Peter Fisher lays the smack down on the Society of Homeopaths

Well I’ve been too busy to finish the second part of yesterdays post so I thought I would share this amusing little tale from the quick response section of an old BMJ letter by Ernst & Schmidt on the poor advice offered by homeopaths, amongst others, on MMR. The contents of the letter are hardly surprising, homeopaths go against government advice on MMR and GPs don’t respond to patients emails. So incompetence in the alternative and arrogance in the orthodox, not exactly news.

The interesting story is in the comments. One of the first responders is Dr Peter Fisher, big cheese in the Faculty of Homeopaths (FoH), supreme leader of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital and the Queens own Woo Master.

Schmidt and Ernst risk causing confusion by their use of the term ‘professional homeopaths’, since the defining characteristic of this group is precisely that they are not members of any recognised health profession! Anyone can style her/himself ‘professional homeopath’, there is no mandatory registration or minimum standards of training, ethics etc. By contrast, the Faculty of Homeopathy is empowered by Act of Parliament to award diplomas to health professionals who must be registered with their respective statutory professional bodies.

Ouch. Professional homeopath is a meaningless term. Unless you are a member of the FoH and regulated by statute you are not a professional. Loving the ethics dig.

The two groups of homeopaths also differ sharply in their attitudes to immunisation. The Faculty’s longstanding policy is to advise immunisation according to Department of Health guidelines and recommends that immunisation be carried out in the normal way unless there are medical contra-indications. This too is the authentic homeopathic tradition: as early as 1810, Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy strongly endorsed vaccination, presciently remarking that those who opposed it had never witnessed the terrible consequences of a smallpox epidemic. The Faculty of Homeopathy produces an information sheet for parents to explain its position.

Oooh you naughty man Dr Fisher. Not only do the unmentionable scion of homeopathy take a minimalist approach to ethics and training but they don’t follow the teachings of Hahnemann either. Talk about twisting the knife. The coup de grace is performed in his elegant and unequivocal final paragraph.

The title ‘professional homeopath’ is misleading and should not, in our view, be used unless and until it is invested with real meaning by legislation. The term non medically-qualified practitioners (NMQPs) is preferable.

And all this without actually allowing the names of the unspeakables to pollute his prose.

Well the Society of Homeopaths (SoH), the only organisation regulating NMQP homeopaths capable of co-coordinating a response unlike the hapless ARH, got one of their members, Robert Fordham, a lecturer in homeopathy, to make their case.

For me, professionalism in health care is defined by the manner of one’s approach to the grey areas of practice: problem-solving, interpretation, consideration of evidence, exercise of clinical judgement and the evaluation of ethical imperatives, for example. This stands in stark contrast to the possession of a degree, a diploma or the membership of a professional body as the defining characteristic. Were the latter adequately to define a professional, it would surely follow that possession of a qualification would banish all wrong-doing in the professional life. Clearly this is not the case. There is surely much more to being a health professional than working within externally defined guidelines and protocols.

Ahh the standard homeopaths trick when faced with awkward definitions, redefine the words so they suit your argument. According to the Oxford English Dictionary a profession is defined as:

An occupation in which a professed knowledge of some subject, field, or science is applied; a vocation or career, especially one that involves prolonged training and a formal qualification.

No matter what linguistic sleight of hand you pull there is no getting past the fact that, while there may be more to being a professional than working within defined boundaries, a two year part time qualification and no meaningful boundaries aren’t sufficient to call yourself one.

Mr Fordham then goes on in some anecdotal waffle about how his Doctor was mean to him when he didn’t want his child vaccinated and the FoH are bunch of meanies for wanting strict rules before concluding with the following paragraph.

The Society of Homeopaths received a strong endorsement of its work in professional education, regulation, codes of ethics and practice and professional conduct and so on after a House of Lords inquiry. Work continues with the establishment of an independent Council of Organisations Registering Homeopaths (partly funded by the Prince of Wales’ Foundation for Integrated Health); the support of the NHS Alliance, public and patients’ lobby organisations; an increasing interest in integrated medicine in higher education and pioneering projects supported by PCTs nationally.
This work is being carried out in a thoroughly rigorous manner and is a credit to an emerging profession.

