The Popularity of Homeopathy

I came across Anarchic Teapot's blog post on homeopathy a few days ago. Titled "At least the title's not misleading - Impossible Cure", it's well worth a read. It deals with the claims of a proponent of homeopathy that almost everything under the sun, including autism, can be treated by this particular form of quackery. I don't need to spend any time examining the claims on the site - Anarchic Teapot does a thorough job of eviscerating the content of the website and the claims made by its author. (For those interested the site can be viewed here.)

I stumbled on the website some while ago after googling 'homeopathy and autism' and like Mr Teapot, was appalled by views expressed. Much of the content is devoted to promoting a book, 'Impossible Cure'. The website features a preview of Chapter 1, Homeopathy Revealed. Part of this deals with the'popularity' of homeopathy and contains the statement,

........ in England, 42 percent of physicans refer patients to homeopaths

Really? Almost half of the doctors in England refer patients to homeopaths? That doesn't fit with my, albeit limited, experience. I sought out the source of this statistic and found it in a paper published in the British Medical Journal. The authors were R Wharton and G Lewith. George Lewith's Wikipedia entry says he 'is a professor of complementary medicine at the University of Southampton, where he leads the Complementary and Integrated Medicine Research Unit. He is a prominent advocate of complementary medicine in the UK.' He was involved with the now defunct Prince of Wales' Foundation for Integrated Medicine and is now vice chair of the inappropriately named College of Medicine.

The full text of the BMJ paper can be viewed here (pdf). The 'research' consisted of sending a postal questionnaire to 200 general practitioners in Avon of whom 145 responded. The questionnaire was made up of twelve questions, one of which asked about referral patterns. 68 GPs (42%) of the sample reported referring patients to homeopaths.These results were published in the BMJ in 1986 and this is the source of the much vaunted claim that nearly half of the doctors in England refer patients to homeopaths. The report itself reads like a poor piece of GCSE coursework and I'm staggered that it ever reached the pages of the British Medical Journal. I can summarise it quite easily,

Over a quarter of a century ago, a shoddy piece of research found that a few GPs in a small part of England  sent a handful of patients for treatment by homeopaths.

Such is their desperation, this bogus statistic appears regularly on the websites of homeopaths. It has been used by Dana Ullman and Nancy Malik. Knowing the weakness of their position, they crave respectability and resort to Argumentum ad populum.

The reality is of course that homeopathy in the UK is in rapid decline. According to the British Homeopathic Association, in 2011 400 GPs used homeopathy in their everyday practice. That's 400 out of 41 000, or 0.98%.

0.98% is a long way short of 42%

A Burzynski Of Red Flags

In the skeptic community, the term 'red flag' is used to denote something which gives cause for alarm, a warning sign that things may not be what they seem. Science-org presents a useful guide to red flags as applied to Quackery. Note that of the sixteen featured, Burzynski has one all to himself. Short and Spiky takes it one stage further and devotes an entire blog post to the red flags raised by the Burzynski Clinic.

The shortcomings, ethical,medical and financial, of Stanislav Burzynski and his clinic, have been extensively blogged and tweeted ever since the Observer published an article about a family in the UK raising money to send their daughter for treatment to the Burzynski Clinic. This was followed by  an article in the London Evening Standard  and a feature on ITV's Daybreak programme seemingly endorsing the work of Burzynski. Anyone wishing to follow the timeline of events should go to Joesphine Jones excellent blog which has a record of posts and blogs about the issues.

Burzynski has been in business for almost thirty years. During that time he has had a number of run-ins with the authorities but nothing has stopped him exploiting the sick and vulnerable. Until now. Andy Lewis has revealed that a former patient of the Burzynski Clinic is sueing Burzynski for, amongst other things, "bilking her of nearly $100 000". The Courthouse News Service gives further details about the nature of the former patient's complaints and Peter Bowditch has posted the court filing on his site. These documents make horrendous reading and justify all the red flags raised by bloggers and tweeters over the last few months.

Can Burzynski survive? Burzynski is a last resort for the desperate and vulnerable who may not be influenced by the proceedings in a Texas Courtroom. They may be unaware of what is happening. We cannot be confident that the Observer, Evening Standard and Dr Hilary Jones will give the publicity to these latest developments that they gave to the 'pioneering researcher'. Burzynski is due to appear in front of the Texas Medical Board in April 2012 and hopefully that will seal his fate.

