Last night I attended a splendid talk by one of Britain’s most famous homeopathic veterinary surgeons, Chris Day. It was most inspiring to hear about this gentleman’s career in veterinary medicine and the huge part that homeopathy  has played in his many decades of practice.

For many people, the fact that homeopathy appears to work on animals, is all the evidence they need. I guess some of our critics will disparagingly say this is also the placebo effect because somehow a dog or cat ‘picks up’ the enthusiasm of the homeopathic vet and its owner. Even if it did work that way, it would be pretty miraculous. But what about a cow? Are cows with mastitis also susceptible to suggestion? Or is it the homeopathic remedy in the drinking trough that protected the herd that drank from that trough – but not the cows that were randomly selected to drink from another trough.

Chris Day has many devoted farmers as clients. For professional farmers the bottom line has to be money – so it just would not be cost-effective for them to employ homeopathic veterinary services unless the results were really good. I was amazed to hear Chris say that he went a whole year once without prescribing a single antibiotic! There is huge concern about the overuse of antibiotics on farm animals these days, so this is an incredible achievement.

For the Disciples of Scientism, I am naïve, less-than-scientific and believe that medicines with ‘nothing in them’ can help humans as well as animals. But hey, I’m not the only one. The EU recently voted to spend £1.8 million (sic) on research into the treatment of farm animals with homeopathy. This has to be the right and ethical approach. If critics of human homeopathy think it’s all placebo, they should be very enthusiastic about preserving NHS institutions that get people better just by talking to them as such places are – at the very least – a valuable teaching resource for all doctors and medical students. They should also keep an eye on those cows doing well on homeopathic medicines!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,

That has such people in’t!

(The Tempest Act 5 Scene 1)

Shakespeare’s irony did not escape the novelist Aldous Huxley. His 1932 novel, Brave New World, takes place around the year 2500. The people are oppressed by ruthless authorities, distracted by inane televisual ‘entertainment’, controlled by genetic and social engineering and numbed into conformity by a tranquilising drug called ‘soma’.

Brave New World (1932) preceded the more famous but similar  novel, 1984, written by George Orwell in 1949. The contemporary world seems to be approaching these novelists’ apocalyptic vision with alarming speed. As a doctor, I am most concerned by the exponential increase in the prescription of antidepressants and tranquilisers – especially during the present recession. The Guardian reports that the prescription of antidepressants has increased by 20% in just three years.

This is particularly outrageous because two years ago a major study warned that antidepressants were no better than placebo in mild and moderate depression (surely the majority of cases) as I mentioned in a post at the time. My point was that it was the height of hypocrisy to criticise NHS homeopathy (drug budget £10 million) when the budget for these less-than-evidence-based antidepressants was £232 million!

At the time, the medical profession vowed to ‘do something’ about it. What has been ‘done’ is that the prescription of antidepressants in the UK has – in the words of the Guardian – soared. The situation across the Atlantic in the USA which offers the best medicine money can buy – is even worse. The use of anti-depressants in the ‘home of the brave’ has in the words of USA Today ‘skyrocketed’ by 400% (sic!) since 1988.

The situation with highly addictive tranquilising drugs is another horror story that I’ll leave to somebody else to write about. Both sets of drugs have potentially dangerous side effects and patients really should be monitored carefully on them – if their doctors can find the time of course. But it seems nobody cares that much about these horrific statistics. After all should we really be knocking such a profitable industry during a recession? Much better to start a new organisation protesting against all that money wasted on treating naive patients who want NHS homeopathy. And don’t read Huxley’s Brave New World either – read his last novel, Island. It’s about a type of Utopia and much more optimistic than Brave New World.

Stay optimistic and banish your fears

Orwell was out by at least forty years.

(from Instructions for Androids)

Related posts:

1. Prime Minister Praises Homeopathy as we go from Great Britain to Sad Britain. Prime Minister says he's going to sound like a homepathy...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary

How does your garden grow?

