politics
It has been reported that a Vancouver naturopath has been fined and temporarily suspended after a patient complained he failed to notice a rectal tumor during four months of treatment for hemorrhoids.
Jordan Atkinson will have to pay $5,000 and lose his license for 16 days after signing a consent agreement with the College of Naturopathic Physicians of B.C., according to a public notice posted by the COLLEGE OF NATUROPATHIC PHYSICIANS OF BRITISH COLUMBIA.
A former patient had filed the complaint when another medical professional diagnosed a tumor on the rectum following “several appointments” with Atkinson for hemorrhoid treatment. “The patient complained that Dr. Atkinson failed to detect the tumor because he did not perform a competent examination,” the college notice says. ‘Doctor’ Atkinson disagreed with that allegation but admitted that he didn’t fully document his appointments with the patient.
The college’s inquiry committee, which investigates complaints, found that “Dr. Atkinson’s treatment of the patient fell short of the standard of practice required of a naturopathic doctor in these circumstances.” Atkinson who is also the subject of a lawsuit from a patient who alleges he seriously injured her while injecting Botox into her face at the base of her nose, has also agreed to a reprimand and “to make reasonable efforts when a language barrier exists to ensure that his patients understand the treatment plan and provide informed consent.” 
Personally, I find it hard to believe that any health professional can administer a prolonged treatment for hemorrhoids, while the patient is actually suffering from a rectal tumor which might well be malign. I find it even harder to believe that, after a complaint had been filed by a victim, the professional body of this professional suspends his license for just 16 days.
In my view, this suggests that this professional body (like so many in the realm of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM)) is not fit for purpose. That is to say, it does clearly not fulfill its main task adequately which is to protect the public from the malpractice of its members. Rather it seems to prioritize the interests of the member over those of the public. Yet, on its website the COLLEGE OF NATUROPATHIC PHYSICIANS OF BRITISH COLUMBIA state that “the College protects the public interest by ensuring that naturopathic physicians in British Columbia practice safely, ethically, and competently.” As so often in SCAM, what is being stated and what is being done differs dramatically.
At the heart of this and many similar cases, I fear, is that consumers find it difficult to differentiate between well-educated healthcare professionals and poorly trained charlatans. And who could blame them? Calling naturopaths ‘doctors’ cannot be helpful, particularly if the ‘Dr.-title’ is used without a clear qualification that the person who carries it has never seen the inside of a medical school; instead he has learned an abundance of nonsense taught by a quack institution.
In summary one is tempted to conclude that this case yet again confirms that naturopaths are medically incompetent graduates of schools of incompetence protected by organizations of incompetence.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued warning letters to seven companies for illegally selling dietary supplements that claim to cure, treat, mitigate or prevent cardiovascular disease or related conditions, such as atherosclerosis, stroke or heart failure, in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act). The FDA is urging consumers not to use these or similar products because they have not been evaluated by the FDA to be safe or effective for their intended use and may be harmful.
The warning letters were issued to:
- Essential Elements (Scale Media Inc.);
- Calroy Health Sciences LLC;
- Iwi;
- BergaMet North America LLC;
- Healthy Trends Worldwide LLC (Golden After 50);
- Chambers’ Apothecary;
- Anabolic Laboratories, LLC.
“Given that cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S., it’s important that the FDA protect the public from products and companies that make unlawful claims to treat it. Dietary supplements that claim to cure, treat, mitigate or prevent cardiovascular disease and related conditions could potentially harm consumers who use these products instead of seeking safe and effective FDA-approved treatments from qualified health care providers,” said Cara Welch, Ph.D., director of the Office of Dietary Supplement Programs in the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. “We encourage consumers to remain vigilant when shopping online or in stores to avoid purchasing products that could put their health at risk.”
Under the FD&C Act, products intended to diagnose, cure, treat, mitigate or prevent disease are drugs and are subject to the requirements that apply to drugs, even if they are labeled as dietary supplements. Unlike drugs approved by the FDA, the agency has not evaluated whether the unapproved products subject to the warning letters announced today are effective for their intended use, what the proper dosage might be, how they could interact with FDA-approved drugs or other substances, or whether they have dangerous side effects or other safety concerns.
