A nice headsup on this, thank you. How much, if any, public money is this body sucking up I wonder?

Anyway Prof Ernst glad to see that getting you fired (early retired) hasn't stopped you from making deserved criticism of the Quacktitioner Royal.

Interesting - they appear not to be a college and not to teach medicine - anyone would think they'd chosen their name in order to deceive people into thinking they're a genuine and legitimate organisation. Despite their website being carefully crafted to obfuscate what their concern is, it quickly becomes obvious that they are pushing magic and quackery rather than medicine and rationality.

I find our future monarch's tendency to get heavily involved in things he knows nothing about and no qualifications in more than a little distressing.

When he was younger, he was actively discouraged from getting involved in politics. If might be a good idea if he were discouraged from getting involved in CAM-oriented political manoeuvres as well.

Look at the College of Medicine strapline: "Service. Science. Healing."

Now let's look at their "perspective paper" on acupuncture:

In traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture can also be described as a self-regulatory process, driven by a person's underlying energy, called Chi, or Qi.

That's pretty much as far away from "Science" as you can get.

These people have no shame.

Wester Hailes is an area of Edinburgh that suffers from multiple deprivation. And now the quacks are moving in, so isn't that just utterly fabulous. This is their website - I'm bemused by the preoccupation with 'ear acupuncture' and they can't spell 'agency'.

http://www.whhealthagency.co.uk/

It's very good to see more publicity for what actually goes on at the deceptively-named "College of Medicine". It was already obvious when the organisation started that it was a direct reincarnation of the Prince's Foundation of Integrated Health.

In fact the original name for the organisation was to be The College of Integrated Health. A slide dated September 9th 2009 described the new college as a "new strategy to take forward the vision of HRH Prince Charles". You can see the slides at http://www.dcscience.net/?p=3263 . The name (but not the people involved) changed in May 2010 when the term "integrated"was dropped, presumably to make it sound more like real medicine.

All of the people that affirm that holistic or alternative medicine does not work have not tried it, they are too close minded, brainwashed by western medicine or never been sick enough to find out that western medicine is not going to help them, I know first hand of different alternative medicines that work. I will only give to examples:
1 - over 15years ago I was diagnosed with vertigo in an emergency room after going there feeling very dizzy and with total loss of balance. Doctors prescribed strong antihistmanines, which will make me be very relaxed. I could not drive while taking them. After consulting with 3 different doctors I was told, there is no cure for vertigo, you need to take those pills forever.I stopped taking the antihistamines and the vertigo symptoms will come back, these went on for 3 times that I stopped taking them, because I could not have a normal life: drive, work etc. A person I met told me her vertigo got cure with Acupuncture, so I gave it a try. After 4 sessions the vertigo was totally gone and I have never had an episode for over 15 years now.
2- my cousin was ready for a kidney transplant, he only had one kidney, his 3rd one from his father, they took one off when he was 7 and the second when he was 9. Now the new kidney was not working. He was in dialisis. He tried Medical Biomagnetism and after only 2 sessions, his kidney started working again and now he is fine, no need for transplant. He had been in bed for 2 months, no energy at all and in dialisis. after the first Biomagnetism treatment all his energy came back, 10 days later he was looking for a job.
So please, be open, and if you have not experienced something, don't make an opinion about it.

One only has to scrutinise the timeline of HRH's meddling in alternative medicine to understand why Professor Ernst is almost certainly correct in his suspicions. For those interested in the timeline, see here:
http://www.ebm-first.com/a-close-look-at-alternative-medicine/prince-charles-cam-news-items.html

Pay particular attention to the link - and video clip - under the heading Prince Charles branded a "snake oil salesman" by scientist. Simply scandalous.

That's exactly the kind of hogwash I expect to find on the College of Medicine website.

In theory, we're open to everything. We just want to see it tested, and to pass the test. Otherwise you've only got coincidence, placebo effect and/or wishful thinking.

And I'm afraid

So please, be open, and if you have not experienced something, don't make an opinion about it.

is a classic example of the Industrial Food Blender fallacy; I've never stuck my face in an industrial food blender, but I don't have to have experienced it to know it's not a very good idea.

A Cochrane review on the topic (authored by homeopaths) summarised six randomised controlled trials and concluded that "there is not enough evidence".

