Nice theory that any alternative therapy that works will become part of medicine, however, what is evident is there is a long history of suppression of any therapy that competes with pharmaceutical profits. Any therapy that competes is talked down, ridiculed, and made illegal by the FDA. They say that all that needs be done is show something works, ie evidence based but this isn't true. Homeopathy has a long history of curing disease, and many people have positive experiences with it. Yet EBM says it doesn't work. How can this be? Only through the use of dodgy studies, and mouth pieces like Randi who is a magician, not even a pretense at any medical qualifications, to ridicule and talk it down. Yet Randi is held in such high regard by the skeptics and those who insist on EBM.

Carole,

Many herbal remedies are now incorporated in medicine following identification and refinement of the active molecule. As for Homeopathy and its "long history of curing disease" and all other alternative therapies - seriously, if they worked we would use them but since (as is the case with homeopathy) it has been demonstrated to be no more effective than placebo we can be fairly certain that it has not real action in curing disease.

Homeopathy was completely debunked and exposed as a fraud in 1842, well before the straw man of "Big Pharma" became a catch phrase.

Please read the essay Homeopathy and Its Kindred Delusions by Oliver Wendell Holmes, it is available for free here

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2700

You didn't mention whether you are one of the 400 signatories to the Friends of Medical Research. Arthur Wendall Holmes was a product of his environment. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes,_Sr -- "Holmes promoted Boston culture and often wrote from a Boston-centric point of view, believing the city was "the thinking centre of the continent, and therefore of the planet" So while he may have been a much admired and intellectually active person in some ways, it appears that he merely took some things for granted on the basis of what was expected of a man in his position to support. There is plenty of evidence for the efficacy of homeopathy so such comments that homeopathy has been debunked needs to be reconsidered taking into account its history of cures.

Its not entirely true that if a remedy works it gets incorporated into mainstream allopathic medicine. This is a furphy. If a cure challenges the profits of big pharma it is routinely suppressed. For instance there are about 300 cancer cures that have been suppressed by big pharma with excuses that they didn't work, or that the people who came up with them were deluded, that the cures never passed any evidence-based testing etc. The inventors are written off as snake oil salesmen, charlatans, deluded, or otherwise have their reputations dealt with. Big pharma is in business to make money, and doesn't like competition.

Hi Carole;

I'm not a signatory to the Friends of Medical Research. I'm a self employed artisan with no financial interest in either the medical or the CAM fields.

You wrote:

"There is plenty of evidence for the efficacy of homeopathy so such comments that homeopathy has been debunked needs to be reconsidered taking into account its history of cures."

Can you provide good quality peer reviewed studies to back up this claim?

The preponderance of evidence, as I understand it, is that Homeopathy is fraud.

I notice you describe yourself as a conservationist, how does this sit with your support of homeopathy?

Given that making one molecule into a 15C solution requires more water then exists on the entire planet. Homoeopathic manufacturers are either;

1) The world biggest water wasters.
2) lying

Joel, Homeopathy hasn't been debunked at all. Some people might like to think it has along with all varieties of alternative medicine, but this is driven by vested interests.
I don't go along with evidence based medicine and don't think that traditional and classic remedies need to be put through the rigours of EBM. It is only allopathic medicine that is calling for this to be so and part of a plan to discredit it with dodgy studies.
The fact that they claim homeopathy hasn't passed any suitable RCT shows EBM to be more interested in discrediting alternative medicine than finding the truth.
EBM isn't logically sound and should not be the arbitor to decide what is true and what isn't.
"The statement "no statements are true unless they can be proven scientifically", is claimed to be self-refuting insofar as the truth of the statement itself cannot be proven scientifically; the same goes for essentially similar views like "no statements are true unless they can be shown empirically to be true". -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism
Too much emphasis is placed on evidence based medicine, without any justification.
"Even Sir Michael Rawlins (Chair of the UK's National Institute for Clinical Excellence and no great friend of homeopathy) in his 2008 Harveian Oration, [35] warned: "RCTs, long regarded as the 'gold standard' of evidence, have been put on an undeserved pedestal. Their appearance at the top of hierarchies of evidence is inappropriate; and hierarchies are illusory tools for assessing evidence. They should be replaced by a diversity of approaches that involve analysing the totality of the evidence base." 
http://tinyurl.com/7nssq48 
Let's not outdo ourselves in the desire to show how smart we are and saying that homeopathy is impossible because of ...(blah, blah, blah). Homeopathy is possible and it does work.

