Tag Archives: CAVM

Homeopathy, the NHS and BBC Radio Bristol

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Campaign for Rational Veterinary Medicine’s Danny Chambers has just given a very strong interview on the John Darvil show, on BBC Radio Bristol on Wednesday 16th August, 2017.

The subject was the availability of homeopathy on the NHS and Danny gave a succinct explanation why its continuing endorsement by the NHS is wrong on every level. It’s a waste of money, undermines real medicine and, bottom line, puts lives at risk. For instance, this recent paper demonstrates that cancer patients who opt to use CAM treatments such as homeopathy are up to 5 times more likely to die within 5 years of diagnosis as a result of their cancer.

The link to Danny’s interview is here: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05b5096 (the relevant section starts about 7 minutes 30 seconds in) and it’s well worth a listen as a robust and measured counter to the arguments of the homeopathic lobby. It’s going to be available until around the 16th September.

A Cure for Cancer?

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The website of the British Association of Homeopathic Veterinary Surgeons (BAHVS) features a case report in its ‘successful cases’ section, concerning a dog named Bedford (BAHVS, 2012). Bedford was diagnosed with a particularly nasty manifestation of a type of cancer, the squamous cell carcinoma, which appeared as a sizeable mass on top of his head, causing considerable pain and facial deformity.

The story continues, explaining Bedford’s owner, feeling conventional medicine had gone far enough, went on to seek homeopathic help, which was duly given, and to which he reportedly responded, eventually returning to his old self and able to enjoy life again, with no more problems.

From the photographs, it is clear the mass was initially large and painful, yet, after treatment, although the second photograph provided is from a slightly different angle, Bedford appears almost back to normal – the distortion of his brow and eyes seems to have gone and there is a keen look in his eyes.

Taken at face value (although the word ‘cure’, while present in the web address, is conspicuously absent from the account) this ‘successful case’ appears to support the position homeopathy can have profound, positive effects on cancer.

And what could be simpler? Dog gets cancer, dog is given homeopathy, dog recovers. Surely this must be convincing proof of the power of homeopathy?

I was curious to say the least when I first read Bedford’s story. My first thought, given what is known about homeopathy, was this story, as it stood, was unlikely to be true. Cancer Research UK, for instance, reports ‘there is no scientific or medical evidence [homeopathy] can prevent cancer or work as a cancer treatment’ (Cancer Research UK, 2015). Rather than dismiss it out of hand however, I wrote to the BAHVS and they were kind enough to send me Bedford’s clinical history.

On reading the notes, I discovered there was a significant gap in the account. It transpires, at the same time Bedford was receiving homeopathic treatment he was also being treated with robenacoxib, a drug of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID) group.

This class of drugs is well researched and is widely known to have anti-cancer properties, particularly in cases of squamous cell carcinoma (Hilovska et al, 2015). Yet, for whatever reason, the BAHVS had not seen fit to point out such a drug was being given. Other science-based medications – ‘strong opiates’ for instance – are referred to, yet the very one that might have had a real bearing on the case was not even mentioned (although I notice, on the current manifestation of the page, the acronym ‘NSAID’ has indeed appeared, albeit with no explanation as to its significance).

Assuming this might have been an inadvertent omission, I wrote back to BAHVS to explain the situation and suggest, in the interests of full disclosure, they might like to add a paragraph or two to the account describing the potential role of robenacoxib in this case. That way, readers would be able to make a properly balanced judgement about the case, since anyone reading it as it stood could be forgiven for incorrectly assuming the changes in Bedford’s cancer were solely the result of homeopathic treatment.

To my great disappointment, however, the BAHVS declined to make any change to the account, informing me in its reply ‘it is what it is’.

It is clear that ‘what it is’ is simply another example of the tendency of homeopaths to cherry-pick evidence to suit their preconceptions, even, as in this case, when it has been pointed out that by doing so they are misleading the public.

It has to be asked, if homeopathic practitioners are so confident about their chosen modality – despite the wealth of scientific literature which finds it is no more effective than placebo – what is it they have to fear about presenting a full and honest account of this case rather than the one that currently still stands?

References:

British Association of Homeopathic Veterinary Surgeons (BAHVS) (2012) Resolved Cancer Case 2 [Online]. Available at http://www.bahvs.com/cured-cancer-case-2/ (Accessed 24 May 2017).

Cancer Research UK (2015) Homeopathy [Online]. Available at http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/cancer-in-general/treatment/complementary-alternative-therapies/individual-therapies/homeopathy (Accessed 24 May 2017).

Hilovska, L., Jendzelovsky, R. and Fedorocko P. (2015) ‘Potency of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in chemotherapy’, Molecular and Clinical Oncology, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 3–12, [Online]. Available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4251142 (Accessed 24 May 2017).