Now the thoroughly unprofessional and incompetent manner in which CORH collapsed will be explored tomorrow and makes a mockery of any claims of rigour or professionalism amongst the NMQP quacks. Anyway, we’ve seen before how the SoH distort what the House of Lords say to suit their propaganda so I will quote in full the section of the report referenced above:

HOMEOPATHY

5.61 The non-medical homeopaths were much the least enthusiastic of the three therapies in our Group 1 about pursuing statutory status. The Society of Homoeopaths told us: “I think it is true to say that we have decided that voluntary self-regulation is our current option but I would like to emphasise that we have also used the qualifying phrase “for the time being” because there are two strands to that if you like. One is to observe very closely and monitor the progress and experience of the osteopaths and chiropractors in their role post-statutory self-regulation. We do realise it has not been quite as seamless as it might have been in that perhaps there are building blocks, foundations, to regulation that were not necessarily in place before the statute was passed. So, for the Society we have recognised that we need to develop a very strong self-regulating profession with those key building blocks in place and then examine whether or not regulation by statute is appropriate (Q 687). “We look at it as an open question. We realise that the issue of protection of title is a very important one but currently we are not sure that it has been fully addressed by statutory regulation in that, as has already been said this morning, it is recognised that as soon as you make laws there are ways around it” (Q 688).

5.62 However the Faculty of Homeopathy, representing the medical homeopaths, already regulated by the GMC, told us: “We do strongly believe that to be the case [that homeopathy should only be practised by those statutorily registered]. This does not mean that the current practitioners who do good homeopathic work in the community should not continue to do so but perhaps their kind of practice should be regulated in such a way that it falls within safe practice. It perhaps calls for a new sort of profession of homeopathic practitioner” (Q 651).

5.63 Of all the professions in our Group 1, homeopathy carries the fewest inherent risks in its practice, at least in relation to the consumption of homeopathic medicines. We are also aware that there is unusually strong contention about the evidence available for its efficacy. These two points could be seen as arguments against statutory regulation which could be considered unnecessary due to the limited risks and could also be seen as awarding a degree of legitimacy to a therapy about which much of the conventional scientific world has strong doubts and reservations. However, in our opinion there are reasons why homeopathy should still consider progressing towards statutory regulation. While the practice of homeopathy may itself be free from risk, it does create an opportunity for diverting conventional diagnosis and treatment away from patients with conditions where conventional treatment is well-established, as some patients seem to see it as offering a complete alternative to conventional medicine. Such attitudes mean that homeopaths are in a position of great responsibility. It is imperative that there is a way of ensuring that this position is handled professionally, that all homeopaths are registered, that they know the limits of their competence, and that there are disciplinary procedures with real teeth in place. Protection of title and a single statutory register would help ensure that this happens. It would also be encouraging if there was more collaboration between the medical homeopaths of the Faculty and the non-medical homeopaths of the Society, with more communication and agreement over information services for the public, making their options in choosing a homeopath clear, and with agreed educational standards to ensure that all those practising homeopathy are trained in homeopathic practice to a similar level. If the Society had statutory status, it might well facilitate communication and collaboration between them and the Faculty (see paras 5.84 – 5.86). Under the Society of Homoeopaths, the non-medical homeopaths have organised themselves well and their professional organisation should mean the transition to statutory regulation does not present too great an upheaval. For these reasons we would urge them eventually to consider the benefits they may derive from statutory regulation.

Apologies for length but it is absolutely fascinating. The House of Lords clearly think that statutory regulation is important and disagree with the SoH on this. The FoH make a really sly dig about unregulated homeopaths being brought under statutory control to ensure “safe practice”. At no point do the Lords endorse the SoH’s “work in professional education, regulation, codes of ethics and practice and professional conduct”, they merely observe that they are well organised.

It is clear there is mutaul distrust and antipathy between the FoH and the SoH and Peter Fisher clearly has concerns over unregulated homeopathy. It would be nice if he could be a bit more vocal in making his concerns clear to various public bodies and I suspect he might even find common purpose with some bloggers, my self included, who are appalled at the cavalier attitude to public health in the developed and developing world that the SoH have.