A burst of newspaper articles critical of homeopathy

tl;dr Thanks to efforts from the Good Thinking Society and skeptical activists homeopathy is in the news again, this time it's further criticism of the decision to accredit the Society of Homeopaths' register.

If you've enjoyed the recent burst of articles in the news that have been critical of homeopathy you might like to know that the Good Thinking Society are the people to thank for this. They are currently crowdfunding funds to support a Judicial Review against the decision to accredit the Society of Homeopaths. If you're able to, you can donate here.

---

The latest crop (and a bumper crop it has been!) of stories relates to the decision made by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) to re-accredit the Society of Homeopaths (SoH) for 2019-2020 despite concerns that some of their members claim to treat autism and others offer 'alternatives' to vacination. Their re-accreditation is up again for renewal and anyone was able to share their thoughts about whether they should be re-accredited (I shared mine) as long as they submitted their thoughts by 22 October 2019. The SoH first received PSA accreditation in 2014.

• Going forward - quite a few people think the PSA should not re-accredit the SoH from Jan 2020 and have written to ask them not to do this
• Retrospectively - The Good Thinking Society (GTS) would additionally like a ruling on the PSA's previous re-accreditation of the SoH (2019-2020). They have been given permission to proceed with a Judicial Review to look into that decision, and to see if it can be rescinded. You can help with the costs of the judicial review too, with a donation.

The GTS have caused this latest splurge of newspaper articles because they asked the head of NHS England (Simon Stevens) to write to the PSA and share his thoughts about SoH accreditation - and he did, and it has caused quite a stir. I'll remember this next time I see homeopathy advocates saying that skeptics have no influence ;)

1. Daily Mail
NHS chief Simon Stevens blasts homeopathy as 'dangerous' and blames the industry for fuelling antivaxx myths
27 October, 22:01
They broke this story with a front-page which is itself a lovely surprise.

2. The Times (article)
NHS chief wants homeopathy to lose official stamp of approval
28 October, 00:01

3. The Times (editorial)
The Times view on calls to revoke accreditation of homeopathic practitioners: Bad Medicine
Homeopaths can cause great harm and deserve to be stripped of their accreditation
28 October, 00:01

4. The Guardian
Head of NHS voices 'serious concerns' about homeopathy
28 October, 07:51

5. BBC
Health bosses' 'serious concerns' over homeopathy
28 October, 10:57 (based on link's first appearance on Twitter)

6. The Independent
NHS bosses bid to blacklist ‘bogus’ homeopathy amid fears of anti-vaccine misinformation
28 October, ~12.31pm (based on the article's author's tweet)

The story has also spread into specialist news stories including The BMJ (Homeopathy should have professional accreditation revoked, NHS leaders urge, 29 October) and the Pharmaceutical Journal (NHS England expresses concern over accreditation of homeopaths, 29 October) and Google News lists plenty of other places where it's been published.

Background
With activism there are always two things - the meat* and the marinade. The meat is the big-change stuff like policy changes, regulatory action and so on whereas the marinade relates to the background in which opinion towards a topic changes. Both support each other.

With homeopathy it's become very clear that in the last few years there have been an increasing number of negatively-framed newspaper articles on the topic, a notable comparison with articles in previous years which were often rather fawning towards homeopathy and other alternative medicines.

It feels like it might have reached a bit of a peak this week with a front cover on the Daily Mail (which is finally pivoting towards encouraging parents to vaccinate) criticising homeopathy.

Apparently there may be some more stories in the pipeline on homeoprophylaxis though possibly Brexit and election news have taken over for now. Anyway I've written a Wikipedia article on Homeoprophylaxis just in case.

Three days after news of Simon Stevens' letter to the PSA broke the SoH had not issued any response - no news story on their blog, no tweet or Facebook post and they've either declined to comment to the authors of these articles or not replied as far as I can tell.

Inexplicably the British Homeopathic Association published a short piece bemoaning the latest crop of news articles but much of it is mistaken or incomplete so I'm not sure that helps much.
*or meat substitute for veggies or vegans!

I've created a Wikipedia page for the Society of Homeopaths

A few months ago I spotted that the British Homeopathic Association (BHA) and Faculty of Homeopathy (FoH) had Wikipedia pages but the Society of Homeopaths (SoH) didn't and I'd been meaning to create a page to redress that. It's been interesting revisiting some of their activities and with their recent re-accreditation by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) and the Judicial Review into that decision that has been requested by the Good Thinking Society I thought it was time to get a move on, so here it is: Society of Homeopaths.

The BHA's page begins with a paragraph about when the association was formed and by whom, then highlights that homeopathy is an unevidenced pseudoscience before going on to highlight two examples of BHA's activities. The first is about the quality (apparently not great) of the evidence they submitted to the House of Commons Evidence Check on Homeopathy from 2009, the second is about their failed Judicial Review of NHS England's decision to top funding homeopathy.

