Download Lectures on Biostatistics (1971). Corrected and searchable version of Google books edition
Download review of Lectures on Biostatistics (THES, 1973).
CAM
A correspondent has passed on to me a letter from Caroline Flint, Minister of State at the Department of Health. She describes herself as “New Labour [sic] Member of Parliament for the Don Valley constituency in South Yorkshire.”
My correspondent describes himself as “a non-scientist member of the general public who has nevertheless become very concerned about the continuing rise of pseudoscience and quackery, particularly its penetration of the government and some institutions who ought to know better.”. Join the club! His reaction to this reply was “I am speechless”.
The minister offers the opinion that homeopathy works and refers him to the Faculty of Homeopathy, “which has a network of advisors around the country who are pleased to offer advice to members of the public about homeopathic issues”. They, of course, will tell him the usual lies. What are Ms Flint’s qualifications for offering this appalling advice?. BA Hons in American Literature & History, University of East Anglia, Former local government officer, and Senior researcher/political officer GMB 1991-7.
Ill-informed views like these are certainly consistent with the view that the recent bizarre decision by the MHRA, to allow dishonest labelling of homeopathic products, was taken under instructions from the Department of Health.
O2 AUG 2006 Thank you for your letter of 25 July to Patricia Hewitt enclosing correspondence from your constituent *** about homeopathy on the NHS. I am replying as the Minister responsible for this policy area. I understand Mr *** is concerned that homeopathic therapy has been made available on the NHS. The Department of Health acknowledges that there are now numerous complementary therapies available in the UK. Some of these therapies have been known to alleviate the symptoms of certain illnesses in cases where orthodox medicine does not seem to have offered a complete solution. However, it is the responsibility of local NHS organisations to commission healthcare packages for NHS patients, be it complementary or orthodox. Complementary and alternative medicine treatments are clearly attractive to a number of people and so in principle could feature in a range of services offered by local NHS organisations. Primary Care trusts (PCTs) often have specific policies on the extent to which their patients can be given access to complementary medicines and within these policies, it is open to GPs to give access to specific therapies where they consider it is in the interests of the individual patient. The cost-effectiveness, availability and evidence in support of specific therapies are all issues that are taken into account when deciding what treatment to provide. Mr *** may wish to contact his local PCT and find out what their policies are on complementary therapies including homeopathy. The contact details are: Kennet and North Wiltshire PCT Mr *** may also wish to contact the Faculty of Homeopathy, which has a network of advisors around the country who are pleased to offer advice to members of the public about homeopathic issues: Faculty of Homeopathy Tel: 020 7566 7810 I hope this reply is helpful. Yours
Caroline Flint Approved by the Minister’s Private Office and signed electronically in her absence. |
The two chiropodists who run the Marigold Homeopathic Podiatry clinic (no, honestly, it’s real) at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital seem to be spending much of their budget with a company that they themselves own. The UCLH Trust did not receive any notification of this until I told them about it.
This has been re-posted from the story on the old IMPROBABLE SCIENCE page.
It’s about time I dealt with the health fraud on my own doorstep. University College London Hospitals (UCLH) is not part of UCL, but is a National Health Service Foundation Trust. The trust is responsible for eight hospitals: University College Hospital, The Middlesex Hospital, Hospital for Tropical Diseases, National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson & Obstetric Hospital, Eastman Dental Hospital, The Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital and The Heart Hospital.These are all (but one) absolutely first class teaching hospitals, with responsibility for clinical teaching for UCL medical students. The one blot on the landscape is the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital. This hospital was acquired by UCLH in April 2002. Why on earth is a respectable NHS trust promoting quackery? The UCLH web site says
“The merger enables closer collaboration between complementary therapies and conventional medicine to provide better care for NHS patients. The merger co-incides with the government’s commitment to integrate complementary and conventional care within the NHS, where there is evidence of the effectiveness of complementary therapies.” Notice that the crucial proviso in this statement.
“. . . where there is evidence of the effectiveness of complementary therapies.”
That would be fine If there were evidence of effectiveness, but there is next to no such evidence. Why does UCLH brush this inconvenient fact under the carpet?
The Trust actually has an absolutely first class way of assessing the effectiveness of treatments that are used within UCLH. It is called the Use of Medicines Committee. All NHS Trusts are required to have such a committee, and UCLH’s committee was singled out for praise after a visit by the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health, in their 4th report. These committees are required to obtain good evidence that a proposed treatment works, and their evaluations may be more stringent than those of NICE.
Hansard records
“ During the inquiry, we visited University College London hospital to hear about its Use of Medicines Committee. We were incredibly impressed with its drug formulary, which is used not only by the hospital trust but by the nearby primary care trusts. Because members of those trusts are on the committee, it is also well accepted by the GPs in the area.”
So does the UCLH formulary contain homeopathic and herbal products? If so they will have bypassed entirely the high standards of evidence that are required by the Use of Medicines Committee for any other sort of medicine. If these standards were applied to homeopathic and herbal treatments, the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital would have to close down, because few of these alternatives to medicine would pass an evidence-based assessment. Presumably UCLH Management has foreseen this, and would rather adopt a double-standard than deal with the political fall-out that would result from applying rules of evidence to alternative medicine.
