09\/mhra-and-their-double-failure-over.html","title":{"rendered":"The MHRA and their Double Failure over Homeopathy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lh4.ggpht.com\/_vvrFE7Rxtr0\/SprdYdewg7I\/AAAAAAAADJo\/qUBaWCb1cSE\/s1600-h\/nelsons%5B2%5D.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px\" title=\"nelsons\" border=\"0\" alt=\"nelsons\" align=\"left\" src=\"http:\/\/lh3.ggpht.com\/_vvrFE7Rxtr0\/SprdY3Gx-vI\/AAAAAAAADJs\/xq-n91PHjig\/nelsons_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800\" width=\"199\" height=\"244\" \/><\/a> The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) have been <a href=\"http:\/\/www.senseaboutscience.org.uk\/index.php\/site\/project\/86\" target=\"_blank\">heavily<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dcscience.net\/?p=32\" target=\"_blank\">criticised<\/a> in recent years for abandoning their <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mhra.gov.uk\/Aboutus\/Whoweare\/Ourmissionandvalues\/index.htm\" target=\"_blank\">core mission<\/a> by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mhra.gov.uk\/Howweregulate\/Medicines\/Herbalandhomoeopathicmedicines\/Homoeopathicmedicines\/index.htm\" target=\"_blank\">allowing<\/a> homeopathic sugar pills to contain statements about what symptoms and illnesses they can be used for without having to provide evidence that this is true.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The MHRA mission and values:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mission<\/strong>   <br \/>The MHRA\u2019s mission is to enhance and safeguard the health of the public by ensuring that medicines and medical devices work, and are acceptably safe.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Values<\/strong>   <br \/>In pursuing our mission we will strive to act with:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>integrity; <\/li>\n<li>openness; <\/li>\n<li>courtesy; <\/li>\n<li>responsiveness; <\/li>\n<li>timeliness; <\/li>\n<li>professionalism; <\/li>\n<li>impartiality; and <\/li>\n<li>consistency. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The MHRA allow sellers to submit evidence from homeopathic \u2018provings\u2019 as evidence. A proving is where a homeopath takes a new type of homeopathic pill to see what symptoms it generates. Homeopaths believe \u2018like cures like\u2019, so an onion, which makes your eyes stream, can cure hayfever \u2013 allegedly. However, homeopathic pills have been so diluted that no ingredients actually remain. What homeopaths \u2018prove\u2019 is plain sugar pills \u2013 any symptoms they note are either coincidental or imaginary. This is the first failure of the MHRA to allow such nonsense methods to act as a guide to efficacy.<\/p>\n<p>In order for a homeopathic pharmacy to make claims, they must submit the evidence from their provings. So, far few submissions have been made. And yet, homeopathic pharmacists continue to sell many sugar pills, with indications, with no license and apparently with impunity. Is the MHRA even failing to uphold its own rules?<\/p>\n<p>I tested this out.<\/p>\n<p>Over a year ago I was invited to speak at London\u2019s Skeptics in the Pub. I chose to speak about the dilemmas of regulating quackery. As part of my preparation, I visited London\u2019s Nelson\u2019s Homeopathic Pharmacy just off Oxford Street. I went in and said I needed something for an upset stomach and that I had diarrhoea. \u201cDo you have anything like Imodium?\u201d I was told that the stuff they has would not just \u2018suppress my symptoms\u2019 but get to the bottom of my problem \u2013 so to speak.<\/p>\n<p>I was handed a little green container of white sugar pills labelled \u2018Traveller\u2019s Diarrhoea\u2019. The full label read:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p align=\"center\"><strong><u>TRAVELLER&#8217;S DIARRHOEA<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">RELIEVES SYMPTOMS OF DIARRHOEA &amp; VOMITING DUE TO<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">CONSUMPTION OF UNWASHED FRUITS, VEGETABLES, BAD MEAT<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">OR FISH. DOSAGE. TAKE 2 TABLETS EVERY HOUR UNTIL BETTER<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">ARSENICUM 30\/PODOPHYLUM 30\/PYROGEN 6\/CARBO VEG 30\/NUX<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">VOMICA 30<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">EXP 12\/12                              KEEP OUT OF CHILDRENS REACH<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">NELSON&#8217;S HOMEOPATHIC PHARMACY<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">73 DUKE STREET, LONDON W1K 5BY 020 7629 3118            P<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The number 30 is significant because it means the ingredients have been diluted to 1 part in 10 to the power of 60. (that is 30 sequential dilutions of 1 part in 100).  