children
Even relatively well-informed people tend to think that homeopathy might be quirky and useless but, so what, it cannot do any harm. This is perhaps true for the homeopathic remedies but it does certainly not apply to the homeopaths. As soon as there is a public health problem, homeopaths claim that their approach offers a solution – never mind the evidence to the contrary. Just look at what they presently try to sell us in terms of cold and flu treatments!
The often criminal fight of homeopaths against public health is nowhere clearer than with their never-ending propaganda against the most successful public health measure in the history of medicine, immunisation. Some professional organisations of homeopathy have issued politically correct statements about this and thus feel they are out of the firing line. But, as far as I can see, most homeopaths are against vaccinations. Their arguments are wilfully misguided; here are just a few examples:
- It is well known that measles is an important development milestone in the life and maturing processes in children. Why would anybody want to stop or delay the maturation processes of children and of their immune systems?
- Homoeopathy offers an option for disease prevention and cure. There is scientific evidence in favour of homoeopathy for prevention of diseases.
- Seek out homeopathic, osteopathic, naturopathic, or Chinese medical constitutional treatment to boost your child’s immune system and help them be as healthy as they can be.
- If your children do get sick, use homeopathy to help their immune system get over it. Homeopathy is very effective in epidemics of acute illness. Either see a homeopath, buy a book on homeopathic acute care, or take a class on acute homeopathic prescribing.
- It is possible to prevent post-vaccination damage by giving the homeopathic dilution of the vaccine shortly before and after the vaccination in the C200 dilution.
- there are many recorded cases of people making dramatic recoveries with homeopathic medicines following a bad reaction to a vaccination. Expert advice from a registered homeopath is usually required.
- As you would keep your children away from toxic chemicals in the environment as much as possible, inform yourself about the toxicity of the solutions that are being injected into their bloodstream. It’s up to you to find the information: no one loves your children the way you do.
If you think I cherry-picked these quotes, you are mistaken. I simply used the citations as they appeared on my computer screen after a simple Google search. You might try this yourself because there are hundreds, if not thousands more to be discovered.
A typical and interesting example of a homeopathic anti-vaccinationist is Oksana Frolov, D.Hom. graduate of Saint Petersburg, Russia, I.P.Pavlov State Medical University, General Medicine, and graduate of Los Angeles School of Homeopathy. She states that, although I do hold a medical degree, I am not a licensed medical health provider in the United States. As a homeopathic practitioner, I will provide you with the treatment which is alternative or complementary to healing arts that are licensed by the State of California. On her blog, she provides detailed advice for people who might be uncertain whether to vaccinate their children: immunisation… can cause some very serious side effects including permanent brain damage, epilepsy, autism, and mental retardation. With so many vaccinations being required, doctors often have to administer several shots at a time, which can often result in a disaster. Vaccines, along with the elements that are supposed to create the antibodies, also contain mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, animal tissue, animal blood, human cell from aborted babies, potatoes, yeast, lactose, phenol, antibiotics and unrelated species of germs that inadvertently get into the vaccines. Do you really want all this to be injected into your child just to prevent him or her from having a chicken pox? Vaccines are said to work by stimulating the body to produce antibodies, which are supposed to protect us from an invasion of harmful germs. Childhood diseases, such as measles, mumps, rubella and chicken pox, affect the immune system in a way that makes most people immune to them for the rest of their lives. Vaccinations, on the other hand, create an artificial immunity that wears off and allows the person to catch the disease later in life….
Homeopathy has proved to be very effective in treatment of childhood diseases, as well as other infections. From its earliest days, homeopathy has been able to treat epidemic disease, such as cholera, typhus, yellow fever, and diphtheria, with a substantial rate of success, when compared to conventional treatments.