A fine example of the abuse of language: Homeopathic podiatry
The UCLH web site says (somewhat ungrammatically): “The Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital is celebrating the first decade of its Marigold Clinic which provides complementary treatment of homeopathic podiatry. ”
“ Dr Peter Fisher, RLHH Clinical Director, said: “It is an honour for the hospital to host the Marigold Clinic which has been tremendously successful. The Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital has a history of acting as a test bed for NHS innovation. The complementary cancer service and acupuncture are just two examples of therapies the RLHH has been the first to introduce on the NHS. I foresee the same thing happening with homoeopathic podiatry. It’s time has come, current reforms and patient choice are working in our favour.” ”
To describe as “innovation” a reversion to a totally discredited 19th century bit of delusional thinking, is a usage that defies belief. See, for example, here and here.
 |
It is embarrassing to a real university like UCL to see a conference, sponsored by RLHH, on ‘Improving the success of homeopathy’ branded with a logo that looks very like UCL’s own (old version) logo. The title carries the assumption that there is something to be ‘improved’. The conference dealt not only with marigold for bunions, but also HIV/AIDS |
What does the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital cost you, the taxpayer?
Guess what? Nobody knows. But with the help of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I have been able to make some good guesses.
For a start, at least £18 million has been spent on refurbishing the RLHH. The recurrent costs are not so easy to discover. By use of the Freedom of Information Act 200, this is what I discovered.
The direct cost of running the RLHH is £3.379 million per year of which £3.175 million per year are paid by the NHS. Approximately 75% of the direct costs are for salaries.These are the salary cost of staff working at the RLHH. The staff are medical, nursing, pharmacy, administrative and managerial, and ancillary. The balance of cost is for purchase of drugs, laboratory tests, use of patient beds in other Trust hospitals, building and office running costs.
As well as this, the NHS pays also for indirect services, but nobody seems to know the cost of these (and still less, their value). Indirect services are those not charged directly to the RLHH and will include the following. Payroll, payment and income services, accountancy, recruitment , training, personnel, governance and clinical audit, R and D management and governance, medical and nursing education, training and professional support, communications, I.M. and T., estates maintenance management and planning, catering, cleaning, security, insurance, depreciation, payment of public dividend. These sevices are supplied by the Finance Directorate, Workforce Directorate, Chief Nurse Directorate, Capital Investment Directorate, IM and T Directorate, R and D Directorate, Governance Directorate, Directorate of Corporate Sevices, Communications Directorate.
For the UCLH Trust as a whole, indirect costs amount to 39.2 percent of direct costs. If that proportion applies to RLHH, then the total annual cost of RLHH would be £4.7 million.
That sounds to me like a lot of money for a placebo effect.
The RLHH is 97.7 percent homeopathic
Their web site lists eight consultants, all described as “homeopathic consultants” and a ninth has been added recently, Dr H. Roniger. Thus it seems that Lord Winston made an error of fact when he defended the RLHH in the House of Lords by saying “My Lords, perhaps I may be allowed to break with tradition and come to the assistance of my noble friend. Is it not the case that the national homeopathic hospital conducts perfectly normative medicine and is it not justified in doing that, irrespective of the efficacy or otherwise of homeopathy, which I believe is only a small part of its practice?”
This is the breakdown of prescribing at the RLHH (audit taken August 2004, provided under the Freedom of Information Act). It refers to the number of items dispensed, not their value (which I am still trying to discover).
| Valid Percent | ||
| Valid | Homeopathy | 53.2 |
| Herbal tinctures and potencies <6x | 5.7 | |
| Iscador products | 2.8 | |
| Aromatherapy | .2 | |
| Marigold products | 4.2 | |
| Creams/ointments | 13.5 | |
| Tablets/nutritionals | 1.3 | |
| Supplements/homeopathic (New Era Products) | 7.8 | |
| Nutraceuticals | 3.4 | |
| Anthroposophicals medicine | 1.2 | |
| Allopathic products | 2.3 | |
| Weleda | 2.0 | |
| Flower essence | 1.5 | |
| other | 1.0 | |
| Total | 100.0 | |
NB: Creams are herbal or homeopathic.
And the cost of CAM in Glasgow
A freedom if Information Act request elicited the following costs. Much of
the information I asked for is not even recorded.
The cost of the Glasgow Homoeopathic Hospital.
The running costs for the Homoeopathic Hospital were:
2004/05 £1,658k
2005/06 £1,881kThe cost of all CAM services at Baillieston Health Centre
There is no record of any specific costs associated with CAM incurred at Baillieston Health Centre.There was many years ago a Baillieston Childrens’ Homoeopathic Clinic but this service was subsumed into the new Glasgow Homoepathic Hospital. That hospital opened in 1999 at a total capital and building cost of £2,780,189.The total cost came from the New Homoeopathic Hospital Endowment Fund.
3) The cost of CAM provided by GPs or any other part of the Trust.
There is no record of specific costs associated with GPs or others employed by the NHS Board providing complementary and alternative medicine. If homoeopathy, hypnosis, acupuncture or any other form of complementary medicine is provided it is not as a costed, discrete service.
A conflict of interest at RLHH
The table shown above shows the precribing habits at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, The 4.2 percent of precriptions labelled ‘Marigold products’ in the Table were for the products of a company called Marifold Footcare Ltd.