But of course there is enough evidence. Enough to rule out all of homeopathy (not to mention a large proportion of all other quackery) and render clinical trials of it useless, unethical cargo cult science. So how do the pseudoscientists get round this little problem? That Cochrane review explains how:

Therefore, according to current pharmacological theory it would appear impossible that homeopathic therapy could have any effect over placebo (Vandenbroucke 1997). The available hypotheses for a possible mechanism of action, however, do not claim that homeopathic remedies act through pharmacological but through biophysical pathways and all include the idea of some form of information transfer from the diluted substance to the diluting agent (e.g. Berezin 1990; Anagnostatos 1994; del Giudice 1994; Lo 1996).

Dream up a fantasy alternative universe with alternative physics, chemistry etc. and pretend the clinical trials were done there, of course! Simple!

&_&

A nice headsup on this, thank you. How much, if any, public money is this body sucking up I wonder?

It seems that their Self Care Library project (which purports to be an evidence based resource for the treatment of chronic conditions) has been funded by the Department of Health (source).

So, a lobby group. Big deal. According to the website there is no public funding so it's private people spending their private money.

I just think it's a shame that this kind of group gets more publicity than the enormous number of alternative therapy practitioners that have spent years studying and are making a real difference to so many lives.

That is the stupidiest answer or affirmation I ever heard: "is a classic example of the Industrial Food Blender fallacy; I've never stuck my face in an industrial food blender, but I don't have to have experienced it to know it's not a very good idea"
It this is the best you can come up with, you better keep your opinions to yourself, you are just showing how ridiculous your opinions are...
It has been proven that if you put anything in a food blender it will smash it to pieces, ...
i can't believe I'm even responding to this absurd comment...
.

I think it was quite a legitimate response, actually.

And I don't think anyone has proven that a blender will smash anything to pieces, what is it with you and making claims with no evidence to back them up?

You mean the ones who take money from people and offer them only snake oil in return? I wish they would get a lot more publicity, of the negative variety

"stupidiest answer"?

Ye gods.

Delighted to see that Prof Ernst is keeping up the good work. Horrified to see that the forces of ignorance with the patronage our future king are so persistent.

Unexpected cures happen every day. Humans are so good at spotting patterns amongst complexity we just can't resist seeing causality on the flimsiest of evidence.
When 18 I dived out of a tree into a rainforest pool and surfaced with a blocked ear. Three months later I was booked in to have a graft of a small piece of vein-tissue over a badly perforated ear-drum. At the last moment my ENT guy told me the perforation had somehow healed over. (Ruptures can often heal as the damaged tissue is still there, perforations don't as the tissue is missing).
Thankfully in those far off days nobody I knew had ever heard of alternative medicine so my miraculous cure was put down to either poor diagnosis or dumb luck.

It's pretty clear, for everyone here, that you don't master the idea of a "logical fallacy", nor rationality, logic and scientific methodology. Just read one of those books, will you.

1) Believing bullshit by Stephen LAW
2) Crimes against logic by Jamie Whyte
3) Bad science by Ben Goldacre
4) A rulebook for arguments by Anthony Weston
5) Being logical by D.Q. McInerny

Yes, as you well say," for everyone here". All the narrow minded people who live in the past. 2012 is here! wake up!
People like you said at the time that Galileo was wrong, that Columbus was wrong, , the list is very long.....
Of course when they lived, people said" it's not scientifically proven..bla..bla.. bla..."
Same case with you here.. People are getting results in many, many cases with Alternative Medicine, and that is what counts, they get better when western medicine can not help ....
So please, be smart and open minded and listen to what people who are experiencing these treatments and are getting better or well have to say...
It's really simple, just common sense...

choqueras - you really need to learn some history. Columbus was wrong. He argued that the accepted diameter of the earth was too large by a significant margin. The value known at the time had been measured several times using different methods over hundreds of years and is now known to have been pretty accurate. What he found was not what he said he was looking for. Now there are lots of theories that he had prior knowledge that "something" was out there but the scientific argument he was putting foward was no more valid than homeopathy. BTW, the idea about people thinking that the world was flat and they were going to fall off the edge is just a nineteenth century myth.

Medicine is health technology, not science.
The latest Health Technology Assessment by the Swiss government in 2011 has concluded that Homeopathy is not only effective, but cost-effective.
Anti-homeopathy propaganda is very effective at promoting public awareness of Homeopathy. Thank you.
For the straight goods see www.extraordinarymedicine.org

Do the CAM evangelists believe that we should accept the same standards of proof from pharmaceuticals as we are asked to accept for e.g. Homeopathy or chiro's? If so i'm sure that the Pharma companies will be delighted to save the $1bn and years of regulatory compliance it takes to get a drug on the market in favour of some vague anecdote about it helping someones Grandmother who once felt a little peculiar

All the narrow minded people who live in the past.