Doctors who practice homeopathy usually claim that only non-medically qualified homeopaths hold such deranged views. Dr Frolov shows us that this assumption is clearly not true. In my experience, most homeopaths, medical or not, advise their patients against immunizations or are at least very cagey about this subject in order to raise doubts in concerned parents. Professional organisations of homeopaths usually hide behind some powerless statement in favour of informed choice; yet they must be well-aware that many of their members fail to abide by it. And what do they do about it? Nothing!
Yes, I am afraid the fight of many homeopaths against public health is active, incessant and often criminal. Of course, they do not for one second believe that they are doing anything wrong; on the contrary, they are convinced of their good intentions. As Bert Brecht once wrote, THE OPPOSITE OF GOOD IS NOT EVIL, BUT GOOD INTENTIONS.
Therapeutic Touch is an alternative therapy which is based on the notion of ‘energy healing’; it is thus akin to Reiki and other forms of spiritual healing. A recent survey from Canada suggested that such treatments are incredibly popular: over 50% of the families that were asked admitted using them for kids suffering from cancer.
The therapists using Therapeutic Touch, mostly nurses, believe to be able to channel ‘healing energy’ into the body of the patient which, in turn, is thought to stimulate the patient’s self-healing potential. Proponents of Therapeutic Touch claim that it is effective for a very wide range of conditions. Here is what one typical website by advocates states: As a healing modality Therapeutic Touch has been shown to be very effective in decreasing anxiety, decreasing stress, evoking the relaxation response, decreasing pain, and promoting wound healing. Therapeutic Touch as a method of healing is used by both professionals in the health field and laymen in the community.
There is a surprising amount of research on Therapeutic Touch. Unfortunately most of it is fatally flawed. It is therefore refreshing to see a new clinical study with a rigorous and straight forward design.
The objective of this trial was to determine whether Therapeutic Touch is efficacious in decreasing pain in preterm neonates. Fifty-five infants < 30 weeks’ gestational age participated in a randomized control trial in two neonatal intensive care units. Immediately before and after a painful heel lance procedure, the therapist performed non-tactile Therapeutic Touch with the infant behind curtains. In the sham condition, the therapist stood by the incubator without performing Therapeutic Touch. The Premature Infant Pain Profile was used for measuring pain and time for heart rate to return to baseline during recovery. Heart rate variability and stress response were secondary outcomes.
The results showed no group differences in any of the outcome measures. Mean Premature Infant Pain Profile scores across 2 minutes of heel lance procedure in 30-second blocks ranged from 7.92 to 8.98 in the Therapeutic Touch group and 7.64 to 8.46 in the sham group. The authors concluded that Therapeutic Touch given immediately before and after heel lance has no comforting effect in preterm neonates. Other effective strategies involving actual touch should be considered.
These findings are hardly surprising considering the implausibility of the ‘principles’ that underlie Therapeutic Touch. Nobody has so far been able to measure the mystical ‘energy’ that is the basis of this treatment. The only Cochrane review failed to show that Therapeutic touch works beyond placebo: There is no robust evidence that TT promotes healing of acute wounds.
Why then is Therapeutic Touch so popular? Part of the answer to this question might lie here: New Age spiritualism has co-opted some of the language of physics, including the language of quantum mechanics, in its quest to make ancient metaphysics sound like respectable science. The New Age preaches enhancing your vital energy, tapping into the subtle energy of the universe,or manipulating your biofield so that you can be happy, fulfilled, successful, and lovable, and so life can be meaningful, significant, and endless. The New Age promises you the power to heal the sick and create reality according to your will, as if you were a god.
HRH, The Prince of Wales has supported quackery on uncounted occasions. Several years ago, Charles even began selling his very own line of snake-oil. Now he surprises the British public with a brand new product: the ‘Baby Organic Hamper’. It is being sold for £195 under Prince Charles’ Highgrove-label and advertised with the following words:
A limited edition, hand-numbered hamper box packed with our new gentle organic bath and body products and a Highgrove Baby Bear. An ideal gift for new babies and parents. The blend of organic Roman chamomile and mandarin has been developed to be calm and gentle on delicate skin.