You may have missed the point in that there is no objection to research, but to teaching of treatment modalities that are not supported by evidence. You are exactly right that some (not sure about many) alternative treatments became mainstream, but they did so by being scientifically proven to work and THEN used by doctors and tought at universities. You can't reverse the order.

The problem/s I see with evidence based medicine (EBM) are - it is expensive, not always reliable with most scientific studies being flawed in some way or another, it isn't always effective for some modalities such as accupuncture. Even chemo can't be scientifically tested against a placebo because as soon as a person begins to chuck their guts up and lose their hair, they know they've got the chemo option. Many alternative and traditional remedies may have centuries of use to their credit and as such EBM becomes irrelevant as if the EBM doesn't support the modality then it is more likely EBM at fault than the remedy. EB studies can be manipulated and there is plenty of evidence for that. EB medicine is just another fad that is more in the interests of the pharmaceutical cartel who can afford the studies, and eliminate competition, rather than anything else.

Can you provide examples of "medical practices that author attacks without any justification have been helping people for thousands of years"? And can you provide evidence that said practices actually do anything beyond being a very expensive placebo? Just saying something doesn't make it so, and there is no reason that alternatives to medicinec should be exempt from the standards of evidence required of real medicine. (Note that the fact that medicine isn't perfect is acknowledged but is also irrelevant).

It was only a couple of centuries ago that we believed that some diseases were caused by bad smells, and carried around flowers to ward them off. We believed that other diseases were caused by an imbalance of "humours" and would commonly attempt to cure people by bleeding them.

Pardon me for not giving a great deal of credence to thousand-year old medical theories.

Yes and likewise, just because a treatment used for thousands of years hasn't been researched also doesn't mean that it does not work.

Quote: carried around flowers to ward them off
Answer: This has been shown to work. The citric acid has been found to ward off virus'.
Quote: commonly attempt to cure people by bleeding them
Answer: I suppose one could tell this girl her bi-polar isn't cured ?
"Patient's bipolar symptoms completely subsided after phlebotomic
reduction of iron overload"

Angela - that is very true and a good place to start. The next step is to research to verify whether the treatment is effective, and why. For some treatments it may be the process rather than the substance - or vice versa. Understanding the mechanism of effectiveness is as important as knowing whether something is genuinely effective. Once we have this knowledge it is then entirely appropriate to include it within University courses.

At this point however we would usually just refer to it as 'medicine'.

Sure Tom - some patients may have bipolar symptoms that are a result of iron overload and a decent physician will explore that option. Your problem is that you extrapolate a small unrepresentative proportion of people with bipolar symptoms into a claim that iron overload is the villain in ALL cases - and not just for bipolar but apparently for every human illness.

Quote: Your problem is that you extrapolate a small unrepresentative proportion of people with bipolar symptoms into a claim that iron overload is the villain in ALL cases - and not just for bipolar but apparently for every human illness.
Answer: Unrepresentative ? I say iron causes bipolar , and supply a study which shows cure of bipolar by iron reduction / phlebotomy. I believe you MEANT to say "the study was too small" as opposed to unrepresentative.
"Neuropsychiatric manifestations of superficial siderosis"
"Manic, exhibiting nonstop talking, insomnia, and obsessive-compulsive behaviors"
I suppose the above is NOT to be treated with iron reduction / phlebotomy?

The problem with your argument being that all the treatments outlined in the article have been researched and shown not to work.

Can you provide an example of a ancient treatment which hasn't been researched?

