“…The former Welsh and Northern Ireland Secretary said: “Our first baby son was born with eczema. Later, he developed asthma too.

“At first, we relied on conventional treatments – various creams were prescribed, and a steroid spray.

“But they didn’t work. In fact, the spray seemed to make him worryingly and unhealthily even more dependent upon it.

“So instead we turned to complementary medicine. And, with the help of homeopathy and tight restrictions on the sort of food that our son could eat, both ailments went away.

“We had reached a point of desperation, and I only became a true convert to complementary medicine after seeing the difference it made to my son. …”

Tight restrictions on food suggest that the child perhaps had undiagnosed food allergies and there is some evidence that children with allergic diseases can be helped by proper medical diagnosis and care. These diseases can also remit as children get older. If food hypersensitivity was indeed an issue, surely it would be better to campaign for more resources so that diagnosis and any subsequent diet modification could be done by people with the proper medical qualifications? Allergy is a serious medical subject but, unfortunately (IMO), an area which attracts all kinds of alternative therapists and their unproven claims. As somebody whose family has suffered severely from allergic disease and is aware of the difficulty people can have in accessing appropriate medical care in the NHS, I find this intensely irritating. [/rant!]

I’m a physician and former faculty member at Harvard and Stanford Medical Schools. I discovered your blog while looking for the best health writers on the web. I reviewed your posts, and think your writing would be a great addition to the Life as a Doctor Community on Wellsphere, a top 5 health website that has nearly 5 million visitors monthly. If you would like to learn more about how you can join our Health Blogger Network, republish your blog posts and be featured on the Wellsphere platform, just drop me an email at dr.rutledge@wellsphere.com.

Cheers,
Geoff

HRH – it’s there. It’s just that your flunkies keep it all from you. A complementary version of the Emperors New Clothes, so to speak.

Just to be clear:

REGISTERED DIETITIANS IE THOSE WITH A BONA FIDE 4 YEAR SCIENCE DEGREE MINIMUM ARE APPALLED AND DISGUSTED BY THE MISGUIDED MUSINGS THAT HAVE LEAD TO THE FIH NUTRITIONIST REGISTER. WE DO NOT LIKE OUR ROLE BEING DEBASED BY THE SYCOPHANTIC NUTRITION LITE-ISTS, AND WOULD LIKE TO REMIND HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THAT ACCESS TO FOOD AND DRINK IS A BASIC HUMAN RIGHT. DISHONEST RESTRICTION AND EXCLUSION ON THE BASIS OF PSEUDO-EXPERTS HAVE FAR-REACHING CONSEQUENCES IN HEALTH, DEVELOPMENT AND DISEASE AND IT IS APPALLING THAT THEIR UNCONCIOUSLY INCOMPETENT* PRACTICES CAN HIDE UNDER THE GUISE OF ‘FIH/OFQUACK REGULATION’.
Hope this helps you understand, HRH

*one has to assume they’re unconciously incompetent because if they are conscious of their inadequacies surely then their practice is both immoral and unethical.

Warhelmet may be right about funding squeezes, but it may have the opposite effect: those managing the budgets may see AltMed as a cheap way to improve ‘customer satisfaction’, without having to bother with all those expensive doctors/drugs/equipment.

BTW, OfQuack (aka CNHC) currently have the following registered:

255 Massage therapists
38 Nutritional therapists
5 Aromatherapists

Total: 293

(The 5 aromatherapists are all already registered as massage therapists, so they don’t add to the total.)

At this rate (assuming it continues), they will have only about 600 registered by the end of the year, not the 10,000 they have forecast and, indeed, they need to justify their existence (see http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2009/03/will-government-bail-out-ofquack.html)

They also have been very naughty with data protection and other things. (See http://www.thinkhumanism.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2682 for further details.)

I think the PFIH are pissing in the wind. As you say, “integrated health” is a trojan horse for stuffing CAM down the throat of the NHS, but it ain’t going to happen unless there is a reversal in the trend of PCTs’ commissioning less of, say, stuff like homepathy. I can’t see that happening, especially if there is a squeeze on funding.