Do you appreciate authorities telling you what to do with your life?  No? Not in any situation? What if you had a bad accident and felt pain in your neck. Would you want an orthopaedic surgeon telling you what to do? Sometimes direct authoritarian instruction is very good for you and this is certainly the case when it comes to emergency medicine.

In the world of counseling and psychotherapy however, direct advice is often less than useful. Most therapists and counsellers are aware of this and avoid giving it. But what if someone – far from giving sensible advice – would take the side of your problem and warmly order you to do things that clearly would not serve you well?  What if they offered you absurd solutions to your problems and with a twinkle in the eye and genuine affection in the heart,  ‘advised’ you to do more of the very same behaviour which hasn’t helped you get what you want in life?

Provocative Therapy is the cutting edge in the use of humour and reverse psychology in brief therapy. Sessions start with you giving the Provocative Therapist permission to say absurd things – all in the hope of ‘provoking’ you to implement the real solution to any issue in your life. Where is that solution to be found? Why in you of course!  The idea is to use humour and reverse psychology to provoke you (Latin: pro vokare – ‘to call forth’) to locate, articulate and finally implement that solution.

Provocative Therapy embraces the use of paradox and contrarianism in psychotherapy. Interestingly, the central idea of homeopathy ‘let likes be cured by likes’ is also contrarian. I’ve written about this connection here. and I was pleased to see that Frank Farrelly, the founder of Provocative Therapy, has a note on this on his website.

I studied the therapeutic effects of laughter for many years and formulated Kaplan’s Mnemonic to remember them. There is no doubt that laughing at anything or nothing is good for you. When you laugh at your Inner Joke (the funny side of how you, yourself are sabotaging your own chances of fulfillment in life) you get much more than these physical health benefits. You are provoked into making the necessary changes in your behaviour to give yourself a good chance of getting what you need in life. This is how Provocative Therapy works.

Provocative Therapy is not suitable for everyone and a Provocative Therapist will assess your situation before accepting you as a client.  You also do need to believe that your sense of humour can help you change for the better and give the Provocative Therapist explicit permission to provoke you therapeutically. Nobody is ever ‘ambushed’ by this unususal approach and patients are always made fully aware of the contrarian nature of Provocative Therapy.

Make sure you use this Christmas to have as many family fights as possible!

Sorry I should have asked permission before saying that!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I have read the discussion in the Comments section of my last post and realised that in the realm of political philosophy there are two basic schools of thought on the issue of NHS Homeopathy:

The Libertarian Position

1.   Homeopathy should remain available on the NHS as long as there are NHS GPs who are willing to refer patients to other fully accountable, medically qualified doctors specialising in homeopathy.

2.   GPs (and perhaps local health authorities) are in the best position to decide whether their patients get NHS homeopathy (and any other form of complementary medicine) however it works and however others may interpret the data from various meta-analyses.

3.   Evidence based Medicine is important, but if it is to be used as a litmus test for inclusion of any intervention on the NHS, then a specific level of evidence must be set and applied across the board to all medical interventions seeking inclusion on the NHS.

4.   Science, no matter how logical, right, correct and rational it thinks it is, should never be allowed to trump the democratic process.

5.   There is much more at stake in this issue than homeopathy. Patient choice and doctor choice are vital to the preservation of a liberal democracy.

The Authoritarian Position

1.   Homeopathy should be centrally removed from the NHS. GPs who wish to refer patients for NHS homeopathy should be legally thwarted from doing so – for the good of their patients.

2.   Non-doctors, academics, physicists, biologists, journalists and bloggers are just as qualified as any GP to decide whether his/her patient should be referred for homeopathy. Homeopathy does not work so it’s clear to all laymen and journalists that GPs should not be allowed to refer patients for NHS homeopathy.

3.   We now live in an evidence based society. Homeopathy is both implausible and proven (by meta-analysis) not to be evidence-based. Thus it should not be available on the NHS. Other non-evidence based NHS approved interventions are more acceptable because at least they are not as ridiculously implausible as homeopathy.

