Foundation
for Integrated Medicine persuaded officials to neuter advice about homeopathy
on the NHS Choices patient website
The Guardian, Sarah Boseley, health editor, 13 February 2013
 |
| Draft guidance stated: 'There is no good quality evidence to show that homeopathy is more successful than placebo.' Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images |
Draft
guidance for the website NHS Choices warning that there is no evidence that
homeopathy works was suppressed by officials following lobbying by a charity
set up by the Prince of Wales.
Homeopathy,
which involves the use of remedies so heavily diluted with water that they no
longer contain any active substance, is "rubbish", said chief medical officer Sally Davies in January to the House of Commons science and technology
committee. She added that she was "perpetually surprised" that
homeopathy was available in some places on the NHS.
But the
government's NHS Choices website, which is intended to offer evidence-based
information and advice to the public on treatments, does not reflect her view.
A draft page that spelled out the scientific implausibility of homeopathic
remedies was neutered by Department of Health officials. It is now uncritical,
with just links to reports on the lack of evidence.
Lobbying by
opponents, and the response from DH officials who did not want to take on
Prince Charles's now defunct Foundation for Integrated Medicine and other
supporters of homeopathy, is revealed in correspondence from the department
discussing the new guidance. It was released under the Freedom of Information Act to Prof David Colquhoun of University College London, a Fellow of the Royal
Society and prominent science blogger.
There is no
evidence that Prince Charles was involved personally in the lobbying.
The editor
of the draft advice, David Mattin – who has now left NHS Choices – said in a
statement to Colquhoun, published on his blog, that the DH had failed patients.
"In causing NHS Choices to publish content that is less than completely
frank about the evidence on homeopathy, the DH have compromised the editorial
standards of a website that they themselves established and that they fund.
They have sold out the NHS Choices editorial team who work tirelessly to fulfil
their remit. And, most seriously, they have failed the general public, by
putting special interests, politics and the path of least resistance (as they
saw it) before the truth about health and healthcare."
NHS Choices
has offered information on homeopathy since at least 2007, but it has been
heavily criticised for its failure to state that there is no proof that
homeopathy has anything other than a placebo effect on patients.
The page
was taken down early in 2011, pending what a statement on the site said would
be "a review by the Department of Health policy team responsible for
complementary and alternative medicines". But critics were disappointed by
the page that went up in October 2012, which still does not raise any issues
about effectiveness.
What had
been happening behind the scenes in the couple of years before the
disappearance of the page and during its absence is revealed in the correspondence
between NHS Choices, department officials and the foundation.
Mattin's
original draft said: "There is no good quality clinical evidence to show
that homeopathy is more successful than placebo in the treatment of any
condition … Furthermore, if the principles of homeopathy were true it would
violate all the existing theories of science that we make use of today; not
just our theory of medicine, but also chemistry, biology and physics."
But the
homeopathy lobby was in close contact with the department. In December 2009, an
official from the department wrote to NHS Choices asking to see "the
articles you're writing" and announcing that he had called "an
exploratory meeting with the Prince's Foundation for Integrated Health and the
Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council … so that we could start to piece
this particular jigsaw together."
On 29
December, a letter was sent from the foundation to the department expressing
strong feelings about a draft document. "It was just a bit horrifying as it
was not only anti-complementary medicine and patients who might use it but
clearly drawn up by someone who had no knowledge of this field and was largely
factually incorrect," said the letter.
In January,
further emails from the foundation strongly opposed the involvement of the
Exeter-based professor of complementary medicine, Edzard Ernst – now retired
and a strong critic of homeopathy – as an adviser.
The
documents reveal subsequent changes to Mattin's draft by DH officials. The
draft stated: "A House of Commons science and technology report said that
homeopathic remedies perform no better than placebos and that the principles on
which homeopathy is based are 'scientifically implausible'."
That
critique disappeared. A comment in the margin, apparently from somebody in the
department, says: "Can we remove this statement? This report is really
quite contentious and we may well be subject to quite a lot of challenge from
the homeopathic community if published."
A further
intervention by the DH also removed the statement that "a 2010 science and
technology committee report said that scientific tests had shown that
homeopathic treatments don't work."
Mattin says
officials were more worried about potential political fallout from homeopathy
supporters than about publishing evidence-based information. He says his draft
was delayed and then suppressed.
"My
strong impression was of DH civil servants who lacked the courage and, frankly,
the energy to stand up to the criticism from special interest groups that they
anticipated would arise because of the article; and that indeed did arise when
a draft of the article and other draft content on complementary and alternative
medicines fell into the hands of the Prince's Foundation and other
[complementary and alternative medicine] groups."
The
department did not respond to a request to comment. The Prince's Foundation for
Integrated Health was closed in 2010 following allegations of fraud and money-laundering that led to the conviction of a charity official for stealing
more than £250,000.
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