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There has been lots of talk recently in the Australian media about CAM in universities. A new lobby group known as Friend of Science in Medicine was recently established to get the discussion going about whether this is a good thing. (Full disclosure, I recently added my name to the 400-long list of doctors, scientists and concerned citizens who are worried about pseudoscience creeping into universities).

The discussion has ruffled some feathers and I think this is a good thing. As I said in a comment on The Conversation, what is wrong with us looking at these courses and determining if what they are teaching is evidence-based? If we find there is nothing wrong, then we can carry on our merry way.

Yet, some CAM peeps don’t seem to see it this way. Some have been behaving as if they are being persecuted. Some are claiming that taking CAM out of unis puts the public at risk as practitioners are more likely exposed to shonky teaching (I haven’t seen any evidence for this, but as usual I’m willing to look at it if it’s true).

But this misses the point that it doesn’t matter where you teach it, if it’s nonsense outside of a university it remains nonsense when taught in one. Teaching homoeopathy or tactile therapy in a university environment won’t make it work. To see how homeopathy works, go here.

The argument got rather heated on Twitter recently with Prof Kerryn Phelps jumping in the mix. I had quite a long conversation with her, which remained mostly civil (if not a little strained) until I suggested we weed out the stuff we know doesn’t work or exist, such as subluxations in chiropractic and homeopathy.

The response I got was odd to say the least and I’m still unsure exactly what she was getting at. See the screen shot below (read from bottom up).

Some people suggested this was an example of the No True Scotsman fallacy, which I kinda agree with. More simply, it appears to say “don’t mention homoeopathy, even we’re embarrassed by that”. If you have another idea, please leave a comment.

Someone else called “SkepNurse” also posed the question to Prof Phelps regarding which CAM she would unequivocally say was not worth pursuing any more, either because it can never work or has been proven not to. She posted these tweets on Jan 26th and is still awaiting a direct answer.

Anyway, I’d been poking around for information on whether homeopathy was taught in universities as a stand alone course, and I hadn’t found any evidence. CAM practitioners had confirmed this as well, pointing out that it was a requirement to enter Bachelor of Health Science (Complementary Medicine) at Charles Sturt University but was not taught as a separate subject.

Well, they were wrong.

Homeopathy is taught as a stand alone course subject at a publicly funded university in NSW as part of Southern Cross University’s Bachelor of Clinical Sciences. They offer introductory homeopathy and clinical homeopathy. It is also offered as a service in the health clinic

There is even a prize offered at SCU.

The Warren Brauer Memorial Prize – Homoeopath Dispensary to the value of $500

Awarded to the Naturopathy award graduate who has exhibited a high level of proficiency in the understanding and application of homeopathy.
Donated by Brauer Natural Medicine Pty Ltd

SCU is a publicly funded university who received $32 million of federal funding in 2011. Thus, public funding is going towards the teaching of nonsense in Australian Universities.

When I’ve previously written about public funding for homeopathy in Australia the most I could do was speculate about how much it might cost the tax payer. It’s complicated because our public health system does not directly fund homeopathy as health care, but it does supplement private health funds (which do cover homoeopathy) and also some doctors/gps will prescribe recommend it.

This is the first evidence I have found that tax payers funds directly fund this nonsense. And what a waste of money it is.

I’ve written to SCU to ask for their course outlines for both classes. Let’s hope I get them so I can get a better idea of exactly what they teach.

With continued pressure from FSM, this conversation will likely continue for some time. I would like to see the first casualty be these courses at SCU.

This comment on The Conversation has really summed up this debate for me so far. It’s from Didier Nave, an ex-herbalist of 25 years and the following excerpt speaks volumes;

Time to face the facts. The data is coming in and its not looking good. It’s clearly showing that what we do is not much better than placebo. So the question is do we have the humility to accept the evidence and dump these theories. I doubt it….Have i seen the industry contest or reject its own stupidities like live blood analysis or “detoxing” when it can’t name one toxin that its methods supposedly detox? No, it embraces them instead.”