I hate it when people do that. You're calling us narrow minded for the sole reason we don't agree with you.

So please, be smart and open minded

Cue a Max Radin quote from 1937:

[Practical gentlemen] have a number of bitterly sarcastical comments on persons whose minds are so open that their brains fall out.

And then using "common sense" as a euphemism:

It's really simple, just common sense...

Like when politicians start talking about "common sense politics" - it generally means they haven't a clue what they're talking about.

So this is your argument:

P1. "I tried a complentary therapy and my condition improved".
P2. " I know someone else who did the same".
C. Therefore, "All of the people that affirm that holistic or alternative medicine does not work have not tried it, they are too close minded, brainwashed by western medicine or never been sick enough to find out that western medicine is not going to help them..."

How dare you make that assumption? I can assure you I've wasted quite a bit of time and money trying assorted quack therapies over the years and they were all useless, whereas scientific medicine saved my life. My personal anecdotes, however, are no more relevant than yours.

Get a grip.

Medicine is not science.
You're making the assumption that non-mainstream medicine is ineffective based on nothing more than your opinion and some weak philosophical argument.
Philosophy isn't medicine. It's not science. It's just armchair speculation.
Read the health technology assessments. They verify that over 80% of mainstream medical treatments are of unknown or useless effectiveness and are absolutely not "evidence-based".

"All of the people that affirm that holistic or alternative medicine does not work have not tried it" - so if I can find one person who has tried it and says it doesn't work, you're talking nonsense.

You're talking nonsense. I've tried acupuncture nfor pain relief. It doesn't work.

"Close-minded" is a near-obligatory accusation from those who have no proof for their claims. We are not close-minded, we're just not bloody stupid. Calling names won't make someone buy into your belief system.

Nice to hear the vertigo problem cleared up and that your cousin's kidney is functioning. I note however that in both cases medical treatment was also taken. You might like to consider that this had some effect in both recoveries. The chances of recovery being even partly due to quanck remedies like acupuncture and magnetism are vanishingly small.

lauriej1 said:

You're making the assumption that non-mainstream medicine [sic] is ineffective based on nothing more than your opinion and some weak philosophical argument.

No, although it depends on what quackery you're referring to (and you've not specified which), quackery is, by definition, something that is severely lacking a robust evidence base.

Can you point out some robust evidence for, say, homeopathy or crystal healing?

You said earlier:

The latest Health Technology Assessment by the Swiss government in 2011 has concluded that Homeopathy is not only effective, but cost-effective.

If you mean the report "Homeopathy in Healthcare – Effectiveness, Appropriateness, Safety, Costs", then you need to read some of the criticisms of it and counter them - it is fundamentally flawed and biased.

Even if it correctly concluded that:

80% of mainstream medical treatments are of unknown or useless effectiveness and are absolutely not "evidence-based"

- which is not true anyway - adding in yet more non-evidence-based or disproven 'treatments' isn't going to improve matters, now is it?

You're making the assumption that non-mainstream medicine is ineffective based on nothing more than your opinion

Actually, the assertion that non-mainstream therapies are ineffective is based on science, including far more studies than some of these weird systems deserve.

Please provide proof for your very serious claim that

over 80% of mainstream medical treatments are of unknown or useless effectiveness.

I suspect it has merely been gleaned from fringe "alt lifestyle" sites and is unlikely to be correct.

anarchicteapot said:

Please provide proof for your very serious claim that

over 80% of mainstream medical treatments are of unknown or useless effectiveness.

I suspect it has merely been gleaned from fringe "alt lifestyle" sites and is unlikely to be correct.

lauriej1's assertion is, of course nonsense, but, as you say, a very common myth amongst proponents of AltMed: How Much Modern Medicine is Evidence-Based

There is a campaign being waged by the pharmaceutical industry to discredit all alternatives to their highly toxic and dangerous products, by comparison with which such alternative therapies are relatively innocuous. This is why we are reading constantly these days how herbal remedies are dangerous, homeopathic remedies are useless, and vitamins are ineffective. The object of the exercise is to medicate everyone from the cradle to the grave, while conducting a campaign of denigration against all competitors.

