Doctors sanctioned for criticising homeopathy

Health Care & Carte Vitale
1

Link to French article
https://www.jim.fr/viewarticle/des-médecins-encore-sanctionnés-lordre-avoir-2024a10003kp

French Doctors Sanctioned Again for Criticising Homeopathy

Paris – A doctor has been sanctioned by the national disciplinary chamber of France’s medical council for signing a petition against homeopathy. The decision has sparked widespread outcry among fellow doctors.

What is the National Council of the Order of Physicians (CNOM) up to? This is a legitimate question after a series of surprising decisions by its disciplinary chambers, where the Order has sided with proponents of alternative medicines and penalised defenders of evidence-based medicine. The first surprising decision came on 12 February when the disciplinary chamber of the Order’s Council of Occitanie sanctioned Dr Jérôme Marty, president of the Union Française pour une Médecine Libre (UFML), for vehemently criticising anti-vaccine activists supporting conspiracy theories in 2021. According to the doctors’ association ‘NoFakeMed’, dedicated to combating alternative medicine, the national disciplinary chamber of the Order has joined this strange movement by recently sanctioning several members of the collective for having signed a petition against homeopathy.

This petition, published in 2018 in Le Figaro and endorsed by 124 healthcare professionals, stirred controversy at the time. The signatories intended to alert the public to the “fanciful promises and unproven effectiveness of so-called alternative medicines like homeopathy”. The petition aimed to re-establish some scientific truths, emphasising that “homeopathy, like other practices classified as alternative medicines, is not scientific at all.” The authors labelled these practices as “irrational”, stating that “so-called alternative therapies are ineffective beyond the placebo effect and are no less dangerous”.

Petition Deemed Too Aggressive

The petition reignited the debate about the place of homeopathy in France. Eventually, it led to the termination of reimbursement of homeopathic medicines by Health Insurance in 2021, as requested by the authors of the petition. However, this anti-homeopathy stance resulted in several complaints against members of the NoFakeMed collective by homeopathic physicians. One of the signatories, after already being sanctioned in the first instance, has now had his conviction confirmed on appeal by the national disciplinary chamber. This decision is expected to set a precedent for the 50 doctors facing prosecution before disciplinary bodies for signing the petition.

According to journalist Vincent Granier, who accessed the decision, the national disciplinary chamber acknowledged that “the petition did indeed participate in a legitimate and general interest debate”. However, due to overly aggressive passages, it was deemed “a breach of fraternity” and an infringement on the obligation of “caution in public expression” imposed on doctors. While the authors of the petition used strong language to criticise their homeopathic colleagues, calling them “charlatans of all kinds who seek the moral endorsement of the medical title to promote false therapies” and “sales representatives of unscrupulous industries”, it is probably the criticisms made by the members of the NoFakeMed collective against the Order of Physicians itself that may be the primary factor influencing their conviction. The petition authors had reproached the CNOM for “tolerating practices in disagreement with its own Code of Ethics”.

Contradictions Within the CNOM

The decision to penalise the petition’s authors has sparked outrage among doctors actively opposing alternative medicines. Jérôme Barrière, commenting on X while republishing the petition, expressed indignation, calling it a scandal. He highlighted the paradox of doctors taking a stand against quackery, only to face sanctions from the institution for speaking out. Marty echoed these sentiments, expressing disbelief and disgust at this immense fault.

This series of decisions by the CNOM’s disciplinary chambers in favour of proponents of alternative medicines is perplexing, especially considering that the body regularly repeats that combating misinformation in the healthcare sector is one of its priorities. Despite this, the CNOM has shown inconsistency by supporting the government’s initiative to criminalise incitement to therapeutic abandonment, currently under parliamentary debate. Simultaneously, the CNOM appears to maintain a rigid stance on fraternity and temperance, restricting doctors from expressing themselves and criticising colleagues, even in defence of science.

2

Totally amazing.
Are you sure that they are not American and suffering from suspension of disbelief?

3

Homeopathy is an interesting area, partly because it’s so popular in many poor parts of the world.

I shared lab space up until about 8 years ago with a biochemist working to find a biochemical basis for homeopathy. At that stage he’d developed a prototype colourimetric system for measuring 'homeopathic effect, and was able to demonstrate in a very limited degree that there was an effect, which could also be eliminated by heating the products. His experiments were no flawless, but there was sufficient evidence to suggest something (not necessarily what homeopaths claim) was going on.

In separate circumstances my mother was treated for a brief period by a homeopathist who was also a friend. The materials he gave her made her quite unwell - enough to involve the hospital on the final occasion - in a way that simple dilution of a compound should not do.

So I’m certainly skeptical that homeopathy works in the manner claimed, but I’d be a poor scientist if I wrote it off as simply made up stuff for the gullible.

3 Likes
4

The ingredients are cheap, after all. :thinking:

Interesting - do you have a reference or was this never published.

Because diluting something in water, beyond the point of expecting to find a single molecule of your “active” substance in the result (which will be contaminated with all sorts of other stuff at a low level - even distilled/deionised water) strikes me as utter bunkum and always has done.

If it works it’s either placebo effect (which can do surprising things) or the patient got better on their own.

1 Like
5

This discussion is more loaded in France though, I think, as at least till recently homeopathy was on the list of treatments you could claim back on the French Health System. It was restricted relatively recently.

Though they still do cover a lot of other things that the UK might be reluctant to provide.

6

Yes, this petition started the process. “The petition reignited the debate about the place of homeopathy in France. Eventually, it led to the termination of reimbursement of homeopathic medicines by Health Insurance in 2021, as requested by the authors of the petition. “

7

There was potentially a great deal of money involved. He once gave a presentation to a small group of other scientists (of which I was one) but this would be patented if it were ever found to be useful and he was always extremely reluctant to share info. I suspect too that he’d been given a hard time over homeopathy generally, and was very reluctant to share any info before it could pay back.

