Homeopaths in sacka with Big Quacka - lacka ethics and evidence

I have just noticed that Nelsons, a major supplier and manufacturer of homeopathic pseudomedicine and assorted quackery, have developed a PR toolkit for homeopaths with an organisation called 4homeopathy. Now I’ve never heard of 4homeopathy and google reveals little apart from a defunct website, however they are described as ‘media specialists’. Perhaps they are some dubious front group, the homeopathic equivalent of Trotyskyist groupuscules, either way I’m not interested. What is of interest to me is the motivations, means and methods of this toolkit and the now public sally of Big Quacka into the fray before Homeopathy Awareness Week (HAW) 14th-21st June.

In a public letter Nelsons/4homeopathy state that they produced this toolkit to aid homeopaths because

it is vital to reach local people in order to grow your client base, keep in touch effectively with your clients and make use of local or regional newspapers to print positive stories about homeopathy.

This frank admission that homeopathy requires positive spin to allow practitioners to attract new customers to increase revenue and profit is very revealing and lends serious weight to all those who have argued that homeopathy as a profession is not interested in research or evidence and is primarily motivated by profit. They then go onto admit that Big Quacka are spending a lot of money on advertising and influencing the national press in attempts to promote homeopathy and that homeopaths should work with Big Quacka to promote their peddling of sugar pills.

Nelsons has already been working hard to get positive information about homeopathy printed in national newspapers and women’s magazines – being successful in reaching over 13 million people with press coverage in their 2007 Homeopathy Awareness Week campaign, but the time has come for us to all work together for maximum effect.

While I am making no moral judgement here about those who collaborate with commercial interests, after all we do live in a free market democracy, I just hope this acknowledgement that homeopaths are working in conjunction with Big Quacka will lead to an end of the inaccurate, scurrilous and offensive attacks on those, such as David Colquhoun and Ben Goldacre, who make it a point of principle not to accept money from Big Pharma. Unlike homeopaths these people do not seem to be motivated by profit which personally I find laudable.

So what are the means by which Nelsons/4homeopathy intend to promote homeopathy? They have drawn up a list of key facts about homeopathy, frequently asked questions, and a homeopathy research page. Now the key facts page is laughably brief and consists of more celebrity endorsements than facts, the homeopathy research page merely links to the Faculty of Homeopaths (FoH) and Society of Homeopaths (SoH) research sites, both ably dissected by apgaylard and the FAQ just trots out the usual canards along with this glaring example of the dangers of jumping into bed with commercial interests:

Where can you obtain homeopathic remedies?
Homeopathic remedies are widely available and can be found in good pharmacies, health food stores and online at www.nelsonshomeopathy.com

Ahh subtle advertising. Love it.

So it’s clear that shameless PR piff puffery is the best argument Nelsons/4homeopathy can make for homeopathy one hopes for their sake that the ‘media specialists’ at Nelsons/4homeopathy can demonstrate some original thought in their methods.

They have thoughtfully provided some templates for press releases and articles on the site ensuring that all evidence of originality and imagination will be squashed by trained (and quite probably lethal) ‘media specialists’.

The template press release begins:

PRESS RELEASE

HOMEOPATHY AWARENESS WEEK 2008

14 to 21 June

Local homeopath (insert name) provides (insert town)

with natural health solutions

Approximately one in four of the UK population will suffer from an allergy at some point in their lives, according to the British Allergy Foundation and the number of people affected is increasing by five per cent each year. So this year, Homeopathy Awareness Week is focused on helping those who suffer from allergies including hayfever, perennial rhinitis and even food intolerances. It is also the perfect opportunity to contact your local homeopath, (insert name) to help cure those other niggling health concerns that may be on your mind.

Homeopathic remedies can help tackle the symptoms by triggering the body’s system of healing. (Insert name, title and what activities you may be organising - maybe talks at your local community centre, taster consultations at your local health food store – here is an example, ‘Registered Homeopath Laura Kenyon LCH RSHom will be explaining more about how homeopathy can help with common everyday health issues at Nelsons Homeopathic Pharmacy, Duke St, W1 on 16^th June from 12 o’clock’.)

(Insert name and quote – here is an example – ‘Laura Kenyon said: “Despite a growing interest in healing in natural ways, there are still many myths and misunderstandings around homeopathy…….”’)

The template then goes on to mention celebrity endorsements, because we all know how good celebrities are when advising on medicine, before finishing with a plug for Nelsons as big as the rest of the press release. Most amusingly the rest of the links for templates are broken, depriving poor homeopaths of the PR expertise of ‘media specialists’.

While it is clear that homeopathy is beginning to struggle in financial terms it is a shame that the fightback  has not come from individual homeopaths or their (purportedly) regulating organisations but from large commercial interests and that it does not focus on evidence, the benefits of a sympathetic chat or even patient satisfaction but resorts to crude attempts to educate homeopaths in PR and spin their way out of trouble.  All the PR in the world will not prove homeopathy works and the willingness of homeopaths to climb into bed with Big Quacka compromises any protestations of independence or integrity.