Let’s imagine that we live in an exotic parallel universe where I am able to use an amusing but trivial news event to illustrate a wider cultural and intellectual issue. Dr Andy Lewis runs a website called Quackometer: he criticised the Society of Homeopaths (Europe ’s largest professional organisation of homeopaths) in no uncertain terms.
In his opinion, and he amassed some examples: they do not enforce their own “Code of Practice” (you’re not even allowed to imply you can cure a named disease!) it is a figleaf; and they fail to censure their members over dangerous claims. His chosen example was the Newsnight malaria sting which you might remember: an undercover investigator went to see some homeopaths, and was given homeopathic pills to protect against this fatal disease, by quacks who denigrated medical options and failed to give basic “holistic” advice on things like bite protection. I agree with Dr Lewis: in my opinion their approach was cavalier and dangerous.
Did the SoH engage with these criticisms? Reflect on them? Challenge and rebutt them? No. They sent a threatening legal letter. Did this threatening legal letter say what was wrong with Dr Lewis’s post? No. It wasn’t even sent to him, it was sent to his hosting company Netcetera, demanding they take his page down. He contacted the SoH, very politely (I mean incredibly politely, read it here), to ask them what the problems were with his comments. No response.
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But how does the SoH approach – silence and repress - compare with other medical academic organisations? This week I was invited to be on a judging panel for a prize run by the Cochrane Collaboration, the international academic body that produces independent systematic reviews of the literature on all medical interventions: the prize (a thousand quid) is for the best piece of work critical of the Cochrane Collaboration.
Is this an isolated and esoteric example? The British Medical Journal is probably the most important medical journal in the UK (and certainly the most widely read). You might not know the kind of thing that appears in academic journals, but the BMJ recently announced the three most popular research papers from its archive, according to an audit which assessed their use by readers, the number of times they were referenced by other academic papers, and so on. Every single one of these papers was highly critical of either a drug, a drug company, or a medical activity, as its most central theme.
Well, the use of criticism goes to the very core of what science is. It's extremely important. It probably wouldn't seem all that spectacular to have it pointed out, though, if you already knew that.
I find it humourous that there is an international academic body named after eternally suave lawyer to the stars. (chewbacca is a wookie from the planet kyshhyk...)
That's not what anyone is arguing. Everything should be taken on a case-by-case basis and, if the "alternative" is a dangerous, false practice, it should be shunned. Which is what we're doing.
That's not what anyone is arguing. Everything should be taken on a case-by-case basis and, if the "alternative" is a dangerous, false practice, it should be shunned. Which is what we're doing.
Who's to say it's false? If it works for some people, then it's not.
So you want us to market products that only work for some people? And then when these products don't work or they actually harm some people, the producers/creators should be held responsible, right? Because that's exactly what's going on.
Or are you just asking us to ignore all of that so that you can be happy with the idea that alternative and mainstream medicines both have "fair" representation?
I think both should be fairly represented but if either one doesn't work, it should be shunned. Especially mainstream medicine. That does quite a bit of harm but the FDA doesn't do too much about that, mostly because they have a lot of ties with the drug companies.
Especially mainstream medicine. That does quite a bit of harm but the FDA doesn't do too much about that, mostly because they have a lot of ties with the drug companies.
I like how your definition of "fair representation" means punishing one more than another. That's quite "fair" of you.
But anyway, I guess I'll have to treat you like corno. Proof or shut up.
I am not talking about punishing one more than the other. I am talking about punishing the drug companies as equally as much as the alternative medicine that gets attacked.
Why do you rez topics with totally unrelated information? Actually though, I never Refused's reply, so thanks.
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am not talking about punishing one more than the other. I am talking about punishing the drug companies as equally as much as the alternative medicine that gets attacked.
Yeah, you know, equal punishment like Vioxx's billion-dollar settlement? Jesus, that kind of stuff just never happens!