I followed the same pattern for the SoH page and so far I have the following information in there.

• An Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) adjudication against the SoH in 2013 for engaging in false advertising and discouraging people from seeking essential treatments
• SoH considered legal action in 2016 against the ASA after it wrote to UK homeopaths to remind them of the rules for marketing material, but they were advised against it by their legal advisor
• In 2017 skeptics* complained to the PSA about the SoH as their members were offering CEASE therapy for autism. The PSA put some obligations on the SoH in place but re-accredited them. One of the obligations was to publish a position statement on CEASE (and monitor risks from member homeopaths offering this).
• In May this year there was an undercover interview by The Times with a number of homeopaths one of whom was both a member of the SoH and also offering 'homeoprophylaxis' (an alternative to vaccination, which doesn't offer any protection). Rather than bring about disciplinary proceedings the SoH defended the member and said they would complain to the press regulator.
• As a result of the PSA re-accrediting the SoH (on 1 April no less) the GTS has filed a request for a Judicial Review to be undertaken of that decision, you can read more about that here (and donate to the crowdfunder).

*the term skeptics refers not just to bloggers and activists by doctors, scientists, healthcare professionals and patients who are concerned about health claims.

Next to investigate, write, reference and add are

• Info on the 2006 Newsnight undercover 'sting' into homeopaths offering homeopathic alternatives to malaria prevention medicine, alongside a lack of general advice about bite avoidance. Some of the homeopaths involved appear to have been SoH members (a spokesperson from the SoH certainly appeared on follow-up programmes). This will take time to unpick as I need to remind myself of the sequence of events, and of SoH's involvement.
• Related to the above, a year later in 2017 blogger @lecanardnoir wrote a post about the SoH's response about their members re: the malaria sting and received a legal letter asking him to remove his post (which he did). Doing so triggered a chain of events resulting in the mirroring (copying, republishing) onto over 60 other sites and was probably the first time I hear the phrase the Streisand Effect (in which by seeking to hide information you end up drawing more attention to it).
• A retrospective link to this 2014 article which appeared when the SoH first began to be accredited by the PSA, pointing out how ill-advised this seemed.
  "It’s unscientific for a medical regulatory body to give accreditation to homeopaths" - New Statesman (18 September 2014)

Obviously I want the Wikipedia article to be reasonably encyclopaedic (kind of the point!) but I don't think it's necessary to itemise every single thing. Here are some things I've not added, or only lightly referenced.

• I've added the latest (as at Sep 2018) official number of society members (according to PSA's accreditation document) but struggled to make sense of the membership numbers overall so haven't included further information. Their current 'About us' website page has 1,200. In their 2009 submission to the HoC EvCheck they give it as 2,500, in 2013 it was 1,300.
• Probably I won't add anything about the problem of Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford University letting the SoH have their conference and AGM on site despite concerns about legitimising homeopathy, not to mention how the university's autistic students might feel about that happening. 
• Also there's some stuff about alleged links between a (former) SoH staff member and the long-since debunked MMR-autism controversy but that might require legal considerations, so probably best left out for now.
• The SoH has today published a news article on the fact that members can add additional therapies to their insurance package. Some SoH members offer a range of services, including homeopathy, but the standard insurance covers them only for homeopathy. Whether or not society members are underinsured might be a bit niche for Wikipedia.

The purpose of this post then is to combine some stuff that's on Wikipedia with stuff that isn't. I think it's important and helpful to have overview information of a topic, particularly where something involves many years of historical skeptic activism. It's easy to forget things and so useful to keep it all together.

The Professional Standards Authority has re-accredited the Society of Homeopaths - CEASE therapy for autism

Reaccreditation document (PDF)

This one is a little surprising. A number of us have been expressing concern to the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) about the response by the Society of Homeopaths (SoH) to those of their members who are offering "CEASE" therapy for autism.

The SoH keeps a register of its 997 members (at Sep 2018, all of whom are allowed to use the term RSHom in their marketing material) and the PSA accredits a variety of society registers, including SoH's. SoH therefore runs an Accredited Register (AR) of homeopaths, though accreditation isn't meant to imply that homeopathy works.

Last year the PSA re-accredited the SoH with some provisos that the society would need to satisfy some additional monitoring requirements about those of their members offering CEASE.

Yestesrday the PSA published the latest accreditation and I've not read it all yet but wanted to add something here about it as I've written several times on this topic.

The 21 page PDF from the PSA is here - Society of Homeopaths Annual Review 2018

What surprised me is that the PSA highlighted a problem with members of an AR offering any treatment (whether real or bogus) that claims to treat a protected characteristic such as autism. The SoH still has members offering this, with a range of claims.

Thanks to @UKHomeopathyReg for alerting me.

