BBC website pushing sCAM (why am I not surprised?)

[Asolepius]

Apologies if this has come up before, but I just ran into this site by accident. I have send in a complaint. For example, it cites the Benveniste study and neglects to mention it having been discredited and withdrawn by the journal. It's not totally bad, but is very selective with the information presented and presents many imaginery concepts as facts. It makes no effort whatever to tell the reader what evidence is, and even undermines the role of the randomised controlled trial in testing therapies. Can we have a salvo of complaints? We expect more than this from our national flag-carrying broadcaster.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Dunno about a salvo, but my complaint is in.

 

[tkingdoll]

Arrgh!

And what's with the photo? Are they aiming the site at Asians? Why?

 

[zooloo]

Complaint sent.

I am saddened and ashamed that the BBC did this.

Thanks for the heads up.

Peter

 

[Silly Green Monkey]

Traditional medicine
Ayurvedic
Chinese
Japanese
Tibetan

Looks like it...

 

[Yahzi]

From their page"

How is it different?
Complementary medicine focuses on the whole person, with lifestyle, environment, diet and mental, emotional and spiritual health often being considered alongside physical symptoms. Diagnosis aims to identify the root cause of these symptoms; treatment is then designed not only to relieve the ailment or disease but also to restore health and promote general wellbeing. There's also a strong emphasis on prevention.

Many complementary therapies are based on the idea that the body naturally strives to maintain a state of balance, known as homeostasis. Treatments aim to stimulate this natural healing ability in the body.

Taking responsibility for one's own health is regarded as an important part of healing, so patients are often actively involved in their treatment.

WTF!!!!

This is different from modern medicine how? Real doctors aren't interested in prevention? They don't want to restore health? They don't think their job is to assist the body in healing itself? They don't want their patients to take responsiblity?

How can people write this stuff with a straight face?

I already complained, about lack of evidence. I think I am going to complain about this insult to doctors, too.

 

[Yahzi]

This website contains a section on how alt-med is different than conventional medicince. Would you please have a doctor read that section, and explain how anything described there is different than what doctors do? Save for the word "spiritual," that is. Your website asserts that doctors DO NOT a) care about prevention, b) care about a person's feelings or mental state, c) understand their role is to assist the body's natural healing, or d) expect their patients to take responsiblity. These are factual claims, and they are wrong. Is it the BBC's policy to present falsehoods as facts? Is it your policy to insult allow people to insult doctors at will, without even bothering to provide evidence for their claims?

Think I'll get a response?

Na, I didn't think so either.

 

[Blue Wode]

Another complaint has just been sent in pointing out the misleading “essential facts” in its Manipulation section and its failure to highlight the lack of scientific evidence for Cranial Osteopathy, and (Applied) Kinesiology.

Regards its Manipulation section, it doesn’t make clear the differences between scientific manual therapy and chiropractic philosophy, and it fails to state that there is no evidence that chiropractic/spinal manipulation is more effective for lower back pain than conventional therapy and that there is no evidence that it is effective for any other disease.

Most worryingly of all, it makes no mention that there have been numerous case reports of serious complications, including stroke and death, arising from manipulation of the upper cervical spine.

 

[Asolepius]

Thanks guys for a great response. Keep it up!

BTW I have seen (in confidence) a reply to another complainant which totally misses the point that opinions and facts are quite different. We need to keep BBC focussed on the facts. The BBC charter requires it to be balanced and factual, and with this stuff they are neither.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

"My attention has been drawn to the section of the BBC website relating to complementary medicine. Amid much that is ill-thought through or downright misleading I shall highlight two specific areas.

This; "Complementary medicine focuses on the whole person, with lifestyle, environment, diet and mental, emotional and spiritual health often being considered alongside physical symptoms. Diagnosis aims to identify the root cause of these symptoms; treatment is then designed not only to relieve the ailment or disease but also to restore health and promote general wellbeing. There's also a strong emphasis on prevention."

is a politically motivated assertion based on a caricature of conventional medicine popularised by the alt.med. community in an attempt to distinguish their activities from those of clinicians operating within the realm of scientific medicine. Do you really think that conventional medicine does not concern itself with a patient's lifestyle and diet etc? Repeating the self-serving and self-promoting claims of sCAM is not the properly impartial role of a national body such as the BBC.

To take another example;

"Homeopathy, for example, has been found to be effective for hay fever, while Chinese herbal medicine is often beneficial for eczema and asthma."

