Doctors skewer sCAMmers

[Rolfe]

I'd like to forward a copy to the RCVS today as well as just framing it to put it on the wall.

So, counter the accusation that this is a rational piece of mature and thoughtprovoking debate - while the Voodoo Society web site is sarcastic and piss-taking. Easy. I've written letters like that to the RCVS. You've written letters like that to the RCVS. Other people have written letters like that to the RCVS. Gets nowhere.

At least they're taking notice of us now, so long as we can keep our nerve.

Rolfe.

 

[Asolepius]

This is just the beginning.

 

[Rolfe]

Atta boy! Can you send BSM, Yuri and me a cake with a file in it when necessary?

Rolfe.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

That's exactly what I meant. He repeatedly said that the aggregate of all the studies was positive, and it was just the Shang et al. paper which disagrees. This is not true, and he knows it's not true. Summary of meta-analyses.
Rolfe.

That was the one unsatisfactory thing about the interviews (other than the sniffing). I wish Prof Baum had gone in two-footed on that outrageous and untrue assertion.

 

[richardm]

This is just the beginning.

You've just been repeated on the lunchtime news as well (briefly). Also a David Colquhoun - is that the same one as posts here? He made some points about the relative costs of a homeopathic hospital vs. the cost of Herceptin, which I thought was neat.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Also a David Colquhoun - is that the same one as posts here?

Oh, yes. Top man.

Here's his website in case you've missed it;

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Pharmacology/dc-bits/quack.html

 

[Deetee]

Don't forget to Have Your Say on the BBC website. The woos are starting to wake up ...

I was starting to get depressed a the dozens of comments left by the woos. Then I went to the "Readers recommended" section, and was considerably cheered to see that common sense seems to have prevailed.

Remember, opinions founded on ignorance and prejudice will not die out overnight. We are all set in for a long haul battle here, but with allies/generals like Les and David C we will prevail. Aluta continua!

 

[Big Les]

I wince whenever I click that "have your say" link, whatever the topic.

By the way, sorry for posting this in General Deetee; I have to say I've been a bit blinkered to the other areas of the forums, perhaps as I'm one of Ben Goldacre's dreaded Humanities Graduates and I don't like to stray too far outside my area of experience...

Won't happen again!

 

[Asolepius]

Atta boy! Can you send BSM, Yuri and me a cake with a file in it when necessary?

Rolfe.

Probably not - I don't know if they will allow such privileges when I am in the Tower. I gave an interview to a health news magazine today (sorry, I have forgotten what it was!) in which I was injudicously forthright about HRH. But you might like my language:

The Prince appears to see himself as a knight in shining armour, galloping about righting wrongs. The thing is, if you want to right wrongs, you have to be right, and he is wrong about this.

God, it has been one hell of a day! No peace on the phone, and another radio show tomorrow (only local but if you are in Humberside tune in to BBC). We are on a roll, and if anyone wants to help out PM me. Alone we can do a little, but together we can change the world (sorry I could not find the emoticon for nausea).

 

[Filippo Lippi]

I loved the section in the Today programme where a delightful elderly lady reckoned that because she was alive at 93 then homoeopathy must work - what more proof do we need!

Yuri

I heard this too and thought it was the woos running scared of John Humphrys. Not even he would savage a 93 year old, even when she said "physicists are coming round to the idea of water memory*"



*it was like that, my memory isn't as precise as water's

Edited to add "when"

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

We are on a roll, and if anyone wants to help out PM me.

Well, if anyone wants to talk to a vet you know we're here to help.

We can tackle the "Well, it works on animals so it must be good..."

We can also feed the idea that it is probably already illegal in animals but the RCVS is failing to act against it.

 

[Mojo]

A piece by Susan Blackmore about this: Homeopathy is bunkum.

Oh yes, I'll get in trouble for saying "quackery"; I'll be told that alternative therapists are not quacks, that they are all kind, caring, open-minded people who help the sick and fight against the oppression of closed-minded scientists who don't understand the holistic nature of these truly spiritual human beings.