The UCLH Trust web site says
“Dr M Taufiq Khan founded the Marigold Clinic in 1981 at St Pancras Hospital, London, and then established it in 1992 at the RLHH. Dr Khan is the Director of Homeopathic Podiatory Sevices at the RLHH and specialises in the treatment. His son Dr Tariq Khan, is the Deputy Director.”
| The list above shows that 4.2% of all precriptions at RLHH were for “Marigold Products”. This company is Marigold Footcare Ltd., 134 Montrose Avenue, Edgeware, Middlesex, HA8 0DR. |  From left to right: Dr Taufiq Khan, Dr Peter Fisher, Lord Paul of Marylebone and Dr Taufiq Khan open the Sick Feet – Healing Flowers exhibition. |
According to a Current Appointments Report obtained from Companies House. Marigold Footcare Ltd has three directors.
- Dr Mohammed Taufiq Khan, PhD of 134 Montrose Avenue, Edgeware, Middlesex
- Mr Mohammed Taufiq Khan of Bedford House, 17 New North Street, London
- Mrs Shamim Fatima Khan of 134 Montrose Avenue, Edgeware, Middlesex
It appears that the director and deputy director of the Marigold Clinic are paying substantial amounts of NHS money to their own company.
Research-based? Which research?
The web site of the Marigold Clinic makes the following claim.
Research-based medicine:
Marigold therapy is an integral part of homoeopathic podiatry. It comprises specially formulated medication applied topically in conjunction with podiatry. It is research based medicine which has been clinically evaluated in double blind placebo controlled trials at British Universities and NHS Trusts.
And Marigold Footcare Ltd claims
“The safety and efficacy of Marigold Therapy have been demonstrated through extensive clinical use in podiatry clinics and numerous studies and in randomised, double blind, placebo controlled trials: (1) at the University of Brighton (Faculty of Health); (2) University of East London (Institute of Health and Rehabilitation, Faculty of Health and Science); (3) University of London (Faculty of Medicine, School of Pharmacy and the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital).”
This sounds impressive, but what exactly is this research? All I can find in Pubmed about marigold treatment in podiatry is two papers. One is in the Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology (1996, 48, 768-770) and one is in Phytotherapy Research (1996, 0, 211-214).
And who is the first author on both of these papers? You guessed: M.T. Khan.
The first paper (Khan, 1996) is from the School of Pharmacy, the second (Khan, Potter and Birch, 1996) is from School of Pharmacy and the podiatry department, Leaf Hospital, Brighton. I can find no trace of publications from the University of East London or from RLHH. Repeated requests for references elicited no reply at all for a long time.
Eventually, I had a reply from M. Tariq Khan in response to my request for references to back the claim on their company’s web site. He sent a list of 54 assorted conference communications and student projects, and 28 “papers” published in Journals. Every one of these 82 items bore the names of one or both M. T. Khans. There were no more ‘serious’ papers than Pubmed had revealed. There appears to be no independent verification whatsoever of their claims.
Reaction of the UCLH Trust
The UCLH Trust, when notified about what was going on, referred the matter to Dr Peter Fisher, the homeopath and clinical director at rhe RLHH. Tonia Ramsden, Director of Corporate Services for UCLH told me on July 27 2006
“I can confirm that I have received and registered the declaration of Interest.”
Quite true, It was only later that I was told that the declaration of interest was received by the Trust only after I had told them about what was going on!
Peter Fisher, assured me that he was aware of the Khan’s behaviour. Rather surprisingly, he seemed to think that no conflict of interest was involved. He said
“Thank you for drawing to my attention the potential conflict of interest in relation to podiatry. The management of the RLHH has always been aware of the situation”
That was it. No comment at all was made on the propriety of the Khans’ behaviour. Dr Fisher also assured me that the evidence for the efficacy of marigold products was good, without actually citing what this evidence was. I replied thus.
“I find it quite disturbing that you say below that “the RLHH is committed to evidence-based practice”, but that you seem to regard as evidence two small papers, both from the same people with a financial interest in the outcome, and not replicated elsewhere. Incidentally neither of these papers declared the authors’ financial interest. It is equally disturbing that your letter to me does not seem to give a realistic idea of the strength of the evidence. I had to find that for myself. ”
Declarations of interest shoud be public, but are not,
A declaration of conflict of interest is, I suppose, better than nothing. But these pieces of paper sit in a drawer in the Trust. They are kept secret from both the public and the patients. The patient should know when the prescriber has a financial interest in what he prescribes, but they are kept in the dark. When I wrote to the UCLH clinical governance committee to suggest a bit more openness would be desirable, they did not even bother to reply. That is when I decided to make this information public.
The BMJ published yet another inconclusive paper on acupuncture, but misrepresented it in their press release.
Read full entry on the original IMPROBABLE SCIENCE page.
Gerald Weissmann, editor-in-chief of FASEB journal, talks straight.
It seems that our letter to NHS chiefs has crossed the Atlantic. In a gloriously scholarly and funny editorial, Gerald Weissmann MD, of New York University, puts the knife into homeopathy and its royal advocate. Click here to read the whole thing. Here’s something to whet your appetite.
After publication of our letter . . .
“Prince Charles was unfazed—on the day the Open Letter was published, he stopped at St Tydfil’s Hospital in South Wales to watch alternative medicine at work. He accepted a “spiritual” crystal, as if he were Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts School, accepting the Philosopher’s Stone. Unlike Dumbledore, however, who only professed witchcraft and wizardry, Prince Charles called up every form of “integrative therapy” against Alzheimer’s disease (9). One notes that when Prince Charles and other fans of unproven or disproved medical practices use terms such as “integrated therapy” or “alternative medicine”, they’re following the lead of creationists who hide under the term “intelligent design”—these are all convenient slogans that permit the credulous to con the gullible.”
