NHS funding of homeopathy

[Mojo]

What is the consumer status of someone who comes to your house and gives you vials of water for health problems? If the water doesn't help, or the SDSHom is a jerk, whom can I complain to?

You could try the Society of Homeopaths (if the homoeopath in question is a member), but judging by their response when several of their members were caught recommending that tourists not take their anti-malaria treatments, you probably wouldn't get far.

 

[oxfordrocks]

"People may even die of malaria if they follow this advice " (quote from Mojo's link above).
Scary stuff indeed.

Does anyone know if G.P.'s actually refer patients to Homeopaths?

 

[Blue Wode]

Apparently 42% of GPs in the UK refer patients to homeopaths:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Pharmacology/dc-bits/ernst-tips-sept-2005.pdf

BTW, James Randi did a nice little write-up on the homeopathy/NHS issue in this week’s Swift newsletter:
http://www.randi.org/jr/2007-05/052507.html#i2

He concluded the piece with some frank advice to Peter Fisher.

But seriously, it's been another great week and with the skids under homeopathy in the NHS what shall we turn our attention to?

Chiropractic?
http://www.skeptics.org.uk/article.php?dir=articles&article=chiropractic.php

 

[JQH]

I've heard it alleged that GPs often refer hypochondriacs to homeopaths - the attention and sugar pills keep them happy and the proper medicine is saved for people who really are ill.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

This thread was a complete pleasure to read. That is rare to say on a homeopath thread. Good news is great!

I'll indeed celebrate if/when the cronky hospitals close. They really should deal with hyponchondriacs more effectively.

 

[UserGoogol]

Hey, this is encouraging progress though, eh? The cynical part of me fears that it's due in large part to the financial squeeze on the NHS trusts, but good work Profs' team!

Well, if the National Health Service had infinite funds, I wouldn't see any problem with funding homeopathy. Yes, it's utterly psuedoscientific nonsense, but that's no reason to not give them money. Sometimes placebos are a nice thing to have around. The only problem is that because they have limited funds, it is better to save the money for the treatments that actually work. So the fact that a financial squeeze is motivating this isn't so bad, I think.

 

[Blue Wode]

A few more updates regarding Professor Gustav Born’s letter to NHS health trusts and Dr Peter Fisher’s response to it…

In this week’s Swift newsletter James Randi has published a letter which Frank Odds, Professor of Medical Mycology at the Institute of Medical Sciences in Aberdeen, UK, recently sent to Dr Peter Fisher:

Delighted to see that NHS Trusts are increasingly removing their support for the voodoo you propagate for patients too gullible and unknowledgeable to recognize snake oil when it’s prescribed for them on the NHS.

-snip-

I hope your campaign fails and that your hospital is officially removed from NHS support. The mere fact that you ask people to advise of celebrities willing to aid your campaign is clear evidence that your “medicine” is unable to stand on its own merits. Truth is something arrived at by a process of reasoned evidence gathering, not by public flaunting of the misguided views of people with a claim to fame in entertainment.

http://www.randi.org/jr/2007-06/060107.html#i4

And in his blog this week, Dr Steven Novella (an academic neurologist on full-time faculty at Yale University School of Medicine) takes a critical look at Peter Fisher’s assertion that Dr Gustav Born and his colleagues are closed-minded:

The dismissal of appropriate scientific criticism as “closed minded” is a standard favorite in the world of pseudoscience, so it is no surprise. It is so common and abused it warranted an article just on this topic.

http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/default.asp?Display=110

And finally, at the current Guardian Hay Festival of Literature, Richard Dawkins, Steve Jones (a professor of genetics at UCL), and Martin Rees (President of the Royal Society), have been dismissing complementary medicine as “quackery”.

Asked what he felt homeopaths and other “quacks” would do if they were no longer allowed to practice “alternative” medicine, Dawkins retorted that he couldn’t care less.

For more of their views, scroll down this link:
http://www.iblog.co.uk/

 

[Blue Wode]

Another update – this time, homeopathy patients are on the warpath:

Barnet homeopathy patients are planning to 'go to war' with Barnet health bosses over a decision to stop routine funding of new referrals for homeopathy treatment.