Hi Grendels, alack, if only your last sentence were true. As I have alluded to on a slightly different conversation topic, medicine, in general, is quite slow at integrating strategies, techniques and medicines especially if they come from a CAM background. Case in point, St John's Wort. If a pharmaceutical grade, standardised preparation is available with good efficacy and safety profiles, why is this not first line treatment for mild to moderate depression, especially when it outperforms a pharmaceutical on both these counts? Why do we have clinical guidelines available for treatment of depression, in particularly vulnerable populations like teenagers and perinatal women, where the evidence supporting it's use is ignored?
Also, have you checked out a MIMS or APP Guide lately? Many drugs have unknown mechanisms of action of effectiveness. I say investigate the lot and the university is exactly the place it should be happening. It shouldn't matter what subject is taught in a university, only that the students can apply critical analysis and thought to it, rip to shreds if need be and move on. As a university trained naturopathy none of the commonly referred to CAM practices were taught- including iridology, reflexology, kinesiology, healing touch therapy, aromatherapy or energy medicine. Maybe scientists might need to have a little bit more faith in their method?

Hi Joel. As you are well aware science is in it's infancy, let alone science in relation to CAM therapies. Any research not supporting CAM to this point may only be pointing towards preliminary possibilities which although somewhat helpful may require further investigation before a definate conclusion is arrived at. The need for adequately funded and trialled CAM therapies is of utmost importance for everyone. To shut these out of a university because some of the preliminary work is not looking good in certain areas is potentially a little presumptuous.

Hi Angela,

I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding here. There is no problem with research but rather with teaching as science unproven treatment methods and philosophies. If research proves them then they can be taught, but there is no reason at all to teach them until such time as they withstand the rigours of scientific inquiry.

Having said that about research, it's important to note that even in research there are usually boundaries. Spending any money on homeopathy, which is not only very unlikely to work but has been shown not to work, is not the same as studying herbal medicine, where there is clearly a likelihood that at least some treatments could be beneficial, once properly studied.

The key is that you look into things scientifically, but after a while, when some of them prove to be duds, you let go. One of the prevalent problems with CAM is that no number of negative studies is enough to convince the true believers. Commonly, a single positive study out of hundreds, even if low quality, is hailed as a sign that more research is required, despite the fact that you expect positive studies by chance if enough studies are conducted.

Don't get me wrong - if the pharmaceutical industry could get away with this kind of behaviour they most certainly would. They don't (generally speaking) because they are the most regulated industry on this planet. And every time the pharmas find a loop hole, it is closed in a haste - to the degree that governments are capable of haste. There is no reason at all to not hold CAM to the same standards of evidence and behaviour. But I digress...

Angela writes

"Case in point, St John's Wort. If a pharmaceutical grade, standardised preparation is available with good efficacy and safety profiles, why is this not first line treatment for mild to moderate depression, especially when it outperforms a pharmaceutical on both these counts?"

Can you provide peer reviewed clinical evidence for this please?

The best evidence I can find is that St John's Wort shows some effect better then a placebo in low or moderate depression. but the safety profile is questionable due to bad interactions with common anti-retroviral, and anti-cancer drugs.

Sure. Here's a start. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20708905
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19299116
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19015839
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11518076
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11518073
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10968813
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10625112

Hi Ian, I'd really appreciate a copy of those references for your last line, when you get a chance. As the preparation I mentioned is low in hyperforin some of the herb/drug interactions are not applicable. It is a listed product with the TGA. Are you saying GP's can't prescribe listed products? They are carried in most chemists.

Ian, it is not up to the universities to decide what they should teach but rather the public who are turning to alternative medicine in increasing numbers.

Sorry, but that is just plain wrong. Believing something does not make it true. Evidence that can be demonstrated by anyone following the same procedure makes something true.

I am reminded of my Mother who once replied to my complaint, "everyone else is doing it" with, "if everyone decided it was a good idea to jump off of a bridge, it would still be a bad idea".

If the public turns to something in large numbers, it does indeed make for an interesting research target. However, it contains no truth value until it can be proven. And until it is proven, it should not be taught in a classroom.

"a small unrepresentative proportion of people" Read that again several times then read what you wrote and explain how it is supposed to make sense.

You can say "iron causes bipolar" all you like. It doesn't make it true.

Treating people who have mental illness with chelation is unlikely to be effective if they have perfectly normal levels of iron. My point was that in the majority of cases iron is unlikely to be the culprit.

Pretending that it is won't help the patient.

Maybe a more interesting question then Chuck may be why are the public turning away from traditional care in increasing numbers? Rather than the question posed previously by Corole.

