Social prescribing: introducing quackery through the backdoor?

Yesterday, I heard my ‘good friend’ Dr Michael Dixon (see here, here and here, for example) talk on the BBC about the “new thing” in healthcare: social prescribing. He explained, for instance, that social prescribing could mean treating a diabetic not with medication but with auto-hypnosis and other alternative therapies. At that moment, I wasn’t […]

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Richard Eaton’s excellent update on developments around complementary medicine

Dear edzard
I am sending you Richard Eaton’s excellent update on developments around complementary medicine. As you will know, the College is supportive of an integrated approach that offers each patient the best of both worlds – conventional and complementary. In both worlds it is important that treatment and advice offered is safe, appropriate and evidence […]

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Exposing lies in the realm of quackery

To a significant extent, this blog has always exposed untruths in the realm of alternative medicine – not just one or two, but hundreds. Obviously, some of them are more clear-cut than others. If, for instance, someone claims that acupuncture has been proven to be effective for a given condition, this many seem like a […]

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A one-day course in quackery for just £300: an occasion too good to be missed! | Edzard Ernst

This is your occasion to meet some of the most influential and progressive people in health care today! An occasion too good to be missed! The future of medicine is integrated – we all know that, of course. Here you can learn some of the key messages and techniques from the horses’ mouths. Book now before […]

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The only accredited Integrative Medicine diploma currently available in the UK | Edzard Ernst

Would you like to see a much broader range of approaches such as nutrition, mindfulness, complementary therapies and connecting people to green spaces become part of mainstream healthcare? No? Well, let me tell you about this exciting new venture anyway! It is being promoted by Dr Dixon’s ‘College of Medicine’ and claims to be “the […]

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Uncharitable charities? The example of ‘YES TO LIFE’ | Edzard Ernst

We tend to trust charities; many of us donate to charities; we think highly of the work they do and the advice they issue. And why shouldn’t we? After all, a ‘charity’ is ‘an institution or organization set up to provide help, money, etc, to those in need’. Not a hint at anything remotely sinister here – charities are good! […]

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Homeopathy: opinions of two outstanding experts | Edzard Ernst

The Nobel laureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan recently called homeopathy ‘bogus’. “They (homeopaths) take arsenic compounds and dilute it to such an extent that just a molecule is left. It will not make any effect on you. Your tap water has more arsenic. No one in chemistry believes in homeopathy. It works because of placebo effect,” he was quoted […]

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Six prominent proponents of homeopathy and 12 remarkable qualities | Edzard Ernst

Recently I have focussed several posts on well-known homeopaths and proponents of homeopathy; they include 6 prominent defenders of this therapy:

• Dr Peter Fisher, the Queen’s homeopath, 
• Dr Michael Dixon, GP, chair of the NHS Alliance, the College of Medicine and holder of many other posts, 
• Prof Michael Frass, intensive care physician at the University […]

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Should homeopathy be blacklisted in general practice? Doctor Michael Dixon’s profoundly misleading comments | Edzard Ernst

We could have expected it, couldn’t we? With so much homeopathy in the press lately, Dr Dixon (we have seen him on this blog before, for instance here, here and here) had to comment. His article in yesterday’s NURSING IN PRACTICE is far too perfect to abbreviate it; I just have to cite it in full (only the […]
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Johrei healing and the amazing Dr Dixon (presidential candidate for the RCGP) | Edzard Ernst

The founder of Johrei Healing (JH), Mokichi Okada, believed that “all human beings have toxins in their physical bodies. Some are inherited, others are acquired by ingesting medicines, food additives, unnatural food, unclean air, most drugs, etc. all of these contain chemicals which cannot be used by the body and are treated as poisons…….. Illness is no more than the body’s way of purifying itself to regain health……

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Will the UK ‘ROYAL COLLEGE OF GENERAL PRACTITIONERS’ soon become a ‘ROYAL COLLEGE OF QUACKERY’? | Edzard Ernst

One of my last posts prompted a comment informing us that Dr Dixon has just put himself forward as a candidate for the presidency of ‘THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF GENERAL PRACTITIONERS’ (RCGP) of the UK. This must be big news in the small world of alternative medicine and deserves further discussion.

Dr Dixon works in Cullompton Devon, where, according to […]

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Dr Dixon’s safe herbal medicine | Edzard Ernst

One of the UK’s most ardent promoters of outright unproven and disproven therapies must be Dr Michael Dixon. He has repeatedly and deservedly received a mention on this blog. Steven Novella even called him once a ‘pyromaniac in a field of (integrative) straw men’. This is because Steven felt that Dixon uses phony arguments to promote dodgy therapies. If you find this hard to believe (after all Dixon is a GP who heads important organisations such as the NHS Alliance and the College of Medicine), just look at him dabbling in spiritual healing. Unusual, to say the least, I’d say. If you want to learn more about the strange Dr Dixon, you should read my memoir where he makes several remarkable appearances.

I always delight when I stumble over something that one of my former co-workers (yes, Dixon and I did collaborate for many years) has said to the press...

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