Meanwhile, iatrogenic disease (disease induced by the medical profession) is the 3rd biggest cause of death after heart disease and cancer, and may well be the primary cause, given that these diseases are also often induced by drug therapies. The safety of such products is determined by the totally unscientific methodology of poisoning millions of laboratory animals, after which, clinical testing on humans is then kept to a minimum.

Chaucer, in his Canterbury Tales, remarked on the symbiotic relationship between physician and pharmacist. These physicians now fraudulently call themselves ‘doctors’ despite the fact that most of them do not possess doctorates, and the relationship between the corrupt medical profession and an even more corrupt international drug industry continues to exert a malign influence on society.

Columbus error already debunked, I see. Next one then, it's a CAM fave after all, and equally as wrong:

People like you said at the time that Galileo was wrong,

Nope, Galileo had the backing of the scientific community. It was the Catholic Church - a group of people promoting an evidence-free belief system which includes (yes, it still does) faith healing - that bullied him.

Sorry to upset youyr cherished misconception.

What is your point of view on Vaccine?

The object of the exercise is to medicate everyone from the cradle to the grave, while conducting a campaign of denigration against all competitors.

Sounds more like the alt-med community to me. Your own comment reads like part of a "campaign of denigration", in fact.

Any actual evidence for your more outlandish claims?

provokief said:

There is a campaign being waged by the pharmaceutical industry to discredit all alternatives to their highly toxic and dangerous products, by comparison with which such alternative therapies are relatively innocuous.

[citation needed] X 3

Medicine, like my own profession of engineering, is an art which uses science when it is appropriate and of benefit. The idea that medicine is, more or less, exclusively science based is extremely misleading, though whether in the case of those promoting such a view it is down to bias, lack of knowledge, or both, is another matter.

Although a professional engineer has to be a competent scientists, the science content of the training required to qualify at that level is less than 20%, there being far more to engineering than just science. From what I have read and in discussions with medical people I doubt that the proportion is wildly different in medicine; certainly the scientific proof level of efficacy of various treatments and procedures is more closer to the 20% level than the high priests of materialistic mainstream science would have the general populous believe. The low percentage is not just a matter of what is proven, or otherwise in clinical trials, which tend to be on young healthy males, rather than elderly people and certainly not pregnant females, but includes medical judgement and similar; clinicians do not necessarily come to the same conclusion about diagnosis, treatment and so on.

I have an interest and occasional involvement in an area of non-mainstream health matters which you, Professor Ernst, have investigated, in your own inimitable way, and on which you have pronounced. Even my non-scientific colleagues in that field immediately saw the flaws in your experimental procedure. The page in "Trick or Treatment" that you and Simon Singh devote to that particular subject contains more than a dozen errors of both fact and procedure; it seems that neither of you can manage even a basic literature search, or otherwise obtain accurate information. I asked you questions about such matters on your pulse Today Blog but received no reply; similarly when Richard Lanigan questioned you on other matters. I went to Brunel University for my first Degree in 1967 and have been involved with, had contact with highly qualified professionals, including academics since than. You are the only professor I have ever come across who is unwilling, or unable, to answer questions on the subject that he professes.

You complain about the College of Medicine having some sort of agenda whereas there is an organisation with a diametrically opposite outlook, The Nightingale Collaboration, which seems to involve a number of non-medical people, self-appointed "experts" on non-mainstream therapies, hanging on the skirts of a 19th Century nurse.

People such as yourself have made me appreciate my own profession and its ways far more than I used to. Pragmatic approaches to solving problems that use science as a tool, knowing it to be a fallible one, where appropriate and where useful, are far superior to those which pay absolute obeisance to everything scientific, or considered to be scientific; much of the current approach to and attitudes in science, at least he materialistic, mainstream variety, are a travesty of the science on which I was brought up. If the mainstream science approach to medicine, proof to their standards or ban it, were applied to engineering, the world as we know it would stop in its tracks; no power, no transport, no communications, etc., etc.

The evidence based medicine approach has been tried with a particular technology in aviation and it failed miserably. Another area of engineering has been liked to a form of "magic"; the science is inadequate but engineers have their own ways, as well as their own knowledge. Two of the reasons that aircraft fall out of the sky extremely rarely is down to a non-evidenced based system of engineering and engineering "magic".

RichardKing said:

You complain about the College of Medicine having some sort of agenda whereas there is an organisation with a diametrically opposite outlook, The Nightingale Collaboration, which seems to involve a number of non-medical people, self-appointed "experts" on non-mainstream therapies, hanging on the skirts of a 19th Century nurse.