4.   Medicine must be based on science and nothing else. The obviously deluded minority of patients and doctors who want homeopathy in spite of it being obviously non-scientific, must be prevented by central Government from getting it on the NHS.

5.   This is all about society ridding itself of deception, and non-scientific rubbish like homeopathy and nothing to do with liberty, democracy and patient choice.

My position is clear: I strongly favour the Libertarian Position on this issue.

So did Mike O’ Brien, Minister of Health of the last Labour Government.

So did Anne Milton, Minister of Health of the present Coalition Government.

As the Head of State is known to use homeopathy and retain a Royal homeopathic physician, it would be reasonable politely to assume that she also favours this position.

If I have not represented the Authoritarian Position clearly, I am happy to accept suggested edits from those supporting that particular political philosophical position in relation to this issue

Related posts:

1. Homeopathy, Politics and Liberty The concerted attack on homeopathy continues. Letters using insulting and...
2. Homeopathy and India While homeopathy has been subject to nasty attacks in the...
3. Prime Minister Praises Homeopathy as we go from Great Britain to Sad Britain. Prime Minister says he's going to sound like a homepathy...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The denialists, detractors and critics of homeopathy were back in action this week.  In a critical letter to the BMJ protesting against the Government seeking advice (sic) from experts on the registration of homeopathic products. Referring to homeopathy as ‘naked quackery’ and ‘pseudoscience’, the letter was written by Susan Bewley (an obstetrician) ‘on behalf’ of a list of names including the usual suspects, Ernst, Baum, Rose etc.) It seems the letter section of the BMJ has become a popular forum for these doctors to spout their vituperative, amateur homilies on medical politics.

So let us look at the history of the politics of homeopathy in the UK. It is important to acknowledge that throughout its history homeopathy has been attacked for the same reasons: Dilutions, implausibility, quackery and now ‘pseudoscience’, ‘bad science’ etc.

19^th Century: Dr F. Quin studies homeopathy in Germany, brings it to the UK, treats the Prince of Wales and builds the London Homeopathic Hospital.  Several other homeopathic hospitals are built in England and Scotland.

1948: The NHS is formed and all the homeopathic hospitals are INVITED to become part of it. This is the reason why homeopathy (unlike aother forms of CAM) is so strongly integrated into the NHS. Homeopathic doctors and their benefactors had built hospitals staffed by doctors specialising in homeopathic treatment prior to the formation of the NHS.

1948-1990: Homeopathy becomes more and more popular both on the NHS and in private medicine. However the opposition movement becomes more determined to end NHS homeopathy. They attack on two main fronts: PR & Media and direct political attack. On the media front, The Guardian newspaper and the supposedly neutral BBC prove to be particularly useful allies to their cause but in the realm of official politics they suffer serious defeats.

December 2009 Political Defeat I: The denialists manage to get a Science and Technology Subcommittee to do an ‘Evidence Check’ on homeopathy. The findings of these controversial hearings is voted on by only 4MPs of a possible 12-13 and only 2 of those 4 actually attended the hearings!  Mike O’Brien, the then Minister of Health in the Labour government speaks at the hearings. He famously describes the draconian anti-homeopathic suggestions of the Committee as ‘illiberal’ and makes it clear that GPs and local health authorities are best placed to decide if their patients should get NHS homeopathy or not.

July 2010: Political Defeat II: The report (with its authoritarian anti-homeopathic and anti-democratic  recommendations) passes to the new Coalition Government for consideration. The new Health Minister, Anne Milton thanks the S&T Committee for their work but then kicks all their recommendations into touch. Her reasons for doing so are much the same as the Labour minister’s: GPs and local health authorities should be trusted to make the best decisions for their patients. An infuriated Michael Baum pours scorn on her in a well-publicised letter to the Lancet concluding with a condescending “Shame on you Minister!”  I was personally astonished by the aggressive, rant-like nature of this letter as Baum had only a few months before called for the debate on homeopathy to return to the ‘realm of polite disputation’.