The FDA advises consumers to talk to their doctor, pharmacist or other health care provider before deciding to purchase or use any dietary supplement or drug. Some supplements might interact with medicines or other supplements. Health care providers will work with patients to determine which treatment is the best option for their condition.
If a consumer thinks that a product might have caused a reaction or an illness, they should immediately stop using the product and contact their health care provider. The FDA encourages health care providers and consumers to report any adverse reactions associated with FDA-regulated products to the agency using MedWatch or the Safety Reporting Portal.
The FDA has requested responses from the companies within 15 working days stating how they will address the issues described in the warning letters or provide their reasoning and supporting information as to why they think the products are not in violation of the law. Failure to correct violations promptly may result in legal action, including product seizure and/or injunction.
Prof. Harald Walach and his work have been regular topics on this blog (e.g. here, here, and here). Walach has served as the editor of Forschende Komplementärmedizin / Research in Complementary Medicine for 20 years and is now retiring from this post. On this occasion, he just published an EDITORIAL looking both back and ahead on research into so-called alternative medicine (SCAM). Here are the last paragraphs of his piece:
What lies in store? We do not know. “Hidden is the future before me, I am wondering what my destiny will bring,” sings Lensky in Tschaikowsky’s opera Eugen Onegin, and this is a good description of our current situation, not only in medicine, but also politically. If I have one wish for the future of CAM, for the future of our journal, then it is to keep the fire ablaze and uphold the hope of change that has been at the source of its founding and is still empowering many in the field. The field of medicine, but also the world, needs examples of visions and visionaries. The landscape will change. While the beginning of the field and the journal was a decidedly German-speaking, central European enterprise, we have now seen the extension of the field.
China has entered the scene with enormous manpower, a venerable tradition, and a huge amount of experience, research, and funding. Other countries, Iran for instance, are discovering the sources of traditional medical approaches. It might well be the case that those who forget that the world does not end at the rim of the Mediterranean and of the Atlantic will be left behind. It has always been a decisive element of CAM research that it bridged countries, nations, polities, and worldviews. The ISCMR, Consortium, and European Congress for Integrative Medicine (ECIM) conferences probably had as attendees more researchers from outside Europe and the US than from their host countries. Africa is only slowly beginning to enter the scene. The future will be less Euro- and Western-centric than the beginning of CAM, I am quite sure. The Western model of healthcare and economic growth through single pharmacological inventions is not sustainable worldwide and in the long run, apart from the fact that it is conceptually ill-founded. Thus, our hope very likely lies in broadening our view: thinking about other systems of medicine, other approaches, whole-systems thinking. This is actually very similar to our beginning. Every end is a beginning, every beginning is an end, Oscar Wilde used to say.
Apart from the abundant use of platitudes, there are several statements that might deserve a comment:
- The beginning of the field and the journal was a decidedly German-speaking, central European enterprise. Yes, the journal started as a predominantly German publication, yet the field was never mostly German/ central European. SCAM always included many modalities that originated from China, the US, and other non-European countries. Neither was the research into these areas ever dominated by German-speaking investigators.
- China has entered the scene with enormous manpower, a venerable tradition, and a huge amount of experience, research, and funding. This is true – but is it a good development? On this blog, I have often written about the fact that research from China is notoriously unreliable or even fabricated. As the quantity of such work is about to totally overwhelm SCAM research, this is a most concerning development, in my view.
- It has always been a decisive element of CAM research that it bridged countries, nations, polities, and worldviews. I would say that this is not something that characterizes SCAM research. It is a hallmark of any research. And considering my last point, it might soon no longer apply to SCAM. As we are being flooded with unreliable Chinese SCAM research, Chinese dominance might soon stifle criticism of SCAM.
- The Western model of healthcare and economic growth? As far as I can see, the model of economic growth is fast being adopted by non-Western counties.
So, what is the future of SCAM and SCAM research? Like Walach, I don’t know. But contrary to Walach, I hope for something entirely different. I hope that the stupidly short-sighted notion of two types of research and two types of healthcare can eventually be abandoned. In the end, there can only be one type of science – the one that understands itself as critically testing hypotheses by trying to prove them wrong – and only one type of medicine – the one that does more good than harm.