Roman chamomile has been known for centuries for its calming and relaxing benefits and also acts as an anti-inflammatory. Mandarin, known as ‘happy-oil’, has been chosen for its antiseptic properties and ability to boost immunity. Combined, this blend of ingredients produces a calming, protective barrier helping babies to relax. The exclusive, fully jointed Highgrove Baby Bear in antique mohair is made by Merrythought.
Provenance The unique bath and body collection has been created with Daniel Galvin Jr. in collaboration with Alexandra Soveral. Daniel Galvin Jr. has pioneered and developed organic products for hair and beauty over the last decade and Alexandra Soveral is a renowned and highly respected aromatherapist and facialist.
This new collection has been formulated in accordance with The Soil Association’s standards for health and beauty products, ensuring the purity of the range. Hamper Contents Body Lotion 100ml. Bath and Massage Oil 100ml. Flower Water 100ml. Bath and Body Wash 100ml. Balm 50ml. Highgrove Baby Bear.
Terms like relaxing benefits … anti-inflammatory … antiseptic properties … ability to boost immunity … protective barrier … helping babies to relax do undoubtedly amount to medical/therapeutic claims which, by definition (and by English law), need to be supported by evidence. I fail to see any sound evidence that either chamomile or mandarin oil or their combination have any of these effects on babies when applied as a body lotion, bath oil, massage oil, flower water, body wash.
The only RCT for mandarin-oil I could find concluded that results do not support a benefit of ‘M’ technique massage with or without mandarin oil in these young postoperative patients. Several reasons may account for this: massage given too soon after general anaesthesia, young patients’ fear of strangers touching them, patients not used to massage. For Roman Chamomile, I also identified just one relevant study; its results do not seem to suggest that the oil is the decisive factor in producing relaxation: Massage with or without essential oils appears to reduce levels of anxiety. Neither of these trials were done with babies, and crucially, no clinical trial at all seems to exist of the combination of the two oils as used in the Charles’ products.
As Charles and his team are clearly not scientists or health care experts, they took advice from people who might know about such matters: Daniel Galvin Jr. in collaboration with Alexandra Soveral. Daniel Galvin Jr. has pioneered and developed organic products for hair and beauty over the last decade and Alexandra Soveral is a renowned and highly respected aromatherapist and facialist.
This might look responsible at first glance; at closer scrutiny, Daniel Galvin turns out to be more an expert in cosmetics than in medicine; his own website explains: Born into the country’s most influential hairdressing dynasty, Daniel Galvin Jr, has been instrumental in the growth of the organic beauty market for the past 12 years and has been in the industry for 27 years. As a salon owner and creator of natural, organic professional haircare, he is at the forefront of colour expertise, with a client list including a ‘who’s who’ of TV personalities, British actors, royalty and London’s most beautiful socialites.
Alexandra Soveral might have once worked as an aromatherapist, but today she is the co-owner of a firm marketing natural beauty products; her website explains: We use rare & organic ingredients of the highest quality to create products that work in synergy with nature. We work towards a synthetic chemical free world. The scents from our essential oils evoke mind, body and soul reactions that promote well-being. We aim to continue our journey by always ensuring we source out new ways to improve our products and be kind to the planet.
At this point, two questions emerge in my mind: 1) is this just foolish nonsense or is it more sinister than that? 2) Why on earth does Charles venture into this sort of thing?
Ad 1
I would be inclined to file Charles’ baby-hamper under the category of ‘foolish nonsense’. Ok, it exploits the love of parents for their new-borns – £195 per item is not exactly cheap (even considering that it is HAND-NUMBERED!) – but the type of customer who might buy this product is probably not on the brink of financial hardship. The ‘foolish nonsense’ does, however, acquire a more sinister significance through the fact that the heir to the throne, who arguably should be an example to us all, yet again is responsible for unsubstantiated therapeutic claims. So, on balance, I think this is more than just foolish nonsense; in fact, it is yet another example of Charles misguiding the public through his passion for quackery.