Homeopaths – poor losers

Bodey, A.L., Almond, C.J. and Holmes, M.A. (2017) ‘Double-blinded randomised placebo-controlled clinical trial of individualised homeopathic treatment of hyperthyroid cats’, Veterinary Record, vol 180, p. 377 (doi:10.1136/vr.104007). [Visit RationalVetMed.org for full links]

‘Abstract… There were no statistically significant differences in the changes seen between the two treatment arms following placebo or homeopathic treatment… or between the means of each parameter for either treatment arm before and after placebo or homeopathic treatment…  The results of this study failed to provide any evidence of the efficacy of homeopathic treatment of feline hyperthyroidism.’

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Hyperthyroidism (an over-active thyroid gland) in cats is a nasty, insidious disease which, in a nutshell, turns the metabolism of affected cats up to eleven. Their heart starts to beat so fast it eventually fails, their energy consumption rockets so they develop a ravenous appetite, eating more food than ever before, yet they still lose weight. And they also get quite grumpy as a rule. But despite all this they can live untreated for a considerable while, although with serious quality of life issues.

Some homeopaths claim you can treat an overactive thyroid by using homeopathy or, more precisely, isopathy with nosodes prepared from ground up thyroid glands (which, by the way, is an example of ‘sympathetic magic’, along the lines of the medicine man spitting on the ground to bring rain or a voodoo priest sticking pins in an effigy of someone who is ill). These homeopaths are most charitably described as ‘mistaken’.

What happens when truly hyperthyroid cats are treated homeopathically (i.e. with nothing) is that they stuggle on for months and months with heart failure and weight loss, becoming increasingly uncomfortable and breathless yet all the time, like most cats, just appearing to sit around quietly rather than making a fuss, right up until the point they go into acute heart failure and die, often in some distress. And while this is happening the attending homeopath is either claiming success on the good days or claiming an ‘aggravation’ during the bad ones – ‘ever had your cat vaccinated, ever fed it commercially prepared cat food, ever given it any medicine, or flea or worm treatment? There you are then, it’s all your fault, it’s the toxins’, they’ll tell you as they trouser your hard-earned cash.

And it’s all nonsense – you cannot successfully treat an overactive thyroid with homeopathy or isopathy as this well conducted trial by statistical supremo Mark Holmes and crew shows.

Of course, the homeopaths are wingeing about it, as they always do when trials, no matter how well conducted, don’t give results they like, even when in this case homeopathic head honcho John Saxton personally gave his go ahead for the trial design.

The homeopathic practitioner, Chris Almond, who participated in the trial says he is expecting a hard time from his homeopathic colleagues – ‘I don’t think I am going to be very popular’ he complains in an article in the BSAVA Companion magazine. And then, in typical homeopathic fashion, the excuses start – having been a willing part of the trial for the whole six years it took to perform, cooperating at every stage and interpreting the answers from owners in response to an agreed questionnaire, once the results are published he suddenly changes his tune, ‘the quality of responses from clients in the questionnaire was often “pretty poor” and made it difficult for him to determine the best individualized treatment for each animal’. Furthermore, he has now decided ‘he was also uncomfortable with the three-week duration of therapy set in the trial protocol’ and, anyway (one can almost hear the stamping of tiny feet and the sound of toys being thrown out of prams by this stage), ‘the experience of participating in the study has shown him that the randomized controlled trial format is simply not suitable as a test of homeopathic methods’.

Well why didn’t he say something sooner, one might well ask? Could it be he was waiting just in case the results were favourable to homeopathy first, in which case the triumphalist cries from the vet homs would have been deafening? But that didn’t happen, the results were entirely in line with expectations and it looks like Mr Almond is currently being hung out to dry by his erstwhile colleagues for consorting with the devil and participating in a well run, methodologically robust trial along with two other veterinary surgeons who were completely independent of any vested interest. Really, what was he thinking!

I can do no better than to quote Andrew Bodey, the (conventional) veterinary practitioner whose idea it was to perform the trial in the first place, ‘If the purpose of your efforts is to justify your own opinions rather than to answer a legitimate question, then that is not going to work…‘

There’s no getting away from it, homeopaths are simply poor losers.

For full links to the original papers visit RationalVetMed.org.

Water

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Earth’s 326 million cubic miles of water cover most of the planet’s surface. Water makes up 70% of our body mass (80% in the case of a newborn infant); the average human uses about 50 gallons of it every day.

Water has inspired great works of art and sculpted the surface of our planet. It has killed millions in floods and tidal waves, yet without a ready supply we would be dead in less than a week.

It is the only substance that is found naturally on earth in three states: liquid, gas and solid. It dissolves more things than any other known liquid and uniquely it is actually lighter as a solid than as a liquid.

Water is a wonderful, awful thing without which life itself couldn’t have evolved. The water molecule is probably the most extensively studied compound in history, we know more about it than almost any other chemical.

Water is all these things and much more, but one thing it is not, is a medicine, nor is it magic – yet that is what every homeopath in existence claims.