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To see how The Dean of the School of Health, Professor Iain Graham, defends woo in his uni, see Mick Vagg’s post here.

There’s more info on woo in public and non-public facilities here.

Thanks to Loretta Marron for assisting with research.

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More interesting reading on the current debate (and for healthy discussion in comments) see two recent articles from The Conversation;

Alternative Medicine Can Be Sientific Say Besieged Academics

Pointing The Bone At Chiropractic Quackery Lessons From the UK

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If you’re interested in signing your name to FSM, you can find their Facebook page here

To see the investigation of woo in universities from The Skeptic magazine (and written by Tim Mendham with research from Jo Benhamu) go here (pdf).

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I mean most of them already stock homeopathy and woo like ear candles and holographic wrist bands, a lot have in-residence naturopaths and iridologists. But now there’s yet another way to rip off consumers by selling them stuff they don’t need, this time when they’re trying to get a prescription filled*.

It has just been announced that the Pharmacy Guild and Blackmores have joined forces to upsell you Blackmores supplements when filling a prescription. It’s all explained in the video below but basically now when you go to a pharmacist to get a script, a computer programme will match your medication to a Blackmores product, then the pharmacist will attempt to upsell you, by saying you need it if you’re taking that medication.

What a sweet deal between the Pharmacy Guild – the organisation who essentially manage the business side of pharmacies – and what a great little earner for Blackmores. The only people who are in line to get ripped off in this partnership are the consumers who will likely get sold expensive and unnecessary supplements. As Dr Ginni says in the video below, it’s the equivalent of saying “do you want fries with that?”.

It pains me to think that pharmacists exploit their status as one of Australia’s most trusted professions by doing crap like this. Do they really care about their patients anymore or are they only interested in lining their back pockets?  (The previous statement was made in frustration. Thanks to @pakili1987 for pointing out that this will not translate into a boon for individual pharmacists. It’s a ruling made by the Guild and many of them fervently disagree with it).

And they’ve really picked their timing on this haven’t they. Are they hoping we wouldn’t remember the recent TGA audit of CAM which found ninety percent of complementary medicines didn’t comply with regulations? Out of 31 selected for random audit;

• 22 were found to have manufacturing and/or quality issues
• 20 medicines had labelling issues or breaches which may mislead consumers
• 14 did not have adequate evidence to substantiate claims made about the medicines

That so many products failed to even satisfy quality or manufacturing standards has led for calls by the TGA to label supplements with “untested”. And why not. Consumers have a right to know they’re buying something that probably does nothing and in some case may even be harmful.

According to The Age;

“Obtaining evidence of efficacy of listed complementary medicines has been a difficult issue,” the audit report said.

“While most products are safe, if often ineffective, Australian research last year identified 39 reports of adverse events associated with such products, including four deaths over the previous two years.”

“Official inaction on the efficacy issue has been blamed on the Government’s reluctance to pay for tighter policing of the remedies, but also on pressure from industry leaders, including, Marcus Blackmore who rejects the disclaimer idea.

ORLY.

As for the Pharmacy Guild, never mind that our products don’t comply with TGA rules for safety and manufacturing, let’s gets our white coated “trusted” friends to push ‘em on consumers anyway! What the hey! BUY OUR SHIT!

Disgraceful.

I remember one of the first things I ever did when becoming an active skeptic was sit with Richard Saunders and write an open letter to the pharmacists of Australia asking them to stop selling quackery. That was three years ago and instead of things getting better they only seem to be getting worse.

Well done Pharmacy Guild of Australia for taking the piss out of consumers and bringing your “trusted” profession into disrepute again. Shame on you.

*BTW I am uncertain this is a brand new idea. I’ve certainly had pharmacy staff attempt to upsell me supplements when being prescribed antibiotics but it only happened once and it was a long time ago. I presume this new deal means the upsell will now be exclusively Blackmores – what I don’t know is if means it will be more common place.

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QUICK UPDATE: From an article in Fairfax this morning.

