Doctors skewer sCAMmers

Mojo · May 25, 2006

There was something about the sCAMmers' baclash in the Independent yesterday.

Complementary therapists rejected demands that their treatments be subject to the same rigorous scrutiny as orthodox medicine...

Right. I suppose this includes people like Fisher who the day before was complaining that having the same standard for all types of treatment amounted to "a form of medical apartheid".

It reminds me of a comment about Edzard Ernst I noticed recently:

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practitioners had been delighted when the building magnate Maurice Laing decided to plough £1.5m into establishing the chair. They were appalled when the post was given to a conventional scientist who declared his intention was to put therapies and treatments from acupuncture to herbs to reflexology under rigorous scrutiny, to find out what worked and what did not.

(Source)

Basically, it seems that either they have no faith at all in the effectiveness of the therapies they offer or they're just not interested in finding out whether they actually work.

Asolepius · May 25, 2006

Of course there's more to come, a lot more, and you are all part of it. MPs are now demanding the govt to reveal how much it spends on sCAM. Get those emails out to your own MPs. Here are some suggested questions:

1. Why does the NHS Direct website provide misleading information about CAM? For orthodox treatments it includes links to evidence sources such as Bandolier and ClinicalEvidence.com, but curiously these are missing for all the CAM entries.

2. Why does the NHS allow unconnected organisations to use its logo and style on their websites? Examples are the NHS Alliance and NHS Trusts Association, both of which carry copious misinformation about CAM. The NHS Trusts Association site has just been reloaded with even more rubbish, and seems to exist solely to promote CAM.

3. When is the DoH going to refer CAM to NICE? They agreed to do this 6 years ago and still nothing.

4. Why is the govt funding the Prince's Foundation to send out information which avoids any consideration of evidence - even when this was part of the original conditions for the funding?

5. What has gone wrong with the regulation of chiropractic, when it's the leading cause of strokes in the under 45s?

6. Why is the govt obsessed with patient choice but cares nothing for making that an informed choice?

7. Why is the government allowing university courses in fictional disciplines in our universities? How can one possibly be a Bachelor of Science in homeopathy?

That's for starters. I'll keep track of how it's going so PM me if you like with what you have done. A word of warning - do your own research and use your own words. We are all free agents.

Blue Wode · May 25, 2006

Asolepius said:
Of course there's more to come, a lot more, and you are all part of it. MPs are now demanding the govt to reveal how much it spends on sCAM. Get those emails out to your own MPs.

Thanks for the suggestions Asolepius.

Here’s a useful link:

Contact your Councillors, MP, MEPs, MSPs, or Welsh and London Assembly Members for free:
http://www.writetothem.com/

Let's get writing.

Deetee · May 25, 2006

Just to say that Asolepius is quite right - we have to maintain the pressure and ensure that today's good news doesn't end up over tomorrow's fish and chips, as it were.

I am in the process of composing letters to the Chief Executives of NHS Trusts in my locality to voice my support for the letter from the disciples, and also to my local Health authority and my MP. I will incorporate some of Asolepius' useful points in some way.

I encourage you all to do likewise - make them realise that the public are not all suckers for this woo stuff.
NHS Trusts
Information on your own MP.
Find out who is on the board of your local Strategic Health Authority - this organisation is responsible for overseeing local Hospital Trusts and Primary Care Trusts and should not countenance the provision and funding of bogus therapies.
(It wouldn't harm to also alert the CE of the local Primary Care Trusts also)

ETA - Worryingly, having set the ball rolling, the "write to them" email site for MPs also suggests I develop a "long term relationship" with my MP.

walthrup48 · May 25, 2006

From today's Independent letters page:
"Medical science or mere wizardry?
Sir: Proponents of complementary medicine (leading article, 24 May) cannot expect to have their cake and eat it. They must decide whether their fantastic remedies constitue medicine or superstition.
If the former, then they must pass the same rigorous efficacy and safety criteria that are applied to real medicine in order to secure NHS funding. If the latter, then the priority has to be to produce treatments that will have the maximum placebo effect and will therefore make the patient experience as uplifting as possible. It is necessary to consider the most visually impressive and dramatic methods of treatment possible. I suggest that for starters we should encourage doctors to wear wizards' robes and to perform loud and terrifying magic spells. After all, the most important consideration should be that the patient is made to feel better."

brodski · May 27, 2006

did anyone else here the now show on Friday?
The ran for about 1/3rd of the show with this story (sticking toe boot into HRH). Very funny,
you can hear the show here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/comedy/

Dragon · May 29, 2006

brodski said:
did anyone else here the now show on Friday?
The ran for about 1/3rd of the show with this story (sticking toe boot into HRH). Very funny,
you can hear the show here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/comedy/

Yes, brilliant - in fact the whole episode was good, they obviously made a special effort for the last in the series.
(btw "Prince Charles v. The Doctors" starts at 13:18)

brodski · May 29, 2006

Dragon said:
Yes, brilliant - in fact the whole episode was good, they obviously made a special effort for the last in the series.
(btw "Prince Charles v. The Doctors" starts at 13:18)

I especial liked the "homeopathic WMD", where most of the population is unafected, but a few middle class twits say "actually, I really did feel ill."