Edit.

The submission to the Leveson Inquiry on theCulture, Practice Ethics of the Press by the Association of Medical Research Charities, Cancer Research UK and the Wellcome Trust contains the following paragraph:

10. Secondly, and more worryingly, it can often raise false hope among patients. This is particularly true and damaging where it concerns treatments for incurable diseases that are not proven, yet which are portrayed as “miracle cures”. This can lead patients to spend life savings on treatments that are most unlikely to work, or on occasion to eschew the most effective known therapies in favour of alternatives that are untested or disproved.

Observer, Evening Standard and Dr Hilary Jones - please take note.

I'm Offended.

This cartoon appeared on the Facebook page of University College London Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society advertising a pub social. Some people found it offensive and complained to the Students' Union. The Union responded by asking the atheist society to remove the cartoon. You can read the full story here. This in turn provoked a response from many skeptics and bloggers including Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers, who came to the defence of the atheist society and free speech.

It doesn't end there. Rhys Morgan has written about the Jesus and Mo affair in his blog. If you follow the link you will see that what he has written has resulted in a flood of threats and abuse from those who feel that their religion has been affronted. For the most part those who wrote those comments are revealed to be ignorant, illiterate bullies barely capable of stringing two words together much less making a coherent  argument explaining their position. Their case seems to be, "I am offended by the cartoon. Remove it because I say so."

I am offended.

• I am offended by their wilful ignorance and stupidity.
• I am offended by their assumption that they are entitled to force their religious views on me.
• I am offended by their wish to censor what I can read and what I can think.
• I am offended by their attempts to drag this country back to the Dark Ages.
• I am offended by their readiness to resort to threats and violence.
• I am offended by their refusal to recognise that their behaviour is unacceptable in a modern, democratic society.

Worryingly, this sort of response doesn't seem to be unusual. A proposed talk about Sharia law and human rights had to be abandoned after threats of violence.

If anyone reading this is offended by what I have written, what follows is especially for you.

 

Dear Dr Hilary ................

This morning, ITV's Daybreak ran a feature on the efforts of the parents of a five-year old girl who is suffering from a rare form of brain cancer, to raise money to pay for treatment at the Burzynski Clinic in Texas. Present in the studio, along with the presenters, were the girl, her father, and Daybreak's Health Editor, Dr Hilary Jones. A YouTube clip of the interview is available here (poor sound quality unfortunately). In the interview, Dr Jones is asked for his opinion on the treatment. He describes it as 'pioneering'. He goes on to say that, "Pioneers in medicine tend to get a rough ride". He also relates an anecdote about someone he knows who is currently at the Burzynski Clinic and is receiving 'excellent treatment'.

I am left wondering what messages this interview sends out to viewers, some of whom will know of cancer sufferers. My conclusions are:

•  a treatment which is not available in the UK must be a treatment worth having.
•  a treatment which is 'pioneering' and 'experimental' is a treatment worth having.
•  a treatment which is not validated by the relevant medical authorities is a treatment worth having.
•  a treatment which demands enormous personal and financial sacrifices is a treatment worth having.
•  parents are entitled to try anything possible to find a cure for their children.

I believe none of these stand up to close scrutiny.

In my view Dr Jones has done a disservice to the sufferers of cancer and their friends and relatives. It isn't surprising when parents have an emotional response to the situation they find themselves in. It isn't surprising when the media use that emotional response to produce a piece which will grab the attention of viewers/readers.

I find it surprising that a doctor should do no more than amplify that response to the exclusion of all else. Readers of this and other blogs and followers of #Burzynski on Twitter will be well aware of the issues surrounding this 'pioneering' and 'experimental' treatment. If you need further information follow these links:

Quackometer - Dr Hilary Jones Promotes Questionable Burzynski Clinic on TV

Josephine Jones - Dear Evening Standard, it is immoral to promote the Burzynski Clinic

The 21st Floor - Burzynski: A Small Victory

The Latest From The Observer

Received this evening (3.12.2011 - 7.20 pm)

Thank you for your email. I have examined this issue closely and have
written a column on it for Sunday. Thank you for taking the trouble to
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Best wishes,
Stephen Pritchard
Readers' editor
The Observer