“Hogwarts is certainly on the move! If the trend persists, perhaps MIT or Cal Tech will march in step with the medical schools and offer prizes for integrative alchemy or alternative engineering. But Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, dean of the Harvard Medical School before age of Oprah had the last word on homeopathy:
“Some of you will probably be more or less troubled by that parody of medieval theology which finds its dogma in the doctrine of homeopathy, its miracle of transubstantiation in the mystery of its dilutions, its church in the people who have mistaken their century, and its priests in those who have mistaken their calling.”
[Oliver Wendell Holmes, Medical
Essays. The Young Practitioner, [A Valedictory Address delivered to the Graduating Class of the Bellevue Hospital College, March 2, 1871.] ”
For more delightful writing by Gerald Weissmann, click here.
Special recommendations
Darwin’s Audubon: Gerald Weissmann on the Art of Science.
Swift-boating Darwin: alternative or complementary science
The facts of evolution: fighting the Endarkenment. . The word ‘endarkenment’ sums up only too well much of what appears here.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) (an executive agency of the Department of Health) states that
“We enhance and safeguard the health of the public by ensuring that medicines and medical devices work, and are acceptably safe.”
They have just utterly betrayed the important job with which they are charged, “ensuring that medicines . . . work”, by allowing homeopathic products to be labelled with indications without requiring any evidence that the claims are true (they aren’t).
The MHRA chief executive, Professor Kent Woods, should be fired immediately for dereliction of the duty of the MHRA to protect the public from medicines that don’t work.
The MHRA was founded in 2003 by merging the Medicines Control Agency (MCA) and the Medical Devices Agency (MDA). The MCA was created by the UK Medicines Act 1968, in the wake of the thalidomide disaster.
he MHRA have, incredibly, made it legal to advertise things like this gem from Nelsons
“Nelsons Coldenza is a homeopathic remedy specifically designed to bring fast, effective relief for the symptoms of cold and flu.”
“Active [sic] ingredients: 6c homeopathic potency of Gelsemium sempervirens.”
“Precautions: Keep out of the reach of children. If symptoms persist or worsen, consult your doctor or homeopath.”
Needless to say there isn’t the slightest reason to think that these sugar pills will influence the course of a cold or flu. Thiis is not “information” for the patient.
It is misinformation.
It is lies, endorsed by the MHRA. Take a look at Ben Goldacre’s comments on this.
Who is responsible for this farce?
MHRA staff are listed here. My latest information suggests, though, that the MHRA were acting under instructions from the Department of Health, and the Executive Board failed to resist bad instructions.
The Executive Board
Professor Kent Woods qualified in medicine from Cambridge in 1972, followed by higher clinical training in Birmingham and epidemiological training at Harvard School of Public Health. In 1984 he was appointed Senior Lecturer in Clinical Pharmacology at Leicester University, where he now holds a personal chair in therapeutics.
As CEO of the MHRA, he must take responsibility
For other members, see here.
The Agency Board
Professor Sir Alasdair Breckenridge , CBE, was most recently Professor of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Liverpool. He has been Chair of the Committee on Safety of Medicines (CSM) since 1999, a role which he relinquished when he became chair of the MHRA on its creation in April 2003.
Professor Angus Mackay , OBE, is Mental Health Service Director / Consultant Psychiatrist at the Argyll and Bute Hospital.
Michael Fox has been Chief Executive of the Prince of Wales’ Foundation for Integrated Health since 1998.
Shelley Dolan has worked at the Royal Marsden NHS Trust since 1989, now as Nurse Consultant Cancer & Critical Care
Charles Kernahan is Chief executive of the National Kidney Research Fund, the leading organisation supporting research into renal disease in the UK. His career in healthcare products and service provision spans over 25 years, having held the positions of Vice President Marketing EMEA for ConvaTec (a division of Bristol Myers Squibb) and Group Managing Director for Allied Healthcare (UK) Ltd,
Garry Watts is a Chartered Accountant employed as Chief Executive of SSL International plc, an international healthcare company with a turnover of circa £540m,
Lisa Arnold is currently involved on a voluntary basis with RAFT, a medical research charity, both as a Trustee and on a consultancy basis. Prior to that she had more than fourteen years’ experience as a senior pharmaceuticals and healthcare marketing analyst in the investment banking sector,
So the group that is responsible for advising on whether or not medicines work consists of one pharmacologist, one psychiatrist, a representative of an organisation devoted to crackpot medicine, a nurse and three accountants/bankers/marketers with strong industry connections.
Perhaps that accounts for their bizarre decision. One can only assume that the one pharmacologist was outvoted. The MHRA now seems to regard its role as promotion of the “homeopathic industry”
The decision of the MHRA to allow indications to appear on the label of sugar pills was not required by European legislation. It was a decision of the MHRA by itself (or perhaps as a result of pressure from ministers?). Their discussion document says (with my comments)
“The industry as a whole will benefit from the opportunity to gain indications for products for which use within the homeopathic tradition can be demonstrated, but cannot currently carry indications.”
[what part of the MHRA’s brief says that it is their job to promote any industries?]
“Legislation enabling the products to be labelled with indications is also considered to be of significant benefit to patients.
[how does lying to patients benefit them?]”
