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ANH-Intl eAlert No 353 | 24 May 2017 |
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e-ALERT |
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Under attack, looking for solutions |
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Firstly – all of us here at ANH-Intl offer our heartfelt thoughts to the families affected by the Manchester bombing and its aftermath. It is yet another marker of just how out of kilter elements of our society have become. We hope this horror might act as another trigger for people to work more cohesively together – to bring up children and young adults with a sense of common justice and purpose.
Skeptics – or Rationalists, as they sometimes prefer being called these days — seem hell-bent on bashing forms of medicine that are not fully accepted by the mainstream medical establishment. They argue that if the evidence is good enough, the mainstream will accept it. Through this lens then, any modality of medicine that sits outside the mainstream is a form that doesn’t work and so has no benefit for its users. Well, they’re wrong on this in our view – as you’ll find out from this week’s two lead pieces.
Skeptics must wonder why so many users of non-standard medical approaches don’t agree with them and why they are often so compelled to tell their stories about their own positive experiences. One wonders what the Skeptics think about the low percentage (currently 11%) of medical treatments assessed by the journal BMJ Clinical Evidence that have been proven to be effective. Why are these treatments so well accepted by the mainstream if so many aren’t proven to work?
The reality is that the so-called gold standard for evaluating medical and health treatments, the RCT, is rudimentary in terms of its ability to evaluate what happens under real world conditions, both inside and outside the clinic. It so often can’t test for an individual’s experience, which is in turn the result of a multitude of factors. That might include non-standard as well as standard treatments. It will also include how and what someone eats, how they sleep and how they respond to stress.
This week’s two pieces look at two initiatives spurned by anti-natural medicine Skeptics. We should perhaps take this opportunity to thank the Skeptics for triggering these initiatives.
The first is about a consultation by the UK Charity Commission, an initiative it took after being threatened with legal action by the Skeptics if it didn’t de-register organisations involved with homeopathy. The Charity Commission responded with a review that closed last Friday, to which we made a detailed response and provided guidance for the sector.
The other initiative is one we’ve worked on very closely with David Balen, the spearhead at Balens, one of the main insurance brokers for the UK and, increasingly the Netherlands, complementary and integrative medicine (CIM) sectors. Central to this has been the ongoing development of a health app that allows outcomes from multiple interventions to be self-reported and tracked by the user.
Check out both these initiatives - along with our news roundup, including a Chinese study that links measles outbreaks to pollution and risks of nutritional deficiencies in children on vegan diets.
In health, naturally
Rob Verkerk, PhD
Founder, executive & scientific director |
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News Alerts: Week 21, 2017
Chinese study links measles to pollution; Italy increases vitamin levels; Vegan diets in childhood; Cannabis may boost memory in the... |
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Copyright © 2017 Alliance for Natural Health International.
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Alliance for Natural Health International.
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