“He said it was the first time the Guild’s computer system, which is used by about 70 per cent of members, would prompt pharmacists to discuss complementary medicines with patients. The system has been used to alert pharmacists to potential drug interactions or medication compliance issues.”

What a dirty money grabbing exercise this is. Worse than I previously thought.

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The backlash from the BCA decision to sue Simon Singh back in 2009 resulted in a huge Streisand Effect for the profession. Attempting to silence Singh with legal chill had many knock-on effects including one in every four chiropractors in the UK being investigated for making false claims in their advertising. To avoid prosecution, the McTimoney chiropractors emailed all their members and instructed them to take down their websites and “remove information leaflets that state you treat whiplash, colic or other childhood problems in your clinic..”.

Here in Australia we haven’t seen anything as hysterical as this, but our paranoid friends over at the AVN were clearly worried, issuing a warning in their Nov 2010 newsletter that sceptics were posing as clients and reporting chiros to the authorities.

To me, this seems like a silly way to go about reporting chiros – paying them. It’s much simpler to just take a look at their websites or promotional material. Just like the anti-vax handouts I was given by Nimrod “I’m not anti-vaccine, i just don’t recommend it” Weiner, whom I’ve blogged about previously.

Of course, none of this would be a problem if they simply operated within their code of conduct and stuck to cracking backs.

So I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised to see this claim in a leaflet sent to me by a friend earlier today:

The text says; IQ – A study demonstrated an increase in visual perception, motivation, performance and 100% of the sample group showed an increase in IQ.

One hundred percent of the sample group showed an increase in IQ? Wow, what an extraordinary claim! You’ll note there is no reference provide for this “study”, but if you want one, why not contact them through their website. (The page above is taken from a newsletter from October 2007).

As @cactopos suggested on Twitter; “I guess you could argue that alternative medicine increases everyone else’s IQ thru a process of natural selection?”. Touche Cactopos.

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This was retweeted by many people, including Adam Savage from Mythbusters who has almost 400,000 followers.

Pretty soon after, the phrase “Power Balance admits” was the second most popular topic trending worldwide – behind Macaulay Cullkin whose girlfriend apparently dumped him today (insert joke here about “home alone”. Other people have. Not my fault).

You can see that even as I kept refreshing the page, many more tweets were occurring. In this screen shot, there are 1,554 more tweets since I started searching just a few minutes earlier.

It took some time for Power Balance to respond, but respond they did, initially with this.

The link goes to the statement reproduced below:

Per the ruling from the ACCC, we are working to correct the marketing and advertising claims made by Power Balance in Australia. As we have always done, we are offering any dissatisfied customers a full refund through our 30-day no questions asked money back policy. To be clear, we are permitted to continue selling Power Balance in Australia. This is simply a matter of correcting prior marketing claims. From its inception, Power Balance has lived and thrived in the ultimate testing environment, the real world. Power Balance is committed to every athlete in the world from professional to recreational. We have heard from fitness professionals, athletes, coaches, personal trainers and everyday users who tell us they have experienced benefits from Power Balance for themselves, their clients and teams. While we continue to see, hear and learn about how people all around the world believe that our products have positively affected their lives, we will continue to invest both our time and resources in producing the best and most innovative products.

Which basically says that even though they admitted that “there is no scientific evidence that supports our claims and therefore we engaged in misleading conduct” people have told us our product is good n’stuff so, hey, whatever! What followed was a series of truly pathetic tweets, one can only guess, designed to distract people from the elephant on the tweet stream.

Which only set them up for satire from everyone following this sad affair.

Did someone say PWNED?

—— UPDATE:
The international media has picked up on this story overnight and there are now dozens of stories appearing all over the globe. Power Balance has gone into damage control on their Twitter feed, asserting that:

# The existing reports out there r fundamentally incorrect. We did not make claims that r product doesnt perform. We stand behind r products
about 3 hours ago via TweetDeck

# Power Balance works, we guarantee it.
about 3 hours ago via TweetDeck

They have since been hammered even more for directly contradicting the statement on their own website which says; “In our advertising we stated that Power Balance wristbands improved your strength, balance and flexibility. We admit that there is no credible scientific evidence that supports our claims and therefore we engaged in misleading conduct in breach of s52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974.”