So summing up:

Government under Labour: supported homeopathy on the NHS.

Government under Coalition: reiterated this support almost to the letter.

Head of State and family: are known to use and have used homeopathy for several generations.

The detractors, denialists and illiberal, wannabe Statist authoritarians  have tried to thwart GPs (rather than dissuade them which would at least be respectable) from referring patients for NHS homeopathy by insisting that their scientism trump due democratic process – but it hasn’t worked. Despite what Ben Goldacre writes in the Guardian, despite the letters to BMJ and Lancet, and despite inexplicable and inexcusable BBC bias against homeopathy, both Labour and Coalition Governments have seen fit to protect the significant minority support for homeopathy in the UK as well as the rights of British GPs to send their own patients for NHS homeopathy if they so wish. In doing so Government has so far managed to resist a serious, concerted attempt to undermine the democratic provision of health care in this country.

The attack on homeopathy has been a veritable Pandora’s Box of vitriol and bias that has certainly damaged British homeopathy by it’s sheer persistence and seemingly well-funded mass pressure at a PR level. It is heartening to know that at least at a pure political level, there has been unequivocal support by both Labour and the Coalition not only for homeopathy, but for something equally as important –  liberal democracy itself. Fortunately the last thing to come out of this particular Pandora’s Box was still Hope.

Related posts:

1. Prime Minister Praises Homeopathy as we go from Great Britain to Sad Britain. Prime Minister says he's going to sound like a homepathy...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I have just completed a lecture tour of major homeopathic institutions in India and have been blown away by the enthusiasm of teachers, homeopathic doctors and students. In Pune my lecture was supported by the orthodox medical faculty as well as the faculty of homeopathy and I chatted to a medical doctor trained in homeopathy in London (Dr Anil Habbu) who has treated an estimated 500 000 patients (sic) with homeopathy so far in his career.  In Jaipur I lectured at a university exclusively dedicated to teaching homeopathy. I was taken on a tour of BJain Pharmaceutical plant and can verify that the standard of manufacture there is as good as any I have ever seen anywhere in the world.

With the West heavily in debt it is only a matter of time before the East (esp. China and India) become part of the new world order. Nothing can stop the proliferation of homeopathy in India and the relentless attacks  of homeopathy’s denialists and detractors – whom I’ve dubbed the Disciples of Scientism – mean nothing in a country of over 1.2 billion people. Although the BBC and some of the British media favour their deterministic and often anti-democratic view of medical care, homeopathy continues to grow internationally. So far the views of the Disciples of Scientism (although given FAR too much space in the media) have not been able to trump democracy.

You can only get NHS homeopathy in the UK if you are referred to an NHS clinic by your GP. But that does not satisfy the Disciples of Scientism and today there is another inane poll in The Guardian on this very issue. Someone needs to tell these guys that once upon a time the British were considered to be good losers.

Related posts:

1. Homeopathy and India While homeopathy has been subject to nasty attacks in the...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

My book The Homeopathic Conversation has been republished in India and I am most honoured to be invited to give a lecture tour of India in August.

While homeopathy has been vituperatively insulted, attacked and demonised by various groups in the UK (which thankfully do not include this Government, the last one or the head of State) it has always had a prominent and respected place in the medicine of the world’s biggest democracy – India. On doing a little research into Indian homeopathy I was absolutely flabbergasted by the sheer scale of homeopathy in India.

I am most grateful to my colleague, Dr Manish Bhatia for much of the following information about Indian homeopathy:

Number of homeopaths in India:

Official Government figure: 350 000 (sic) homeopaths

Unofficial figure (includes unregistered, registration expired and lay homeopaths)

500 000 (that’s half a million!)

Indian Government attitude to Homeopathy:

• Indian Government ‘VERY supportive’ (Dr Bhatia) to homeopathy.
• Government even runs TV commercials to promote homeopathy!
• There are 1000s of Government homeopathic dispensaries and OPDs (outpatient departments) in India
• There are 176 Homeopathic Colleges in India of which 35 are Government run.
• There is a government ministry (AYUSH) dedicated to alternative medicine (including homeopathy) in India.

