Our National Health Service accepting Woo

[mr blur]

Put not your trust in princes, especially not princes who talk to plants. But that's what the government has decided to do. The Department of Health has funded the Prince of Wales Foundation for Integrated Healthcare to set up the Natural Healthcare Council to regulate 12 alternative therapies, such as aromatherapy, reflexology and homeopathy. Modelled on the General Medical Council, it has the power to strike therapists off for malpractice.

This is perplexing. How does a regulator decide what is good practice and what is charlatanry when none of it has peer-reviewed, scientific evidence that it works? The prince's foundation says the new council will only register those who have qualifications from their "professional" bodies. That will encourage the burgeoning number of degrees and diplomas in complementary therapies offered by universities, such as the Thames Valley, Westminster or the University of Wales. Normal academic standards have been set aside for attracting new students. Legitimate fears that this gave a phoney scientific aura to humbuggery of all kinds are now proved right.

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Everyone has their own private sphere of unreason, inhabiting the life of the imagination most of the day. No one is suggesting anyone else's private nonsense be banned - not religion, not reiki or Hopi ear candles (now on special sale from the Oxford School of Reflexology - coming soon on the NHS?).

In private realms, fact and fiction are woven together; but in public policy a sharp line has to be drawn between the two. Despite all the knowledge ever known available at the touch of a mouse, people are still dangerously wedded to anecdote over evidence. But governments can't afford to abandon the palisades that protect proven science from the world of superstition.

Good "anti"-argument ion The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2236975,00.html