Power Balance bracelets are ‘no better than a rubber band’: A-list accessory maker forced to give refunds by advertising watchdog – The Daily Mail

PowerBalance Admits There’s No Proof It Works – The Consumerist

Power Balance says no science behind wristbands – Sports Illustrated

Power Balance: No science behind wristbands – CBS Sports

Maker admits no science behind popular bracelets – Chicago Tribune

Sadly, this is not the first time I have reported on deaths associated with the use of homeopathy. Recently there was the case of the untreated eczema death of toddler Gloria Sam, for which her parents were convicted of manslaughter.

Penelope Dingle died in 2005 from untreated bowel cancer aged 45 after being diagnosed in 2003. She first presented with bleeding from the bowel in 2001. Following a colonoscopy, she was advised by doctors to have surgery to remove the cancer. She declined conventional cancer treatment, instead deciding on following a regimen of alternative treatments including special diets, vitamins and homeopathy.

Her husband is Dr Peter Dingle, a prominent Professor of Environmental Toxicology at Murdoch University in Perth and a media personality and author. Modelling himself as a kind of Aussie Joseph Mercola, he has a flashy website and has written such titles as “Is your home making you sick?”, “Improve your memory, your thinking and your life” and “The six week healthy eating planner”, the latter co-written with a naturopath (read: not a doctor).

The inquest was conducted at the request of the family following Mrs Dingle’s death in 2005. According to evidence given at the inquest from friends of Mrs Dingle and from her diaries, she and her husband made a pact with homeopath Francine Scrayen to not take any conventional treatment including pain relief. Dr Dingle also planned to write a book about how to cure cancer with homeopathy and alternative treatments once his wife was cured. A friend of the couple testified they were “enthralled and entrapped” in the spell of Ms Scrayen.

A report from the West Australian newspaper described;
“….Pen had so much faith in Francine. She was totally in her control”.

The friend described how Mrs Dingle has called the homeopath “at least a dozen times a day” and would only consume homeopathic medicines prescribed by her.

She came to visit Mrs Dingle in 2003, and was shocked to see how emaciated she was, since she had been assured by the couple that Mrs Dingle was responding well to the treatment. When the friend spoke to the homeopath, who consulted exclusively by phone, her concerns were dismissed, with the homeopath saying Mrs Dingle’s pain “was in her head” and she merely had constipation. She would not allow Mrs Dingle to take any other forms of medicine.

The friend also described how Mrs Dingle moaned in pain every night she was there, and even a visiting nurse who rated her pain nine on scale of ten was unable to convince her to take pain relief. Eventually she did succumb, receiving morphine in hospital and emergency surgery. This was only after she was advised by doctors that she would vomit feacal matter and die an excrutiatingly painful death within 24 hrs if she did not. Her bowel was completely obstructed by the tumour at this stage and she had not had a movement for 12 days.

It was too late for Mrs Dingle by this stage as the cancer has metastasized after such a long period of neglect and she died in 2005.

The question now is will the homeopath be held accountable for contributing to the death? I am not familiar with the legislation in WA, but in NSW it is illegal to claim to be able to cure incurable diseases, in accordance with the Code of Conduct for Unregistered Practitioners, legislated by the HCCC. But technically, homeopaths are actually not unregistered practitioners since they do have a regulatory body, the Australian Homeopathic Association which has a code of conduct of their own.

It seems you don’t need to dig very deep to see where Mrs Scrayen has breached the code (mind you on looking through it, it is not particularly specific about harm or seeking conventional medical advice when necessary).

Section 1, part 1 under general principles of professional conduct, states that:
“the welfare of patients…..shall take precedence over a member’s self interest and the interests of employees and colleagues.”

Section 2, part 2 also states:
“Members shall not …cause undue harm to patients.”