In other words \u2013 the pills I got were just plain sugar pills with no active ingredients.<\/p>\n<p>Now, remember \u2013 like cures like. So being actually healthy at the time, if I had taken one of these pills I would have \u2018proved\u2019 the pill and developed the symptoms. Not wanting to do a crude experiment of n=1, during my talk at Skeptics in the Pub I handed them out to the crowd so that dozens of brave and selfless sceptics had the chance to develop a rather uncomfortable journey home.<\/p>\n<p>We downed our pills, and thankfully, due to science, we all remained rather intact and the pub landlord did not have to clear up a rather horrible mess.<\/p>\n<p>On the 28th of March 2008, I submitted an enquiry to the MHRA suggesting that this might be an illegal product as it had no marketing authorisation. On the 14th of April 2008 I was told that the case had been passed onto the MHRA&#8217;s Enforcement and Intelligence Group.<\/p>\n<p>Now you may have noticed that the MHRA\u2019s listed values include <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color:#000000;\">responsiveness; <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color:#000000;\">timeliness; <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color:#000000;\">professionalism; <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"left\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">So, it may come as a bit of a shock when I say that I got an email response back last week that said (in its entirety),<\/span><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color:#000000;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color:#000000;\">25th August 2009<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#000000;\">I have been informed by our Enforcement Unit that an investigation has taken place in response to your complaint below. The outcome of the investigation is that following advice from the Enforcement Unit, Nelson&#8217;s have removed the product you mentioned from their display shelves.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Regards,<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Yes, timeliness in this case means 17 months.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#000000;\">It may also come as a bit of a shock to find this product still for sale on <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nelsonshomeopathy.com\/shop-online\/The-Nelsons-Travellers-Companion_prod1731.aspx\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Nelson\u2019s website.<\/span><\/a><span style=\"color:#000000;\"> It may have been \u2018removed from the shelves\u2019 but is still advertised on the web. You can also see other similar products that are intended to cure constipation, accident &amp; injury, allergic reactions, bites &amp; stings, hangover &amp; indigestion, heat exhaustion, jet lag, and sun exposure. All the same sugar pill.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In fact, the Nelson\u2019s web site is riddled with products that make specific claims and that do not appear to have any marketing authorisation.<\/p>\n<p>Some examples:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Migraine Headaches (Helps with migraine symptoms.) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nelsonshomeopathy.com\/shop-online\/Migraine-Headaches_prod1628.aspx\">http:\/\/www.nelsonshomeopathy.com\/shop-online\/Migraine-Headaches_prod1628.aspx<\/a> <\/li>\n<li>Morning Sickness Relief (To help relieve symptoms of morning sickness&#8230;.) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nelsonshomeopathy.com\/shop-online\/Morning-Sickness-Relief_prod1629.aspx\">http:\/\/www.nelsonshomeopathy.com\/shop-online\/Morning-Sickness-Relief_prod1629.aspx<\/a> <\/li>\n<li>PMT (To help relieve symptoms of premenstrual tension.) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nelsonshomeopathy.com\/shop-online\/P.M.T._prod1634.aspx\">http:\/\/www.nelsonshomeopathy.com\/shop-online\/P.M.T._prod1634.aspx<\/a> <\/li>\n<li>Sore Throat (To help relieve symptoms of sore throat) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nelsonshomeopathy.com\/shop-online\/Sore-Throat_prod1639.aspx\">http:\/\/www.nelsonshomeopathy.com\/shop-online\/Sore-Throat_prod1639.aspx<\/a> <\/li>\n<li>The Nelsons Quit Smoking Kit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nelsonshomeopathy.com\/shop-online\/The-Nelsons-Quit-Smoking-Kit_prod1664.aspx\">http:\/\/www.nelsonshomeopathy.com\/shop-online\/The-Nelsons-Quit-Smoking-Kit_prod1664.aspx<\/a> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, what\u2019s the harm? On the face of it, all the consumer will be getting is some sugar pill placebos and so there can be no more harm than any other homeopathic remedy. But the harm comes when the purchaser may well be relying on specific effects. <\/p>\n<p>We saw recently how <a href=\"http:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/2008\/04\/neals-yard-remedies-offers-lethal.html\">Neal\u2019s Yard Remedies<\/a> were selling sugar pills to customers and telling them that these could prevent malaria. The BBC undertook an investigation and interviewed their \u2018Medicines\u2019 Director, who stormed out of the meeting after being asked if this was ethical and legal.