“Reviewing the PLRs will provide an opportunity to rectify any cases where products are being marketed with inappropriate indications.”
[and who will decide what indications are ‘appropriate’ for pills that contain nothing whatsoever?]
Read the statement at Sense About Science, and sign it!
See more comments
The Times Doctors attack natural remedy claims
By Nigel Hawkes and Mark Henderson. They quote
“Professor Kent Woods, chief executive of the MHRA, said: “This is a significant step forward in the way homoeopathic medicines are regulated. Products will have to comply with recognised standards of quality, safety and patient information.””
Patient misinformation is more like it. There is NO reason to believe the claims that will now appear on labels!
BBC News “Michael Baum, emeritus professor of surgery at University College London said: “This is like licensing a witches’ brew as a medicine so long as the bat wings are sterile.”
Sense about Science quotes comments on the MHRA’s bizarre behaviour. Here are three examples.
Dr Evan Harris MP, Liberal Democrat Science Spokesman, said:
It’s wrong that this country’s medicines regulatory arrangements, which need to be scientific and rigorous, are being diluted and polluted by processes which allow ineffective products to be licensed as medicines without having to provide any scientific evidence of effectiveness. There are very tight standards for proper medicines for very good reasons ”the need to protect vulnerable consumers from exploitation.”Professor David Colquhoun, Professor of Pharmacology, University College London
“The new government regulations allow claims to be made that sugar pills can treat illnesses when there isn’t a fragment of reason to believe the claims are true. This is simply government-endorsed lying.”Professor Edzard Ernst, Professor of Complementary Medicine, University of Exeter
“This makes a mockery out of evidence-based medicine.”
The Department of Health seems to be responsible
On 1 October 2006 I had a reply from the MHRA (from Sue Harris, Assessment Team Manager, Licensing Division), in response to my question about how the decision was made.
| “The decision to implement the National Rules Scheme was agreed by the Executive Board in response to the ministerial request and not by the Agency Board as the Agency Board does not have executive responsibility. The Chair and non-executive board members were not involved in the decision making process and the final decision was taken by the Minister.” |
This certainly suggests that the MHRA made their bizarre decision on instructions from above (not, perhaps, surprising in view of the Minister of State’s views). It does not explain why the MHRA knuckled under and implemented a policy that is in direct contradiction to their mission.
“Drug regulators too seem unequal to their task.”
That was the opinion offered by the editor of the BMJ, Fiona Godlee, in editorial comment on an problems with suicide by patients on antideoressants, e.g that by David Healy. She wrote
“Drug regulators too seem unequal to their task. Critics focus on their close relationship with industry; their lack of transparency; and an emphasis on efficacy over patient safety, which favours industry”
Which? magazine (October 2006, pages 24-25) published an article, Drugs watchdog fails public, and quotes the MHRA as responding thus.
“our role is not to protect industry interests. We have a responsibility to ensure that regulation is designed to enable rather than hinder the development of new products that would improve health.”
Quite right too. But this claim stands in stark contrast with the MHRA’s “Explanatory Memornadum“, which says this (my emphasis).
“Although the development of national rules by Member States under Directive 2001/83/EC is optional, failing to introduce the scheme would inhibit the expansion of the homeopathic ndustry by the prevention of the development of new products with indications.”
The prince’s unconstitutional interventions in public policy continue as he launchs an organisation called Integrated Health Associates (IHA).
Read full entry on the original IMPROBABLE SCIENCE page.
An even more than usually crackpot idea from homeopath Carol Franske is that shaking the bottle splits atomic nuclei. And a discussion on recent work which suggests that the real memory of water is even less than a millionth of a millionth of a second.
Read full entry on the original IMPROBABLE SCIENCE page.
The Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy (ACAI) has issued a superbly reasoned analysis of about 30 allergy-related tests and treatments that “have been promoted in the absence of any scientific rationale.” [Mullins RJ. Unorthodox techniques for the diagnosis and treatment of allergy, asthma and immune disorders.
ASCIA Position Statement, Oct 2004
Among the many things they find to be useless of dangerous are
Diagnosis.
Cytotoxic testing (Bryans’ test),
Oral provocation and neutralisation,
Vega testing (electrodermal testing),
Kinesiology,
Radionics (psionic medicine, dowsing)
Iridology,
Tests for “dysbiosis”,
Treatment.
Homoeopathy,
Acupuncture,
Reflexology (zone therapy),
Autogenous urine therapy,
Physical Therapies: Chiropractic therapy, Osteopathy, Cranial therapy
Allergy elimination techniques (also known as “Advanced Allergy Elimination”, “Nambudripad’s Allergy Elimination”),
Vega MRT (Matrix Regeneration Therapy),
Clinical Ecology/ Environmental Illness
Among the many scams that are discussed is the infamous Vega test (as used in George Lewith’s private clinic). The conclude “Results are not reproducible in blinded studies, and do not correlate with results from conventional testing.” And " substitution of homeopathic ‘vaccines’ for those with proven effectiveness has both individual and public health implications. "
The US National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) has had $842 million of taxpayers’ money and has wasted most of it.
Why the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) Should Be Defunded
This article by Wallace I. Sampson, M.D. describes clearly what is wrong with NCCAM. This organisation had government funding of $122.7 million in 2006. Since its foundation (as the Office of Alternative Medicine), it has received not much short of a billion dollars ($842 m). What has the US taxpayer had for this money?
