The following text is a summary of a letter circulated by my colleagues in the Irish Association of Healthfood Stores. It was written by an Osteopath called Mardi Jameson in the Brixton Center in London. I feel that this information should be made available to more than our mailing list. I first published it a couple of months ago, and the responses I recieved are very interesting. Please see the bottom of the article. I have published every response rreceived regardless of what sentiment they expressed.
Dear Friend /Colleague,
You may not be aware that last week the controllers of BBC Health www.bbc.co.uk, one of the most accessed health websites in the world, decided to remove all coverage of complementary medicine!
They used to have substantial coverage with over 40 pages on this subject covering all the major therapies, their pros and cons, evidence for their effectiveness, how to find a qualified practitioner, etc. However the site has in recent months been targeted by the self-appointed ‘Quackbusters’, (scientists and medics vehemently opposed to complementary therapies such as Prof David Colquhon et al) who sent a deluge of letters and emails claiming that complementary therapies such as homeopathy and cranial osteopathy were ‘unscientific’ and should be removed. As a result large chunks of this part of the site were simply removed overnight and now, following recent cutbacks, it was decided that, rather than update this part of the site, it should simply be removed altogether!
It may seem incredible that a public service site this prominent can deem complementary medicine so insignificant that it no longer warrants any coverage other than the odd news story. This is despite the fact that complementary medicine is used favourably by a significant proportion of the population (recent surveys have estimated that around 1 in 5 Britons use it at some point or other) and that increasing numbers of people are now seeking to train in these therapies. However, as the ‘quack busters’ become more organised and active, evidence of the backlash against complementary medicine is appearing all over the place – such as the removal of NHS Trust funding for homeopathy, the threatened closure of the homeopathic hospitals, many negative news stories in the press and so on. Rather than taking a reasoned view and considering the evidence from good research studies on complementary medicine these individuals seem simply hell bent on trying to ’stamp out’ complementary medicine in any way possible. The BBC removal of complementary medicine coverage (which has been in place for almost 15 years!) is one example.
If you care about complementary medicine and believe information pages on it should be returned to BBCi, please, please take just a minute to express your views using their online comment form at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/feedback/ to make your view known. As a public service company they to listen to your views so your email will make a difference. Apparently for all the many letters and emails that they received that were against complementary medicine they only received a handful in support…
Therefore if you are in support please let them know so they may revise their thinking on this subject.
Please act as soon as possible and pass on these details to anyone else you know who may also be willing to write in support of complementary medicine.
Thank you.
Blogged by Hannah Dare
February 29th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Hi there, just a quick one. I am a regular critic of alternative medicine and run a sceptical site at quackometer.net. I am also aware of people like David Colquhoun and his activities. What I am not aware of is any concerted attempt to shut down BBC CAM web pages. I know people may have pointed out factual errors from time to time, but there is no desire to see the pages disappear, as you suggest.
What evidence do you have for a campaign? I am most interested? I for one would like sites like the BBC to give clear and well thought out information about CAM and its evidence base. I fear no site that does such a thing. I personally believe CAM is so popular because people are unaware of the nature of much CAM and the though behind it. As far as I understand, the BBC pulled the pages because they were demanding a lot of editorial time and few people visited them.
Your thoughts, and the evidence for a ‘campaign’ would be most welcome!
Andy
February 29th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Hannah said: Rather than taking a reasoned view and considering th evidence from good research studies on complementary medicine these individuals seem simply hell bent on trying to ’stamp out’ complementary medicine in any way possible.
Obviously there is a good reason why scientists want to ’stamp it out’ as you say. It doesn’t work. Why the hell would a scientist (not one but the vast majority!) not want a simple cure for everything from cancer to AIDS and Malaria as homeopathy claims?!? Does that make sense to you? The old story of conspiracy is totally baseless.
The grace period for homeopathy is over after 200 years and a large amount of negative studies and a small amount of positive ones. And the positive ones were fully expected if homeopathy is placebo as dictated by Bayesian theory and prior probability because of the scientific implausibility of homeopathy.
So we have two facts: i) homeopathy goes against current scientific laws and well established theories and ii) the clinical evidence for its efficacy are by no means conclusive, on the contrary they show that it is no better than placebo.
So, tell me again why we should pay taxes to fund homeopathy and why BBC should put it back?
March 1st, 2008 at 8:46 am
saddly it seems this is true this is what the beeb say The BBC’s response
The decision to remove the complementary medicine area of the health website was taken as part of a wider review of all the health content in order to enable the BBC to focus its efforts on creating new and exciting content.
In order to release resources for this redevelopment work, we’re reviewing existing content from an editorial and value-for-money perspective.
The complementary health section was incomplete and, therefore, not of a satisfactory editorial standard.
It also represented a small proportion of traffic to the site but was disproportionately time-consuming.
Therefore, the decision to take it down was based on a combination of factors: how much work it needed to maintain to a high editorial standard, how much this cost and how popular it was with site users.
We have already removed other sections of the health site and plan to reduce or remove others.
We appreciate people are disappointed this area of the site has been removed and apologise if the decision has appeared abrupt to site users or inconvenienced other sites linking to BBC Health.
The BBC will continue to cover complementary health in other areas of its output, such as TV, radio and news programmes, and may reassess its complementary health content in future.
March 7th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
It seems that someone forgot to tell the powers that be in the world renowned Harley Street and Mayo Clinics that complementary medicine is so terrible. It is promoted strongly and used in both places, especially in cancer patients. So who is right…Quack Busters or the real experts? A no-brainer wouldn’t you say? Quack Busters just got busted! I guess there was no investigative journalist available from the BBC that could get to the bottom of this…eh…mystery. Knee jerk reactions can be very dangerous and stupid things to have…but to err is human so the BBC can be forgiven for overreacting. Fool you once BBC, shame on Quack Busters. Fool you twice, shame on you. Now be good fellows and upload the web pages again.
Bernadette Ryan