The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the UK, in response to complaints about the ‘advertising claims’ made by practitioners on their websites, has made ruling after ruling against individual practitioners, telling them to stop making any claims (“treat’, ‘cure’, ‘restore’) about their therapies. The ASA expanded its remit to ‘police’ advertising claims, on behalf of the advertising industry in the UK, in March this year.

This enormous surge in complaints – and negative response from the ASA – comes after another extremely well-funded ‘anti-complementary medicine’ campaign by pressure groups, including the Nightingale Collaboration and the group behind the development of a ‘Practitioner Targeting’ piece of software programme called FishBarrel. It automatically searches the web for any claims like this – and, if they are coming from UK-based practitioners, reports them to the ASA (“like shooting fish in a barrel”).

As the ASA has so many claims to go through, it is understood that the Nightingale Collaboration has been temporarily asked to stop sending complaints – until the ASA gets through its ‘backlog’.

The Complementary Medical Association (The CMA) has had a formal meeting with the ASA to discuss this matter. The ASA explained that all they do is respond to complaints about advertising claims. They inform people that a complaint has been made against them and ask these people to ‘prove’ that their claim is supported by evidence.

To date, the ASA claim that none of the practitioners they have issued notice of a complaint to, have ever submitted any evidence whatsoever to support their claims. This is despite the fact that they refused to take evidence from practitioners who offered to send it in.

The CMA explained that after a quick (48-hour ‘snapshot’) survey of practitioners in the UK these people felt “terrified” by the formal ‘legal-sounding’ letters that the ASA sends out. The ASA denied that its letters imply they are a legal body, or that they could in any way be seen as ‘threatening’ by their recipients.

In discussion with various practitioners and governing bodies for therapists The CMA believes that the evidence shows that practitioners are running in fear of these ASA rulings and are taking down their websites/removing any claims about their therapies – including any testimonials.

If practitioners – and their governing bodies – are no longer allowed to make claims for their therapies what future is there for complementary medicine in the UK?

The CMA will be organising various responses to these new attacks on complementary medicine for CMA Members over the next few months. Support our fight, on your behalf, against these draconian measures and join the CMA. To find out more about the CMA, click here.