Glimmers of hope and progress in 2018

My last post was rather depressive, and I certainly do not want my readers to be under the weather when they go into 2019. For this last post of 2018, I have therefore selected 20 events which gave me hope that perhaps we – those who prefer rationality to nonsense – are making progress.

1. It has been reported that New Brunswick judge ruled this week that Canadian naturopaths — pseudoscience purveyors who promote a variety of “alternative medicines” like homeopathy, herbs, detoxes, and acupuncture — cannot legally call themselves “medically trained.”
2. The Spanish Ministries of Health and Sciences announced their ‘Health Protection Plan against Pseudotherapies’.
3. The medical school of Vienna axed their courses in homeopathy.
4. A most comprehensive review of homeopathy concluded that the effects of homeopathy do not differ from those of placebo.
5. The UK Pharmaceutical Society has stated that it does not endorse homeopathy and that pharmacists must advise patients considering a homeopathic product about their lack of efficacy beyond that of a placebo.
6. A top medical journal has retracted a dodgy meta-analysis of acupuncture.
7. A prominent BMJ columnist wrote : Many people seek to make money from those who don’t understand science. Doctors should call out bollocksology when they see it.
8. Pharmacare and Bioglan received a ‘Stonky’ for its over-the-counter Melatonin Homeopathic Sleep Formula.
9. The Governing Body of Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG) Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) approved changes that mean NHS funded homeopathy will only be available in exceptional circumstances in the area.
10. Health ministers of all German counties have decided that they will start reforming the profession of the Heilpraktiker, the German non-medically trained alternative practitioners.
11. The NHS chief, Simon Stevens was quoted saying: There is no robust evidence to support homeopathy which is at best a placebo and a misuse of scarce NHS funds.
12. A systematic review concluded that there is no evidence in the literature of an effect of chiropractic treatment in the scope of primary prevention or early secondary prevention for disease in general. Chiropractors have to assume their role as evidence-based clinicians and the leaders of the profession must accept that it is harmful to the profession to imply a public health importance in relation to the prevention of such diseases through manipulative therapy/chiropractic treatment.
13. A Cochrane review did not show any benefit of homeopathic medicinal products compared to placebo on recurrence of acute respiratory tract infections or cure rates in children. 
14. The French minister of health stated that ‘the French are very attached [to homeopathy]; it’s probably a placebo effect. If it can prevent the use of toxic medicine, I think that we all win. I does not hurt.
15. The Australian Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine Association retracted false accusation against me about their assumption that I had undeclared conflicts of interest.
16. The ‘Daily Telegraph‘ published the following statement after misquoting me: Emeritus Professor Edzard Ernst, Britain’s first professor of complementary medicine at Exeter University said that doctors should make it clear to patients that they could not be taking herbal remedies alongside drugs. Prof Ernst said there was no good evidence that they work and that doctors were ‘contributing to disinformation’ by turning a blind eye to the practice.
17. A comprehensive overview of the therapeutic options for chronic low back pain showed that chiropractic is not any better than over-the-counter painkillers or exercise, and that patients need to take precautions when seeking out a chiropractor.

Hold on, you promised 20, but these are just 17!!!, I hear my attentive readers mutter.

Correct! I tried to find 20 to match my last post; and I only found 17. This might be a reflection that, in the realm of SCAM, the bad still outweighs the good news (by much more that 20:17, I fear).

Yet, this should not depress us. On the contrary, let’s see it as a challenge to get on with out work of fighting for good evidence, ethical standards, rationality and critical thinking.In this spirit, I wish you all a very good, healthy and productive year 2019.