Who wrote this? They seem to have failed to read the reviews of trials of homeopathy that clearly show that the occasional apparent successes of homeopathy under trial conditions arise either from poor trial design or statistical aberration. The job of the BBC is to present a balanced view where opinions differ. Presenting false facts does not achieve balance.

BSM MA VetMB PhD MRCVS"

 

[Cuddles]

"Some people claim the beneficial effects of complementary medicine are due to factors such as the user's belief in the therapy or the length of time a practitioner spends with a client, rather than the actual effects of the treatment. However, there's a growing body of research from around the world, investigating the effects, mechanisms and success rates of complementary treatments, which disproves this."

Has anyone heard of any of this "research" proving that sCAM works?

Edit : complaint sent

 

[Spiro]

I just added my two-pennyworth to the salvo. Does the BBC now put togther this sort of material without input from (qualified) medical and science correspondents?

 

[Asolepius]

I just added my two-pennyworth to the salvo. Does the BBC now put togther this sort of material without input from (qualified) medical and science correspondents?

All the pages say they were reviewed by Dr Rob Hicks, who I suspect is more of a media man than a doctor. His biog is on the site somewhere. Of course it says that one of his interests is complementary medicine.

 

[Blue Wode]

It looks like Dr Hicks is someone we should keep an eye on.

From his BBC ‘experts’ bio:

Rob appears regularly on television and radio, has presented live radio and webcast shows, and has recorded video and CD-Rom programmes. He contributes regularly to Metro newspaper, Healthy, Men's Fitness, Healthy Living and Prima Baby magazines, and has also written for numerous other publications. Over the years he has written for most of the general practice professional publications on health, motoring and finance.
An editor and prolific contributor to the BBC online health sites, Rob is also the medical script adviser for the successful BBC drama series Doctors.
He gives talks for consumer, professional and corporate audiences and during his many years as a communications consultant to a central London Health Authority has become an accomplished media-trainer.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/relationships/expert_biographies/g.shtml

And according to this web page he is a Maida Vale GP who practices acupuncture,
http://www.cyberspacehealthclinic.co.uk/about_us/press_reviews.html

….and who also seems to be heavily into homeopathy if this ‘Homeopathic Remedies for Mental Health Problems’ article which he “medically reviewed” in September 2005 is anything to go by:
http://www.healthyplace.com/alternative/dietary_supplements_8.asp

Is it any wonder that the public gets the wrong impression about complementary and alternative medicine when a medical doctor like this makes such an uncritical contribution to health reporting in the media?

 

[richardm]

Anyone had any responses yet?

 

[Blue Wode]

I got this:

Thank you for your email.
A complete review of the complementary section of the site has been
commissioned and is scheduled for Sept/Oct, precisely because we realise
it needs updating. I will forward your email to the clinically qualified
professional doing the review.
Thank you for your comments.
Geraldine Holden
Sub-editor

Edited by Darat: 

Geraldine Holden has asked for her contact details to be removed.

Hopefully the 'clinically qualified professional' doing the review won't be Dr Hicks.

 

[Deetee]

Under the section "Does it work?", there is this bit (among plenty of other contentious statments):

It's difficult to give 'sham' acupuncture, for example, as Chinese medicine asserts that putting needles into almost any part of the body will have some therapeutic effect.

Does TCM say this? I thought it was very specific that needling had to occur at specific points on meridians.

 

[Yahzi]

BSM MA VetMB PhD MRCVS"

I bet that alphabet soup after your name gets a lot more attention than just plain old "Yahzi."

 

[Physiotherapist]

Yes, I think so. Basically, there are 12 main meridians and two extra, making a total of 14 - 6 Yang meridians running down the outer aspect and side of the arms and legs and then 6 Yin meridians that run up the inner aspect of the legs and the arms. There is then the Ren or Conception Vessel meridian that runs all the way up the front of the body and the Du or Governing Vessel meridian that runs all the way up the back of the body.

I would have thought you are never very far from an acupuncture point with 14 meridians, which is probably why sham acupuncture is hard to do.

 

[Mojo]

I would have thought you are never very far from an acupuncture point with 14 meridians, which is probably why sham acupuncture is hard to do.

But acupuncture does suggest specific points for specific conditions, doesn't it? So sticking a needle into the wrong point or the wrong meridian should, presumably, be expected to give an effect other than that desired.