Alternative medicine conferences and events - a guide for hotels and conference centres

tl;dr is it a good idea to produce a checklist for hotel event bookers so that they can avoid hosting out and out quackery? What would go in the checklist?

@SLSingh is there much scope for an article in one of the hotel trade magazines about the iffy use of hotel conference facilities?

— Jo Brodie #WouldPreferThatYouBanNazis (@JoBrodie) June 15, 2015

Edit 30 Jan 2018
I could have saved myself writing the post below if I'd remembered these :) Here are two clear guides on things to think about, and things to watch out for, when considering the suitability of a topic or speaker for an event.
A letter to the TEDx community on TEDx and bad science (3 October 2013)
10 Questions To Distinguish Real From Fake Science (8 November 2012)

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Occasionally skeptically-minded people* will learn that a hotel's conference rooms are to be used for a health-related event on a topic that is quackery and which has the potential to be harmful and costly to customers ('patients'). Occasionally such talks take place at universities or on hospital trust grounds too.

Universities and hospitals generally don't want to be associated with quackery, particularly dangerous stuff, and tend to be pretty amenable to cancelling the event or having it moved off-site. That's not always the case with hotels. Many of us would prefer that these events were cancelled completely but as long as the event is legal then there's not much we can do.

Cancer-related alternative health events, however, may be in danger of breaching the Cancer Act 1939 and it may be more appropriate to cancel them. Of course it's entirely possible that someone wants to talk about complementary support for people with cancer with no problematic mentions of stopping their treatment and no advice given about undertaking unevidenced treatments - despite the treatment being quackery it's probably fairly hairmless and I suspect we don't really have much of a valid objection.

This example below though - where a speaker encouraged audience members who had cancer to give up their medication (or avoid taking it in the first place) - that took place at a hotel in Liverpool would seem to be one of the ones that should not have gone ahead. The report, from Michael Marshall of the Good Thinking Society, is a startling read: Cancer ‘Cure’ is Quackers Skeptical Magazine, November 2017, by Michael Marshall

Hotel event bookers might not know that a health-related talk (perhaps badged as a 'wellness' event) is unevidenced quackery or how to tell it apart fom something useful that everyone should know about - and that's where the skeptical-minded community might be able to help.

I wondered if we skeptics might put together a short checklist to help people appraise whether events are likely to cause problems. Does this idea have 'legs' as they say?

Edit 10 January 2018 - one of the topics I wasn't envisaging a university having many problems with, in terms of finding they've unwittingly said yes to room bookings, is conferences by white supremacists on eugenics with a side order of anti-Semitism. Today UCL found itself in this unfortunate position after a story uncovered that such a conference has been hosted at their site for the last four years. UCL has acted quickly to distance themselves from it, suspend future bookings from the staff member involved and are seeking an explanation from them.

• Exposed: London’s eugenics conference and its neo-Nazi links (London Student)
• University probes eugenics conference with links to white supremacists (Jewish Chronicle) The London Conference on Intelligence has connections to a number of controversial racial theorists
• UCL statement on the London Conference on Intelligence (UCL)

For example I might include things like

• if it mentions cancer at all ask them to assure you (the hotel booker) how they will ensure that the content of the presentation and any responses to questions don't breach the Cancer Act 1939 (Trading Standards can veto these events, or bring criminal proceedings against the speaker - I've never heard of venues being prosecuted though, anyone know?)
• if it talks about curing or treating (or 'helping with') any health condition beware - this may fall within misleading advertising (overseen by the Advertising Standards Authority in general, anything relating to the use of medicines would fall under the MHRA [Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Authority]
• also be wary of any "that doctors don't want you to know about" hyperbole
• be aware that skeptically-minded people often attend these events for monitoring purposes, and general interest (there is always new quackery to discover)
• the possibility of the whole social media backlash thing, though I think hotels can probably weather that!
• the very real possibility of doing harm to members of the public either by them paying out money for a duff event, or a duff treatment (or them failing to follow better treatment advice) - this is not a good look.
• a list of 'treatment modalities' known to be unevidenced twaddle (eg homeopathy, MMS aka Master Mineral Solution or Miracle Mineral Solution, it goes by other names too)
• a list of treatments for which the evidence is not very good
• how the skeptic-minded community can help beforehand 
• (afterwards is probably a bit late!)
• links to other 'how to spot quackery' checklists including these red flags, or this rough guide to spotting bad science. 

*healthcare professionals, scientists, skeptical activists, concerned members of the public etc
Skepticism-based clearing houses
Any of these organisations would possibly be able to field, or forward on, enquiries from hotels or other event-conference-centres about potentially problematic health events.

• Good Thinking Society
• Nightingale Collaboration
• Sense About Science
• Skeptics in the Pub (various around the UK)

Obviously if your organisation is listed above and you're thinking "hang on, we don't really have the capacity for that!" I can remove you (or amend the listing to clarify the way you might like to be involved, if at all).