The only other section that is relevant in this case is Section 2.4:

“Patients whose state of health is deteriorating shall not be attended indefinitely without the member in charge suggesting or insisting upon a consultation with at least one other practitioner to confirm the assessment and treatment.”

But by stating “at least one other practitioner” does suggest another homeopath, not like a proper doctor or anything, you know the ones who are qualified to treat cancer for example.

The HCCC Code of Conduct is not so ambiguous. Section 5 states:

“Health practitioners not claim to make claims to cure certain serious illnesses. (1) a health practitioner must not hold him or herself out as qualified, able or willing to cure cancer and other terminal illnesses.”

Now I don’t know if the homeopath claimed she could cure Mrs Dingle’s cancer – this information has not been revealed as far as I know. It might be the case that the couple made the decision to only use homeopathy and not conventional medicine. But even of this is true, the homeopath did apparently forbid Mrs Dingle from using conventional pain relief and surely this breaches either code of conduct for responsible behaviour.

We will wait and see. In the meantime, this is yet another sad case to add to the hundreds on the What’s the Harm website. It makes you wonder what exactly motivates people to shun science based medicine, and especially in this case, where the alternative was just water and the desire to pursue this line of treatment even after it became obvious the magic vibrating water was not helping.

Add to this, the fact that Dr Dingle has a PhD? None of it makes sense.

Precious metals nanowater? The panel is unimpressed. “Is there insanity in there?” Watch to see them kick him off the set, by calling him “offensive”, “crazy” and “disgusting” when he claims to be able to cure cervical cancer and leukemia.

Thanks to Chris for the tip-off.

(NB: I say magic because there is no known mechanism described in science to explain how these things apparently “work”, and I place work in inverted commas because these things have no effect above placebo, so technically they don’t work either).

A print advertisement and Australian website linking to the American version was found to breach the Advertising code sections 4(1)(b), 4(2)(a), 4(2)(c), 4(2)(d), 4(2)(i), 4(7), 5(2), 7(3) (see box below) following a complaint by an individual.

The website, classified as an advertisement by the regulatory body, promoted a range of LifeWave patches, namely the SP6 patch, Y-Age patch, Icewave patch, Energy Enhancer patch, and Silent Nights patch. For a description of the apparent functions of these patches (and an interesting exchange with a believer), you might be interested in reading my previous blog about Lifewave here.

This is an interesting case for consideration, since The Panel first had to decide who was responsible for the advertisements as the parent website (lifewave.com) is based in the US and the website which attracted the complaint is linked to it from Australia. They concluded that the website was in fact the responsibility of the Australian distributor, given that the url had been personalised (www.LifeWave.com/bodyinharmony).

Information on retailer websites is the responsibility of the website publisher

Publishers of websites should be aware that they are responsible for the material they publish, regardless of whether they have copied that material from product packaging or other websites. Some online retailers appear to be of the view that it is acceptable to duplicate information from such sources for the purposes of advertising products for sale, but take no responsibility for the publication of the information.
Reproduced from the Complaints Resolution Panel website.

The Panel found that the claims relating to the patches being effective in appetite control, craving control, weight loss, detoxification, antioxidant boost, anti-aging, skin repair, pain relief, relief of pain from injuries, relief of chronic pain, relief of migraines, relief of arthritis, enhancing energy, enhancing stamina, reducing fatigue, and promoting restful sleep, had not been verified, were misleading, and could not be substantiated by the advertiser, therefore constituted a breach of the code [Section 4(2)(a)].

In the report published on the website, the Panel stated that;

“…they were not satisfied that the material provided by the advertiser constituted even minimally persuasive evidence that the advertised products could have the therapeutic benefits claimed in the advertisements”.

In particular the Panel targeted testimonials published on the website. As part of the code, testimonials are required to be documented, not misleading and be regarded as plausible illustrations for the potential benefits of the product. The concluded that claims such as “wow 20 seconds my pain was gone” and “90 seconds lower back pain was gone”, were indeed not plausible and therefore breached the code (Section 4.7).

The Panel did not accept photos like these as sufficient evidence that Michael Phelps uses Lifewave patches. Funny that.

