Complementary Therapies In The Nhs
The House of Commons Evidence Check report on homeopathy is due to be published on Monday 22nd February. In the lead up to this the lay homeopaths have launched their campaigns of hate and conspiracy against the committee and in particular Evan Harris. This is not surprising. Nor was it unexpected that professional organisations, including representatives of medical homeopaths such as the British Homeopathic Association (BHA), misrepresented evidence to parliament. However, the relationship between the lay and the medical homeopathic community has always been a little wary, medical homeopaths, such as Peter Fisher of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital (RLHH), have strongly criticised the lay homeopaths claims on malaria and many other issues while the lay community fear that any member of the medical profession, homeopath or not, is a stooge of big pharma. This looks like it is changing.
Next week H:MC21, a pro homeopathy lobby group, will present a petition to Downing Street (which may contain signatures of dubious authenticity). This petition is now being supported by a number of groups including the following:
Allen College
Alliance for Natural Health
Alliance of Registered Homeopaths (ARH)
College of Practical Homeopathy
Contemporary College of Homeopathy
Dr. Reckeweg (UK) Ltd
Helios Pharmacy
Hahnemann College of Homeopathy
Homeopathic College of East Anglia
Homeopathic Medical Association
Homeopathy Heals
Lakeland College
School of Homeopathy
Society of Homeopaths (SoH)
South Downs School of Homoeopathy
South West London Homeopaths (Swelhoms)
West London Homeopaths (WLH)
Yorkshire Centre of Classical HomeopathyJenny Seagrove (actor)
You do not have to look hard to find unconventional and dangerous views attributed to these organisations. For example the Alliance for Natural Health collaborated with Matthias Rath, the ARH registrar believes homeoapthy can treat malaria, the SoH have held conferences on AIDS and refused to sanction members who promote homeopathic vaccines and WLH have given a platform to AIDS denialists.
Now it seems that supporters of the medical homeopaths are throwing their lot in with the lay homeopaths. The Leauge of Friends of the RLHH, a charity supporting the RLHH describes itself as follows
The League of Friends of the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital – Supporting the Hospital, homeopathy and other complementary therapies within the NHS
Founded in 1975, it is a registered charity (No.269289) and voluntary organisation run by its members for the benefit of the patients and staff of the hospital.
The Friends of the RLHH sent out the following email yesterday (the font and colour are theirs):
Homeopaths and patients to lobby parliament
As you know, there are groups of people who are trying get homeopathy removed from the NHS – thereby denying access to this form of medicine to the many people who derive benefit from it. Effectively, they wish to deny us our right to choice in the treatment options we receive. Over the past 4 years, this movement has gained in strength, influence and determination.On Wednesday 24 February homeopaths and patients from across the UK will be lobbying Parliament in support of homeopathy.
The event has been organised by H:MC21 (Homeopathy: Medicine for the 21st Century) as part of its campaign to defend people’s right to homeopathy, and particularly to homeopathy in the NHS. They will also deliver to No. 10 Downing Street a letter and 25,000 signatures to the declaration: ‘Homeopathy worked for me’. If you haven’t signed this yet, you can do so on their website – http://www.hmc21.org/
The declaration is being handed in at this time because the Commons Science and Technology Committee’s report on evidence for the use of homeopathy in the NHS is being published on Monday. It is thought that this report is likely to call for homeopathy to be removed from the NHS.
We appreciate that many people may live too far away, or will be at work, while others may be unable to participate due to ill health or other commitments. We still thought you should know about the event.
For those of you who are able to attend, on your own or with friends or family – Wrap up warm and we look forward to joining you there!
I wonder how the RLHH and NHS feel about this? Not only do H:MC21 have dodgy supporters but they are not a particularly resepctable organisation themselves. They have published scurrilous and inaccurate allegations against Professor Edzard Ernst and Simon Singh and count Jeremy Sherr, the homeopath who helped inspire the succesful campaign to get the World Health Organisation to condemn homeopathy, among their patrons. I would have thought this would risk undermining the position of medical homeopaths. The medical homeopaths, by virtue of being registered medical practitioners, operate within a framework that limits their conduct and claims with threat of severe sanction. This does give them a firmer foundation on which to argue that even if you don’t believe homeopathy works, and even if the evidence suggests it doesn’t despite the belief of practitioners, they should be able to ply their trade because belief based treatment can aid a patients state of mind while suffering from painful or incurable conditions and they are not undermining or ignoring conventional medication or procedures.
The League Friends of the RLHH did not respond to requests for comment.
A closer alliance between the medical and lay homeopaths risks disaster for the profession but looks like it has been happening for some time. The Quackometer has previously reported that the Faculty of Homeopaths, representing the medical homeopaths, have supported some uses of homeopathy in the developing world and the BHA has proposed collaboration on research projects with the SoH.
It will be interesting to see if this relationship persists or even grows following the publication of the Evidence Check. If it does then all homeopaths, even the once vaguely palatable medical homeopaths, will find themselves labelled as dangerous quacks. This will make the fight for homeopathy’s survival even more difficult. Something practitioners and supporters should seriously consider.
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