The random thoughts of a sceptical activist.
Homeopathy is under severe pressure in the UK with what little credibility it had, destroyed. The ending of referrals from GPs in Liverpool and the Wirral over the last year or so and consultations on the future of homeopathy in Clinical Commissioning Groups in Bristol and Enfield, and more recently by NHS England, have piled on top of the decline by 96% of NHS prescriptions for homeopathy in England in the past 20 years.
We have also seen the recent announcement that Weleda (a supplier of homeopathic and anthroposophic products to the NHS) is ending the production of their ‘bespoke’ homeopathic products. The pending outcome of a consultation by the Charity Commission on CAM charities could add yet more woe.
We could be seeing the final death throes of homeopathy on the NHS with possible knock-on effects on the businesses of lay homeopaths: many relying on the false imprimatur leant to it by the NHS.
In November, the Council of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) issued a position statement including ‘Homeopathy exists without a recognised body of evidence for its use. Furthermore, it is not based on sound scientific principles.’
This followed a statement in September 2017 from the European Association of Science Advisory Councils, which represents the national science academies of 27 countries, concluding that homeopathy ‘can actually be harmful: by delaying or deterring a patient from seeking appropriate, evidence-based, medical attention and by undermining patient and public confidence in scientific evidence.’
Homeopaths are also under pressure from the Advertising Standards Authority to make sure their advertising is ‘legal, decent, honest and truthful’, but many still seem to have difficulty with those principles. To protect the public from misleading claims, the ASA rightly sets a high standard of evidence — one clearly too high for homeopaths. But the ASA make it easy for homeopathy advertisers, stating: “Practitioners should therefore avoid making direct or implied claims that homeopathy can treat medical conditions.” Crystal clear.
Whether it concerns human or animal health, the debate is clearly about the consideration of the best available scientific evidence; to that battle, homeopaths come unarmed.
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There’s an un-written rule — or at least there should be — that anything said in support of homeopathy cited by a homeopath or supporter should be taken with a large pinch of natrium muriaticum.
That’s not to
— Dr Steven Novella[/pullquote]Homeopaths have an ambivalent attitude to research: they are quick to jump on any results they think support their pseudo scientific beliefs, yet any paper that shows homeopathy to be no better than placebo is denounced, usually with cries that the ‘homeopathic system of personalised, holistic medicine’ is just not suited to being tested using flawed ‘conventional’ double-blind randomised controlled trials (DBRCT). And sometimes Big Pharma tell lies.
But homeopaths have a problem: all advertising in the UK has to comply with the Advertising Standards Authority’s CAP Code and this rightly demands a high standard of evidence for any claim, regardless of whether it’s about how clean a soap powder makes your whites, how efficient double-glazed windows are or how much a skin cream reduces the appearance of wrinkles. So it is with homeopathy: high quality evidence is required.
Any reader not aware of the current fuss and bother over the What Doctors Don’t Tell You magazine can find a comprehensive list of blog posts, etc curated by Josephine Jones: WDDTY: My Master List.
In a recent spat — after The Times published an article by Tom Whipple (Call to ban magazine for scaremongering) — WDDTY posted a scan of part of a 1989 Times article that appeared to praise their original (online subscription) publication of the same name, saying it was “A voice in the silence”.
WDDTY use this same endorsement 24 years later on their main website, the WDDTY subscription website for their latest glossy, supermarket edition (although they get the quote mixed up with others) and in the glossy magazine itself.
Despite calls for them to publish the complete article, its editor, Lynne McTaggart, has not obliged, so I will.
Perusing the BCA’s website usually finds extremely useful advice on schoolbags, gardening, bras, shopping, Bank Holidays, baking, gadgets, sitting and, of course, Christmas.
This time, however, I was bravely looking for what they said about the differences between chiropractic and osteopathy after a comment by a chiro on Prof Edzard Ernst’s blog:
Chiropractic and osteopathy have different origins. They are separate forms of spinal manip. Typically osteopaths use long level techniques, chiros use short lever. Both aim to achieve the same thing – spinal health.
This highlights a frequent question asked by skeptics: Are chiropractic and osteopathy substantially or even significantly different forms of healthcare?
The exposé by Prof David Colquhoun of the interference by the Department of Health — at the behest of homeopathy promoters — in the publication of impartial, scientifically-based information about homeopathy on the NHS Choices