Quackery is rife in India. On this blog, I have occasionally reported on this situation, e.g.:
- The new ‘WHO Global Centre for Traditional Medicine’ in India
- Mucormycosis (black fungus): is the Indian AYUSH ministry trying to decimate the population?
- Homeopathy, COVID, India and Prince Charles: not a good mixture!
- Has homeopathy caused the dramatic decline of COVID-19 cases in India?
- Homeopathy research from India is far from trustworthy, and today I can show you why
- Brazil and India collaborate in the promotion of quackery
- Taking the piss again? The story of urine therapy in India
- The intriguing case of homeopathy in India
- Prince Charles’ advocacy of quackery is by no means harmless
- Patient Dies After Homeopath Gives Wrong Injection
- Herbal remedies are good for you … except for the ones that injure your liver
- The ‘AYUSH COVID-19 Helpline’: have they gone bonkers?
Now the Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Ramana has pointed out that legislation needs to be brought in to save people “from falling prey to fraudulent practices in the name of treatment”. Speaking at the inaugural National Academy of Medical Sciences on ‘Law and Medicine’, the CJI said: “Quackery is the biggest disease affecting India” and that hospitals are “being run like companies, where profit-making is more important than service to society”. The CJI added, “another side of lack of accessible healthcare is giving space to quacks. Quackery begins where awareness ends. Where there is room for myths, there is room for quackery”. He continued, “Owing to the financial and time constraints, a huge majority of the Indian population approaches these untrained and uncertified doctors. Lack of awareness and knowledge, misplaced belief, and sheer inaccessibility have massive ramifications on the health of the country, particularly the rural and underprivileged Indian … The need of the hour is to bring in legislation to save people from falling prey to fraudulent practices in the name of treatment … Private hospitals are being opened at an exponential rate. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but there is a glaring need for balance. We are seeing hospitals being run like companies, where profit-making is more important than service to society.”
I am sure the CJI is correct; India does have a quackery problem. If nothing else, the fact that one website lists a total of 746 Alternative Medicine Colleges in India, leaves little doubt about it.
It has been reported that America’s Frontline Doctors (a right-wing organization that is associated with the ‘Tea Party’) is suing one of its founders in a battle for control over the controversial group, which gained national notoriety for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 treatments and vaccines during the pandemic.
The organization and its current board chairman have sued Simone Gold, MD, alleging that she misused the nonprofit organization’s funds to buy a $3.6 million Florida mansion, purchase a Mercedes-Benz and other luxury vehicles, and take trips on private planes.
The lawsuit, filed November 4 in federal court, comes just months after Gold was released from prison for her role in the January 6 US Capitol insurrection. Gold pleaded guilty to trespassing in the Capitol and was sentenced to 60 days in federal prison.
The group and the board chairman, Joseph Gilbert, claim that after her release from prison, Gold attempted to reassert control of the group, take over its website, and fraudulently represent herself as its director, according to the complaint. The complaint referred to Gold as a “rogue founder,” alleging that she spent almost $50,000 monthly on personal expenses using the organization’s credit cards.
Gold resigned from the group’s board in February ― before she pled guilty ― so that she could pursue her goal of opening health and wellness centers nationwide, according to the complaint. At that time, the board voted Gilbert to be its chairman and agreed to have Gilbert negotiate an agreement for Gold to serve as a consultant. Gold sought a “signing bonus” of $1.5 million, along with $50,000 to be paid monthly as a consulting fee, according to the complaint.