Ad 2
Why does he do it? Does Charles need the money? No, unlike other quacks, he is not motivated by commercial interests. Is it for boosting his public image? Charles has certainly had an alternative bee under his royal bonnet for a very long time; in his quest to spread his abstruse notions of integrated health care, he has aquired an image to live up to. This new foray into quackery seems nevertheless baffling, in my view, because it is so obviously and cynically disregarding the law, regulations and evidence.
The way I see it, there are only two explanations for all this: either Charles is less aware of reality than one might have hoped, or he delegates trivial matters of this nature to one of his many sycophants without caring about the embarrassing details. Both of these possibilities are neither flattering for him nor reassuring for us…GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!
Chiropractors across the world tend to make false claims. This has been shown with such embarrassing regularity that there is no longer any question about it. Should someone have the courage to disclose and criticises this habit, chiropractors tend to attack their critic, rather than putting their house in order. One of their more devious strategies, in my view, is their insistence on claiming to effectively treat all sorts of childhood conditions.
What could be more evil than treating sick children with ineffective and harmful spinal manipulations? The answer is surprisingly simple: PREVENTING CHILDREN FROM PROFITTING FROM ONE OF THE MOST BENEFICIAL INTERVENTIONS EVER DISCOVERED!
The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is an organisation which seems to support anti-vaxers of various kinds. Officially they try hard to give the image of being neutral about vaccinations and state that they are dedicated to the prevention of vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and to defending the informed consent ethic in medicine. As an independent clearinghouse for information on diseases and vaccines, NVIC does not advocate for or against the use of vaccines. We support the availability of all preventive health care options, including vaccines, and the right of consumers to make educated, voluntary health care choices.
In my view, this is thinly disguised promotion of an anti-vaccination stance. The NVIC recently made the following announcement:
The International Chiropractic Pediatric Association (ICPA), which was founded by Dr. Larry Webster and represents doctors of chiropractic caring for children, has supported NVIC’s mission to prevent vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and to protect informed consent rights for more than two decades. ICPA’s 2013 issue of Pathways to Family Wellness magazine features an article written by Barbara Loe Fisher on “The Moral Right to Religious and Conscientious Belief Exemptions to Vaccination.”
Pathways to Family Wellness is a full-color, quarterly publication that offers parents timely, relevant information about health and wellness options that will help them make conscious health choices for their families. ICPA offers NVIC donor supporters and NVIC Newsletter subscribers a complimentary digital version or print version of Pathways to Family Wellness magazine at a significant discount. Visit the Pathways subscription page and, when checking out in the shopping cart, add the exclusive code: NVIC.
ICPA also has initiated parenting support groups that meet monthly to discuss health and parenting topics. Meetings are hosted by local doctors of chiropractic and the Pathways website features a directory of local groups. ICPA Executive Director Dr. Jeanne Ohm said “We look forward to many more years of collaborating with NVIC to forward our shared goal of enhancing and protecting the ability of parents to make fully informed health and wellness choices for their children.”
Why, we may well ask, are so many chiropractors against immunisations? The answer might be found in the history of chiropractic. Their founding fathers believed and taught that “subluxations” are the cause of all human diseases. To uphold this ridiculous creed, it was necessary to deny that infections play an important role in many illnesses. In other words, early chiropractors negated the germ theory of disease. Today, of course, they claim that all of this is ancient history – but the stance of many chiropractors against immunisations discloses fairly clearly, I think, that this is not true. Many chiropractic institutions still teach obsolete pseudo-knowledge and many chiropractors seem unable to totally free themselves from such obvious nonsense.
But back to the ICPA: they profess to be a non-profit organization whose mission is to engage and serve family chiropractors worldwide through education, training, and research, establishing evidenced informed practice, excellence in professional skills and unity in a global community which cooperatively and enthusiastically participates in advancing chiropractic for both the profession and the public.
