Homeopathy: When hypocrisy is an 'evidence-free zone'

24^th September 2010

(Letter to Professor Michael Baum from Dr. Lionel Milgrom - in response to his recent comments in the Lancet)

Dear Professor Baum,

Doubtless there are many who will share your frustration and anger recently aired in The Lancet, at the UK government’s refusal to stop funding homeopathy and Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) in our obviously creaking National Health Service (NHS).  

Disregarding the inconvenient truth that the millions currently spent on homeopathy by the NHS is a vanishingly small fraction of the tens of billions it swallows keeping itself going, how could ‘evidence-free politics’, as you put it, trump the authoritative counsel of yourself, the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, and a contradictory scientistic¹ dogma that declares homeopathy and CAM do not work, yet at the same time are ‘dangerous’ and ‘deadly’? How indeed!

First, your obvious pride in the NHS being evidence-based, is a tad misplaced.  For out of around 2500 conventional medical procedures tested so far, only 11% proved beneficial, while more than half (51%) turn out to be of unknown effectiveness.² And you have the audacity to say CAM is an ‘evidence-free’ zone?

Next, in 2006 it was estimated that about 2.68 million people in the UK (that’s a staggering 4.5% of the population) were harmed in some way (including deaths) by the effects, side-effects, and errors of conventional medical practice.³ And you call homeopathy ‘dangerous’.

Then, widespread fraud and abuse of science in biomedical research has recently come to light and been exposed; a disgrace, it turns out, that has had the tacit support of academia.⁴  And you berate homeopathy as ‘deception’? In this company, Professor Baum, you stand accused of blatant hypocrisy.  Shame on you!

However, there is a much deeper issue at stake here: one that goes to the very heart of what it means to live in a free society.   So, the UK government has ignored you and the disgruntled highly vocal minority you claim to represent, and decided to leave it up to its users – i.e., patients – to decide whether they want homeopathy and CAM free at the point of access on the NHS.  

That is democracy for you – however imperfect – in action, and it has decided the NHS is for its patients, not those like you who would see it operate solely on narrowly scientistic authoritarian lines.  For “...It is the role of science to serve the primary interests of the polity, but government in a free society is not obliged to serve the interests of science...”.¹  In other words, in a free society science, or rather its practitioners, need to know their place, and not behave as if they think they have the answer to everything, and that there’s is the only voice of reason that should be listened to.   Indeed, we know from history where such scientistic authoritarianism ultimately leads: to the death camps of Nazi Germany and the gulags of Stalinist Russia.

You and the Science and Technology Committee might do well in future to remember that.  Indeed, you might both consider using your undoubted talents more productively and for the benefit of all, e.g., for eradicating the many shortcomings and abuses the pharmaceutical industry and conventional medicine are currently perpetrating, instead of pursuing your own personal vendettas.

Dr Lionel Milgrom

Refs.

1     Ryder M. Scientism. Entry in the Encyclopaedia of Science, Technology, and  Ethics. Copyright 
       2001-2006 by Macmillan Reference USA, an imprint of the Gale Group.

2     BMJ Clinical Evidence web-site. Online document at: 
       http://clinicalevidence.bmj.com/ceweb/about/knowledge.jsp (accessed 30th August 2010) 

3     Leigh E. A safer place for patients: Learning to improve patient safety. 51^st report of session 2005–
       06 report, together with formal minutes, oral, and written evidence. House of Commons papers
       831 2005–06, TSO (The Stationery Office). July 6, 2006.

4     Fanelli D How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-
       Analysis of Survey Data. PLoS ONE 2009; 4(5): e5738. Titus SL, Wells AJ, Rhoades LJ. Repairing
       research integrity. Nature 2008; 453: 980-982 (19 June 2008.