Purveyor of "Natural Remedies" Gets a Dose of Skeptical Medicine [UPDATED 5/29]
"Neal's Yard" by Loz Flowers under CC-BY-SA via Flickr
(Tip o’ the hat to Ben Goldacre @ Bad Science.)
The U.K. Guardian has a weekly feature in their “Ethical Living” blog called “You ask, they answer.” This week, Neal’s Yard Remedies is in the hotseat.
According to the company website, their mission is “to improve the quality of people’s lives by sharing our expertise and encouraging a more natural, holistic way of health, beauty, and wellbeing.”
Despite the tipoff of that woo buzzword “holistic,” and the fact that they are actually selling, not “sharing” their expertise, the mission sounds rather benign, doesn’t it?
Maybe not. Neal’s Yard sells a variety of “remedies” that have no history of safety or efficacy. I wanted to test-drive their expertise, so I went their homeopathy page, and typed “infection” into the search box. It returned a number of suggestions for dealing with a number of ailments, including measles. Since the store’s target customers are perhaps less likely than most to vaccinate their children, and since measles has once again been declared endemic in Britain (thanks to falling vaccination rates) measles seemed like an apt place to start.
After a several paragraphs describing the normal course, as well as potential complications from measles, they offer this little gem:
“We do not recommend immunization against measles because the long-term effects of this are not fully known, and we believe, as with all childhood illnesses, measles provides the opportunity for the child to strengthen his/her vitality and throw off inherited miasmatic tendencies.”
Love that reference to that mainstay of medieval medicine, the miasma theory of disease!
So, once one has taken their advice not to get vaccinated, what is one to do when one finds oneself spotty and febrile, itchy, with painfully inflamed eyes?
Why, purchase a few herbs and homeopathic remedies, of course! (And don’t forget the aromatherapy.)
Fortunately, Neal’s Yard Remedies is taking a skeptical drubbing in the question section of the Guardian post, with several commenters asking about the ethics of selling unproven remedies. A few gems:
From Puzzlebobble: “You sell a multitude of products for a wide variety of medical conditions, some of which are serious or life threatening.
Please could you explain what level of evidence of efficacy you require before stocking any product?
If, as I suspect, the level of evidence of efficacy is poor then will you tell us what, if any, studies are done to look for harmful side-effects? How are these studies conducted? Furthermore please show us the power calculations for these studies.
Surely you don’t view it as ethical to sell products which are of unproven benefit and which you don’t even know are safe?”
From Takearisk: “Could you please explain how the ‘correct homoeopathic remedy’ is decided on and describe the qualifications of the people who make these decisions?
I’d also be grateful for a biological definition of ‘healing energy’ and an indication of where I can find the scientific evidence for its existence.”
And there are plenty more where those came from.
Let’s stay tuned to see what Neal’s Yard comes up with for answers. I’ll bring the popcorn.
UPDATE:
For some reason, Neal’s Yard has changed its mind, and decided not to answer questions from the public, as it had originally committed to doing.So much for its commitment to “ethical living.”