Regulation:

Homeopathy is fully regulated in India by the Central Council of Homeopathy (CCH)  and Central Council for Research in Homeopathy (CCRH).

Conclusions: It seems clear that homeopathy is there to stay in India. So next time you see or read some condescending and patronising rubbish about homeopathy in the media, know that in India, a country with a population of 1.2 billion people (that’s more than 20x the population of the UK) homeopathy is an integral part of the healthcare system and deeply respected by the people of that country.

The word on the street is that India and China will be important parts of the emerging new world order so watch this space for an article on the place of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in China, a country with a mere 1.3 billion people.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Once again a major politician has said something good about homeopathy – and this time it was the Prime Minister, the right honourable David Cameron himself. In defence of his NHS reforms on Channel 4, the main man said: ‘I’m going to sound like a homeopath but this is like looking at the whole of the patient.’ Well I don’t know how much the top dog in the country knows about homeopathy but he seems to understand that classical homeopathy does try to treat the whole person by trying to use a medicine to stimulate the body to heal itself. Nice one, Dave!

It’s interesting to reflect that when a major politician has something to say about homeopathy, it is usually positive or supportive of it remaining on the NHS.

Mike O’Brien: Labour’s Minister of Health (Feb 2010) ‘We take the view that it is not our job to stop clinicians prescribing these medications if they feel they are appropriate.’ 

Anne Milton: Coalition Minister of Health (July 2010) ‘The Government … remains of the view that the local National Health Service and clinicians are best placed to make decisions on what treatment is appropriate for their patients’ – as she kicked into touch recommendations to scrap NHS homeopathy.

The Queen: Well the Queen has not said anything and we don’t expect anything. Nevertheless it is well known that the Royal Family appoints a Royal homeopathic doctor and has supported homeopathy since the early 19^th Century.

I find it interesting indeed that although major politicians and the head of state clearly do not support the current assault on homeopathy and CAM by the sceptics, the media are only too keen to put the boot in and seldom allow homeopaths a level playing field to defend what they do.

From Great Britain to Sad Britain Meantime Great Britain seems to have become Sad Britain, as the prescription of anti-depressants has hit an all time high. Actually in spite of a huge NHS bill for these drugs alone (it dwarfs the bill for NHS homeopathic prescriptions by at least 20 to 1) there is little evidence that they are much better than placebo for mild and moderate cases of depression – and that does mean the majority of cases of depression. A major study showed that most prescribed anti-depressants are no better than placebo for most cases of depression – but you don’t see much about that in the media. It’s a pity that these drugs don’t work on the managed depression of the Economy (aka ‘The Recession’)  either.  I’m starting to think of Aldous Huxley and Soma now – but I digress…

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The recently released and well-reviewed film, The King’s Speech, tells the story of how King George VI overcame a crippling speech defect with the help of an unorthodox and unqualified speech therapist by the name of Lionel Logue. Directed by Tom Hooper from a screenplay by David Seidler, the film features the cream of British acting talent including Colin Firth (as George VI), Helena Bonham Carter, Derek Jacobi, Timothy Spall, Michael Gambon and many others. Geoffrey Rush is cast perfectly as the Australian speech therapist.

As portrayed in the film, Logue employs three main strategies in helping George VI drastically improve his speech which proved to be very important for both a monarchy wounded by the abdication of Edward VIII and a country facing war with Germany.

1. Standard speech therapy exercises (of the time): He gets the King to swear, to sing, to relax, to breathe better etc. The film portrays these to be of some use.

2. Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy: He seeks a source of the problem by exploring the King’s early childhood in which he was clearly intimidated by both his father and elder brother. As portrayed in the film, this approach has little effect.

