CAM under attack in UK

In a letter to the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS), a group of 13 prominent physicians and scientists say they are concerned about ways in which “unproven or disproved treatments are being encouraged for general use in the NHS.”

The letter, dated May 19 and posted on Englands Times OnLine, created a windstorm of rebuttal and criticism from the complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) community and from one of England’s staunchest supporters of CAM, Prince Charles.

“At a time when the NHS is under intense pressure, patients, the public and the NHS are best served by using the available funds for treatments that are based on solid evidence,” the letter stated. “We are sensitive to the needs of patients for complementary care to enhance well-being and for spiritual support to deal with the fear of death at a time of critical illness, all of which can be supported through services already available within the NHS without resorting to false claims.”

The letter-writers pointed to homeopathy and CAM used for vision care, specifically, as unproven treatments.

The charge comes at a rocky time in the NHS’s history: The service is facing a financial crisis and the probably closing of some hospitals, as reported by London’s Financial Times in mid June. “The National Health Service faces its "toughest year ever" and "a turbulent future" as it struggles to sort out its finances and implement a reform agenda liked by few doctors and nurses, according to the head of the body that represents NHS organizations,” the Times noted.

In an article posted online May 23 by England’s The Guardian Unlimited, Terry Cullen, chairman of the British Complementary Medicine Association was quoted as saying, “’It's very frustrating that senior, responsible people dismiss complementary medicine for the sole reason that it doesn't have the definitive scientific proof that other drugs have. There is so much anecdotal evidence that thousands of people gain benefit from using complementary medicines. We shouldn't dismiss that.’"

And in his May 20 address to the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, England’s The Telegraph reported, Prince Charles said, “’I believe that the proper mix of proven complementary, traditional and modern remedies, which emphasize the active participation of the patient, can help to create a powerful healing force for our world.’”

— Karen Menehan