• Are there any good skeptic-monitored hashtags? (Beyond #homeopathy and #Burzynski?).
• Do we have examples of successes (from our point of view) where an event has been cancelled or moved?

Example of events not yet cancelled or moved

Hi @ucl Can you say why UCL School of Pharmacy is hosting a homeopathy conference in April 2018? https://t.co/344rKyNyku cc @GoodThinkingSoc  @david_colquhoun @claire6thompson

— (((Alan Henness))) (@zeno001) December 19, 2017

Examples of events being cancelled or moved
Manchester United cancel David Icke show at Old Trafford after backlash (17 November 2017)  The Guardian - the cancellation possibly more to do with alleged antisemitic remarks than quackery per se but an interesting example of social media backlash causing a venue to investigate further.

Homeopathic College Pays Heavy Price for Helping to Screen VAXXED (17 February 2017) Quackometer blog - in this case the screening of the film 'Vaxxed' was not able to be prevented and it was shown at the Centre for Homeopathic Education within Regent's University in London. When it transpired that the university had not been properly informed of the film's contents they cancelled the contract with the Centre (in reality I think they'd hired a few rooms) rendering them homeless. The film was moved from the Curzon Soho screening after it had been cancelled.

A Cinema In London Has Pulled A Documentary By A Disgraced Anti-Vaccine Activist (January 2017) Buzzfeed - Vaxxed, an anti-vaccination film directed by Andrew Wakefield, was to be screened at Curzon Soho but an outcry from scientists and the public stopped that. The film had previously been removed from the Tribeca Film Festival.

UCL cancels homeopathy event by Indian docs after complaints (2 February 2016) The Wire - see background to this story in Andy Lewis' blog Indian Homeopaths come to UK to Lecture on Treating Cancer (comment: “Event cancelled. Booking made by junior sec unaware of issues. Lessons learnt process set up. New instructions on booking in IoN now in place.”)

Cancelled: Man who claims to have cured cancer will not be speaking in Ireland (16 June 2015) The Journal - one event was scheduled to take place at the Clayton Hotel in Galway but was moved to another hotel, which later cancelled once the organisers learned how controversial the speaker's views were, a second event in Dublin was also cancelled. More info at Cork Skeptics' page (they led the campaign).

The fake cancer cure conference the 'healers' tried to keep secret (25 May 2015) - this event (the 'Spirit of Health Congress 2015') went ahead after having been moved twice. Delegates were told to attend a meeting point where they were given train tickets and further instructions, video footage (not shown in link) was obtained of the event.

A cancer-related event, due to take place in June 2014 in Bristol attracted concern from Trading Standard and the organiser of the event first cancelled it then later moved it to Exeter (9 Mar 2014)
[Event initially cancelled][Move to Exeter]

Totnes cancer conference forced underground by Trading Standards (23 March 2012) Josephine Jones' blog - a cancer event was due to take place in Totnes at the Civic Centre. The local MP supported efforts to get the event moved off council property or ideally cancelled and Trading Standards intervened. The event was initially cancelled but later went ahead at a different venue.

The supramolecular chemistry of the homeopathic remedy (1 October 2010) - amazingly this event was scheduled to take place at the University of Cambridge (!) but people managed to get it cancelled by mid-September.


Other responses to quackery

In response to recent tour by anti-vas activists promoting Vaxxed movie @LightForRiley donated 50,000 vaccinations to UNESCO #skepticon

— Irma Gherd (@maureenchuck1) November 18, 2017

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Sandra Hermann-Courtney's strange behaviour...
The homeopathy enthusiast Sandra Hermann-Courtney (@BrownBagPantry and @OnFluff on Twitter) is not happy at all about my post above. She stole its entire content and republished it on her own blog, with no attribution. After I tried several attempts at getting her to add commentary ('fair use') or remove the post she finally took it down. Then she replaced it with her own post bleating about this one and complaining that I'd threatened her with a DMCA takedown notice. Mmm, not quite but you can enjoy seeing how duplicitious she's been here.

She has form on using people's content without permission and also behaving abominably to someone who lost a child to sepsis (it started badly when she suggested they might have saved the child if they'd tried homeopathy, and somehow managed to get worse). This blog post above isn't 'against' homeopathy per se, it's against misleading promotions or wrong health advice. Non-misleading homeopaths etc are probably perfectly nice people, I've no argument with them :)

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I'm a bit skeptical about Ms Courtney's post about the future of homeopathy

The future of #homeopathy instead of #rx drugs? Based on its history and the facts, I'm not worried. pic.twitter.com/E5S7yo930c

— HomeopathyRocks! (@BrownBagPantry) August 19, 2016

Perhaps I shouldn't take the bait but when someone is wrong on the internet (and wrong with such enthusiastic regularity) it's difficult to ignore. If homeopaths restricted themselves to saying something along the lines of "you might feel a bit cheerier after talking to one of us, we're mostly quite nice, but the pills are just a distraction" I'd probably tolerate* homeopathy on the NHS, as an inert placebo. It's the fact that homeopaths promote it as a separate system of medicine that grates, and that some of them promote it as an alternative to real medicine for real diseases that worries.

