Society for Science Based Healthcare - up and running

A new group advocating a strong basis in rigorous science for the provision of safe and effective healthcare has been established in New Zealand. Mark Hanna explains.

There is a lot of medical nonsense in New Zealand. It's common to see large 'Natural Health' sections in pharmacies containing homeopathic products and similarly unevidenced concoctions. Listen to the radio and you'll likely hear ads for unevidenced 'Sleep Drops' or magnetic mattress underlays that purportedly offer 'Drug Free Pain Relief'. You won't have to look far to find a chiropractor who'll claim to treat anything from asthma to autism, or an acupuncturist that'll unblock the flow of the undetectable substrate of the universe with a needle, in order to cure your arthritis. You may even find them sharing an office.

Even the New Zealand government supports some of this. The New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) accredits courses on pseudoscientific topics ranging from homeopathy to iridology. The Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) uses public money to fund acupuncture for many injury types, even when their own reviews of the literature have shown the treatments to be unsupported by evidence.

Despite the regulations in place to protect the public's right to make informed choices about their healthcare, medical nonsense is flourishing in New Zealand. Pharmacists are bound by their industry code of ethics not to sell or promote products without "credible evidence of efficacy", health testimonials in ads are banned by the Medicines Act, and unsubstantiated representations in trade are banned by the Fair Trading Act. Yet you don't have to look far to find examples of any or all of these.

In many cases the problem is that the regulations aren't actively enforced. If no one brings violations to the attention of the regulators, they will be left alone. Even when they are pointed out, sometimes the body in charge of dealing with it simply doesn't have the resources to spare. There is a very real need for activism in this area.

In an effort to turn the tide of medical pseudoscience, a new activist organisation has been founded. The Society for Science Based Healthcare exists to protect your right to make informed choices about your healthcare.

The society is a group of experts and activists working to counter this mountain of misinformation, and to support healthcare options that are based on science such as vaccination and community water fluoridation. Primarily, we make use of the current regulatory framework in order to remove misleading medical claims from advertisements and publications.

Although the society was only founded in June this year, we have been collaborating as a group for months prior to that and have accomplished a fair deal in that time. Here are a few examples of our successes from earlier this year:

A chiropractic business called Vital Chiropractic made a number of claims regarding chiropractic on their website, including that:

"those with back pain, sciatica, headaches, [insert condition here] usually feel a whole lot better when they are under Chiropractic care"

and that:

"Chiropractic is SO good at boosting the immune system that people under regular chiropractic care have an immune system that functions 200% better".

Upon seeing these claims on their website, we laid a complaint with the ASA on the basis that they did not seem to be supported by evidence. Although the advertiser attempted to provide evidence to support its claims, the ASA's complaints board ruled that what they provided was "not sufficiently robust" to substantiate their claims, and therefore ruled that the claims be removed.

In May, a US business called Osmosis Skincare generated a fair amount of media attention about what they were saying was an "innovative new technology" for preventing sunburn. All you had to do was take some of it with some water a short time before heading out into the sun, and you'd be protected from UV radiation. The odd part, though, is that this product is just plain old water, albeit with a sprinkling of pseudoscience. We laid a complaint with the ASA regarding these claims, on the basis that they were unsubstantiated and that they abused scientific terminology, applying a smokescreen of pseudoscientific jargon like "isolates the precise frequencies needed to neutralize UVA and UVB". In response to the complaint, the company responded that an "independent clinical trial" (which predictably turned out to be a laughable mess) was due to be completed in the US soon, but they didn't have any evidence at the time. As such, the ASA upheld the complaint and these products have since been removed from their New Zealand website.

In June, New Zealand's largest 'natural health' store Health 2000 stated in their bimonthly free magazine/catalogue that the influenza vaccine is an "onslaught of toxins and mercury". We challenged them on this fact, informing them that the flu jab in New Zealand doesn't contain thiomersal (known in the US as thimerosal), the mercury-based preservative whose safety is supported by years of epidemiological evidence. Under threat of having the complaint escalated to the Press Council, the editor of Health 2000's publication promised to print a "clarification" in their next issue clarifying that their characterisation of the flu vaccine was wrong, which they have since complied with.

We're looking for people who are willing and able to help us with this work. If you're an expert in a relevant field, or you want to try your hand at some activism, please get in touch with us. If you know someone else who might be interested, let them know we exist and want their help. You can contact the society via email at sbh@sbh.org.nz, or read some more about us on our website at sbh.org.nz