In Germany, so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) is used by about 6o% of the population. The type and extent of in-patient complementary care are, however, largely unknown.
The objective of this study was, therefore, to conduct a survey on SCAM procedures in Bavarian acute care hospitals by screening the websites of all respective facilities in order to cover a broad range of SCAMs.
In 2020, an independent and comprehensive website screening of all 389 Bavarian acute hospitals, including all departments, was conducted by two independent raters. SCAMs offered were analyzed in total as well as separately by specialty.
Among all 389 Bavarian acute care hospitals, 82% offered at least one and 66% at least three different SCAMs on their website. Relaxation techniques (52%), acupuncture (44%), massage (41%), movement-, art-, and music therapy (33%, 30%, and 28%), meditative movement therapies like yoga (30%), and aromatherapy (29%) were offered most frequently. Separated by specialty, SCAMs were most common in psychiatry/psychosomatics (relaxation techniques 69%, movement and art therapy 60% each) at 87%, and in gynecology/obstetrics (most common acupuncture 64%, homeopathy 60%, and aromatherapy 41%) at 72%.
The stated areas of application of SCAM included:
- use as a stand-alone therapy (65%; n=254),
- for prevention (7%; n=27),
- as support for conventional therapy (7%; n=27)
- as preparation before drug therapy or surgery (5%; n=18).
The authors concluded that the vast majority of Bavarian acute care hospitals also seem to conduct complementary medicine procedures in therapy, especially for psychological indications and in obstetrics and gynaecology, according to the hospital websites. How often these procedures are used in inpatient or outpatient settings as well as evidence on effectiveness of the applied procedures should be investigated in further studies.
In my view, this article invites several points of criticism.
Something that irritates me regularly is the fact that much of SCAM research takes years to be published. If a given research project is important, it would seem unethical to sit on it for so long. If it is not important, it is unethical to conduct it in the first place. In the above case, we are dealing with a survey of SCAM use, and we know that SCAM use is strongly influenced by fashion which means it changes fast and frequently. I would therefore argue that data that are now three years old are of limited interest.
Another point is the lack of a definition or range of treatments included. The authors state they looked for whatever form of SCAM the websites mentioned (herbal medicine is popular in Germany, yet absent in this survey; this suggests that the survey method has created a blind spot). Yet, they include as SCAM things like massage (which in Germany is entirely mainstream), physiotherapeutic exercise (Bewegungstherapie), and biofeedback all of which are arguably conventional treatments. This means that the true prevalence figures of SCAM use are not nearly as high as they pretend.
My main criticism would be that the authors abstain from any comments about the evidence for the SCAMs they monitored. They stated that this was beyond the scope of the project. As the research was supported by the Bavarian government, it would nevertheless have been essential, in my view, to dedicate a few words about the fact that many of the SCAMs and their uses are not evidence-based.
Essentially, this survey is in the tradition of hundreds of previous SCAM prevalence surveys that show a high degree of popularity of SCAM and thus imply that
IF SCAM IS SO VERY POPULAR, IT MUST BE GOOD;
AND IF IT’S GOOD, WE MUST HAVE MORE OF IT.
PS
It is often said that SCAM researchers are relatively free of financial conflicts of interest. Let me show you the complete list of conflicts declared by the authors of this survey.
- JL: received funding for this project from the Bavarian State Ministry of Health and Care; Further research support: Steigerwald Arzneimittelwerke GmbH, Falk Foundation; TechLab, Dr. Willmar Schwabe; Repha GmbH biologic drugs; Lecture fees: Falk Foundation, Repha GmbH biologic drugs; Celgene GmbH; Dr. Willmar Schwabe; Medice Arzneimittel, Galapagos Biopharma; consultant/expert: Medizinverlage Stuttgart; Steigerwald Arzneimittelwerke GmbH; Repha GmbH; Ferring Arzneimittel GmbH; Dr. Willmar Schwabe
- TK: received funding for this project from the Bavarian State Ministry of Health and Care, beyond that there are no other conflicts of interest
- CL: Lecture fees: Celgene GmbH, Roche GmbH, Novartis Pharma GmbH, BMS GmbH & Co. KGaA, Mundipharma GmbH Co. KG, Merck KGaA.
10 Responses to So-called alternative medicine (SCAM) in Bavarian hospitals
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Should “ movement-, art-, and music therapy ” be classed as a SCAM here?
These are valuable therapeutic tools. I suppose if someone’s saying “draw a flower it will cure your cancer” that’s a SCAM, but otherwise these can be valuable therapy adjuncts surely?
This important reasearch prooves unequivocally that many folks like TLC.
Who’d have guessed?
Though quite why: “How often these procedures are used in inpatient or outpatient settings as well as evidence on effectiveness of the applied procedures should be investigated in further studies”, beats me.
Unless to answer the question:
“Why do Bavarian acute care hospitals waste so much money on these treatments?”
As far as I hear, the current health secretary is pushing SCAM and in particular homeopathy!
Wasn’t Germany the fertile ground for therapeutic touch, and also ACT? It’s no wonder the population is anti-nuclear as well. I remember when I was in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, my good friend there was learning TT to apply as a nurse in hospitals, and also decrying the “pollution” pouring out of a nuclear power station (which in reality was pure steam).