The Nightingale Collaboration do not claim to be 'experts' on non-mainstream therapies. As it says in the FAQs:

Who are you to decide what's misleading and what is not?

We don't decide.

When we find claims we believe may be misleading, we submit complaints to an organisation that oversees that advertising or healthcare therapy. This could be the Advertising Standards Authority, Trading Standards, a statutory or voluntary regulator — all of whom enforce standards, whether mandatory or not.

Also, many professional trade bodies have codes of conduct that their members are supposed to follow. We want to ensure these are comprehensive, robust and rigorously enforced so that misleading claims are not made.

If you care to find out a bit more about Florence Nightingale, you'll find out she made a huge impact in more than just 19th century nursing.

Of course, what the Nightingale Collaboration does or doesn't do, has no relevance to whether or not the CoM is promoting quackery.

I'm an engineer too.

and it failed miserably

So it was tested, the results of those tests were that it was found to be wanting, and therefore rejected?

That sounds evidence-based to me.

The Wester Hailes Health Agency (WHHA) is in Edinburgh; it seems to have been on the go in a variety of guises for some time. In this deprived area of the city its aims, such as addressing local health inequalities, help with filling in forms, adult literacy, languages, cooking, gardening, advocacy, help with budgeting money, walking, activity groups, dietary advice, are hard to criticise

However, WHHA also provides ‘complementary therapies’ such as Reflexology, Shiatsu and Aromatherapy. If this is deliberate rather than happenstance then the mixture of the applaudable with the unlaudable seems a very interesting strategy. Perhaps not so much 'Let them eat cake' as 'Let them small chamomile'
The funding spread is NHS (65%); Local Authority (15%) Donations (30%) so it seems that NHS cash isn’t just going into the Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital (still open?) but also into complementary therapies in small outfits like the WHHA. I haven’t been able to find the directors of the charity, although I believe two local GPs are on the board.

It may be hard to criticise the activities of the WHHA without it being presented as an attack on the most vulnerable sections of our society.

As Spock would say :

fascinating

I don't know about my fellow rationalists, but it's like being in the episode "Mirror-Mirror" (1967) from the Star-Trek TV show. A parallel universe.

People like you said at the time that Galileo was wrong...

To Quote Robert Park: "Alas, to wear the mantle of Galileo it is not enough that you be persecuted by an unkind establishment, you must also be right."

...that Columbus was wrong...

Columbus was wrong. He was trying to sail to Asia, because he thought that Japan was only about 2,500 miles West of the Canary Islands rather than about 12,000. If it wasn't for the sheer luck by which America was in the way, he would have starved.

Oh dear, oh dear.

Another area of engineering has been liked to a form of "magic"; the science is inadequate but engineers have their own ways, as well as their own knowledge.

"I don't fully understand how this works, but it does; hence fringe therapies must work"? You miss the point about those areas where our scientific knowledge is as yet insufficient to explain observed and reproducible effects. The point is: these effects exist; science is the process by which we try to understand them.

You're just trying to argue that science can't explain everything, therefore magic. It's as logical as saying my cat can't bark, therefore unicorns.

The page in "Trick or Treatment" that you and Simon Singh devote to that particular subject contains more than a dozen errors of both fact and procedure;

Cite up, or hush up. No unsupported assertions, please.

Take, for example, the assertion that homeopathy is useful for asthma. A Cochrane review on the topic (authored by homeopaths) summarised six randomised controlled trials and concluded that "there is not enough evidence".

There's also a recent paper published by am team from a member of the CoM's "innovations Network": The feasibility of a pragmatic randomised controlled trial to compare usual care with usual care plus individualised homeopathy, in children requiring secondary care for asthma.

"Evidence in favour of adjunctive homeopathic treatment was lacking."

@Zeno

I did not say that the members of The Nightingale Collaboration claimed to be "experts" as such, that is why I used inverted commas. However, I am well aware that a number of people claim to know more than they are likely to, given their backgrounds and qualifications. Simon Singh co-wrote "Trick or Treatment" just two years after he became interested in CAM, as I recall from his own writings. As a thesis I would not even give it a pass mark; as the equivalent of an engineering report I would dismiss it, more or less out of hand; too many errors of both fact and logic.

I am also well aware of Florence Nightingale's achievements and contributions, as well as having a reasonable knowledge of history and other matters generally. My schooling, Technical College and University years were through the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s, while standards were, relatively, high.

Re: Who are you to decide what's misleading and what is not?

