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ARTICLES ON ATTACK ON ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE 23/5/06 (There will
probably be more but here is a sample of some of the articles on this great
debate in the meantime.) Do write in (as loads of people have done in
response to the Daily Mail articles). At the very bottom of this email
is the letter I wrote to The Times basically defending
homeopathy......Louise, Zeus. ____________________________________________________________________ Doctors' letter: In
full (To the NHS
Trusts) |
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The open letter from
some of the UK's leading doctors urging NHS trusts to stop using
complementary therapies.Tuesday,
23 May 2006 |
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http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5008034.stm
Doctors' letter
sparks NHS alternative therapies row
Sarah Boseley, health editor
Wednesday May 24, 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1781646,00.html
Doctors attack
'bogus' therapies (BBC take on this story)
Some of Britain's leading doctors have urged NHS
trusts to stop using complementary therapies and to pay only for medicine
"based on solid evidence".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5007118.stm
Head-to-head:
Complementary medicine
Some of Britain's
leading doctors have urged NHS trusts to stop using complementary therapies.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5007482.stm
|
93-year-old - 'I
know they work' |
Jane Gilchrist, 93, who uses homeopathic remedies, says she
has seen "great benefits".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5007734.stm
10 lesser-known
alternative therapies Doctors have challenged the growing
acceptance of alternative therapies - warning
that NHS funding should be for proven treatments rather than "unproven or
disproved"
complementary medicines. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5007802.stm
The
Complementary Medical Association’s Response to the recent letter to The Times
from Dr Baum and Colleagues
Press Release 24 May 2006
http://www.the-cma.org.uk/default.aspx?id=4017
VOTE for Alternative Medicine on BBC
website http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5007118.stm
It's cheaper and has no nasty side-effects
09:36am 24th May 2006 (Readers comments at the end - send
your own in)
The great health debate: Complementary medicine
(Readers comments at the end -
send your own in)
Snake oil - or NHS tool?
09:24am 24th May 2006
(Readers comments at the end - send your own in)
The Big Question: What is complementary
medicine, and should the NHS be
funding it? (printed as full Independent articles unavailable
after a couple of days)
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article570906.ece
By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
Published: 24 May 2006
Why the fuss?
Thirteen eminent British doctors, including a Nobel prize-winner and six
fellows of the Royal Society, have written to every NHS trust in the
country, urging them to stop paying for complementary medicine and spend the
money instead on conventional medicine "based on solid evidence".
They say
public funding of "unproven or disproved treatments" such as
homeopathy and
reflexology is unacceptable when the NHS is facing huge deficits and having
to sack nurses and close wards. Only evidence-based therapies should be
provided free to patients on the NHS.
Sounds fair enough?
It would do, if this marked the divide. But much orthodox medicine is not
evidence based. Most antibiotics have never been tested in randomised
controlled trials, for example. Orthodox medicine is often held up as a
model of how things work but it is actually far from perfect science. John
Bell, professor of clinical medicine at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford,
observed almost a decade ago that many drugs were discovered by accident,
not design, and much treatment was based on anecdotal evidence, not
systematic review. The role of social and psychological factors was little
understood. "We need to know what kind of patient has the disease rather
than what kind of disease the patient has," he said.
Why the growth of interest in complementary medicine?
Increasing disillusion with conventional medicine, which has proved
ineffective against many of the chronic illnesses of modern times, such as
back pain and stress. Complementary medicine has done orthodox medicine a
service by reminding doctors of the power of care. The consultations are
lengthy, detailed and personal. What matters to patients are results, not
scientific explanations. Magic is acceptable if it accomplishes what is
promised.
Is it widely used on the NHS?
Yes. At least half of all GPs refer some patients for treatment by
complementary practitioners paid for by the NHS, according to the Smallwood
report published by the Prince of Wales Foundation for Integrated Medicine
in 2005. For many conditions - stress, for example - conventional medicine
has little to offer. GPs argue that treatments such as autogenic relaxation
training are cheap and simple remedies that do not require medical
intervention, put patients in the driving seat and are popular. Even if they
don't help the patients, they help the GPs. They say they are simply being
pragmatic.
What do its critics say?
"You can call it pragmatism, but I call it bad science," said Edzard
Ernst,
professor of complementary medicine at the Peninsula Medical School, Exeter,
and a signatory of the letter to NHS trusts. Providing therapies just
because patients want them is not what doctors were trained to do. Professor
Ernst's mission is to bring scientific rigour to the study of complementary
medicine so that doctors and patients can distinguish what works from what
does not. "Two wrongs don't make a right," is his answer to the
charge that
many orthodox medicines have never been tested. Without rigorous assessment,
complementary medicine will never win mainstream acceptance, he says.
Is that true?
Many claim it has already been accepted in the mainstream. Professor Liam
Donaldson, the Government's chief medical officer, told The Lancet back in
1997 that he saw an increasing role for complementary medicine "because it
is what people want and people definitely benefit from it". The same year
the Prince of Wales embarked on his campaign to forge closer links between
orthodox and complementary medicine, which he took to the World Health
Assembly in Geneva yesterday. "The proper mix of proven complementary,
traditional and modern remedies can help to create a powerful healing force
in the world," he said.
Does it work?
