Quack medicine- "wellness" almost killed a child- and yet regulations are still "voluntary"

[plumandolive]

Alternative medicines are to be "regulated"- but the regulation is "voluntary"
What on earth is the point of that?

voluntary regulation

And what on earth has blooming Prince Charles got to do with it?

"wellness" almost kills 11 yr old

slightly misleading, hey? after all, the girl needed heart surgery and her dad is criminally negligent not to have allowed her to have it. v

I don't really see the connection. The girl in Australia had a serious heart condition and her Dad was a nutter for not allowing her to have the proper treatment.

The regulation of alternative medicine has nothing to do with that.

i don't think the story you have linked to makes your point

i think the dad has some serious ishoos to behave in this way

nothing to do with regulations IMO

But if people are allowed to pretend to be providing cures this will happen again and again. I'd have thought it would be covered by existing fraud laws.

Sorry- what?
A man feeds his daughter "sugar pills" -
" kept her at home and force-fed her a form of ?glyconutrients? ? essentially, sugar pills ? made by a firm called Mannatech- ?The Science of Wellness,? - a "quack" medicine" and you don't thin the fact that some -quack- alternative practicioners are to essentially be self regulated, is related....

obviously the father in this case bears the lion's share of the responsibility. But I agree with Onager. It's very very wrong for a company to promise their sugar pills cure cancer etc.

The company does not say that the pills can cure cancer. The article that you linked to states:

Mannatech?s phrasing is clever ? no outlandish claims are made in any legally identifiable form, they?re just hinted at. ?Wellness? is substituted for medical terms when the products are discussed.

The father was obsessed by alternative health treatments, to the point that he endagered his daughter's life. No amount of regulation could have stopped him.

Yes, there is a need to regulate alternative medicine, but it is very difficult as much of it has not yet been proven (or misproven) to work.

I sometimes use alternative medicine, but prefer to think of it as "supplementary" to the school medicine. If I or my DC were suffering from a serious illness then I would not rely on alternative medicine alone.

it is illegal to claim that anything (outside of conventional medicine) can cure cancer. Any form of supplement or treatment that claims to cure cancer is liable to hefty prosecution so you won't generally find any company making that claim.

The father is where the buck stops, and was obviously not the world's brightest; but as the article says
"Her father was almost certainly acting on the advice of a deluded doctor like Ian Raddatz, who himself is a victim of Mannatech?s official promises of wellness and illegal hints of miracle cures."

My point is, that if these people aren't monitored by a proper body ( not Prince Charles's alternative mates" these incidents would be scarce.
Didn't a woman nearly die after advice from a "nutritionist" recently- poisoned by drinking too much water to "de-tox"?

The article says here a synopsis of a Guardian piece
"CNHC (Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council)-approved practitioners are under absolutely no obligation to show that their treatments work. No doubt such a requirement would be considered ?closed-minded?.

The Council is the brain child of the Prince?s Foundation for Integrated Health- what credentials does Prince Charles have?

there is also a difference between complementary and alternative medicine and they are frequently (and annoyingly) confused and lumped together as one.

Complementary medicine, as the name suggests, is designed to work in conjunction with any required medical treatment.
Alternative medicine is the potentially more dangerous of the two as often medical treatment is eschewed in favour of the alternative.

Actually- I swallow my words a bit about Princes Foundation thing
www.fih.org.uk/
it seems quite sensible.

But I really do think alternative practices need to be regulated - not self or voluntarily

Yes, they are under no obligation to show that their treatments work, that is a problem.

As I said, many alternative treatments have not been proven to work.

Does not mean that they don't work (even if it is a placebo effect) just that it has not been proven in a clinical trial.

My opinion is that if the "quack treatments" work for me then fine. If they don't then I look for something else.

I don't see how you can regulate alternative/complimentary medicine

(Thanks Thumbwitch, for the correct term, I could only think of the German one)

Well regulating them would be as easy as regulating mainstream medicine. If they have a treatment that works then they can demonstate that it works. If not then let them get an honest job.

Of course once it was shown to work it would be mainstream medicine. There is really no such thing as alternative medicine.

