Alternative therapy 'crackdown'

[NorthernSoul]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7828593.stm

This is, hopefully, going to chop the head off of the monster, but only make the body seem more credible.

[Blue Wode]

There's already an interesting analysis up from the Black Duck.

Snippet –

So what is to be done? Well, the first thing is that setting up voluntary regulators that rubber stamp quack training and practices only legitimises irrational, fraudulent and dangerous practices. It will risk giving extra undeserved standing to nonsense and will not protect the public from delusional and/or deceitful actions.

The whole thing has been a huge waste of money. The hundreds of thousands of pounds given by the government to set up this body would have been much better spent on training Trading Standards Officers in the issues of alternative medicine. As Professor David Colquhoun argues, the new Trading Standards Laws that came into effect last May have probably made much of alternative medicine illegal. "The gist of the matter is that it is now illegal to claim that a product will benefit your health if you can’t produce evidence to justify the claim." The law is clear: “falsely claiming that a product is able to cure illnesses, dysfunction or malformations" will be illegal. And as alternative medicine ceases to be alternative as soon as there is good evidence of efficacy, a lot of quacks could be in trouble.

What is standing in the way of people being prosecuted for making false health claims is the appropriate expertise within Trading Standards to evaluate the claims and initiate the appropriate prosecutions. There appears to be a situation evolving where there could be a large clash of government policy. It is likely Trading Standards will start prosecuting registered members of the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council. Now, that will be a sight to watch.

http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2009/01/ofquack-toothless-squawk.html

The good:
David Colquhoun serves on OfQuack’s Conduct and Competence committee.
http://www.skeptics.org.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=1932&page=3

The bad:
It would appear to be true that Trading Standards currently lacks the appropriate expertise to evaluate claims and initiate the appropriate prosecutions:
http://www.skeptics.org.uk/forum/showpost.php?p=51096&postcount=59

The ugly:

Patients to be given 'personal health budgets'

They will allow patients to buy anything that their local healthcare service deems a good use of NHS resources, including private and national health service treatments, and alternative therapies.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/he...h-budgets.html

That last link also says that the personal health budget scheme is proving to be controversial after it emerged that money had been spent on football tickets, annual gym membership and, in one case, a two week holiday to Spain.

[Tim the Mage]

It will not judge clinics on whether therapies are effective, but rather on whether they operate a professional and safe business.

Think this quote sums it all up really...

[Mojo]

In what what can it be "professional" to offer therapies that don't work?

[filippo lippi]

You have to be open-minded to a new definition of "professional"

[Tim the Mage]

In what what can it be "professional" to offer therapies that don't work?

I guess that a proper doctor might offer a treatment or therapy that has, say, a 50:50 chance of success so could be offering an unsuccessful treatment.

I guess also that it would be truthful if our purveyors of mumbo jumbo told the truth about what they're selling?

I'm struggling with this one!

[benjus]

Today's article in the Daily Mash made me laugh a bit... as I'm still a newbie it won't let me paste a link, but you can google for the following:

complementary-therapists-to-be-regulated-by-witch-doctor-200901201522

[skbuncks]

Today's article in the Daily Mash made me laugh a bit... as I'm still a newbie it won't let me paste a link, but you can google for the following:

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/h...-200901201522/

There, fixed it for you

[Trinoc]

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/h...-200901201522/

Brilliant!

[chaggle]

Homeopaths will be able to apply for accreditiation by visualising the application form and then beaming their thoughts down the nearest ley line.

[Blue Wode]

Edzard Ernst doesn't pull any punches about the new Council in today’s Guardian:

False assurances

The Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council's claims to regulate alternative medicine are misleading and dangerous.

Read on…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/21/complementary-natural-heathcare-council

[seantellis]

Incensed about the CNHC's lack of requirements for efficacy or safety? So was I, so I set up a petition on the UK Government website.

Since I'm new here, I can't post a link, but Googling for cnhc "basic efficacy and safety" will get you there if you wish to sign.

[NorthernSoul]

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/CNHCsafety/

There we go

[Matt]

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/CNHCsafety/

Signed

[Blue Wode]

Incensed about the CNHC's lack of requirements for efficacy or safety? So was I, so I set up a petition on the UK Government website.

Since I'm new here, I can't post a link, but Googling for cnhc "basic efficacy and safety" will get you there if you wish to sign.

I’ve already posted this over at JREF, but just in case you miss it, it might be worth putting the petition link in a comment in the ‘Have your say box’ below this article in today’s Times (in the hope that it would be published):

The question about alternative medicine
The Government needs to make unified decisions on alternative medicine

Sir, We would like to congratulate the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Salford, Professor Michael Harloe, for his principled decision to drop all the university’s programmes associated with complementary medicine within the School of Community, Health Sciences & Social Care. This includes its “homoeopathy in practice” degree.

It is also encouraging that the University of Central Lancashire recently closed its BSc in homoeopathy to new students, and announced a review of all its activities in alternative medicine.

Although universities are now taking sensible actions, government policy in the area of regulation of alternative medicine is in urgent need of revision. Last May the steering group, chaired by Professor Pittilo, recommended to the Department of Health that entry into acupuncture, herbal medicine and traditional Chinese medicine should “normally be through a bachelor degree with honours”. But, in the same month, new regulations on unfair trading came into effect. One of the 31 commercial practices that are in all circumstances considered unfair is “falsely claiming that a product is able to cure illnesses, dysfunction or malformations”. One part of government seeks to endorse unproven and disproved treatments, at the same time as another part makes them illegal.

The reason for this chaotic situation is simple. The Department of Health and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) have consistently failed to grasp the nettle of deciding which treatments work and which don’t. That is the first thing you want to know about any treatment.

Vice-chancellors seem now to be asking the question, and the Government should do so too. The ideal mechanism already exists. The question should be referred to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. That was recommended by a House of Lords report in 2000, and it was recommended again by the Smallwood report in 2005. Now it should be done.

Sir Walter Bodmer
Cancer & Immunogenetics Laboratory, Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, Oxford

Professor David Colquhoun
Research Professor of Pharmacology, University College London

Dame Bridget Ogilvie
Visiting Professor at UCL, Past-director of the Wellcome Trust

Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell
MRC Research Professor, University of Manchester

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article5613750.ece

More on the matter here:
http://dcscience.net/?p=984