SUCCESS: my first official complaint about a newspaper article

You might remember: I have been badly misquoted in an article in THE DAILY TELEGRAPH. Based on a newly published scientific paper, the Telegraph article was about herbal medicines and their potential to interact with synthetic drugs. Towards its end, it cited me stating this:

Emeritus Professor Edzard Ernst, Britain’s first professor of complementary medicine at Exeter University said that doctors should make it clear to patients that they could not be taking herbal remedies alongside drugs...

SUCCESS: my first official complaint about a newspaper article

Why should homeopathic medicines escape the NHS prescribing ban? 10 possible answers

THE TELEGRAPH reported that “homeopathic medicines will escape an NHS prescribing ban even though the Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies has dismissed the treatments as ‘rubbish’ and a waste of taxpayers money.”

But why?

This sounds insane!

Sorry, I do not know the answer either, but below I offer 10 possible options – so bear with me, please.

The NHS spends around £4 million a year on homeopathic remedies, the article claimed. Sandra Gidley, chairwoman of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, said: “We are surprised that homeopathy, which has no scientific evidence of effectiveness, is not on the list for review. We are in agreement with NHS England that products with low or no clinical evidence of effectiveness should be reviewed with urgency.”[…]

Read the full story

Goodbye, Goop: 7 of Gwyneth Paltrow's most ridiculous recommendations

How do you like your eggs in the morning? Up your cooch, if you're Gwyneth Paltrow. Its mother hen allegedly parted ways from her online lifestyle site, Goop, last year, but its recent suggestion that women insert jade eggs (which are golf-ball sized. Gulp) into their vaginas to aid "hormonal balance, and feminine energy in general" seems decidedly Paltrow-esque.

Some women might have better uses for $66, but not Goop's users who, presumably fuelled by kimchi shakes and the fumes of organic hand-sanitiser...

Read on: Goodbye, Goop: 7 of Gwyneth Paltrow's most ridiculous recommendations

How does naturopathy work? A bit like a flying vacuum-cleaner to Mars � Spectator Blogs

Every so often you read a piece about alternative medicine that asks: how does it work? How does homeopathy work, how does acupuncture work, etc. There was a piece in the Telegraph recently that asked: how does naturopathy work?

There was a complicated answer about ‘healthy electromagnetic frequencies’ and so on; ‘bioresonance’, ‘modalities’, and a marvellous quote about how

‘Every cell in the body puts out a certain electromagnetic frequency, that can be measured – a healthy stomach cell sounds different to a healthy brain cell…’

Read the rest of this excellent post by Tom Chivers (who is a journalist at The Telegraph) here: How does naturopathy work? A bit like a flying vacuum-cleaner to Mars | Spectator Blogs

No, it's not often we link to the Spectator.

Irresponsible promotion of quackery even by the ‘respectable’ press | Edzard Ernst

The question that I hear with unfailing regularity when talking about alternative medicine is WHY IS IT SO POPULAR? I always struggle to find a simple answer – mainly because there is no simple answer. The reasons for patients and consumers to use alternative medicine are complex and multiple. They range from dissatisfaction with conventional medicine to clinging to the last straw. However, one factor is very clearly always involved: the often bafflingly uncritical promotion of quackery by the daily papers – and that even includes those with a reputation for being respectable.

Yesterday’s article in THE TELEGRAPH is as good an example as any. In the following section, I quote excerpts from it and add my own comments in bold. 

It is perhaps easier to list what the naturopath Katrin Hempel doesn’t offer her clients than what she does. “Bioresonance and live blood analysis, acupuncture, biopuncture, infusion therapy, oxyvenation…”

Read more: Irresponsible promotion of quackery even by the ‘respectable’ press