<\/p>\n<p>After the BBC forwarded on their evidence, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/2008\/05\/neals-yard-remedies-rapped-by-medicines.html\">MHRA investigated<\/a> and slapped their wrists. That was it. Despite the appallingly irresponsible nature of Neal\u2019s Yard behaviour the MHRA saw fit not to prosecute. I for one, was quite shocked.<\/p>\n<p>The MHRA appear to be quite tolerant of homeopathic pharmacies sales processes. Why should this be? Could the MHRA think it not worth the effort to better police this sector? Are they under other influences to tread softly here?<\/p>\n<p>I do not know. But the problem is deeper and more entrenched than even these problems suggest. Homeopaths are a group explicitly opposed to real medicine. They define their product in terms of direct opposition to medicine. From its first invention, homeopathy made grand claims to universality and having found the true philosophy of curing illness. All other approaches were heresy and to be opposed. This is what makes the vipers nest of homeopathy so insidious as a source of anti-scientific thinking about disease which leads to more widespread problems such the stubbornly unreasonable anti-vaccine movement.<\/p>\n<p>We can see this foundation of anti-vaccine thinking in many homeopathic products. A large fraction of the Ainsworths medicine cabinet consists of homeopathic versions of vaccines. These are often in the form of what homeopaths call nosodes where some diseases tissue or some other \u2018infectious\u2019 agent is taken and serially diluted and shaken and probably <a href=\"http:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/2009\/04\/modern-face-of-scientific-homeopathy.html\">banged against a leather bible<\/a> many times to create the homeopathic witchcraft pill. Look at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ainsworths.com\/site\/combination.aspx\">remedy lists<\/a> of Ainsworths and you will see a product for each Influenza strain going back 20 years. You will find homeopathic replacements for Measles vaccine, Parotitis vaccine (mumps) and Rubella. You find homeopathic sugar pills for all forms of Hepatitis, strains of TB, and Typhoid, as well as the usual comedy remedies such as shipwreck, trout and Ayres rock.<\/p>\n<p>These products are making implicit claims to be alternatives to real vaccines. All of them are the same useless sugar pill pulled from the same large tub at Ainsworths, some hocus pocus spouted over them, bottled, labelled and shipped.<\/p>\n<p>Why the MHRA do not prosecute for straightforward fraudulent trading I just do not know.<\/p>\n<p>***********************************************************************************<\/p>\n<p><b>Update<\/b><\/p>\n<p>18th September 2009<\/p>\n<p>Simon Perry from the excellent <a href=\"http:\/\/adventuresinnonsense.blogspot.com\/\">Adventures in Nonsense<\/a> blog wrote to the MHRA to see what their response to this criticism would be. I have also written, but not received a reply.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Dear Mr Perry,   <\/p>\n<p>Thank you for your recent enquiry to the MHRA and please accept our apologies for the wait you have experienced. We have liaised with our enforcement team and the investigator involved and we can confirm that our response to this blog post is as follows:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This referral was allocated to an investigator and concluded by way of a compliance visit when the product was removed from the shelves. The matter of the product being available via the company internet site has been referred to our enforcement group to take the appropriate action.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Please contact us again if you need further assistance with this, or any other queries.        <\/p>\n<p>Kind Regards,<\/p>\n<p>Ben, on behalf of the <\/p>\n<p>Central Enquiry Point <\/p>\n<p>Information Centre <\/p>\n<p>Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>At the time of writting, Nelsons are still selling the product online.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) have been heavily criticised in recent years for abandoning their core mission by allowing homeopathic sugar pills <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/2009\/09\/mhra-and-their-double-failure-over.html\" title=\"The MHRA and their Double Failure over Homeopathy\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[179,187,105],"class_list":["post-958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ainsworths","category-uncategorized","tag-ainsworths","tag-homeopathy","tag-mhra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}