Rolfe · May 30, 2006

I was driving up the M25, and I just doubled up over the steering wheel.

The reason they can't test alternative medicine scientifically is because to do that you'd need to find some laboratory rats who could say, "you know, I think I do feel a bit better, there really must be something in it".

Rolfe.

Mojo · May 30, 2006

Rolfe said:
The reason they can't test alternative medicine scientifically is because to do that you'd need to find some laboratory rats who could say, "you know, I think I do feel a bit better, there really must be something in it".

Asolepius · May 30, 2006

Not counting the comedy, we have clocked up over 180 media items now, with 90% in favour. The backlash has started of course - blimey but they are smarting

Cynric · May 30, 2006

brodski said:
did anyone else here the now show on Friday?
The ran for about 1/3rd of the show with this story (sticking toe boot into HRH). Very funny,
you can hear the show here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/comedy/

It was on "Have I got News for You" on BBC1 too.
Bit of a mixed message, though. One of the guests was a GP, and he started off by commenting that he'd never been able to use CAM in his surgery, as he couldn't keep a straight face whilst wittering on about aligning chakras etc. Unfortunately, he followed it up by implying that the "Jurassic" consultants who had signed the letter were patronising elitists, which got a much bigger round of applause.

brodski · May 30, 2006

Cynric said:
It was on "Have I got News for You" on BBC1 too.
Bit of a mixed message, though. One of the guests was a GP, and he started off by commenting that he'd never been able to use CAM in his surgery, as he couldn't keep a straight face whilst wittering on about aligning chakras etc. Unfortunately, he followed it up by implying that the "Jurassic" consultants who had signed the letter were patronising elitists, which got a much bigger round of applause.

who was the panelist, not Phil Hammond I hope, I'd always liked him

The only other comedian doctors (no, homeopaths and McTeeth DON'T count) I can think of are Harry Hill and Graeme Garden. Harry Hill doesn't make a big thing about being doctor (neither does Graeme) and Graeme green would be pushing the boundaries of hypocrisy by referring to anyone else as "Jurassic".

Cynric · May 30, 2006

brodski said:
who was the panelist, not Phil Hammond I hope, I'd always liked him
The only other comedian doctors (no, homeopaths and McTeeth DON'T count) I can think of are Harry Hill and Graeme Garden. Harry Hill doesn't make a big thing about being doctor (neither does Graeme) and Graeme green would be pushing the boundaries of hypocrisy by referring to anyone else as "Jurassic".

It was Phil Hammond, I'm afraid. He referred to one of the signatories, a senior consultant that he knew, having coined an acronym for this group of CAM-loving patients.

Obviously I can't remember it, but it was something along the lines of "joss stick smoking middle aged women from Hampstead wearing ethnic skirts".

That makes the acronym "JSSMAWWES", so probably not, but you get the drift.

Phil suggested it encompassed all that is wrong with patronizing consultants.

Asolepius · May 30, 2006

Yes, I was also rather disappointed with Phil Hammond. But then in the last 2 days or so I have been equally disappointed with Ben Goldacre and Richard Smith (ex-editor of BMJ). Some of the critics clearly have not read the letter.

I have calmed down a bit now. I was all for firing broadsides at the critics straight away, but they are in the minority and can largely be ignored. There's a lot of private sniping going on as well, most of which is very hurtful (we are sensitive souls), but we have to rise above it. It's all rather petty in the context of what we are achieving.

Rolfe · May 30, 2006

There was an article along that general line in this week's Scotland on Sunday. The writer stated she wasn't pro-SCAM (though I do seem to remember some woo-ish columns in the past), but took exception to the paternalism.

Her thesis was entirely based on the belief (probably at least partly correct) that SCAM fulfils a psychological need. I feel a letter coming on, asking whether in that case doesn't she agree that investigating how that psychological need might be addressed more cost-effectively than by invoking magic sugar pills and hand-waving, that surely it should be questioned whether it was ethical to lie to patients about the objective effects of said sugar pills and hand-waving, and has she not considered all the false learning going on, teaching health-care providers the pseudoscience alleged to be behind these purely psychological effects.

Probably too late now, I didn't see the article till this evening.

Rolfe.

Rolfe · May 30, 2006

Doctors skewer sCAMmers

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