MissusLindt
this bit of the Guardian article
"Doctors, nurses and other conventional healthcare professionals are obliged, through their codes of ethics, to adhere to the principles of evidence-based medicine; they must use treatments that demonstrably generate more good than harm for their patients."
So- if for instance, some nutritionist says it's quite normal to feel sick and dizzy after drinking ten gallons of water to detox, when in fact it's very dangerous- that's harm....

I can see that in some instances, regulating a placebo effect would be difficult. But there are plenty of "cures2 which are plainly rubbish- you only have to read ben Goldachre evry saturday in the Guardian....

Missus- there's an good piece in The Economist lasr week about regulating alternative medicines
the Economist but does it work?

although- as you say- they have no answer!

The detox diet thing is strange though. It seems to be very frowned upon in UK, but is not at all uncommon in Europe. I am doing a detox diet at the moment but am not drinking anywhere near 5 litres of water a day. I researched it online, talked to a few friends who have done it before, and made up my mind what to do.

It is all part of the backlash against any form of CAM in this country at the moment. The problem is partly that there are too many slebs involved, and partly that the medical experts are assuming that a detox diet is supposed to do the work of the liver, when in fact they are designed to SUPPORT the liver in doing what it should be doing.

thumbwitch- do you think there's a backlash against it? or just that people are realising they've been taken for a ride occasionally- and now money is short, we can't afford to make mistakes and fritter cash away?

no I think there is a concerted campaign against it at the moment that has been ongoing for a few years.

Ben Goldacre and co?

he is more of the public hack voice of the movement - he is also ggod friends with David Colqhoun and they are involved with prof Edzard Ernst of Exeter University. There are a number of eminent physicians and doctors who object violently (and not always sensibly) to all forms of non-medical intervention.

But in some cases I feel they make themselves ridiculous - for e.g. the attacks on chiropracters and osteopaths - too many people have received great benefit from such therapies for them to believe it when someone (who doesn't know) says "oh they're not really manipulating your back they're just cracking their fingers behind your back" (an e.g. from Body and Soul in the Saturday Times a few years back).
Take that in conjunction with the fact that back pain is frequently left pretty much untreated by conventional medicine and people are going to continue to go to a practitioner who improves their situation, regardless of what the "experts" say, rather than put up with being told to "just take painkillers and manage the pain, there's nothing really we can do for you". Massage has come in for similar bashing - of course people feel better when they are more relaxed after a nice soothing strokey massage - clearly they have never received a sports massage therapy session which is not remotely strokey! More like physio and a work out combined.

Sorry to bang on - as a trained scientist and a massage therapist this really does piss me off.

there are many regulated areas in this country in which professionals are not forced to join but in doing so agree to adhere to a set of regulations. (lots of the building industry for example)

plumandolive - Are you talking about ALL alternative/complementary medicines, because there are many and not all are comparitable.

HAve you had bad personal experiences and if so with which types?

Having said that there are some of the alternative therapies that I find worrying too - but nutrition isn't, or shouldnt be one of them. There are some nutters out there who advocate some really mad stuff - too many exclusions, never mind your diet, just take these supplements etc. - and the Nutrition Therapy Council is currently working to regulate these practitioners as much as they can without statutory regulation. This should (hopefully) get rid of many of the truly appalling charlatans who are out there who have merely bought their diploma/ degree certificate from some spurious paper college, or read a few books and set themselves up as a therapist on the basis of those few books.

Edzard Ernst seems to be doing thoroughly backed-up research though, which is surely a good thing.
But I agree that there there is a very broad area, and it can't all just be lumped together.
So- Noonki- I'm not talking about ALL, no.
We've used acupuncture in the past, an osteopath and homeopathy- on our dc's and me and dh.
I read Ben Goldacre and have done a bit of other reading, and on balance, I feel homeopathy is the placebo affect- it works, but because we think it's going to work, nothing wrong with that though.

Acupunture has been proved to work, but recently I saw something which had done a double blind test, and the needles could have been stuck anywhere, not just on "energy lines" or whatever, and it still worked- i.e. - it was solely to do with the needles in the skin.

I have to say I vere strongly towards the sceptical, and I don't think people should have to pay vast ammounts for placebos.

I'm really sceptical about Reiki, and near here is someone who does something called Quantum Touch.....
But if there's evidence it works, I'm all ears...although the placebo effect is hard to quantfy, but probably just as valid, as long as it's honest.

It's nothing to do with regulating alternative therapies and everything to do with child abuse for goodness sake...