Money for nothing

[thermalsatsuma]

Ten million quid.

That's what the NHS (aka the taxpayer aka you and me) spent on refurbishing a hospital. Not your local hospital down the road that's strapped for cash. Not a centre of excellence for the treatment of cancer or heart disease. Not a hospice or a children's ward. Not even paying the salaries of five hundred nurses.

No.

This was to do up The London Homeopathic Hospital, including fitting some very nice wooden floors (don't see those down at the local A&E very often). Homeopathy is untested, unproven and, to put it mildly, complete nonsense - ingredients diluted to the point of non-existence (supposedly to one molecule in the entire solar system), water that somehow retains a memory of one molecule and not anything else that is been in contact with, a principle that sounds plausible ("like cures like") until you stop and think about it for more than a moment. The beneficial effects that are seen are more to do with the practitioners (who require no formal training or qualification to be able to charge large sums for their services) having the luxury of spending an hour listening sympathetically to the patients before giving them a small vial of water. If they gave them a teabag and warmed the water up, then it really would be tea and sympathy that the NHS is paying for.

Believe what you like, but at the heart of all of these remedies - the atlantean DNA realignment, kineseology, chakras, pick 'n' mix angels, crystals, spirit healing and the rest - there will always be somebody making a fast buck. It's big business too - to the tune of 1.6 billion pounds last year (how many hospitals could that fund?).

The danger comes in rejecting proven, scientifically tested therapies for no good reason. If you choose not have treatment for a disease in favour of paying money to have extra triangles inserted in your DNA then it's your lookout. When tabloid reading middle class parents who were happy to trust in the herd immunity of other people as long as they didn't have to have their own children treated rejected the MMR vaccine, the inevitable result has been the reappearance of measles as a deadly disease.

Comments

[flamingkitties.livejournal.com]

I like that Dawkins chap.

"(don't see those down at the local A&E very often)" - that's because wooden floors are not that hygienic. But as there's no real clinical work going on, it doesn't matter that much, does it. Sprinkle some water on it.

[amberb-uk.livejournal.com]

There's another side to all this - and that's that no one is prepared to fund proper research into things we *can* prove are of benefit. As you know, I speak from experience as a Clinical Aromatherapist.

In fact, pharmaceutical companies would really rather it *weren't* looked into ta very much...

Aromatherapy's professional bodies have funded LGC (gas and liquid chromatography) analyses of essential oils to show what common components are there (ie it's all about organic chemistry, which we learn loads about during our training). Then we've also shown that isolating the largest compounds in percentage terms (eg limonene, myrsticene, linalool etc) tends to decrease effectiveness. That's about as much as we *do* understand, other than practitioner experience giving our professional bodies grounds to suggest maximum safe dilution, contraindications for certain oils (eg don't use X, Y, Z with the following medical conditions...) etc. We're also regulated by our professional body and by a government body in the UK, so our training standards are therefore checked by central government (unlike many other complimentary therapies).

With current acceptance of a therapy that's relatively easy to prove can be effective (and you wouldn't believe the change for the better in terms of acceptance of my therapy work by GPs in the past five years!), there's little else we can do. Any other studies we have at our disposal have come from either the NHS or healthcare bodies in other countries.

The relationship between Western allopathic medicine and the pharmaceutical industry is kind of like the one between car manufacturers and oil producers. Getting acceptance that there *is* any other way would involve more millions than they can come up with. We're pretty stuck, basically.

The only other solution would be ridiculous. Let pharmaceutical companies licence the plants (eg Elettaria cardamomum - Cardamon) and prevent anyone else using them at all while they are under license. Then we'd get the research proof and eventually they'd be unlicensed again and free for the kind of uses we used to have for them *sighhhhhhhhhh*. It's kind of depressing to dwell on...

[thermalsatsuma.livejournal.com]

A quick look through google shows that there have been studies of aromatherapy, but they don't look very promising. A review of twelve studies published in the British Journal of Clinical Practice here (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1313734) concludes :

Twelve trials were located: six of them had no independent replication; six related to the relaxing effects of aromatherapy combined with massage. These studies suggest that aromatherapy massage has a mild, transient anxiolytic effect. Based on a critical assessment of the six studies relating to relaxation, the effects of aromatherapy are probably not strong enough for it to be considered for the treatment of anxiety. The hypothesis that it is effective for any other indication is not supported by the findings of rigorous clinical trials.

