Ancient Poppycock

I write this in the departure lounge of Delhi International Airport, awaiting my flight home after visiting various hospitals around India. This is the third time I have done this, so I feel at least slightly qualified to write about health care in this vast country. It’s a nation of huge contrasts. I don’t for a moment think that there is free and equal access to health care for all, and there is in fact a two-tier system based on public and private hospitals. I don’t intend to focus on that, but on something quite different. I am constantly lectured by the alternative medicine fraternity, to the effect that traditional medicine has passed the test of time. It has been around for thousands of years (no doubt true for some of it but by no means all), and people know what works without all this reductionist science.

Killing her softly……..

I have followed on and off the case of Dale and Leilani Newman who killed their daughter Kara. They did this by refusing to allow treatment for her diabetes. Kara was eleven years old. Her parents are Christians, who believe that the only treatment for illness is prayer. They and their friends prayed as she lay on the floor, and watched her die.

Bending over backwards to mislead…..

Sadly I am a pretty sporadic blogger (classic car ownership is to blame), but again I am driven to add my feeble voice to the case brought by the British Chiropractic Association against Simon Singh. I have known Simon for a couple of years, and been impressed not just by his searing intellect, but by his rock solid integrity.  As half the world seems to know, the BCA is suing Simon for the following article which appeared in The Guardian newspaper last year.

The chiroprats strike back

Coming into this story as late as I am, I don’t have much to add, other than to draw attention to the far more erudite offerings of others. If somehow you have not heard that chiropractors would rather issue legal threats than solid evidence for what they do, here’s a quick summary.

Misleading students – and not even courteous

My good friend David Colquhoun alerted me to the bizarre material being taught to science students at Thames Valley University. So in my capacity as a science writer (perfectly true) I asked the Vice Chancellor Professor Peter John for a statement.

The cheque book is mightier than the pen…..

Science publishing is big business. Ask Robert Maxwell – or rather you should have asked him when you had the chance. He started his business empire by siphoning off Germany’s scientific discoveries after World War 2 and publishing them in a stable of journals under his newly acquired Pergamon Press banner. The world is hungry for knowledge, and people who discover what they think is new knowledge are desperate for an audience. I am of the opinion that however ludicrous your claim, you can get it published somewhere in the world, and probably in a `peer reviewed’ journal.

Michael Dixon caught red-handed!

I’m not sure if people with bizarre beliefs sometimes go out of their way to make an exhibition of themselves, or if they just don’t care. Here we see Dr Michael Dixon OBE, resting his hand on an invisible hat worn by another man.

These Boots were made for walking…….

I know I’m not the first to criticise Boots for its shameless exploitation of health fads and fancies, but I happened across what it calls its `Corporate Social Responsibility’ policy. With regard to `Our Marketplace’, they say that:

Central to the success of our Group is the trust in which Alliance Boots is held by our customers and wider stakeholders. We aim to reflect integrity and stewardship in everything we do.

Here’s a good game……

The game is to see how long it takes to get banned from an alternative medicine or other irrational site. I tried it with www.mercola.com. I have been monitoring the site for some time, and the other week decided to see how tolerant Joe Mercola would be to someone telling the truth.

A university so open its brain fell out

There has always been a virtually seamless interface between the Open University (OU) and the BBC, as anyone watching the two Kathy Sykes TV series on CAM will have been reminded. A friend pointed me towards the OU website, and especially the pages that viewers were directed to for further information. I have copied below my email to the OU/BBC, in which I commented on the choice of links to external sites. The OU website text is in quotes.