But these poor doctors will have it worse. They will get hate mail from people who claim to be more loving and caring than them; they will be called "arrogant" by people who "just know" that homeopathy works; they will be threatened and ridiculed by people whose children have been "saved" from the horrors of modern medicine by a homeopathic remedy that their hardhearted doctor denied them on the NHS; and they will be questioned by reporters who are nervous about siding with the unfashionable, commonsense practice of actually testing whether a medicine works or not.

Not sure if I agree with everything in it though (for example, the test debunking the "memory of water" claim didn't show that homoeopathy doesn't work, merely that a suggested mechanism for it was nonsense), but a nice description of how to do a double blinded trial of individualised homoeopathy.

By the way, is the Sarah Lamb who made the 3rd comment on there anybody we know? A homoeopath who thinks it shouldn't be available on the NHS!

 

[Deetee]

By the way, is the Sarah Lamb who made the 3rd comment on there anybody we know? A homoeopath who thinks it shouldn't be available on the NHS!

Sarah L perchance?

She's right you know - if it gets embraced by the NHS the next thing you'll see is doctors issuing prescriptions and undercutting the cosy little sCAMmers cartel, where they can charge gob-smackingly large fees for issuing sugar pills.

 

[Mojo]

Well, if anyone wants to talk to a vet you know we're here to help.

We can tackle the "Well, it works on animals so it must be good..."

If you can be bothered registering you could try doing this here (see comments from "CliveStuart" about cows with mastitis) and here (similar comment from "maceoin").

 

[Capsid]

One response to this open letter is here.

The experts are wrong because:

they got the name wrong, should be complementary not alternative medicine

homoeopathy works because lots of patients said so

etc etc

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

"So, when homeopathic trials are based upon individualised prescriptions we see a very different picture. At the end of 2005 the results of a large six year study of 6,500 patients at Bristol Homeopathic Hospital reported 75% improvement in their health. "

(From Capsid's link)

Ah, the perennial question. Are they really this stupid or are they deliberately trying to mislead?

 

[Blue Wode]

The chiropractors are being quite defensive too. The General Chiropractic Council issued this media statement yesterday:

http://www.gcc-uk.org/files/page_file/THE TIMES re joint letter 23MAY06.pdf

The inclusion of the chiropractic profession in today’s coverage of the heart-felt letter circulated by Professor Baum and his colleagues seems to be based on the wholly inaccurate impression that chiropractors practice ‘alternative’ medicine. Time has moved on.

Well it doesn’t look like it has for the following two UK chiropractic associations with their blatant references to ‘subluxations’, ‘innate intelligence’ and ‘vitalism’:

http://www.united-chiropractic.org/modules/content/index.php?id=4

http://www.mctimoney-chiropractic.org/mca_objectives.htm

This is effective regulation???

 

[Asolepius]

One response to this open letter is here.

The experts are wrong because:

they got the name wrong, should be complementary not alternative medicine

homoeopathy works because lots of patients said so

etc etc

What can you expect from such a site? I have penned a suitable riposte but will be surprised if it's published. One small point. It was not an open letter, but with nearly 500 going out can we be surprised if someone leaks it? I can state with authority that none of the signatories was responsible for that.

 

[Mojo]

A great quotation form the comments on the Blackmore piece, courtesy of "UseSomeSense":

In fact, the more I think of the amazing properties of homeopathic medicines the more I am convinced that if Samuel Hahnemann hadn't invented it, Douglas Adams would have.

 

[andycal]

It's interesting watching all this pan out. It appears that the altmed crowd just weren't prepared for such an onslaught and they're on the back foot.

I'm a member of a few networking groups, and they all have their resident woos. It seems that many are now giving the 'you need an open mind, if it works why knock it' excuse. So far I haven't found any willing to back up their claims with evidence. 'cos they know they haven't got any I guess.

I really hope Les is right and there is more to come. The only way it will ever make a difference is if there is a sustained attack over the coming weeks.

I think Sue Blackmore has it spot on. We all know the NHS is broken, but it won't be fixed by replacing it with bunk.

Please, please let's use NHS money to provide more time for doctors instead of treatments we know don't work.

Spot on Sue, spot on.