Another report has more details on Gold’s alleged wrong-doing: The complaint claims that in November 2021, Gold used “AFLDS charitable funds to purchase a $3.6 million home in Naples, Florida for her personal rent-free use, and at least three vehicles and has otherwise used AFLDS funds to resource her personal lifestyle and expenses since she formed AFLDS.” Plaintiffs also allege that Gold “currently lives in this home with John Strand, rent free.” Strand is a former underwear model and boyfriend of Gold’s who was arrested with her in connection with the January 6, 2021 insurrection in the U.S. Capitol. She moved with Strand to Florida this year from Los Angeles, where she had been an emergency room physician. Strand allegedly was paid $10,000 per month as an AFLDS employee and allegedly spent $15,000 to $17,000 a month using those credit cards. He was terminated from AFLDS in summer 2022, according to the complaint. In addition to purchasing the house with AFLDS funds, the complaint said Gold purchased a Mercedes Benz Sprinter van, a Hyundai Genesis, and a GMC Denali. After taking possession of the Naples home, she used AFLDS funds to pay a personal security officer $12,000, a personal housekeeper $5,600 a month, and charged “nearly $50,000 per month” to AFLDS credit cards.
I tried to find some information on th health and wellness centers that Simone Gold wanted or did open. Alas I was unsuccessful in my endeavor. However, I found an interesting passage she once wrote:
The World Health Organization, the FDA, the NIH, and the CDC are proven liars who have lost all credibility and common-sense, while jeopardizing YOUR health and safety. What disgusts me most is how their failed prescriptions have exposed the most vulnerable: our elderly and our children. The New York Times, CNN, NPR, and hundreds of other news outlets have censored the truth in order to preserve their power. Twitter, Facebook, Google/YouTube, Apple, and dozens of other Tech companies are throttling down content, suppressing information, and de-platforming those with whom they disagree.
I find it hard to find words for a comment – except perhaps this: maybe it is not such a bad thing when anti-vaxxers fight each other; it means they have less time, energy, and money to confuse the public with their lies.
A review conducted in 2015 reported community pharmacists are willing to adopt a professional role in counselling consumers about the appropriate and safe use of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) but faced multiple barriers in doing so. This current review aimed to update and extend these findings, by identifying studies published since 2015 that reported on pharmacists across any setting.
Eligible studies published between January 01, 2016, and December 31, 2021, were identified across 6 databases (PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, EMBASE, ScienceDirect and MEDLINE). A grounded theory approach was used to thematically synthesize the data extracted.
A total of 64studies representing pharmacists across 30 countries were included for review. The study designs varied and included:
- cross-sectional surveys (n = 36),
- qualitative studies (n = 14),
- pseudo-patient studies (n = 3).
Eight studies reported on practice and/or bioethical responsibilities and 19 studies documented factors that would enable pharmacists to fulfill these responsibilities, while 37 studies reported on both.
The authors concluded that these findings indicate research about pharmacists’ responsibilities associated with SCAM is evolving from gap analysis towards research that is proactive in advocating for change in multiple areas. These findings can be used to inform a consensus discussion among pharmacists and key stakeholders regarding a set of professional responsibilities that would serve in the development of: a clearly defined role and associated practice standards, and competency requirements that inform educational learning objectives for inclusion in undergraduate, post-graduate and continuing professional pharmacy education.
I am puzzled why so many researchers in this specific area seem to avoid clearer language plainly stating the essential, simple, and undeniable facts. I am equally puzzled why so few pharmacists speak out.
It is obvious that community pharmacists are firstly healthcare professionals and only secondly shopkeepers. As such, they have important professional and ethical duties. Foremost, they are obliged to inform their customers responsibly – and responsible means telling them about the evidence for or against the SCAM product they are about to purchase. This duty also entails that pharmacists must inform themselves about the best current evidence. In turn, this means they must stop tolerating the current plethora of under- or post-graduate SCAM courses that are not evidence-based.
As we have discussed ad nauseam on this blog, none of this is actually happening (except in very few laudable cases)!
By and large, pharmacists continue to go along with the double standards of a) evidence for conventional drugs and b) fairy tales for SCAM. In the interest of progress, patient safety, and public health, it is time that pharmacists wake up and remind themselves that they are not commercially orientated shopkeepers but ethical healthcare professionals.
In this paper, a team of US researchers mined opinions on homeopathy for COVID-19 expressed on Twitter. Their investigation was conducted with a dataset of nearly 60K tweets collected during a seven-month period ending in July 2020. The researchers first built text classifiers (linear and neural models) to mine opinions on homeopathy (positive, negative, neutral) from tweets using a dataset of 2400 hand-labeled tweets obtaining an average macro F-score of 81.5% for the positive and negative classes. The researchers applied this model to identify opinions from the full dataset.