It is so much fun to watch you DISS a study. If you don’t like the results of a study, you look for clever ways to attack it. Your new (or not so new) strategy is to claim that the authors took too long to get a study published. Wow, that picture frame around the MONA LISA is awful…so, let’s just throw away that painting (good rationale!).
surely, one of your more stupid comments.
You’v fotgot the anthroposophic #bigpharma @Weleda_D
Professor Sonia Lippke is researching marketing data from the pellet manufacturer Weleda.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7947937/
And she heads the scientific project “ASAP” for post-Covid care.
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05238415
Who can help me? 🙏
I suspect Long-Covid because I drink more than 3 cups of coffee and feel lonely from time to time.
@klausholetschek , the so- called homeopathy friend
https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/plus225784849/Alternativmedizin-Homoeopathie-und-Impfskepsis.html
, former mayor of the Kneipp spa in Bad Wörishofen and Bavarian Minister of Health, is delighted with these offers.
https://www.presseportal.de/pm/128739/5158610
👆 In November 2022, the 90th Naturopathy Conference
took place in Munich, in a noble ambience of the Hilton München Park.
🙈 Curious lectures were offered:
👉Treatment of blood stagnation in Chinese medicine with Gua Sha
👉Eye diagnosis and “arrhythmias” with special consideration of the cardiovascular system
👉From practice for practice: Drainage – relieve the heart and circulation
🙈 But most important:
Workshop H: Fees, grants and more❗
🤦♀️ Holetschek emphasized on the occasion of the 90th conference for naturopathy of the Heilpraktikerverband Bayern e.V “Naturopathy can make an important contribution to prevention and treatment.”
😆 😅 🤣 😂
It gets even worse.
👇
Prime Minister Söder, Munich Mayor Reiter, the chairman of the CSU parliamentary group Kreutzer and all members of the health committee addressed greetings to the naturopaths Gurus.
👉 pages 7 – 21
http://www.heilpraktiker-verband-bayern.de/heilpraktikerverband/programme/90.%20_Tagung_2022.pdf
https://www.stmgp.bayern.de/presse/holetschek-wirbt-fuer-staerkeres-miteinander-von-konventioneller-medizin-und/
👆 The most important lobbyist for naturopaths in Bavaria is Bernhard Seidenath.
https://www.bayern.landtag.de/abgeordnete/abgeordnete-von-a-z/profil/bernhard-seidenath/
Seidenath, chairman of the health committee of the Bavarian state parliament, is quite enthusiastic about mundane things like stand-up paddling.
https://www.lifepr.de/pressemitteilung/bkk-atu/Gesundheitstag-der-BKK-ProVita-zur-Rueckengesundheit/boxid/725701
“Der Heilpraktikerkongress des Südens ist fester Bestandteil der Kette wichtiger gesundheitspolitischer Fachkongresse im Freistaat Bayern”, so Bernhard Seidenath.
https://heilpraktikerkongressdessuedens.de/home/grusswort-seidenath/
Until the corona pandemic, Seidenath was a welcome guest of the health insurance company BKK Provita and seemed to get along well with the managing director Schöffbeck.
https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/swr/bkk-provita-studie-querdenken-101.html
Before the vaccination requirement for medical staff came into force during the corona pandemic, he promised the naturopaths that they would be made aware of vaccinations
be spared.
https://heilpraktiker-newsblog.de/2022/02/13/bayern-setzt-impfpflicht-auch-fuer-heilpraktiker-aus-als-erstes-bundeslantime.
I’ve puzzled over his motivation for a long time.
🤔 I have the solution.
His wife is a naturopath and accidentally or intentionally hit his skull with a head shell.
https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2447803755253703&id=100000723071038&set=a.515314178502680&__cft__%5B0%5D=AZV8Sem1Gls7XzURZplVsQubc0Xs4-Kl_4YuR31mi0UrU0SJywV7gOcZsdZ2trWWcApoZzmtf2Fvx-srqz3Su_ghYfVfSqW2omOPNss7G5CGf6aPSu9Q_WoZG5PYruYXbg3p97cqz8VyNev3lMztVT2ZF80O-FRiKB-VB0zG5jllwY2sROg2XCShFJznfYmdWGhGwH0Xvx1PMdsaYHZfg96GUpiFVlmqhfbSCwfDZHfq7g&__tn__=EH-y-R&wtsid=rdr_0J5EizfvY277WTVfQ
Not in Germany, but in Brazil: the Unified Health System (SUS) offers the public 29 “integrative and complementary” therapies, namely: acupuncture, homeopathy, phytotherapy, anthroposophy, thermalism, art therapy, ayurveda, biodanza, circular dance, meditation, music therapy, naturopathy, osteopathy, chiropractic, reflexotherapy, reiki, shantala, yoga, integrative communicative therapy, apitherapy, aromatherapy, bioenergetics, family constellations, chromotherapy, geotherapy, hypnotherapy, laying on of hands, ozone therapy and floral therapy.
By the way, Dr. Ernst: what do you think about psychological-style pseudotherapies such as family constellations (pseudotherapy created by Nazi ex-combatant Bert Hellinger, who mixed psychoanalytic ideas with aberrant versions of cultural anthropology and human evolution. Hellinger exonerated Hitler and the Nazi leadership claiming that they were victims of their family constellations)