Also of interest and relevance is that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has referred five homeopaths (I don't know if any of them are SoH members, no reasons to assume that any are) to Trading Standards for further investigation. Last year the ASA sent an Enforcement Notice to 150 UK homeopaths who were making misleading claims to treat or cure autism. Homeopaths should not write CEASE out in full (it stands for Complete Elimination of Autistic Spectrum Expression) as the full name is an implied health claim, which is misleading.

Why so-called CEASE Therapy claims to 'cure' autism really have to stop - Guy Parker, CEO ASA

Some encouraging regulatory news on CEASE therapy for autism - #homeopathy

Summary: the PSA has already taken on board skeptics' concerns about some of the Society of Homeopaths' members who use homeopathy and CEASE therapy in treating (and claiming to treat) autistic children. In January 2019 the PSA added an additional point to consider, which is that the treatment "seeks to ‘eliminate’ a characteristic that not everyone would think necessary or desirable to eliminate" and is a safeguarding concern.

CEASE therapy is a bogus treatment for autism. It stands for Complete Elimination of Autistic Spectrum Expression and consultations are regularly offered by homeopaths via Skype, widening the pool of possible patients to anyone around the world. CEASE relies on the incorrect idea that it's possible to detox from vaccinations by using high dose vitamins, other supplements and homeopathic remedies.

The Society of Homeopaths is aware that some of their members offer CEASE and that the marketing of the intervention is often deemed problematic. There have been adjudications by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) against homeopaths who've made misleading claims about the treatment and it's generally considered that writing CEASE out in full itself makes a marketing claim.

For the last couple of years the Society of Homeopaths (SoH) have had their register of members accredited by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA). Skeptic bloggers (including me) have been regularly in touch with the PSA to express concerns about the problems that promoting CEASE therapy entails. The PSA has taken some promising action.

In February 2018 the PSA re-accredited the SoH but with provisos attached that they monitor CEASE-offering members' advertising material, put a position statement on their website about the treatment and what can't be claimed for it and review the risks of the treatment.
• More detail on this can be found here Better monitoring of homeopaths advertising CEASE therapy for autism in the UK - hooray (28 Feb 2018)

A fellow skeptic has just alerted me to the recently published outcome from a Board Meeting the PSA had on 16 January 2019. It covers all of their accreditation processes but specific mention is made of the PSA's own concerns about CEASE therapy / homeopathy, raising a new issue that I confess hadn't occurred to me (Equality Act, see first para in the quote below).
• More at Update on Accredited Registers (19 Jan 2019), a 6-pg PDF.

Point 6.12 on page 5 of 6 says (emphasis added by me)

"...In the light of our experience with considering the issues involved in CEASE therapy we would highlight one additional point. Whilst we addressed this primarily from a safety perspective, it also raised an ethical issue under the Equality Act in so far as the therapy seeks to ‘eliminate’ a characteristic that not everyone would think necessary or desirable to eliminate. Since we already consider observance with the Equality Act within our assessment process we do not think we need to amend the principles.

We consider the safeguarding legislative gap to present an ongoing risk to the public and we will continue to raise this matter with the DHSC and Ministers. This year we will focus our assessment activity on accredited registers risk management procedures, which will include reviewing their safeguarding arrangements and if this continues to highlight a problem, we will present our findings to DHSC to strengthen our call for action."
From Update on Accredited Registers (19 Jan 2019)DHSC = Department for Health and Social Care

Encouragingly the Society of Homeopaths has already appointed their first safeguarding officer (Sep 2018) which is a positive move, but there are still a number of their members whose websites make claims about autism that shouldn't be made. More on that in the next couple of months or so.

As for the SoH's current accreditation? Along with a couple of other members' registers their status is "Annual review under assessment"...


Further reading

• Hoping for advertising compliance from autism-'treating' homeopaths in 2019 (30 Dec 2019) - this blog
• Non-compliant Society of Homeopaths members (14 Dec 2018) - UK Homeopathy Regulation blog
• Letter to UK politicians (5 Dec 2018) - UK Homeopathy Regulation blog
• Possible Amendments to UK Legislation to control Quackery (15 Nov 2018) - UK Homeopathy Regulation blog
• A new Wikipedia page on CEASE therapy (15 Jul 2018) - this blog
• More than 120 homeopaths trying to ‘cure’ autism in UK (27 Apr 2018) - The Guardian
• Homeopathic Treatment of Autism - Evidence #2 (5 Apr 2018) - UK Homeopathy Regulation blog
• The Society of Homeopaths agrees that it's unethical to claim to cure autism with CEASE (28 May 2018) - this blog
• Homeopathic Treatment of Autism - Evidence #1 (26 Mar 2018) - UK Homeopathy Regulation blog
• I have written to the Society of Homeopaths about their members who are promoting CEASE therapy (9 Dec 2017) - this blog

Pic credit: Schüssler tablets homeopathy