New research from a joint UCLA – Harvard Medical Schools study claims that medication studies in the top medical journals are often actually designed in a way that provides misleading – or confusing – results.

The researchers looked at every randomised medical trial over a 2 – year period (June 2008 – Sept 2010) published in 6 of the top medical journals: The Lancet, the British Medical Journal , the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Annals of Internal Medicine, and the Archives of Internal Medicine

The findings, published in the ‘Journal of General Internal Medicine’, looked at all these studies including those that used the three specific, most commonly used types of outcome measures (covering 98% of the studies) – ones which have received increasing criticism from scientific experts.

Surrogate outcomes (37% of studies): these are most likely to be commercially funded by pharmaceutical companies and look at ‘intermediate markers’ and are not thought to be a good indicator of the eventual clinical outcomes they are ‘linked to’. These studies, for example, look at  a heart medication’s ability to lower blood pressure, but whilst this is a good measure, it may not be a good indicator of the medication’s impact on the more important clinical outcomes, like heart attacks.

Composite outcomes (34%): these make it difficult to understand the effects of a number of specific outcomes by grouping a number of multiple individual outcomes – “of unequal importance” –  together. Critics give the example of grouping outcomes like hospitalisations and mortality — and making conclusions linking the two together.

Disease-specific mortality (27%): like Surrogate Outcome Research, these types of study are again most likely to be commercially funded by pharmaceutical companies and may be misleading as they only look at deaths from one specific cause – rather than looking at these deaths from any cause. Critics point out that this may be misleading because, even if a given treatment reduces one type of death, it could increase the risk of dying from another cause, to an equal or greater extent. Trials that used surrogate outcomes and disease-specific mortality were more likely to be exclusively commercially funded — for instance, by a pharmaceutical company.

Lead author, Dr. Michael Hochman said: “Patients and doctors care less about whether a medication lowers blood pressure than they do about whether it prevents heart attacks and strokes or decreases the risk of premature death. Knowing the effects of a medication on blood pressure does not always tell you what the effect will be on the things that are really important, like heart attacks or strokes. Similarly, patients don’t care if a medication prevents deaths from heart disease if it leads to an equivalent increase in deaths from cancer.”

The researchers undertaking this study went as far as to suggest that “commercial sponsors” may promote the use of outcomes that are most likely to indicate favourable results for their products.

Hochman went on to explain that: “For example, it may be easier to show that a commercial product has a beneficial effect on a surrogate marker like blood pressure than on a hard outcome like heart attacks. In fact, studies in our analysis using surrogate outcomes were more likely to report positive results than those using hard outcomes like heart attacks.”

In Cuba, as there are, in theory, no ‘capitalist’ controls on market development, they have always developed medical products to meet their own needs and not just for profit. As part of this approach they have used homeopathic remedies pragmatically and interchangeably alongside ‘conventional’ drugs for treating various conditions.

The brand, named Vidatox, is said to have anti-tumourial, analgesic and anti-inflammatory qualities that, according to the producers, help improve the quality of life of cancer patients.Most practitioners will be aware of the successful, widespread preventative use of homeopathic remedies to treat millions of people in Cuba during the widespread leptospirosis crisis a few years ago. And now a Cuban pharmaceutical company, Labioform, has started exporting a homeopathic medicine made from the venom of blue scorpions, into Europe to meet what it says is a high demand from cancer patients.

Labiofam is marketing its homeopathic remedy in the same way that other cancer-fighting drugs are marketed and has started distribution in Belarus and is now campaigning for distribution in the UK, Germany, France, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Denmark, Hungary and Turkey, amongst other European markets.

Even though demand for the product is said to be exceptional in Italy, the company – through the Cuban Embassy in Rome – has said; “for now, unfortunately, it will not be possible to respond positively to the thousands of requests pouring in to Labiofam, since its production is still very limited.”

The product is claimed to be a “natural, complementary alternative in the treatment of oncological patients.” See full report here.

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.

Wildlife rehabilitators in see a wide range of health problems in native wildlife admitted for rehabilitation. While many of these conditions are a result of trauma such as falls, attacks by domestic animals, and collisions with vehicles or buildings, an increasing number of wildlife cases involving toxins are being identified. As with other serious medical conditions, wildlife rehabilitators work closely with their veterinarians to diagnose the problem and treat the animal. Most wild animals affected by poisoning are believed to die in the wild without any medical care; and, unfortunately, even many poison cases admitted to rehabilitation have been fatal.

In the last couple of years, some wildlife rehabilitators in Colorado, trained in Classical Homeopathy and working in collaboration with veterinarians, have seen positive results in the use of homeopathy with some wild animals that were exposed to toxins. A sample of such cases follow.

Continue reading Homeopathy for Wildlife →

Children given antibiotics are twice as likely to develop digestive problems, research shows. Those prescribed penicillin and similar medicines are more at risk from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and Crohn’s Disease.  Scientists believe the drugs may encourage harmful bacteria and other organisms to grow in the gut, which trigger the conditions. A research team looked at 580,000 children over an 8 year period and examined records of their prescriptions and medical history. The study, published in the journal ‘Gut’, showed that children prescribed at least one course of antibiotics by the time they were 4 were almost twice as likely to have developed IBS. They were also 3½ times more at risk of Crohn’s Disease. The researchers believe antibiotics destroy ‘good’ bacteria and other tiny organisms known collectively as ‘microflora’ which help protect the gut. Probably overall, children aged 3 to 4 who had been given antibiotics were 1.84 times more likely to be diagnosed with bowel disease than those never given the drugs. The risk of developing the illness increased by 12% every time the medicines were prescribed.”
Dr. G. Kassianos, a GP in Berkshire and spokesman for the Royal College of General Practitioners, said “We know already that prescribing antibiotics in the first year of life increases the risk of presenting with asthma in early childhood. This study gives us another warning for slightly older children.  What’s more, by quoting studies like this, we may find it easier to persuade parents of the need to avoid antibiotics unless absolutely necessary.”  See original article in the Daily Mail, January 2011

“Homeopathy – an alternative to antibiotics? Antibiotics may provide symptomatic treatment, but often patients given these medical treatments tend to experience recurrent infections. By contrast homeopathic doctors have seen that many infections can be effectively helped by homeopathy and that can also strengthen the immune system. Homeopathic medicine has proven its effectiveness in medical conditions that in conventional practice are treated with antibiotics.  The conditions treated included sinusitis, both acute and chronic, bronchitis, middle ear infections and rhinopharyngitis.  The GPs using homeopathy had significantly better results in terms of clinical effectiveness and complications. However, it must be stressed that there is as yet no conclusive evidence that homeopathy can be used as an alternative to antibiotics. The growing number of positive outcomes from previous studies clearly indicated the need for further research in this area.”
See extracts from the original article by Dr. Toni Nicolai, President of the European Committee for Homeopathy.