"Don't get me wrong - if the pharmaceutical industry could get away with this kind of behaviour they most certainly would."

And they do.. http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7399362n

Don't be ridiculous, Jamie. If you start looking for examples of misbehaviour, CAM will be on the losing side by a very large margin. I am not going to start providing you with a list because if you're interested enough in the truth you can do your own research very easily. In any case, this has nothing to do with the fact that pseudoscience is being taught at Australian Universities, to their detriment.

Having done a quick search of the literature, no studies 'jump out' that offer evidence based support to the headline assertion that - "The international credibility of Australia’s universities is being undermined by the increase in the “pseudoscientific” health courses they offer".

This does not mean that the headline assertion by the professors is incorrect, or that studies don't exist to support it, but we ought to be provided with evidence for the claim from those asserting the intellectual high ground for an evidence based approach to medicine - an approach I strongly support.

Anyway, if one takes exception to the unsubstantiated claims made by many in the alternative health field, as I do, and then allows the unsubstantiated headline claim by the professors to remain unchallenged, what does that say about how we promote the cause of science in medicine? That we are prepared to accept or ignore unsubstantiated assertions provided they further a cause we have sympathies for?

If the international reputation of our universities is being damaged as claimed, this is a serious matter. However if the headline assertion turns out to be the thought-bubble of an acrimonious turf war over status and funding, then truth may have been the first casualty. If so, the debate will be marginalised to one of the politics of self-interest - a regrettable and unnecessary state of affairs if science based courses in medicine are the desired result.

As an aside, I find it amusing that if there is any supporting evidence for the headline claim, it is most likely to come out of the faculties of arts/ economics/ commerce - the social sciences.

The questions "does homeopathy work" and "is the credibility of our universities undermined" are not on equal footing. The former can easily be tested, and indeed has been tested and the answer is "no it doesn't". The latter is a much more complex issue as there is no easily way to measure credibility (can you describe a credibility study? Or even a credibility quantisation method?) But there is also something else which you have to take into account, and that is that for things like credibility there is the possibility that the truth of a statement is self-evident. I'll give you an example:

You are looking to hire an electrician, and you find that in addition to doing great work in some places, he also dabbles in shoddy, low-cost work that may endanger his customers. Would you need evidence that the man's credibility is problematic, or would you accept that evidence of the shoddy work is enough to establish the credibility problem?

Universities are places of science. If they teach pseudoscience (under the guise of science), then they undermine their credibility in science. It should be enough to provide evidence that the practice of pseudoscience is indeed shoddy to establish that their credibility is undermined.

If pseudoscience is taught as science, I agree that this would undermine the credibility of any institution. However if you teach the study of alternative health and medicine from an evidenced based perspective, that would not undermine the medical science departments of tertiary institutions and is pro-science. It is not what is taught that matters, but rather how it is taught and by whom. I believe this is what the professors are saying, and so do their references amongst other things.

Your rhetorical question "does homeopathy work?" makes several assumptions and the answer is not as simple as "no it doesn't". Homeopathy probably 'works' for the people selling the product and the people in the supply chain that make the brew, it probably 'works' for the person doing the prescribing, and it might even 'work' for the person being sold the brew if what they wanted was some TLC and they got it in the process - all that without a placebo effect from ingesting the brew itself. So, does homeopathy work? Well yes, no, and maybe, it really depends on the context.

If good science is the desired outcome, suggesting as you appear to do, that we stop examining assertions that appear complex or self-evident isn't likely to help. Anyway regardless of whether an assertion is simple, complex, self-evident or self-contradictory, when scientists discuss issues of science it is incumbent on those making assertions to either qualify the assertion and/or provide supporting evidence to back it up.

btw qualifying an assertion may be as simple as providing context, and this in turn would enhance credibility. So to your sparky example; it may be that the electrician only did dodgy work whilst she was going through a messy divorce and drinking to suppress cognitive dissonance. Now that she is 'over it' and no longer self medicating with alcohol, she does excellent work. So with qualification, context and perspective comes clarity and credibility, and I hire her to do the job. So it would appear that 'credibility quantisation' may not be so difficult after all.

And whilst I am at it, not all universities are places of science - now this really ought to be self-evident, but if you need evidence ...................