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HealthWatch News and Announcements:

The entry form for the 2008 student prize is now available - click on the student prize button on the left.

Position paper on the regulation of homeopathic medicines in the UK

New position paper on cancer

Can it be true that nearly half of clinical treatments are of unknown effectiveness?

Minutes of the 2007 AGM are available here

MHRA Consultation on how regulatory decisions are made

On March 27th the Medicines and HealthCare Regulatory Authority published a consultation document called Making Regulatory Decisions about Medicines and Medical Devices

Click here to see the HealthWatch response to this consultation.

Science degrees without the science - Prof David Colquhoun's Commentary in Nature on March 22nd 2007

OBITUARY: REMEMBERING MICHAEL ALLEN

Michael Allen passed away on 17th January 2007.

MICHAEL’S death was a crushing blow for his close-knit family, and also for HealthWatch, the charity that they had served so loyally and well. Michael was an outspoken member of the executive committee since the inception of HealthWatch, and one who undertook whatever jobs were needed. When some additional task arose, like updating the membership list, or mailing out copies of the Newsletter, he would quietly say, “We can handle that”, and everyone knew that it would be done, and that “we” meant the powerful combination of Michael and his equally industrious and conscientious wife, Walli Bounds.

A small charity depends utterly on the quality and self-sacrifice of its trustees. In addition to his willingness to do unpaid work for HealthWatch, Michael gave also his characteristic honesty and good judgement. His area of expertise was in the regulations concerning registration of prescription drugs, which was particularly important when considering the efficacy of treatments in either orthodox or alternative medicine. Big Pharma is routinely demonised by some patient advocates, and (despite the regulations) some of their accusations of unfair trading are true, and are given great support by alternative medicine lobbies. But everyone in pharmacology is not dishonest, nor are all “natural” therapists trustworthy, so the healthcare critic needs honesty and good judgement to direct either credit or blame to the correct target, and Michael was always a reliable guide.

Since he was not given to self-pity, only Michael’s family and close friends appreciated his remarkable stoicism in the face of chronic ill-health. Several decades ago surgery for an abdominal cancer was “successful” in that he survived, but left him with a series of complications that would have broken the spirit of a lesser man. This was another situation in which Walli was a tower of strength up to the very end. His family and colleagues will sorely miss him, but remember him as a man of great integrity and charm.

John Garrow

Until the beginning of September the MHRA would not issue a product licence to any medicine unless they received good evidence that the product was pure, safe and effective for some specified conditions. This is still true for most medicines, but (astonishingly) an exception is now to be made for homeopathic medicines. Until now the guarantee of efficacy has been the MHRA Licence, but unless the regulations are changed, this will no longer be a valid guarantee for homeopathic medicines, and hence its value will be degraded. If the principle is accepted for homeopathic cures it is not clear what barrier there is to other nostrums being given licences implying that they work, even without proof of efficacy.

Click here to see the HealthWatch statement on this.