The website also made claims that the patches were used by the swimmer Michael Phelps and several AFL football players, but the advertiser was unable to provide evidence for this, apart from the following statement;

“(they had) been told by LifeWave staff in Australia who hold training sessions that Michael Phelps has used the patches and that a few of the AFL teams have begun using the patches” and “there are photos on the internet that show Michael Phelps with the patches on his body.”

Then panel deemed this insufficient evidence and therefore concluded that these claims breached the code.

In Australia it is prohibited to advertise products that claim to treat or cure serious diseases/ailments, such as cardiovascular disease. The Panel deemed that the Lifewave website breached this section of the code [5(2)], by including “research” information which referred to “heart rate variability enhancement through nanotechnology” and many other references to heart rate variability, “increase[ing] glutathione levels in the body”, and other references to health issues.

In a meeting held on April 16, 2009, The Panel ruled that the advertiser was to withdraw the advertisements from further publication; and withdraw any representations that the advertised products are safe, or that they have benefits in relation to appetite control, craving control, weight loss, detoxification, antioxidant boost, anti-aging, skin repair, pain relief, relief of pain from injuries, relief of chronic pain, relief of migraines, relief of arthritis, enhancing energy, enhancing stamina, reducing fatigue, or promoting restful sleep.

The Advertiser was given 14 days to comply with this ruling and was instructed to provide evidence to The Panel of this compliance.

Which apparently the advertiser decided did not entirely suit them, since you can still find the website, in it’s shiny misleading, code breaching glory.

Which leads me to question; who is responsible for enforcing these rulings? How is it that these people get a slap on the wrist, ignore the ruling and carry on their merry way, selling products for which there is no evidence of efficacy? There should be a process whereby I can easily and quickly alert the TGA to the non-compliance and there should be substantial penalties for non-compliance.

Until there is, then the TGA Complaints Resolution Panel is about a effective as an ashtray on a motor bike = useless.

It was entitled “OUR RELATIONS WITH HOMEOPATHY”

and was in response to speeches previously published regarding “..prevailing professional laxity and charlatanry, in connection with the homeopathic quackery”.

Dr McCormack had some pretty scathing things to say about homeopathy and its use by “…shallow men and women…able to lure lucre by every imaginable wile from the sick and the silly”.

He went on to say;

“When patients are once secured, they are, ….retained by the combination of every current medical novelty which may at the time be most in favour with the moneyed throng of quack-fanciers“.

“..homoeopathy…is truly a combination of any and every available charlatanic trick,…..and therefore all that remains for us, as men of science and men of integrity, is to give notice, that we exclude from all professional intercourse practitioners who are in any way engaged in using or upholding a system which we think bears upon its very face fraud as well as absurdity“.

Wow, pretty serious stuff. One might imagine you could now get sued for saying things like this, ala, the BCA and Simon Singh.

But McCormack went further than this by listing a series of guidelines desscribing how clinicians who used or practiced homeopathy should be received by their medical colleagues;

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“1. That it is the opinion of this (Provincial) Association, that homoeopathy as propounded by Hahnemann, and practised by his followers, is so utterly opposed to science and common sense, as well as so completely at variance with the experience of the Medical Profession, that it ought to be in no way or degree practised or countenanced by any regularly educated medical practitioner.

2. That homoeopathic practitioners, through the press, the platform, and the pulpit, have endeavoured to heap contempt upon the practice of Medicine and Surgery as followed by members of this Association, and by the profession at large.

3. That for these reasons it is derogatory to the honour of members of this Association to hold any kind of professional intercourse with homoeopathic practitioners.

4. That there are three classes of practitioners who ought not to be members of this Association, viz.-lst, real homeopathic practitioners; 2nd, those who practise homoeopathy in combination with other systems of treatment; and 3rd, those who under various pretences meet in consultation, or hold professional intercourse with those who practise homoeopathy”.