I have as much right to comment as anyone else. Unlike other people I tend not to stray to far beyond the areas in which I have knowledge and experience, usually qualifying my opinions and comments when I do, or at least making my background available for others to use it as a basis for judging my comments; rather unlike the anonymous types who usually comment. In contrast you can find me on the Web easily, despite a relatively common name, though if you add "CEng", "Chartered Engineer", "Healer", or "Havant", in a search, the connections are more obvious.

On that basis I am well aware than what Edzard Ernst and Simon Singh have written about my interest area of non-mainstream health is absolute rubbish.

@Gibletparade
"I'm an engineer too.
and it failed miserably
So it was tested, the results of those tests were that it was found to be wanting, and therefore rejected?
That sounds evidence-based to me."

Maybe something to do with your standard of engineering. Depends what type of engineer you are. I tend not to regard anyone below CEng, or at least Membership of one of the Institutions and, therefore, registered with the Engineering Council; bearing in mind that, in continental Europe the title of Engineer is at least equivalent to M.D.

I was refereeing to evidence based in the "hard boiled, materialistic, atheistic, know it all, there is nothing else, mainstream science" sense, not the "down to Earth", "real physical world", pragmatic engineering and technology sense. From an engineering point of view, if something is shown to work, it works, there is not necessarily any need to go into detailed scientific explanations, even if they exist at the time.

Failures are avoided as far as possible, obviously, but are accepted as an inevitable hazard and taken as part of the learning process.

I did not say that the members of The Nightingale Collaboration claimed to be "experts" as such...

You certainly implied it. Here are your exact words:

The Nightingale Collaboration, which seems to involve a number of non-medical people, self-appointed "experts" on non-mainstream therapies, hanging on the skirts of a 19th Century nurse.

They also said that Coco the Clown was wrong.

(Yes, this is a quote.)

From an engineering point of view, if something is shown to work, it works, there is not necessarily any need to go into detailed scientific explanations, even if they exist at the time.

And this is where you fall down.

From a scientific point of view, if homeopathy (for example) had been "shown to work" - by providing repeatable, statistically significant, meaningful effects in high-quality clinical trials, then we would not let a lack of "detailed scientific explanations" stop us from thinking homeopathy worked.

You've set up your own straw man in your own little fantasy world.

The problem with using qualifications in engineering as a position of authority in medical matters is that there is a fundamental difference between the two fields: patients often get better of their own accord, so it is quite possible (indeed very likely) for patients given a completely ineffective treatment to report positive outcomes. This means that medical treatments need to be assessed on a quite different basis to engineering solutions.

@Anarchcicteapot

You are losing yourself in words and strange illogical argument, "reasoning" as well as attributing to me that which I have not written, or expressed.

There is engineering knowledge and there are engineering ways, both different from science. As Walter Vincenti put it, engineering and science are close cousins and they overlap at times but they are not the same; "What Engineers Know and How They Know it".

As far as the page in "Trick or Treatment" is concerned it is page 327; I commented about it on a Web Site; I asked Edzard Ernst questions about tit on his blog but he did not reply and he and/or his editor quickly changed the subject, rather suddenly, to an unusually positive posting on CAM matters.

Apart from the above, you use a pseudonym do not have the courage to appear as yourself, so there is no way of checking on you background, qualifications or experience; I doubt that I have much, if anything, to learn from you. You will, probably, come back with a mutual feeling and that's okay by mean. I am only interested in open mature exchanges of views, ideas, etc., which seem to be few and far between from the mainstream backwoodsmen.

@BulbusSquidge

I did not even mention homeopathy; while accusing me of setting up straw men you are setting up your own; the usual brand of illogic from the starting point of being right to begin with and everything else following.

@Voodoo
I am not using engineering qualifications as a position of authority on medical matters, mostly to point out the parallels between engineering and medicine as arts that use science and to avoid, hopefully, anyone trying to teach me anything much about science. One of the arts of engineering and, presumably, medicine, is to be aware of what you do not know as much as what you do know.

Besides, if engineering qualifications are "inadmissible" in commenting on medicine, why do the like of Simon Singh and Andy Lewis, both physicists, comment on medical matters? Similarly, if they have no knowledge of non-mainstream health matters, other than on a lay level, why should such people have any great influence.

You do not show yourself so there is no indication of what you are qualified in or have experience in, so, presumably, your comments carry even less weight.

@BulbusSquidge and @Voodoo

As previous comment and the one immediately above, anonymity results in no particular confidence, reason to take much note of, or weight of comments.