The results show that the number of unique positive tweets is twice that of the number of unique negative tweets; but when including retweets, there are 23% more negative tweets overall indicating that negative tweets are getting more retweets and better traction on Twitter. Using a word shift graph analysis on the Twitter bios of authors of positive and negative tweets, the researchers observed that opinions on homeopathy appear to be correlated with political/religious ideologies of the authors (e.g., liberal vs nationalist, atheist vs Hindu).
The authors drew the following conclusions: to our knowledge, this is the first study to analyze public opinions on homeopathy on any social media platform. Our results surface a tricky landscape for public health agencies as they promote evidence-based therapies and preventative measures for COVID-19.
I am not clear on how to interpret this study. What does it show and why is it important? The authors state this:
… our study cannot lead to meaningful conclusions about homeopathy’s overall online landscape. We also enforced the English language constraint while analyzing the tweets which excludes the views and opinions of all the non-English speaking users, who constitute an overwhelming majority of the world’s population. However, our effort is a first step in the direction of examining the support for alternative medicines especially for homeopathy which has not been studied in the past. At least on Twitter, our findings indicate that negative opinions are gaining more traction in the context of COVID-19.
Opinions expressed on Twitter are influenced by an array of entirely different factors many of which are unpredictable or even unknown. Therefore, I am unsure what to make of these findings. Perhaps some of my readers have an idea?
I almost missed an article that Swiss Hugo Stamm (no, I don’t know him) has written about me. It is not entirely accurate but made me giggle quite a lot. Here are some passages that I translated for you:
… [Charles] wanted to obtain scientific evidence for the efficacy of homeopathy. It was therefore no surprise that Queen Elisabeth’s homeopath also sat on the appointment committee. The choice fell in 1993 on the German physician and scientist Edzard Ernst, who until then had taught and researched at the University of Vienna. The royal expectations were clear: Ernst was to produce the desired results.
But the professor was not prepared … to fulfill the royal expectations blindly. He first wanted to conduct research according to scientific standards and examine the available studies on homeopathy. In the process, doubts soon surfaced in his mind about alternative medicine. When he then set up randomized, placebo-controlled double-blind studies, he saw himself confirmed: The results were devastating and in some cases did not even reach the values of placebo effects.
Ernst felt obliged to his scientific conscience and published his studies against the will of his “client”. Charles was appalled and instructed his personal secretary to intervene. The latter wrote to the university administration that Professor Ernst had violated the agreed confidentiality. The university buckled after the royal scolding and opened disciplinary proceedings against the rebellious professor. The commission cleared him of all charges in 2010, but his department was closed.
“I was researching alternative medicine with my team; Charles, on the other hand, did not want to question it, but to propagate it. As I found more and more evidence that many alternative medicine procedures were not effective and sometimes even dangerous, tensions between me and Charles increased.” Edzard Ernst
Ernst did not allow himself to be muzzled by the prince and current king and, in 2022, published his book “Charles, the Alternative Prince”… In an interview with the Standard, Ernst said: “For as long as homeopathy has existed, the British royal family has been among the homeopathy advocates. However, Charles has not only promoted homeopathy, but also many other alternative medical procedures. What is striking about this is that he always picks out only the most bizarre and implausible ones and leaves aside those that are rudimentarily evidence-based. This may be because he always prefers the mystical and anti-scientific. Even as a young man, he was led down this path by Laurens van der Post, a South African-born esotericist and self-proclaimed guru.”
… For better understanding, it should be added that homeopathy grossly violates four basic scientific findings. It does not take an education in chemistry or medicine to recognize this.
- Mistake number 1: Cure like with like. Example: Someone who has lead poisoning is given globules made from lead in a diluted form. So, according to homeopathy, lead cures blood contaminated with lead.
- Mistake number 2: Dilution. The tinctures are diluted to such an extent that they contain only a few to no molecules of the alleged active substance. Nevertheless, a healing effect is attributed to them.