What does “evidence informed practice” mean? This bizarre creation is alarmingly popular with quacks of all kinds and seems to aim at misleading the unsuspecting public. It clearly has little to do with EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICE as globally adopted by responsible clinicians. If not, the ICPA would inform its members and the public at large that immunisations are amongst the most successful preventive measures in the history of medicine. It is hard to think of another medical intervention where the benefits so clearly and hugely outweigh the risks. Immunisations have saved more lives than most other medical treatments. To not make this crystal clear to concerned parents is, in my view, wholly irresponsible.
Did I previously imply that osteopaths are not very research-active? Shame on me!
Here are two brand-new studies by osteopaths and they both seem to show that their treatments work.
Impressed?
Well, perhaps we better have a closer look at them before we start praising osteopathic research efforts.
THE FIRST STUDY
Researchers from the ‘European Institute for Evidence Based Osteopathic Medicine’ in Chieti, Italy, investigated the effect of osteopathic manipulative therapy (OMT) on the length of hospital-stay (LOHS) in premature infants. They conducted an RCT on 110 preterm newborns admitted to a single specialised unit. Thus the subjects with a gestational age between 28 and 38 weeks were randomized to receive either just routine care, or routine care with OMT for the period of hospitalization. Endpoints were differences in LOHS and daily weight gain. The results showed a mean difference in LOHS between the OMT and the control group: -5.906 days (95% C.I. -7.944, -3.869; p<0.001). However, OMT was not associated with any change in daily weight gain.
The authors’ conclusion was bold: OMT may have an important role in the management of preterm infants hospitalization.
THE SECOND STUDY
The second investigation suggested similarly positive effects of OMT on LOHS in a different setting. Using a retrospective cohort study, US osteopaths wanted to determine whether there is a relationship between post-operative use of OMT and post-operative outcomes in gastrointestinal surgical patients, including time to flatus, clear liquid diet, and bowel movement [all indicators for the length of the post-operative ileus] as well as LOHS. They thus assessed the records of 55 patients who underwent a major gastrointestinal operation in a hospital that had been routinely offering OMT to its patients. The analyses showed that 17 patients had received post-operative OMT and 38 had not.The two groups were similar in terms of all variables the researchers managed to assess. The time to bowel movement and to clear liquid diet did not differ significantly between the groups. The mean time to flatus was 4.7 days in the non-OMT group and 3.1 days in the OMT group (P=.035). The mean post-operative hospital LOHS was also reduced significantly with OMT, from 11.5 days in the non-OMT group to 6.1 days in the OMT group (P=.006).
The authors concluded that OMT applied after a major gastrointestinal operation is associated with decreased time to flatus and decreased postoperative hospital LOHS.
WHAT SHOULD WE MAKE OF THESE RESULTS?
Some people may have assumed that OMT is for bad backs; these two studies imply, however, that it can do much more. If the findings are correct, they have considerable implications: shortening the time patients have to spend in hospital would not only decrease individual suffering, it would also save us all tons of money! But do these results hold water?
The devil’s advocate in me cannot help but being more than a little sceptical. I fail to see how OMT might shorten LOHS; it just does not seem plausible! Moreover, some of the results seem too good to be true. Could there be any alternative explanations for the observed findings?
The first study, I think, might merely demonstrate that more time spent handling premature babies provides a powerful developmental stimulus. Therefore the infants are quicker ready to leave hospital compared to those children who did not receive this additional boost. But the effect might not at all be related to OMT per se; if, for instance, the parents had handled their children for the same amount of time, the outcome would probably have been quite similar, possibly even better.
The second study is not an RCT and therefore it tells us little about cause and effect. We might speculate, for instance, that those patients who elected to have OMT were more active, had lived healthier lives, adhered more rigorously to a pre-operative diet, or differed in other variables from those patients who chose not to bother with OMT. Again, the observed difference in the duration of the post-operative ileus and consequently the LOHS would be entirely unrelated to OMT.