“. . it has not proved effectiveness for any “alternative” method. It has added evidence of ineffectiveness of some methods that we knew did not work before NCCAM was formed. NCCAM proposals for 2002 and 2003 promise no
more. Its major accomplishment has been to ensure the positions of medical school faculty who might become otherwise employed –in more productive pursuits.”“NCCAM is ridden with potential and actual conflicts of interest. Ten individuals account for 20% of NCCAM awards. None of them has produced a definitively positive or negative report. Most recipients have produced no report at all. Two individuals originally on the Advisory Council that approves NCCAM policy were awarded over $4 million and $5 million in repeated awards. ”
“NCCAM recently awarded $15 million to nine medical schools to develop teaching of these subjects—all by advocates of “CAM.” It gave no funds to the five medical school courses with curricula already developed that teach about the subject rationally. In other words, NCCAM’s research agenda fits its congressional supporters’ ideological vision and finds unproductive ways to use up its ballooning appropriations. ”
“NCCAM could be dissolved, its functions returned to other NIH centers, with no loss of knowledge, and an economic gain. Funds could be invested into studies of how such misadventures into “alternative” medicine can be avoided, and on studying the warping of human perceptions and beliefs that led to the present situation. ”
Unbelievably, this prime piece of postmodernist bollocks is even worse than Barry’s paper!
Download the full paper here (if you can bear it). Dave Holmes RN PhD, Stuart J Murray PhD, Amelie Perron RN PhD(cand) and Genevieve Rail PhD, Int J Evid Based Health 2006; 4: 180, 186.
The authors of this paper are from Department of English, Ryerson University Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and Faculty of Health Sciences, School of Nursing, University of Ottawa, Ottawa. Ryerson University is an ex-polytechnic which became a university in 1971. It runs courses in Traditional Chinese Medicine (but, at least, no homeopathy). In Canada, as here, it seems that such institutions are the first to damage their new reputations by encouraging gobbledygook like this.
Stuart J. Murray lists his interests as “phenomenology, Foucault, bioethics, biopolitics, and psychoanalysis. Currently researching a project on posthuman “life” in digital and mediatized contexts.” In his contribution to the McLuhan International Festival of the Future he says (apropos of McLuhan) “We will be frustrated if we look here for a firm, communicable content.” Well that’s very true.
Abstract
Background Drawing on the work of the late French philosophers Deleuze and Guattari, the objective of this paper is to demonstrate that the evidence-based movement in the health sciences is outrageously exclusionary and dangerously normative with regards to scientific knowledge. As such, we assert that the evidence-based movement in health sciences constitutes a good example of microfascism at play in the contemporary scientific
arena.Objective The philosophical work of Deleuze and Guattari proves to be useful in showing
how health sciences are colonised (territorialised) by an all-encompassing scientific research paradigm “that of post-positivism ” but also and foremost in showing the process by which a dominant ideology comes to exclude alternative forms of knowledge, therefore acting as a fascist structure.Conclusion The Cochrane Group, among others, has created a hierarchy that has been endorsed by many academic institutions, and that serves to (re)produce the exclusion of
certain forms of research. Because ‘regimes of truth’ such as the evidence-based movement
currently enjoy a privileged status, scholars have not only a scientific duty, but also an
ethical obligation to deconstruct these regimes of power.. . .
Unfortunately, the nature of this scientific fascism makes it attractive to all of us the subjected. In Foucault’s words: the major enemy, the strategic adversary is fascism. . . . And not only historical fascism, the fascism of Hitler and Mussolini which was able to mobilize and use the desire of the masses so effectively but also the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us. (p. xiii) Fascism does not originate solely from the outside; it is a will within us to desire, although often unwittingly, a life of domination. Such a “lovable” fascism requires little more than the promise of success (grants, publications, awards, recognition, etc.) within its system to get us to participate wholeheartedly. Perhaps it is time to think about governing structures that impose their imperatives (academic, scientific, political, economic) on academics and researchers, and
to ask ourselves what drives us to love fascist and exclusionary structures.The Cochrane Group has created a hierarchy that has been endorsed by many academic institutions, and that serves to (re)produce the exclusion of certain forms of knowledge production. Because EBM, as a “regime of truth”, currently enjoys a privileged status, there exists a scientific and ethical obligation to deconstruct such regime. Given the privileged relation to knowledge defining the intellectual mission, intellectuals are well located to deconstruct the ‘truth’ and to ‘speak truth to power’, to use Foucault’s expression. Unfortunately, most would prefer not to hear alternative, marginalised discourses because the latter tend to expose the very power relations that create our current situation and prop up those academics/scientists with a vested interest in the status quo. However, we believe that one of the roles of the intellectual is to decolonise, to deterritorialise the vast field of health sciences as it is currently mapped out by the EBM.
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Final remarksCritical intellectuals should work towards the creation of a space of freedom (of thought), and as such, they constitute a concrete threat to the current scientific order in EBHS and
the health sciences as a whole. It is fair to assert that the critical intellectuals are at ‘war’ with those who have no regards other than for an evidence-based logic. The war metaphor speaks to the ‘critical and theoretical revolt’ that is needed to disrupt and resist the fascist order of scientific knowledge development.
Raymond Tallis, in his review of Intellectual Impostures, said
“The profound significance of S & B’s [Sokal and Bricmont’s] wonderfully written, deeply passionate and authentically erudite book, is that, by shining real light on the fake jewellery of the leading postmodernist theorists, it has shown what has happened to academic humanities over the last thirty years under the influence of individuals like Kristeva for whom intellectual legerdemain has become a way of life.”