- Error number 3: Potentiation: The stronger the dilution, the greater the effect. If a globule still contains many molecules of the active substance, it has less effect than if it contains no molecules at all.
- Misconception number 4: Water absorbs information: By shaking the diluted liquid, information of the active substance supposedly jumps over to the water. This theory also contradicts all scientific findings. If water were to absorb such information, it would be so poisoned that we would no longer be able to drink it.
What probably few consumers of homeopathic remedies know: Globuli are made from countless substances. For example, from whale droppings, stomped ants, highly poisonous black belladonna or from the poison atropine.
But back to Charles: A prince has become a king overnight. But his attitude towards complementary medicine will not change. As a king, he certainly cannot admit to having been wrong all his life. Even if the scientific facts are clear.
___________
In case you are interested in a full account of this story, you might try my memoir.
Here in the UK, we are looking yet again for a new Prime Minister (PM). Did I say ‘we’? That’s not quite true; the Tory party is hunting for one, and it seems a difficult task for the talent-depleted conservatives. Eventually, the geriatric group of Tory members might again have the say. Amazingly, some senior Tories are already suggesting Boris Johnson (BJ).
To me, this demonstrates how common cognitive decline and memory loss seem to be among the elderly. They evidently have already forgotten that, only a few months ago, BJ has already been our PM.
Yes, it is often the short-term memory that suffers first!
It might, therefore, help to remind the Tory membership thus affected that BJ:
- was elected as PM in 2019,
- he then created scandal after scandal,
- he was even found guilty of breaking the law,
- he is still under investigation for misleading the Parliament,
- eventually, in 2022, he was removed from office after mishandling a sexual abuse scandal.
I hope this helps to refresh your memory, Tory members suffering from cognitive decline. Considering this blog is about so-called alternative medicine (SCAM), I should perhaps also offer you some treatments for the often progressive deterioration of mental capacity. Here is a recent paper that might point you in the right direction:
Senile ages of human life is mostly associated with developmental of several neurological complicated conditions including decreased cognition and reasoning, increased memory loss and impaired language performance. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most prevalent neural disorder associated with dementia, consisting of about 70% of dementia reported cases. Failure of currently approved chemical anti-AD therapeutic agents has once again brought up the idea of administering naturally occurring compounds as effective alternative and/or complementary regimens in AD treatment. Polyphenol structured neuroprotecting agents are group of biologically active compounds abundantly found in plants with significant protecting effects against neural injuries and degeneration. As a subclass of this family, Flavonoids are potent anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and signalling pathways modulatory agents. Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/AKT and mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways are both affected by Flavonoids. Regulation of pro-survival transcription factors and induction of specific genes expression in hippocampus are other important anti AD therapeutic activities of Flavonoids. These agents are also capable of inhibiting specific enzymes involved in phosphorylation of tau proteins including β-secretases, cyclin dependent kinase 5 and glycogen synthase. Other significant anti AD effects of Flavonoids include neural rehabilitation and lost cognitive performance recovery. In this review, first we briefly describe the pathophysiology and important pathways involved in pathology of AD and then describe the most important mechanisms through which Flavonoids demonstrate their significant neuroprotective effects in AD therapy.
Sorry, I forgot that this might be a bit too complex for semi-senile Tories. Put simply, this means consuming plenty of:
- berries,
- apples,
- garlic,
- onion,
- green tea,
- beans (beware flatulence in Parliament!)
In addition, I might advise you to stay off the Port, get enough rest, avoid stress of any type, and do plenty of aerobic exercise. And please:
- not too much excitement,
- stimulate your brain (this means avoid reading right-wing papers),
- no major scandals,
- no further deterioration of moral standards,
- no more lies,
- no more broken promises!
In other words, no vote for BJ!!!
