BANT consider profit more important than ethics

According to their website the British Association for Applied Nutrition and Nutritional Therapy (BANT) is a conscientious professional organisation for nutritionists. It’s primary function is described as being

to assist its members in attaining the highest standards of integrity, knowledge, competence and professional practice, in order to protect the client’s interests, nutritional therapy and the Nutritional Therapist.

BANT makes clear that:

[it] was set up as a Company Limited by Guarantee in February 1997. It is a non-profit organisation funded neither by pharmaceutical, agrochemical or government agencies but by member subscriptions and donations.

and that:

BANT promotes high standards of education in Nutritional Therapy and high standards of practice and ethics within the profession.

BANT acts as a professional body regulating the activities, training and Continuing Professional Development of its practitioners.

So far so good, any professional body that sees itself as a regulator must remain untainted by whims of the market and must uphold the highest standards of public behaviour. However, as Holfordwatch discovered last year, BANT see themselves as

a professional association and not a regulator

so it is quite mystifying why their public webspace would use the word ‘regulation’ when what they really mean is that they don’t regulate. Regardless of this bit of Orwellian doublespeak one would expect a professional association, as BANT claim they do, to promote high standards of ethics and practice.

Now a common complaint amongst purveyors of what civilised society calls complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is that Big Pharma have a disproportinate influence on health professionals. While nobody denies that Big Pharma are often unprincipled, unethical and sometimes outright bastards in their tactics it is important to note that professional regulators, like the General Medical Council (GMC), ensure that their members operate ethically despite the best attempts of big business to buy their affection.

Now it might be expected that BANT would be similarly professional and as they claim not to receive funding from “pharmaceutical, agrochemical or government agencies” would be independent of commercial concerns. Sadly this is not true.

As Holfordwatch have pointed out, the BANT Code of Ethics allows nutritionists to exploit their clients for commercial benefit by receiving commission from supplement sales. This is quite extraordinary, especially when you consider that the GMC impose heavy sanctions on its members who do similar things as this example shows. A recent Holfordwatch post draws parallels with the financial services industry and emphasises the need for regulation in all sectors where it is possible for an advisor/practitioner to earn commission from recommending products to consumers.

The offical BANT sanction of commission is curiously unethical behaviour and, despite BANT specifically denying receiving commercial funding, one which would seem to benefit big business as it allows an unhealthily direct pipeline from manufacturer to practitioner to customer with commercial inducements encouraging the practitioner to profit at the expense of the customer. One might wonder if BANT were got at by Big Nute Nutra when codifying their Code of Ethics. This would appear to be the case.

BANT have helpfully provided the 2004 issue of their Code of Ethics, here (PDF), which contains this interesting addendum covering the changes since the last revision:

Item: 7.3 Changed: Commission payments can now be accepted under specified conditions.

Item 7.3 is this section:

7.3 Trade discounts and commission payments.
The main income, generated as members of BANT, should come from consultative, advisory,
educational and promotional aspects of Nutritional Therapy. (G).
a) In addition to supplying supplements as an integral part of a consultation, the Member
may also act as a supplier of laboratory tests, or any other products related to Nutritional
Therapy. The member may choose to benefit from trade discounts and commission payments
when offered by the supplier on products purchased by him for such use. The member
decides whether such payments, in whole or in part, are retained in his Nutritional Therapy
business, or passed onto the client. (B).

b) The Member may accept commission directly from the supplier. This can also apply when
repeat orders for products prescribed by the Member, are placed directly by a client with the
supplier, with the prior agreement of the Member. However, to protect both the Member and
the client, both parties must be in a formal client relationship and implementing the
prescribed programme of treatment, timings, review meetings and record taking as arranged
initially between the parties. (B).

One might wonder where the impetus for this change came from. Luckily BANT have also provided the minutes of their 2004 AGM, here (PDF), that shed some light on this. Under the Ethics section these minutes state that:

A trade association complaint about the apparent constraints placed on their membership set by the BANT codes

and

Regarding commission payments: Code 4.8 currently gives permission to act as a retailer. Provided this ‘interest’ is disclosed to the client then the trade discount can be retained. It remains impermissible at this time to receive commissions from ‘down-line’ (unknown users who are not clients) as in multi-level marketing. However practitioners are free to purchase such products, when considered best suited to the needs of their clients, by providing them directly to current clients whilst part of a programme agreed with, and regularly reviewed with, the client – preferably on a face to face basis..

Now curiously code 4.8 is is absent from the 2004 (and subsequent) Codes of Ethics and has been replaced by 7.3 which appears more lenient. in fact 7.3 places no obligation on the practitioner to pass this commission on to the customer. Curiouser and curiouser, it seems the 2004 Code of Ethics was issued in August 2004 while the AGM took place just 6 weeks earlier in June. It certainly looks like the trade association complaint had the desired effect.

So next time you hear a nutritionist on the radio alleging inappropriate financial influence of Big Pharma you should remind yourself that, as a BANT member, they belong to an organisation that while it claims to be professional and a regulator does no such thing and is willing to sacrifice ethics for profit at the behest of Big Nute. BANT are little more than an unprincipled opportunistic trade organisation that exists to maximise revenue for Big Nute and nutritionists at the expense of customers. It is absurd to consider them professional or regulators.

*update*

Dr*T over at the badscience forums thinks Big Nutra is better than Big Nute.  I concur.  Big Nute does sound like the kind of lizard overlord Ken Livingston would summon should he not win the London Mayoral election.