{"id":564,"date":"2009-10-19T15:30:59","date_gmt":"2009-10-19T02:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2009\/10\/it_couldnt_happen_here_could_i\/"},"modified":"2009-10-19T15:30:59","modified_gmt":"2009-10-19T02:30:59","slug":"it-couldnt-happen-here-could-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2009\/10\/it-couldnt-happen-here-could-i\/","title":{"rendered":"it couldn’t happen here. could it?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I hope not.<\/p>\n

Some of my fellow Sciblings have written quite a bit lately about various ‘alternative & complementary’ health claims. And I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading their posts (here<\/a> & here<\/a>, for example). So I wonder what their take would be on a story from the UK, helpfully publicised by the Quackometer<\/a>. Not only is a British MP calling for more & better public health funding for various ‘complementary & alternative’ therapies – but their Minister of Health is reported as saying “that the Government’s position on complementary and alternative medicines, which I shall refer to as CAM, is the same as our position on mainstream medicines. “ In other words, that homeopathy, iridology, relexology & all the other non-scientific, lacking-in-evidence-of-effectiveness modalities should be treated the same as mainstream medical practice when it comes to funding & publicity, and the euros\/pounds sterling allocated to health should stretch even further than they have to now. As the Quackometer says, "[to] treat the claims of pseudo-medical cults in the same way as you treat the claims of scientific medical research is an absurdity."<\/p>\n

If I was a health consumer in the UK, I’d be worried. But it couldn’t happen here. Could it? I hope not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I hope not. Some of my fellow Sciblings have written quite a bit lately about various ‘alternative & complementary’ health claims. And I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading their posts (here & here, for example). So I wonder what their take would be on a story from the UK, helpfully publicised by the Quackometer. Not only is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[22,3,31],"yoast_head":"\nit couldn't happen here. could it? : BioBlog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2009\/10\/it-couldnt-happen-here-could-i\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"it couldn't happen here. could it? : BioBlog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I hope not. Some of my fellow Sciblings have written quite a bit lately about various ‘alternative & complementary’ health claims. And I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading their posts (here & here, for example). 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