“Academics intending to continue as postmodern theorists in the interdisciplinary humanities after S&B should first read Intellectual Impostures and ask themselves whether adding to the quantity of confusion and untruth in the world is a good use of the gift of life or an ethical way to earn a living. After S & B, they may feel less comfortable with the glamorous life that can be forged in the wake of the founding charlatans of postmodern Theory. Alternatively, they might follow my friend Roger into estate agency — though they should check out in advance that they are up to the moral rigours of such a profession.”
And it seems that some people still haven’t noticed. But then the abuse of scientific language by people who don’t understand it (or whose intent is to deceive) has been the mainstay of quackery for several hundred years. Plus ca change.
What can one say in the face of such gross betrayal of everything we have learned since the enlightenment? I suppose one simple explanation that its paranoid style, and its imagined conspiracies are all a manifestation of a giant chip on the shoulder from people who feel that their genius has not been recognised appropriately by those who fund research. But that is a matter for psychiatrists, not me.
Ben Goldacre, who first drew my attention to this paper, comments on his Badscience site,and has now written about it in his regular column in the Guardian.
“Even from looking at the title, you just know this academic paper from the September edition of the International Journal of Evidence-based Healthcare is going to be an absolute corker. And it uses the word “fascist” (or elaborate derivatives) 28 times in six pages, . . .”
The Independent has a good medical column br Dr Fred Kavalier. The column has an insert for readers’ letters. On 1st August 2006 the ‘readers write’ section had this letter “I know homeopathy has taken a bit of a bashing recently but homeopathic remedies for travel sickness have a long and excellent reputation for working. The most important ones are cocculus, petroleum and tabacum.”.
Dr Kavalier was appropriately apologetic about this, and published my response on 15th August.
Readers write DC, a scientist from London, replies to last week’s homeopath: |
The question of where delusion ends and fraud begins is an interesting one. A book by Robert Park of the American Physical Society discusses the question particularly well.
Voodoo Science: the road from foolishness to fraud (Oxford
University Press) is an excellent read. [Amazon].
| Robert Park deals with everything from perpetual motion macines to homeopathy. His thesis is that those who propagate these ideas often start with a genuine belief that what they say is true. Rejection of the ideas by sensible people just makes them more determined. Eventually, though, it probably dawns on many of them that they have made a terrible mistake. At this point, some recant, but more often they have so much reputation to defend, and frequently too much income to protect, that they will continue to propagate their ideas even after they have realised that they are wrong. |  |
That is when foolishness becomes fraud. I have often wondered how many middle-aged homeopaths still really believe their own nonsense?
“Alas, to wear the mantle of Galileo it is not enough that you be persecuted by an unkind establishment; you must also be right.” (Robert Park)
Brain Deer has produced a very detailed account of the MMR scandal. It shows the corrupting influence of money on research, and the harm done, bath by Dr Wakefield, and by the Royal Free Hospital which sought to profit from him.
Read full entry on the original IMPROBABLE SCIENCE page.
The Independent recommended the Helios Homeopathy Travel kit as one of its Ten Best. They made amends by publishing a letter pointing out that the pills contained nothing whatsoever.
Read full entry on the original IMPROBABLE SCIENCE page.
The Institute of Science in Society purports to be about promoting a socially responsible approach to science. It combines some reasonable stuff about global warming with a lot of utter rubbish about homeopathy (mainly written by the Institute’s director, Dr Mae-Wan Ho).
(This item has been transferred from the old IMPROBABLE SCIENCE page.)
I just stumbled across this organisation. At first sight, its theme of “science, society and sustainability” sounded right up my street. It seems to be predominantly an anti-GM, pro-organic farming, organisation. Although some of their contributors seem to be somewhat paranoid, there is much that I can agree with in what they say about that.
But they completely ruin their case by including quite barmy homilies about homeopathy (and here), water structure and traditional chinese medicine. There is also an amazing piece of sheer pseudo-scientific nonsense, “Homeopathic Medicine is Nanopharmacology” by Dana Ullman (though elsewhere on the site, nanotechnology gets a bad press).
Most of the nutty content seems to be written by the director of the Institute herself. Dr Mae-Wan Ho, who is listed as “Reader in Biology at the Open University” (that’s odd -no trace of her on the Open University web site). In fact some doubts have been cast on her biography. Wikipedia says “She is former head of the Bio-Electrodynamics laboratory at the Open University in Milton Keynes after either having been fired for incompetence or resigning because of personal reasons.” Whatever the truth in that may be, she clearly doesn’t understand homeopathy.
The board of directors of the Institute includes Zac Goldsmith (editor of The Ecologist) and it is advised by some apparently respectable scientists.
It is sad that an organisation with a respectable sounding title like the Institute of Science in Society is being used to propagate some pure pseudo-scientific gobblydegook. Is it any wonder that journalists and the general public get confused?
It is often said that, although homeopathy does no good,at least it does no harm. But that is not true if using homeopathy delays diagnosis of serious disease like cancer. It is not true if homeopaths persuade you not to be vaccinated, and as a consequence you get smallpox, mumps, measles, and spread them in the community. And it is not true if you listen to the ill-informed advice that is given by many homeopaths about how to avoid malaria when you visit countries where it is common.