Admittedly, it is difficult to devise a true double blind trial for aromatheraphy given that the patient will be aware of whether the essential oil is being used or not, but the starting point has to be defining a measurable, repeatable effect that can be studied.

[amberb-uk.livejournal.com]

I could point you at lots more evidence that says different. That's the problem - no proper research being done and conclusions collected properly. Unless you're talking pharmaceuticals that can be licensed and marketed.

What we have proves constant ingredients in oils and certain therapeutic benefits. Most of the research is being done outside the UK (aside from in intrapartum midwifery) in Australia or the US. The major takeup in UK healthcare is from nurses and midwives, though I'm also finding that GPs have open minds these days.

[juno-februa.livejournal.com]

like kills like - erm yeah lets test this with HIV!

That's awfully outrageous ten million? Fuck that would have paid off a lot of bad debt accrued in existing NHS Trusts. Or 2718 hip replacements.

[thebustocrookes.livejournal.com]

Shocking. But it'll win some votes from airheaded muppets who beleive in "Dr" Gillian McKeith more than they trust hard facts in real science.

I'll remember the cost of this when I'm in t'Northern General in a few days time, though I doubt the floors will be antique mahogony...

[shullie.livejournal.com]

I'm in two minds, as many of our medicines do come from herbal sources.. old wives tales do in some cases do work...

did a quick 'google' round and while complemntary and alternative therapies can't cure cancer, they can aid and help people through some of the treatments.. even Cancer Help Uk agree with that.

take a look at:
http://www.cancerhelp.org.uk/trials/understanding/default_printer_friend.asp?page=18284#view

You can do a postgrad degree in Homeopathy @ Lnacaster university;

http://www.uclan.ac.uk/online/homeopathy.htm

(not that in itself 'proves' anything)

At the Homeopathy Research Institute there appears to be a number of scientists, chemists etc on their board:

http://www.homeopathyresearchinstitute.org/Whoarewe.htm

There was/is some evidence that even when substances are diluted to that used in Homeopathic remedies, they can still casue allergic reatctions in people sentivie to them. (the initial experiments were done by Dr Jacques Benvenis - but critics argued that 'he failed to replicate them under scrutinty' , however similar attempts to replicate the experiments have had some sucsess but there have been mixed results.
(See; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Benveniste)

'Science' is organic in itself ever evolving, ever changing... never the same.. it can't be, it has to change and accepted beliefs and scientific 'truths' are forever being challanged and/or changed, developed, 'blown out of the water.'

As for Gillian Mckeith, well some of what she says does make scientific sense, even if her methods may be at odd with the ideal, - I know for myself (and my kids) that what I/they eat does affect mood, behaviour, phycial abilities, etc. The chemical balance of foods effects my mental and physical state... And there have been some tests to show that chemical addditives in foods do affect children, the old women's tales of eating wholefoods etc pure and natural do have some scientific sense.

I like the words of Herman Hesse:

"The bourgeois today burns as heretics and hangs as criminals those to whom he erects monuments tomorrow" ('Steppenwolf')

babies and bathwater and all that...

[thermalsatsuma.livejournal.com]

Well, as Dawkins says, it is important to have an open mind but not so open that your brain falls out. What gets my goat is that when the NHS is seriously short of money and having to ration some treatments, it's daft to throw large sums at therapies that are unproven with limited results at best. If people want to pay for such things then that is their own choice, but treatments that we are all paying for should be subject to the same degree of scrutiny, rigorous scientific study and cost/benefit analysis as all other drugs. If they work, then that's great. If they don't, we should stop throwing good money after bad.

[lisy-babe.livejournal.com]

If I could get a referral there to see if homeopathy could to *anything* to help my sinuses I certainly wouldn't say "no".

[thermalsatsuma.livejournal.com]

I hope that you do manage to something that works.

[badriya.livejournal.com]

Atleast that money was spent on a hospital that will make some people in the UK feel better. The money spent to make a new swimming pool for the diplomats in Afganistan, while soldiers were short of drinking water, is money less well-spent.