PRESS RELEASE

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ANH PRESS RELEASE: Leading docs retaliate against attack on

alternative medicine

(Source: http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/index.cfm?

action=news & ID=244)

Discover how leading doctors and scientists in the CAM field,

coordinated by the ANH and the British Society for Ecological

Medicine, are responding to Professor Baum and colleagues' attack on

alternative medicine yesterday.

ANH PRESS RELEASE

24 May 2006

LEADING DOCTORS RETALIATE AGAINST ATTACK

ON ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE

Leading doctors and scientists brought together by the Alliance for

Natural Health (ANH) and the British Society for Ecological Medicine

(BSEM) are coordinating a potent rebuttal to the latest attack

against complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) by a high

profile faction of the orthodox medical profession.

Professor Baum, Emeritus Professor of Surgery, University

College London, and 12 other doctors and scientists published an

open letter in The Times newspaper on 23 May which was circulated to

all 476 NHS Trusts. The letter amounted to a stinging attack on

natural medicine. The authors, including ironically Edzard Ernst,

self-styled incorrectly as " the UK's only professor of complementary

medicine " , condemned alternative therapies as " unproven or disproved

treatments " and said that their increased adoption by the NHS was

displacing patient access to drugs.

The Alliance for Natural Health's Executive and Scientific Director,

Dr Verkerk, said today, " It is unfortunate that Professor

Baum and colleagues fail to recognise the wide range of so-called

complementary or alternative medicine – or CAM - practices which are

clearly scientifically or clinically proven. Judicious adoption of

particular therapies into mainstream medicine would help increase

the efficiency and safety of medical practice, as well as reduce

overall costs. These are inevitably important concerns for the NHS. "

Dr Damien Downing, President of the British Society for Ecological

Medicine and ANH's Medical Director, has drafted a rebuttal to

Professor Baum's letter which has been circulated early this morning

to 18 leading professors, doctors and scientists actively engaged

with CAM for input and a request for each to act as signatory.

Dr Verkerk appeared on Sky TV News last night to express deep

concerns over Professor Baum's assertions. Responding to him was

Professor Mayur Lakhani, Chairman of the Royal College of General

Practitioners. Professor Lakhani reinforced the fact that CAM was

popular with many patients and that some doctors promote and

practice it. He argued that it was important to have a balance of

benefits between drug-based and complementary therapies and that

sometimes life-saving technologies such as pace-makers and cancer

drugs could not be supplied to patients in need due to budgetary

constraints in the NHS.

During the Sky News interview, Dr Verkerk explained that double-

blind, placebo controlled trial designs, regarded in orthodox

medicine as the gold standard by which to assess efficacy, were not

always applicable to CAM modalities. It is of paramount importance,

stressed Dr Verkerk, that the clinical evidence base, which in some

cases is thousands of years old, is amply considered.

Verkerk concluded the interview by reminding viewers that orthodox

medicine was far from safe and had been shown to be the third

leading cause of death in the USA.

END.

CONTACT for further information:

For Dr Damien Downing and Dr Verkerk, please contact:

Meleni Aldridge

Development Manager

Alliance for Natural Health

Tel: +44 (0)1306 646 550

Mob: +44 (0)7771 750 230

Email: mel@...

EDITOR'S NOTES

1. Full letter: doctors' campaign against alternative

therapies, from Professor Baum and others, Re Use

of `alternative' medicine in the NHS:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2191985,00.html

2. In an interview with the British Medical Journal, Professor

Edzard Ernst, signatory to Professor Baum's letter, said:

" Our family doctor in the little village outside Munich where I grew

up was a homoeopath. My mother swore by it. As a kid I was treated

homoeopathically. So this kind of medicine just came naturally. Even

during my studies I pursued other things like massage therapy and

acupuncture. " The history of non-orthodox medicine in continental

Europe is unlike that in the United Kingdom, where the creation of

the NHS excluded most of its techniques. In countries like Germany

it seems to face much less conflict with science. " As a young doctor

I had an appointment in a homoeopathic hospital, and I was very

impressed with its success rate. My boss told me that much of this

success came from discontinuing mainstream medication. This made a

big impression on me. "

Source: studentBMJ 2004;12:1-44 February ISSN 0966-6494

(http://www.studentbmj.com/issues/04/01/careers/25.php).

3. The British Society for Ecological Medicine is the

professional body for medical doctors, scientists and other

healthcare professionals in the areas of allergy, environmental and

nutritional medicine. See www.ecomed.org.uk.

4. The Alliance for Natural Health is a key UK-based,

international campaign organisation, comprised of doctors,

scientists, practitioners, lawyers, innovative companies and

consumers, dedicated to protecting and promoting natural healthcare

worldwide through the use of `good science and good law'. See

www.anhcampaign.org.