The Newsnight programme on BBC2 TV (13th July 2006) did a marvelous bit of secret filming.
“Newsnight followed up their research with a hidden camera. A researcher went to Nelsons Pharmacy off Oxford Street in London, which claims to be Britain’s biggest manufacturer of homeopathic remedies – and that was all they recommended for malaria.
Even when the researcher said she planned to go to Malawi – a high risk area – Nelsons only suggested the addition of garlic, oil of citronella and vitamins rather than a trip to the doctors.
The Nelsons adviser told the researcher that the homeopathic compounds would protect her. “They make it so your energy doesn’t have a malaria-shaped hole in it so the malarial mosquitos won’t come along and fill that in.” “
This last bit of advice means nothing whatsoever. It is sheer gobblydegook.
It would just be silly if its effects were not so potentially serious.
On the programme, Melanie Oxley, from the Society of Homeopaths, wriggled uncomfortably when faced with the evidence (and Simon Singh). She protested that members of her organisation do not advise against proper malaria prevention, or against vaccination (and here).
Well, they DO. So much for “professional regulation”.
You cannot regulate the delusional. and the attempts of organisations like Oxley’s clearly don’t work. Apart from their inability to stop their members giving lethal advice, the regulators themselves are deluded.
Peter Fisher (see here and here), from the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital (and here) said
“I’m very angry about it because people are going to get malaria – there is absolutely no reason to think that homeopathy works to prevent malaria and you won’t find that in any textbook or journal of homeopathy so people will get malaria, people may even die of malaria if they follow this advice.”
The Queen’s homeopathic physician has the sense to acknowledge that homeopathy does not work for serious conditions, yet persists in his delusion that it works for milder illnesses.
What the homeopaths recommended
Malaria nosodes 30C
The source material is so diluted that not a single molecule is left. The medicines therefore contain no medicine. They are nothing but sugar pills.
To sell pills that contain nothing whatsoever and to pretend that they will protect you against malaria strikes me as nothing short of criminal. In the EU in 2000, 15528 cases of malaria were reported to the World Health Organization in returning travellers. The source material is, incidentally, not stated. One source says it is made from “African swamp water containing impurities, algae and plants as well as mosquito slough, larvae and eggs.” Luckily there is none of it left in the pill you get.
China
China Off is made from Cinchona bark which should contain quinine (how much is not stated. China Sulph is made from quinine itself (presumably purified, it is not stated). Quinine in large (potentially toxic) doses can cure malaria but is not a recommended treatment. But these preparations contain only minute amounts of quinine that cannot possibly have any effect at all.
There is not the slightest reason to think that these pills could protect you against malaria, and to recommend them for that purpose is no more than fraud. The only recommended use for quinine is for treatment iof malaria in pregnant women. The dose is 600 mg, three times a day. because of the inadequate labelling it is impossible to know exactly how much quinine is present in China Sulph 8X,, but it is probably about 100 millionth of the recommended dose.(less than 1 nanogram)
The consequences.
“The fourth case was a 26-year-old man who visited Ghana and Burkina Faso in October and November 1994. He used China D-6 for prophylaxis. This is a homeopathic preparation of the bark from the cinchona tree. Not even trace amounts of quinine were found in the tablets with a very sensitive high-performance liquid chromatographic method. Four days after returning from Africa he fell ill with P. falciparum malaria ” (Quotation from Carlsson et al. J Travel Med. 1996 Mar 1;3(1):62. (PMID: 9815426)
In another case of a patient who resorted to homeopathy “for two months she received intensive care for multiple organ system failure due to P falciparum .This case confirms the inefficacy of homoeopathic drugs for malaria prevention and treatment.”
Natrum Mur.
Natrum Muriaticum is sodium chloride. Just common salt (except that it is so dilute that there is little or no salt there). If you believe this will prevent malaria, you will truly believe anything. Yet it is being recommended and sold.
What the papers say about it
“Malaria risk for tourists who trust
alternative practitioners”. A long report by Mark Henderson, in The Times.
“Homoeopathy: voodoo on the NHS” by Jamie White in The Times on the next day (July 15th)
“It is outrageous that the NHS should knowingly promote this quackery. And it is knowing. The NHS Direct website points out that homoeopathy is contrary to everything we know about chemistry and medicine, and that there is no experimental evidence to support its preposterous claims. Yet the NHS still promotes it, because “despite the lack of clinical evidence, homoeopathy remains one of the most popular complementary therapies in the UK”.”
“Homeopaths ‘endangering lives’ by offering malaria remedies” in The Guardian
“Do not rely on homeopathy to protect against malaria, doctors warn”. Excellent
health advice (for a change) in the Daily Mail. They quote Dr Evan Harris (Lib Dem) of the all-party parliamentary malaria group, as saying
“This sort of outrageous quackery is unacceptable. Vulnerable people are being duped into handing over cash for useless remedies and are having their health put at risk through grossly inadequate advice. People need to consider homeopathy in the same way as the treat faith-healing and witchcraft – that is not to risk their life or health on it.”
Talk show interview, DC with Tania Shillam on Colourful Radio (“Colourful is a new national digital Talk, cross-cultural radio station. Launched on 30 May 2006, the station’s format is a rich mix of news, current affairs and journalism, agenda-setting coverage, short documentaries, drama, panel discussions, phone-ins and a liberal sprinkling of music”). Listen to it.