And this was always my reaction too. The experience of my mother also receiving medication on 3 occasions (she was reluctant, being skeptical, but had treatment pressed on her by the friend) each of which made her increasingly unwell was also in my mind.

My feeling is that there may sometimes be something going on, but not what is claimed. No idea how or why though, and it’s rational to reject the idea that anything can be happening, but at the same time one should not allow a lack of understanding to disregard observations out of hand.

8

Well, not being one to reject non-standard medicine (only this week we had a teenager in the church collapse, fall into a coma, which led to a lot of prayer, including especially her peer group, and then recover - albeit not fully yet - to an extent that the consultant was talking about a miracle) — I’m not yet convinced that homeopathy is more than coincidence or psychology. It’s susceptible to the scientific method in a way that prayer isn’t, I think, but hasn’t been conclusively proven as far as I know.

9

Maybe because big pharma can’t make any money out of it and therefore don’t sponsor any studies?

1 Like
10

The pharma industry has a lot to answer for but not funding studies into homeopathy isn’t one of them.

Homeopaths make money from administering holy waterhopeopathic** remedies, perhaps they should fund the study?

It would be easy to conduct a scientific study into the power of prayer.

Gather a few large groups - one for each major religion and one or two atheist groups.

Enter people into the study if they practice one of the religions that you have a congregation for.

For each patient offer conventional treatment (preferably the same for each patient) and then randomise to a) prayer by the appropriate congregation b) prayer by a different congregation c) prayer to a random deity by one of the atheist groups d) reading out their name to the other group of atheists so that they can spend five minutes sending the person “good thoughts” e) doing nothing.

Do not tell the patient or the clinicians directly treating the patient which group was chosen, hence it will be a double blind study.

Check outcomes and see if patients in any of the prayer/good thought groups had better outcomes than the “do nothing” group.

**: Edit: Ha, ha - that was a genuine typo but, I think, inspired :slight_smile:

1 Like
11

Nope.

Do you remember the bit in THHGTTG which suggested that lab mice (“hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional creatures”) created Deep Thought and the Earth as an experiment? That’s the same sort of idea.

If you think God is a slot-machine with outcomes you (or anyone else, of course) can predict, test and evaluate, you aee thinking of something that is, by definition, not God.

12

The flip side of this, and the one that’s close to a deal-breaker for me, is that it doesn’t seem to matter who prays or what they pray - sometimes things appear to happen* and sometimes they don’t. Whether it’s right or not, there is a view that sees the relationship with God as being like that of children with a father rather than as gamblers in front of a slot machine, which is more often how things can sometimes seem. And if God is real then he needs to be testable in a way that’s more substantial than just a feeling that brings a hope of something intangible.

*I’ve seen quite a few things happen, which makes me wonder at times if there’s been a failure to understand what’s really going on. It’s not simple, unfortunately.

13

I’m an atheist - I don’t perceive god as anything, except perhaps a reflection of early man’s desire to explain the inexplicable.

However my proposed study, which was tongue in cheek obviously, would certainly test the “power of prayer” as many seem to understand it - given that we are frequently extolled to “pray for X” whatever, or whoever X is.

I think you choose the wrong bit of HHGTTG though - the relevant portion is surely Oolon Colluphid’s proof of the non existence of God - “I refuse to proove I exist says God, for proof denies faith and without faith I am nothing”. “Ah but”, says Colluphid, “the Babelfish is a dead giveaway isn’t it? It proves that you exist, therefore, by your own argument, you don’t. QED”, “Oh dear, says God. I hadn’t thought of that” and promptly vanised in a puff of logic.

I.e - any failure of the test would be interpreted not as proof of the non-existence of God (it wouldn’t do that logically, anyway) but that God noticed the test itself and refused to play ball (shades of that AI that noticed it was being tested).

3 Likes
14

The relationship of father to children, or mother hen to chicks, is how God presents himself. With stress on God knowing best - which he must do, if he created the world and everything in it - which most normal people find difficult! And on the understanding that this world isn’t all there is (but there is so much more here once you have a relationship with God).

It depends on what you mean by “testable”. We’re educated to believe that the most valid form of proof is via the scientific method, but there are at least three other forms of proof that I can think of off the top of my head (mathematical, logical and legal) that you might apply, with legal proof being better suited to the situation than scientific.

15

I understand this, although it’s also worth considering that the word ‘proof’ has multiple meanings too in those contexts.

Perhaps one day we’ll have a conversation face to face.

1 Like
16

Even if some intelligent being created the Earth and all life on it I dispute that means they automatically “know what’s best” or have any right to tell me or expect me to run my life in a particular way.

In fact right from the earliest verses of Genesis God demonstrated untrustworthiness - if he** genuinely wanted Adam and Eve to have free will why did he deny them the knowledge to make it useful, or punish them for exercising it?

**: Edit: rats, I’ve been assiduously trying to avoid assigning gender.

17

It’s an interesting question of ethics - does the clay have a right to argue with the potter. We’re likely to face this quite soon now with AI, whether it has rights as an apparently sentient device.

1 Like
18

If it’s sentient (which, fortunately, most clay isn’t).

Possibly - assuming that it develops true sentience. So far that hasn’t happened (though it seems inevitable).

19

When parents decide to start a family, is their primary intention to create someone to boss around? Someone on whom they can impose a bunch of arbitrary rules, mainly prohibitions? Someone whom they’re going to watch so that, at the slightest error, they can punish them?

I think you may be confusing God with Christians! (Porridge, guilty as charged :wink: )

20

I doubt many parents start out with that express notion.

That sounds like a whole other can of worms.