It depends. There is good evidence that acupuncture helps to relieve pain
and nausea following surgery and in the treatment of musculo-skeletal
conditions such as painful joints. Oddly, it does not seem to matter where
the needles are inserted, along the body's meridians as dictated by Chinese
theory or randomly - both seem equally effective.
Herbal medicine is effective in some cases - St John's wort is a proven
treatment for depression - but dangerous in others. Kava kava, a
tranquilliser, was banned in Britain after reports of liver damage.
Spinal manipulation - osteopathy and chiropractic - can help back pain but
are not superior to conventional treatment with painkillers and
physiotherapy.
Homeopathy arouses most doubts. A review of 110 trials published in The
Lancet suggested it worked through the placebo effect.
Should doctors say what is available on the NHS?
Many people think not. Respondents to the BBC's website yesterday pointed
out that as patients pay for the NHS through their taxes, they should have a
say in what is provided. This principle should not extend to the wilder
shores of complementary medicine, but the main therapies should be offered,
they said.
Won't this reduce the funds available for proven drugs?
This is a different argument about the prioritisation of treatments. Even if
homeopathy were proven to be effective, the question of whether we should
pay for it is a separate one. Should we pay for fertility treatment on the
NHS if we cannot afford to give patients cancer drugs?
What should doctors learn from the demand?
That there is a huge unfulfilled need out there. People are crying out for
help, but the doctors supplying the medicine have to leave the empathy to be
supplied by someone else. That is an important lesson for medicine.
Should alternative medicine be available on the NHS?
Yes...
* It is widely used on the NHS by more than half of all GPS - and is popular
with patients
* For many conditions - stress and back pain, for example - conventional
medicine has little to offer
* It is complementary to, not instead of, conventional medicine, and can
help patients with diseases such as cancer to cope better
No...
* The NHS should only fund tried and tested treatments, especially when cash
is tight
* To offer unproven remedies on the NHS is tantamount to substituting
superstition for science
* There cannot be two kinds of medicine. There is only medicine that has
been adequately tested and medicine that has not
____________________________________________________
My
Letter to The Times in response to their front page article of 23rd May
2006 entitled:
NHS told to
abandon alternative medicine
----- Original Message -----
From: Zeus
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 4:51 PM
Subject: Little Known Historical Facts about
Homeopathy
Sir,
In
view of the recent press coverage of the speech of the Prince of Wales at
the WHO conference, I would like to point out some little known
historical facts concerning homeopathy.
Firstly,
provision for homeopathic medicine in Britain has always been part of the
National Health Service since it began in 1948, there currently being 5
homeopathic hospitals under the NHS.
The
practice of homeopathic medicine flourished in both Europe and the US during
the late 1800s and early 1900s
and was spectatularly
popular with European royalty and British aristocracy, American entrepreneurs,
literary giants, and religious leaders. It is also practised
nowadays in countries in South America and is especially popular in
India with one hundred (four year) homeopathic medical schools
and more than 220,000 homeopathic doctors.
In
the United States in the early 1900s there were 22 homeopathic
medical schools and over 100 homeopathic hospitals, 60 orphanages and old
people's homes and 1,000+ homeopathic pharmacies. Members of the
American Medical Association had great animosity towards homeopathy after its
formation in 1847 and it was decided to purge all local medical societies of
physicians who were homeopaths. This purge was successful in every state
except Massachusetts because homoepathy was so strong among the elite of
Boston.
The
AMA wanted to keep homoepaths out of their societies and discourage any type of
association with homeopaths. In 1855 the AMA established a code of ethics
which stated that orthodox physicians would lose their membership if they even
consulted with a homeopath. If a physician lost his membership, it meant
that in some States he no longer had a licence to practice medicine.
Drug
companies were antagonistic towards homeopathy, collectively trying to suppress
it. The medical journals they published were used as mouthpieces against
homeopathy and in support of orthodox medicine.
At
an AMA meeting, a respected orthodox physician said: 'We must admit that we
never fought the homeopath on matters of principles; we fought him because he
came into the community and got the business.' Economic issues played a major
role in what was allowed to be practised.
Homeopathy
attracted support from many of the most respected members of society in the US,
such as William James, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Louisa M. Alcott, Mark
Twain and in Britain among its supporters were Charles Dickens, W.B.
Yeats, William Thackarey, Benjamin Disraeli, Yehudi Menuhin. Other
famous supporters were Dostoevsky, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
and Mahatma Ghandi.
The
aristocratic patronage of homeopathy in the UK extending well into the 1940's
and beyond can be easily demonstrated. In the Homeopathic Medical
Directories there are lists of patrons of the dispensaries and hospitals. They
read like an extract from Burke’s or Debrett’s. (See A History of
Homeopathy in Britain by Peter Morrell,
Honorary
Research Associate in the History of Medicine, Staffordshire University, UK.
http://www.homeopathyhome.com/reference/articles/ukhomhistory.shtml )
John
D. Rockefeller referred to it as 'a progressive and aggressive step in
medicine' and was under homeopathic care throughout the latter part of his life
living to 99 years of age. A strong advocate of homeopathy, major grants
of between $300-$400 million he intended for homeopathic
institutions were instead used for orthodox medical institutions in
the early 1900s, under pressure from his son and his financial advisor,
Frederick Gates.
LOUISE
McLEAN
Editor
Zeus
Information Service
London
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