BRITISH MEDICINE is rapidly heading for a new Dark Age

THE CASE

The heir to the throne His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales (appropriately and correctly written in Latin as "Princeps Wallie") is clearly not a man of the Enlightenment otherwise he would know there is no such thing as alternative medicine, there is only proven medicine or unproven medicine. Once a particular therapy satisfies the "evidence based medicine" (EBM ) criteria it becomes proven and hence mainstream.

Similarly if new evidence shows that a therapy is no longer appropriate, then it should be dropped- like chloroform and ether for anaesthesia or the poisonous arsenic containing Salvarsan for syphilis or cupping or blood-letting.

In an article published in The Times 30/12/2000 the Prince himself wrote:

The traditional herbal remedy of St John's Wort, for example, has been found to work as well as tricyclic antidepressants in treating mild to moderate depression, with fewer side effects. Admittedly, there are reservations about its interaction with particular drugs - but sufficient science-based support is there to warrant its prescription in trained hands.

Fair enough, this is all true. So although St John's Wort is a traditional herbal medicine it also satisfies the EBM criteria, therefore it is not alternate - it is proven.

Contrast this with another of the misguided Prince's advocated therapies, reflexology. Reflexologists claim it has benefited almost anything including (but not limited to) improved sleep, boosted lymphatic system, detoxified system, improved circulation, promoted body awareness, increased vitality, balanced nervous system, cured head neck and back aches, abolished muscle and joint pain, removed digestive problems including diarrheoa and constipation, cured colds and flu, stopped travel sickness, abated period pain, cured infertility. There is not a shred of evidence that it does anything except give you a jolly good foot massage. In other words this is an unproven therapy.

The problem is that these therapies are taking an ever increasing proportion of the British health budget. The National Health Service (NHS) is funding a proliferation of alternative health services. British universities are teaching more alternative health courses leading to degrees. It is hard to see how learning a totally unscientific discipline (actually anti-scientific is a more accurate adjective) like homeopathy can justify the awarding of a BSc. Homeopathy is to pharmaceutics as astrology is to astronomy, in each case the former is fantasy and the latter is scientific. Time and time again homeopathy has been proven (yes proven!) to be exactly as effective as a placebo.

Some of the finest medical academics in Britain have complained about the Prince's involvement in pushing alternative medicine. They have highlighted inaccuracies in a British taxpayer funded book endorsed by the Prince titled "Complementary Health Care: A Guide for Patients". The book makes extravagant, unproven and even dangerous claims, such as that chiropractic and homeopathy can be used to treat asthma.

While we are at it let's not legitimise unproven therapies by labelling them "alternative". The word "alternative" suggests peers amongst equals, these therapies are not a true alternative. For example ear candling is not a real alternative to proper medical treatment for an ear infection. Similarly to label them "complementary" is also an attempt to legitimise them. The main thing they complement is the bank balance of the practitioner. Don't allow proponents to get away with these weasel words, they are simply unproven.

"Either it is true that a medicine works or it isn't. It cannot be false in the ordinary sense but true in some 'alternative' sense."

(Prof. Richard Dawkins, Oxford, April 2001)

It getting worse, now the meddling Prince's Foundation for Integrated Health is proposing a "Kitemark" scheme for medical services that agree to sign a pledge to provide complementary therapies.

Silver and gold levels of membership, with more stringent levels of criteria, would then follow, and eventually a fully fledged kite-marking scheme to accredit the quality of provision.

According to the Foundation's literature to earn this stigma a practice has to:

1. Agree to provide integrated care
2. Provide at least one complementary therapy in-house
3. Have at least one partner in the practice with a specialist interest in integrating conventional and complementary medicine
4. Ensure all partners are happy to discuss complementary therapies with patients
5. In order to retain their membership after three years, members will have to conduct significant event audits, clinical care audits and seek patient views on the integrated services offered by their practice

A little knowledge really is a dangerous thing.

MY VERDICT

University money is a scarce resource and is better used for teaching true science such as physics, chemistry and biology, than populist pseudo-intellectual alternative medicine.

The precious health budget should be use for actual proven therapies, not for unproven, and unscientific mumbo-jumbo.

Complementary and alternate health care practitioners and products need to be carefully monitored, self-monitoring is not sufficient.

Please let's not fall into this trap in Australia.