Yesterday, L’EXPRESS published an interview with me. It was introduced with these words (my translation):
Professor emeritus at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, Edzard Ernst is certainly the best connoisseur of unconventional healing practices. For 25 years, he has been sifting through the scientific evaluation of these so-called “alternative” medicines. With a single goal: to provide an objective view, based on solid evidence, of the reality of the benefits and risks of these therapies. While this former homeopathic doctor initially thought he was bringing them a certain legitimacy, he has become one of their most enlightened critics. It is notable as a result of his work that the British health system, the NHS, gave up covering homeopathy. Since then, he has never ceased to alert us to the abuses and lies associated with these practices. For L’Express, he looks back at the challenges of regulating this vast sector and deciphers the main concepts put forward by “wellness” professionals – holism, detox, prevention, strengthening the immune system, etc.
The interview itself is quite extraordinary, in my view. While UK, US, and German journalists usually are at pains to tone down my often outspoken answers, the French journalists (there were two doing the interview with me) did nothing of the sort. This starts with the title of the piece: “Homeopathy is implausible but energy healing takes the biscuit”.
The overall result is one of the most outspoken interviews of my entire career. Let me offer you a few examples (again my translation):
Why are you so critical of celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow who promote these wellness methods?
Sadly, we have gone from evidence-based medicine to celebrity-based medicine. A celebrity without any medical background becomes infatuated with a certain method. They popularize this form of treatment, very often making money from it. The best example of this is Prince Charles, sorry Charles III, who spent forty years of his life promoting very strange things under the guise of defending alternative medicine. He even tried to market a “detox” tincture, based on artichoke and dandelion, which was quickly withdrawn from the market.
How to regulate this sector of wellness and alternative medicines? Today, anyone can present himself as a naturopath or yoga teacher…
Each country has its own regulation, or rather its own lack of regulation. In Germany, for instance, we have the “Heilpraktikter”. Anyone can get this paramedical status, you just have to pass an exam showing that you are not a danger to the public. You can retake this exam as often as you want. Even the dumbest will eventually pass. But these practitioners have an incredible amount of freedom, they even may give infusions and injections. So there is a two-tier health care system, with university-trained doctors and these practitioners.
In France, you have non-medical practitioners who are fighting for recognition. Osteopaths are a good example. They are not officially recognized as a health profession. Many schools have popped up to train them, promising a good income to their students, but today there are too many osteopaths compared to the demand of the patients (knowing that nobody really needs an osteopath to begin with…). Naturopaths are in the same situation.
In Great Britain, osteopaths and chiropractors are regulated by statute. There is even a Royal College dedicated to chiropractic. It’s a bit like having a Royal College for hairdressers! It’s stupid, but we have that. We also have professionals like naturopaths, acupuncturists, or herbalists who have an intermediate status. So it’s a very complex area, depending on the state. It is high time to have more uniform regulations in Europe.
But what would adequate regulation look like?
From my point of view, if you really regulate a profession like homeopaths, it means that these professionals may only practice according to the best scientific evidence available. Which, in practice, means that a homeopath cannot practice homeopathy. This is why these practitioners have a schizophrenic attitude toward regulation. On the one hand, they would like to be recognized to gain credibility. But on the other hand, they know very well that a real regulation would mean that they would have to close shop…
What about the side effects of these practices?
If you ask an alternative practitioner about the risks involved, he or she will take exception. The problem is that there is no system in alternative medicine to monitor side effects and risks. However, there have been cases where chiropractors or acupuncturists have killed people. These cases end up in court, but not in the medical literature. The acupuncturists have no problem saying that a hundred deaths due to acupuncture – a figure that can be found in the scientific literature – is negligible compared to the millions of treatments performed every day in this discipline. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. There are many cases that are not published and therefore not included in the data, because there is no real surveillance system for these disciplines.
Do you see a connection between the wellness sector and conspiracy theories? In the US, we saw that Qanon was thriving in the yoga sector, for example…
Several studies have confirmed these links: people who adhere to conspiracy theories also tend to turn to alternative medicine. If you think about it, alternative medicine is itself a conspiracy theory. It is the idea that conventional medicine, in the name of pharmaceutical interests, in particular, wants to suppress certain treatments, which can therefore only exist in an alternative world. But in reality, the pharmaceutical industry is only too eager to take advantage of this craze for alternative products and well-being. Similarly, universities, hospitals, and other health organizations are all too willing to open their doors to these disciplines, despite the lack of evidence of their effectiveness.