I suggest therefore to treat these two studies with more than just a pinch of salt. Before hospitals all over the world start employing osteopaths right, left and centre in order to shorten their average LOHS, we might be well advised to plan and conduct a trial that avoids the pitfalls of the research so far. I would bet a fiver that, once we do a proper independent replication, we will find that both investigations did, in fact, generate false positive results.
My conclusion from all this is simple: RESEARCH CAN SOMETIMES BE MISLEADING, AND POOR QUALITY RESEARCH IS ALMOST INVARIABLY MISLEADING.
Alternative medicine has the image of being gentle and risk-free; it is therefore frequently used for children. German experts have just published an important article on this rather controversial topic.
They performed a systematic synthesis of all Cochrane reviews in paediatrics assessing the efficacy, clinical implications and limitations of alternative medicine use in children. The main outcome variables were: percentage of reviews concluding that a certain intervention provides a benefit, percentage of reviews concluding that a certain intervention should not be performed, and percentage of studies concluding that the current level of evidence is inconclusive. A total of 135 reviews were included – most from the United Kingdom (29), Australia (24) and China (24). Only 5 (3.7%) reviews gave a recommendation in favour of a certain intervention; 26 (19.4%) issued a conditional positive recommendation. The 5 positive recommendations were:
1) Calcium supplements during pregnancy for prevention of hypertension and related conditions
2) Creatinine supplements for treating muscular disorders
3) Zinc supplements for prevention of pneumonia
4) Probiotics for prevention of upper respiratory infections
5) Acupuncture for prevention of post-operative nausea and vomiting
Nine (6.6%) reviews concluded that certain interventions should not be performed. Ninety-five reviews (70.3%) were inconclusive. The proportion of inconclusive reviews increased over time. The three most common criticisms of the quality of the primary studies included were: more research needed (82), low methodological quality (57) and small number of study participants (48).
The authors concluded: Given the disproportionate number of inconclusive reviews, there is an ongoing need for high quality research to assess the potential role of CAM in children. Unless the study of CAM is performed to the same science-based standards as conventional therapies, CAM therapies risk being perpetually marginalised by mainstream medicine.
As it happens, we published a very similar review two years ago. At the time (and using slightly different inclusion criteria), we identified a total of 17 systematic reviews. They related to acupuncture, chiropractic, herbal medicine, homeopathy, hypnotherapy, massage and yoga. Results were unconvincing for most conditions, but there was some evidence to suggest that acupuncture may be effective for postoperative nausea and vomiting, and that hypnotherapy may be effective in reducing procedure-related pain. Most of the reviews failed to mention the incidence of adverse effects of the alternative treatments in question. Our conclusions were as follows: “Although there is some encouraging evidence for hypnosis, herbal medicine and acupuncture, there is insufficient evidence to suggest that other CAMs are effective for the treatment of childhood conditions. Many of the systematic reviews included in this overview were of low quality, as were the randomised clinical trials within those reviews, further reducing the weight of that evidence. Future research in CAM for children should conform to the reporting standards outlined in the CONSORT and PRISMA guidelines.”
Treating children with unproven or dis-proven therapies is even more problematic than treating adults in this way. The main reason is that children cannot give informed consent. Thus alternative medicine for children can open difficult ethical questions, and sometimes I wonder where the line is between the application of bogus treatments and child-abuse. Examples are parents who opt for homeopathic vaccinations instead of conventional ones, or paediatric cancer patients who are being treated with bogus alternatives such as laetrile.
Why would parents not want the most effective therapy for their children? Why would anyone opt for dubious alternatives? The main reason, I think, must be misinformation. Parents who use alternative medicine are convinced they are effective and safe because they have been misinformed. We only need to google ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE to see for ourselves what utter nonsense and dangerous rubbish is being promoted under this umbrella.
Misinformation is the foremost reason why well-meaning parents (mis-) treat their children with alternative medicine. The results can be disastrous. Misinformation can kill!