At a packed board meeting on Thursday, the Primary Care Trust (PCT) announced that routine funding would stop from August 1, 2007, and funding for routine follow-up appointments would cease six months later. After these dates, all requests for funding homeopathic treatment would be considered on an individual basis' by the PCT.

Finchley resident Pam Kish, 52, suffers from breast cancer and chronic fatigue syndrome, and has been taking homeopathic medicine since 2002.

She said: "It was a kangaroo court and it's disgraceful they can get away with it. These are public servants who are here to help us.

"We are going to have to go to war and we shouldn't have to do that as ill patients."

Read on…

http://www.times-series.co.uk/display.var.1523240.0.patients_fight_for_homeopathy_rights.php

And watch out, America…

Healing home: Homeopathic college planning 5-acre campus
http://phoenix.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2007/07/16/story1.html?b=1184558400^1490093#

 

[Pipirr]

So 186 MPs have signed a motion in support of homeopathy?

Sigh....

 

[Lothian]

So 186 MPs have signed a motion in support of homeopathy?

Sigh....

Have a you a list? I will be writing to mine if she is on it.

 

[volatile]

Have a you a list? I will be writing to mine if she is on it.

Ditto!

 

[Pipirr]

Sorry, it was from the first link above:

To date, 186 MPs, including Finchley MP Rudi Vis and Hendon MP Andrew Dismore, have signed a motion in support of homeopathic treatment.

 

[Pipirr]

Early Day Motion 1240

NHS HOMEOPATHIC HOSPITALS
28.03.2007


Vis, Rudi

That this House welcomes the positive contribution made to the health of the nation by the NHS homeopathic hospitals; notes that some six million people use complementary treatments each year; believes that complementary medicine has the potential to offer clinically-effective and cost-effective solutions to common health problems faced by NHS patients, including chronic difficult to treat conditions such as musculoskeletal and other chronic pain, eczema, depression, anxiety and insomnia, allergy, chronic fatigue and irritable bowel syndrome; expresses concern that NHS cuts are threatening the future of these hospitals; and calls on the Government actively to support these valuable national assets.

I believe the signatories are all listed at that link. 197 so far...

 

[Zep]

What is an Early Day Motion? Looking at some of the others leads me to think it's really just a bit of a lark thing for parliamentarians.

 

[Pipirr]

EDMs don't seem to achieve much in terms of changing legislation, but they can give important political capital for special interests. Surely no disadvantage in being able to claim the support of a significant number of Members of Parliament.

 

[volatile]

Well, fortunately, my MP (John 'Spock' Redwood) hasn't signed up for this. Some of the names on there do surprise me though - I thought people like Diane Abbott, Keith Vaz, Tim Yeo, and Nicholas Soames had more sense!

 

[Asolepius]

Distressing but not surprising. Those who pursue irrational ideas do so with far more passion than most who follow reason. I have looked at the Commons website but can't find this motion that The Times mentions. Just want to know if my MP has signed it.

 

[volatile]

OK, a suggestion.

Why don't we compose a letter explaining why we disapprove of homoeopathy so much (and particularly the use of NHS funds to pay for it!) and send it to all these credulous parliamentarians.

I'm sure most of them don't even know what homoeopathy is. I certainly didn't until I started frequenting these forums. The homoeopathic industry have done a great job of obfuscating the principles by which their magick operates, and most people I know equate 'homoeopathic' with 'natural' and nothing more.

All the woo - the dilutions, the memory of water etc. - is basically hidden by clever and pernicious advertising. We need to reverse this tide. These MPs are, by and large, a smart bunch of people, and if we explain to them in a very clear and concise manner exactly what homoeopathy is, and exactly how it differs from "natural" remedies like St. John's Wort or echinancea or something, a large number of them will come round.

Anyone up for drafting this?

 

[volatile]

Distressing but not surprising. Those who pursue irrational ideas do so with far more passion than most who follow reason. I have looked at the Commons website but can't find this motion that The Times mentions. Just want to know if my MP has signed it.

All signatories are listed here.

 

[Lothian]

Mine is not on the list. I expected she wouldn’t as she has a scientific background, but then again as she is an MP I shouldn’t be surprised if politics go before principles.