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Finally;

“To adopt resolutions setting forth that the homeopathic dogma and the doctrine of infinitesimal doses have no truthful basis, and are, in fact, mere nonsensical delusions…The worst part of homeopathy, is in my opinion, the DISHONESTY of the majority of those who live by it”.

So there you go, homoeopathy, declared bullshit as early as 1851.

You can find the full reference here.

Tip o’the hat to Jo Benhamu.

This story appeared on SMH online today. It details plans to establish a register for quacks, apparently in an attempt to separate the wheat from the chaff. Sounds a little bit like the register set up in the UK recently and blogged about here.

I read this article with trepidation, firstly because I think putting quacks on a register lends legitimacy to their profession and this is undeserved in my opinion.

“The industry’s reputation was dealt a blow this month after the NSW Supreme Court convicted a homeopath of the manslaughter of his nine-month-old daughter, who died of septicemia caused by chronic eczema.”

Yes, the industry was dealt a blow, but this was not because of a shonky homeopath, this was because homeopathy does not work in the treatment of eczema. Or any other illness in fact. A meta-analysis published in the Lancet in 2005 compared 110 conventional and homeopathy trials and the effect of homeopathy was deemed no greater than placebo (Shang et al., Lancet 2005; 366: 726–32).

An editorial which appeared in the same issue of the Lancet stated; “despite 150 years of unfavourable findings…the more dilute the evidence for homeopathy becomes, the greater seems its popularity.” Why we keep wasting money and good science on testing it, to continually get the same answer is beyond me.

The article continues;
University of Queensland researcher Jon Wardle, who heads a steering committee to set-up a register said; “We are making sure that when the public sees a naturopath they have training, act ethically and if something goes wrong, there is a complaints procedure,” he said. Mr Wardle said the lack of formal accreditation meant people with as little as one week’s training could call themselves naturopaths and it is these people who dispense a large quantity homeopathic remedies.

This is where I get annoyed. Firstly, there is a complaints procedure in NSW. It was established with the new Code of Conduct for Unregistered Practitioners which was introduced in August 2008. Section 17 of the code states that practitioners must display the Code and information about the way in which clients may make a complaint to the HCCC if necessary.

Funny that, I went to Mind Body Wallet a few weeks back armed with my code and saw it displayed nowhere, neither at stalls doing invasive procedures such as live blood analysis, or massage or anywhere.

I have to say, I am not convinced that the relevant regulatory bodies/associations or members of them are particularly concerned about following the rules when it comes to legislation. In NSW at least, they seem to have dutifully ignored conforming to this recent legislation. I am suspicious that the establishment of a nationwide register is really just a sneaky way to add undeserved legitimacy to profession where there is scant evidence for efficacy.

But this is not the worst part about this article. The article was penned by 2 journalists, Rachel Browne and Melissa Singer, neither of whom seem to understand much about what constitutes conventional medicine or doctors. They refer to a British podiatrist and homeopath Tariq Khan, as Dr Khan. This is misleading and infers that Khan is a clinical doctor, naturopaths use the title ND, (and referred to by some as not a doctor). They tell us that Dr Khan recommends homeopathy be used in conjunction with conventional treatment. And of course a homeopath is going to endorse the use of homeopathy.

The man apparently had talks with the head of dermatology at St George Hospital, Dedee Murrell, to discuss using homeopathic remedies for an incurable disease, the rare genetic condition epidermolysis bullosa. Let me state that again. Homeopathy as treatment for an incurable disease. This following the beginning of the article where the journalists discuss the parents of Gloria Thomas being charged with manslaughter for shunning conventional medicine and treating their daughter’s eczema with homeopathy. She subsequently died.

This is very poor journalism. To begin an article with charges of manslaughter for a homeopathy-related death and then discuss using it for incurable diseases is just credulous on the part of Rachel and Melissa.

But then this; “The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and the Australasian Integrative Medicine Association have given qualified support to the use of complementary medicine where there is research about its outcomes.”

Precisely Rachel and Melissa. There is research. To show it does nought. Take a look at the Lancet article. Visit PubMed for goodness sake. Do some research, please.