The homeopathy enthusiast BrownBagPantry has posted the above quote numerous times on her Twitter feed under the #homeopathy hashtag and I thought I'd write up a quick rebuttal and correction of the points within it.

*It's still lying to patients in a rather paternalistic way, but that's an argument for a different post.

"Realistically, the anti homeopathy activists have a minuscule sphere of influence worldwide."
- 'Anti homeopathy activists' probably refers only to skeptical bloggers but it's important to remember that healthcare professionals, journalists, authors, scientists and all sorts of other people have taken steps to warn the public about the dangers of relying on homeopathy and other fake medicines. Many of them wouldn't recognise themselves as 'anti homeopathy activists' though.

The 'sphere of influence' bit is perfectly true of course. We don't particularly need to influence everyone who might consider buying or using homeopathy, we only really need to influence the decision-makers, that is people who regulate it (allow it on to the market, or how it can be marketed) and the people who commission it on the NHS etc. As it happens I'm also a fan of encouraging users of homeopathy to be aware of what it is (and it looks like plenty of people might be mistaken in thinking that it's the same as 'herbal').

I think of the first part (influencing decision-makers) as the meat of what skeptic activists might do and the second part (public) as the background marinade that also needs to be changed. It feels like public attitudes to homeopathy are changing - there are more negative articles about it in tabloid newspapers that, until recently, tended to be more supportive. There have also been a number of high profile stories. However I don't know how much this changes the minds of staunch supporters.

Generally "anti-homeopathy activists" act locally - I don't write to universities in India asking them to move a homeopathy event on their campus but I do in the UK (with a recent success in Birmingham). However we know that people IN Australia tackle local Australian quackery and likewise in other countries. So the 'worldwide' thing is a bit of a red herring. We're everywhere, having local effects, so while none of us has worldwide influence the effect of skeptical activity is felt globally.

"Since Hahnmann's time, these activists' opinions have been unable to stop the manufacture & distribution of homeopathic remedies"
- I don't think we've ever tried to stop the manufacture or distribution. Personally I've no objection to homeopathy products being on sale (this would be like objecting to sugar being on sale), only to the confusing or misleading advice given about what the products can do. There have been isolated examples of products being removed from sale because they no longer have a market license and I think the FDA sanctioned one manufacturer for poor manufacturing practices, but this hasn't particularly been a focus.

Recently homeopathic teething products for babies were withdrawn from sale after links to serious ill-health problems, combined with the discovery that the contents of the products were not as described on the label and had been inconsistently produced. It was the parents of the children harmed by homeopathy that brought the action - I don't know if they consider themselves to be anti homeopathy activists, but the manufacture and distribution of some homeopathic remedies has most certainly happened.

"the private practice & licensing of homeopaths; the schools, universities, organizations and private groups that teach it;"
- well this just isn't true. A number of universities have stopped teaching homeopathy, most recently in Spain, and they're also stopping validating others' courses. Hooray! The evidence base for homeopathy (poor) is also critiqued in UK pharmacy and medical degree courses, and there are critical-thinking modules available for schools that use it as an example.

"the privately and government funded research studies"
- goodness me, if people are still wasting money on research into homeopathy when it's been comprehensively shown that any effects can be explained by placebo then we need to step up our efforts here ;)

"surveys; the publication of books, journals and magazines for public and student consumption"
- I don't think we've tried that much to be honest. A few people have taken one magazine's advertisers to task for misleading content and to get it removed from a number of shops, but no attempt's been made to stop it from publishing. There have been a few examples of looking at getting books removed from sale (not from being published though) including a pharmaceutical society in the UK that still makes them available for pharmacists (!).

"the social media sites that educate curious health care consumers about it, and the cured patients who sing its praises to family members, co-workers, [casual] and longtime friends."
- particularly for Twitter those promoting homeopathy will certainly be met with rejoinders from people who are skeptical of the claims. I've been in work situations where someone has suggested homeopathy and I've certainly taken the time to explain why that might be unwise (I often gave talks to colleagues and members of the public about diabetes research and often talked about the risks of using either herbal or homeopathic remedies).

"The National Center for Homeopathy in the U.S. recently noted that the interest in their website grew by a "whopping 600%" over the past two years."
I emailed and asked them about this and they were unable to confirm, only wanting to know why I wanted to know, which is a bit odd. 600% seems quite an impressive figure so you might imagine they'd want to tell a homeopathy skeptic about it. They said it was something that had been sent in a newsletter to members. I've no idea then if the 600% figure is true but let's assume that it is. But it doesn't tell us if they had only 2 visitors two years ago and that this has just gone up to 14 visitors two years later ;) It also doesn't tell us if they're measuring all visitors (which includes Google indexing 'bots') plus people visiting by accident, or who are skeptics. Nor does it tell us what those visitors think about the information they found there.

Further reading
Skeptic successes in homeopathy (24 August 2015, updated September 2016)