Doctors panic at Prince Charles' initiative to promote holistic therapies.

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UK - NHS told to abandon alternative medicinehttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2192360,00.htmlThe Times May 23, 2006NHS told to abandon alternative medicineBy Mark Henderson, Science EditorTop doctors say money should go to conventional treatmentA GROUP of Britain’s leading doctors has urged every NHS trust to stoppaying for alternative medicine and to use the money for conventionaltreatments.Their appeal is a direct challenge to the Prince of Wales’s outspokencampaign to widen access to complementary therapies.Public funding of “unproven or disproved treatments” such as homoeopathy andreflexology, which are promoted by the Prince, is unacceptable while hugeNHS deficits are forcing trusts to sack nurses and limit access tolife-saving drugs, the doctors

say.The 13 scientists, who include some of the most eminent names in Britishmedicine, have written to the chief executives of all 476 acute and primarycare trusts to demand that only evidence-based therapies are provided freeto patients.Their letter, seen by The Times, has been sent as the Prince today steps uphis crusade for increased provision of alternative treatments with acontroversial speech to the World Health Organisation assembly in Geneva.The Prince, who was yesterday given a lesson in crystal therapy whiletouring a complementary health unit in Merthyr Tydfil, will ask the WHO toembrace alternative therapies in the fight against serious disease. Hisviews have outraged clinicians and researchers, who claim that many of thetherapies that he advocates have been shown to be ineffective in trials orhave never been properly tested.The letter criticises two of his

flagship initiatives on complementarymedicine: a government-funded patient guide prepared by his Foundation forIntegrated Medicine, and the Smallwood report last year, which hecommissioned to make a financial case for increasing NHS provision.Both documents, it is claimed, give misleading information about scientificsupport for therapies such as homoeo-pathy, described as “an implausibletreatment for which over a dozen systematic reviews have failed to produceconvincing evidence of effectiveness”.The letter’s signatories include Sir James Black, who won the Nobel Prizefor Medicine in 1988, and Sir Keith Peters, president of the Academy ofMedical Science, which represents Britain’s leading clinical researchers.It was organised by Michael Baum, Emeritus Professor of Surgery atUniversity College London, and other supporters include six Fellows of theRoyal Society, Britain’s national

academy of science, and Professor EdzardErnst, of the Peninsula Medical School in Exeter, who holds the UK’s firstchair in complementary medicine.The doctors ask trust chief executives to review their policies so thatpatients are given accurate information, and not to waste scarce resourceson therapies that have not been shown to work by rigorous clinical trials.They conclude: “At a time when the NHS is under intense pressure, patients,the public and the NHS are best served by using the available funds fortreatments that are based on solid evidence.”Professor Baum, a cancer specialist, said that he had organised the letterbecause of his “utter despair” at growing NHS acceptance of alternativetreatments while drugs of proven effectiveness are being withheld. “At atime when we are struggling to gain access for our patients to Herceptin,which is absolutely proven to extend survival

in breast cancer, I find itappalling that the NHS should be funding a therapy like homoeopathy that isutterly bogus,” he said.He said that he was happy for the NHS to offer the treatments once researchhas proven them effective, such as acupuncture for pain relief, but thatvery few had reached the required standards.“If people want to spend their own money on it, fine, but it shouldn’t beNHS money.”The Department of Health does not keep figures on the total NHS spending onalternative medicine, but Britain’s total market is estimated at £1.6billion. "Our ideal is not the spirituality that withdraws from life but the conquest of life by the power of the spirit." - Aurobindo.

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