3. Techniques of Reverse Psychology and Provocative Therapy: I cannot say whether this happened in real life or not, but in the film itself, Logue uses many of the tools of Provocative Therapy (reverse psychology and contrarianism) to provoke his patient therapeutically to assert his voice clearly and confidently. In the film we see the King respond dramatically to classic Provocative Therapy tactics. Here are some examples:

a. Logue ‘disrespectfully’ sits on the coronation throne during a rehearsal for an address by the King at Westminster Abbey.

King George VI: Get up! Y-y-you can’t sit there! Get up!!
Lionel Logue: Why not? It’s a chair.
King George VI: Th-that… that-that is Saint Edward’s chair.
Lionel Logue: People have carved their names on it. (and something about not caring about how many ‘royal arseholes’ have sat on it)
King George VI: L-listen to me… listen to me!
Lionel Logue: (cheekily) Why should I waste my time listening to you?
King George VI: Because I have a voice!
Lionel Logue: (with genuine respect) Yes, you do.

b. The King lights a cigarette (He was a heavy smoker and died at 56 from lung cancer)

Lionel Logue: Don’t do that in here.
King George VI: Why not?
Lionel Logue: Sucking smoke into your lungs will kill you.
King George VI: My physicians tell me it helps to relax the throat.
Lionel Logue: They’re idiots.
King George VI: They’ve been knighted.
Lionel Logue: Makes it official then!

And later when the King finally thanks him for his services and asks if there is anything he can do for him, Logue replies: “How about a Knighthood?”

This is very much the kind of thing a Provocative Therapist would say and Logue does seem to obey the Golden Rule of Provocative Therapy – Only ever therapeutically provoke when you have affection in your heart and a twinkle in your eye. The rule he doesn’t obey is to ask the King’s permission to say things that could be seen to be provocative or offensive. Provocative Therapists must never ambush patients and always gain explicit permission from their patients before using the unusual techniques of Provocative Therapy.

Interestingly King George VI was treated by the Royal homeopathic physician, Sir John Weir, who was knighted for his services to the Royal Family by the father of George VI, George V. At the funeral of George VI, Dr Weir used the homeopathic remedy, Ignatia, to treat no less than 5 kings and 3 queens, a feat that is unlikely to be repeated in these days where homeopathy is relentlessly smeared in the media. Here is a rather unorthodox photograph of the good doctor, taken at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital over 50 years ago.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Professor David Nutt, the former UK chief drugs adviser thinks that he has statistical evidence that alcohol is more harmful to society than heroin or crack cocaine! Nutt’s politically outrageous (but annoyingly scientifically sound) views about the relative dangers of various drugs got him fired by former home secretary, Alan Johnson from the Governments Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs last year. Now Nutt has simply gone too far.

Its empirical formula is C2H60. It’s certainly a chemical but is it a ‘drug’? Surely not. Surely all you boozers, barflies, alkies, dipsos, dredge-heads, dronkies, shickers, waste cases, winos and international piss artists aren’t drug addicts?

How could any of you heavy hitters, gin-soaks, rumheads, brandy-shunters, hop-heads, old soakers, grog artists, toss pots, beerheads, barstool jockeys, brew hounds, ale-knights and other aristocrats of the bottle be considered to be addicted to anything?

How dare anyone suggest that you lovely lushes from bag ladies to queens of Scotch are addicted to a drug? This country – and many others besides – would have an even more serious ‘drug problem’ if it irrationally counted every harmless drunkard as part of the enemy in our ongoing war on drugs ?

Calling all drinking class people drug addicts is a politically incorrect insult. Your beverage of choice is legal, socially acceptable and generates huge revenue for hard-pressed governments all over the world.

What’s wrong with that?

Cheers!

Legal Disclaimer: This post has been written in the spirit of Provocative Therapy, the cutting edge in the use of reverse psychology and humour in psychotherapy. Thus nothing above should be taken ‘seriously’. As Oscar Wilde put it: ‘Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it’.

So remember to DRINK RESPONSIBLY

Now watch Liz & Ed discuss the issue of alcohol the non-drug.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.