Despite several rounds of chemotherapy and the best treatment available, her cancer has not regressed and the future does not look good. So, understandably, she is desperate – just the type of person likely to fall victim to unconventional treatments. She has previously been a victim of hair analysis, where she was told tomatoes were the cause of her problems and she could drink gin but not red wine (ridiculous). I previously blogged about hair analysis here and here.

Tonight she had a new magic treatment to tell my Mum about – the Vega machine. This thing is so good it can analyse the type of bacteria in your gut by placing an electrode between the toes of your right foot. My Mum called me on the way home to ask me if it was BS. Of course, I strongly suspected immediately that it was, but to be sure in two clicks of a mouse and a 30 sec Google search I was found to be correct.

Vega - the biggest star in the constellation of Lyra. Unlike the Vega machine, a spectacular sight, not a spectacular rip-off.

What is the Vega machine or Vega test?

The apparatus consists of a box containing a galvanometer which compares the resistance between the skin in contact with a hand electrode and the skin tested with a measuring stylus. The other contents of the box are an electrical source. For a more thorough explanation of the electronics behind the Vega machine see here.

Proponents claim; “Over 120 substances which include common foods and drinks and environmental substances are tested during our consultation. The equipment we use is a bio-electronic analyzer which measures the body’s electrical resistance to these substances. If a substance is causing a problem then it there will be a dip or drop in body’s electrical resistance”.

The Vega food sensitivity machine

Does it work? [NO]

A 2003 investigation by the BBC sent subjects to undergo Vega testing at different health food shops in the UK, and reported that test results varied from store to store. The report revealed that one subject was allergic to 33 different types of food, with only three being agreed upon by the testers across stores. Further, one reporter was told he needed to take a total of 20 different vitamins and minerals. But again, the testers couldn’t seem to agree and all three testers advised different supplements.

When the manufacturer, Health Screen International (HSL), were asked to explain themselves they said that the Vega machine is only about 70% accurate and “It does stretch the imagination how the Vega test works…But we have thousands of letters from people saying how much better they feel.”

Oh testimonials, of course. Any regular readers of this blog would know that testimonials do not constitute scientific evidence. The human mind is fallible, memories are remodelled and we sometimes inadvertently attribute an effect of one treatment when our body may have repaired itself naturally. Or we may have done something else to reverse the pain or illness. A red flag should always be raised if you come across a product or service that has no evidence for efficacy apart from testimonials. They are simply unreliable.

Even earlier than the 2003 BBC investigation, a paper was published in the Medical Journal of Australia, which concluded this:

Vega testing (the Vega test method) is an unorthodox method of diagnosing allergic and other diseases. It has no established scientific basis and there are no controlled trials to support its usefulness. Vega testing may lead to inappropriate treatment and expense to the patient and community (1).

And here’s what Quackwatch have to say about the likes of Vega test:

The devices described in this article are used to diagnose nonexistent health problems, select inappropriate treatment, and defraud insurance companies. The practitioners who use them are either delusional, dishonest, or both. These devices should be confiscated and the practitioners who use them should be prosecuted.

At sceptics in the pub on Thursday evening, someone asked me what motivates me to do this stuff, especially since, as he put it, it is largely a thankless task. Well, this is part of the reason. Quacks making a quick buck from sick, vulnerable and desperate individuals really gets my goat.

I know my Mum’s friend – she’s much too vulnerable for me to explain that she is getting scammed. I can only hope that by educating other people like you dear reader, that we can avoid more harm.

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Postscript: Upon reflection, doesn’t this sound quite a lot like the K-test, featured in LBC radio recently and criticised by Ben Goldacre on Bad Science? Whilst it’s not exactly the same, Kymatica still use the food allergy line, but claim to be able to tell the difference between allergies and resistance, which they explain with a lot of jargon about IgG and IgE antibodies. Ooooh, sciencey!

(1) C H Katelaris et al., Med J Aust 1991; 155: 113-114.

For the story of a nurse’s tale about debunking quack devices masquerading as medical diagnostics, see this article from the Skeptic.