LEADING DOCTORS RETALIATE AGAINST ATTACK

[Guest guest]

ANH PRESS RELEASE

24 May 2006

 

LEADING DOCTORS RETALIATE AGAINST ATTACK

ON ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE

 

 

Leading doctors and scientists brought together by the Alliance for

Natural Health (ANH) and the British Society for Ecological Medicine

(BSEM) are coordinating a potent rebuttal to the latest attack

against complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) by a high

profile faction of the orthodox medical profession.

 

Professor Michael Baum, Emeritus Professor of Surgery, University

College London, and 12 other doctors and scientists published an

open letter in The Times newspaper on 23 May which was circulated to

all 476 NHS Trusts. The letter amounted to a stinging attack on

natural medicine. The authors, including ironically Edzard Ernst,

self-styled incorrectly as " the UK's only professor of complementary

medicine " , condemned alternative therapies as " unproven or disproved

treatments " and said that their increased adoption by the NHS was

displacing patient access to drugs.

 

The Alliance for Natural Health's Executive and Scientific Director,

Dr Robert Verkerk, said today, " It is unfortunate that Professor

Baum and colleagues fail to recognise the wide range of so-called

complementary or alternative medicine – or CAM - practices which are

clearly scientifically or clinically proven. Judicious adoption of

particular therapies into mainstream medicine would help increase

the efficiency and safety of medical practice, as well as reduce

overall costs. These are inevitably important concerns for the NHS. "

 

Dr Damien Downing, President of the British Society for Ecological

Medicine and ANH's Medical Director, has drafted a rebuttal to

Professor Baum's letter which has been circulated early this morning

to 18 leading professors, doctors and scientists actively engaged

with CAM for input and a request for each to act as signatory.

 

Dr Verkerk appeared on Sky TV News last night to express deep

concerns over Professor Baum's assertions. Responding to him was

Professor Mayur Lakhani, Chairman of the Royal College of General

Practitioners. Professor Lakhani reinforced the fact that CAM was

popular with many patients and that some doctors promote and

practice it. He argued that it was important to have a balance of

benefits between drug-based and complementary therapies and that

sometimes life-saving technologies such as pace-makers and cancer

drugs could not be supplied to patients in need due to budgetary

constraints in the NHS.

 

During the Sky News interview, Dr Verkerk explained that double-

blind, placebo controlled trial designs, regarded in orthodox

medicine as the gold standard by which to assess efficacy, were not

always applicable to CAM modalities. It is of paramount importance,

stressed Dr Verkerk, that the clinical evidence base, which in some

cases is thousands of years old, is amply considered.

 

Verkerk concluded the interview by reminding viewers that orthodox

medicine was far from safe and had been shown to be the third

leading cause of death in the USA.

 

END.

 

CONTACT for further information:

 

For Dr Damien Downing and Dr Robert Verkerk, please contact:

 

Meleni Aldridge

Development Manager

Alliance for Natural Health

Tel: +44 (0)1306 646 550

Mob: +44 (0)7771 750 230

Email: mel