NZ Skeptics Society warns against Natural Health Petition

Brad MacClure - 1 May 2020

Back in March through April, a petition was raised by naturopath Autumn Falk at change.org to: “Ask the NZ Government to include Natural Health as an essential service during Covid-19”

The committee of the NZ Skeptics Society preempted this petition’s arrival in the prime minister’s inbox with a letter urging the government to “ignore this petition and to keep these non-essential providers closed.”

As you can imagine, Ms Falk got a reasonable amount of support from the public for her petition: it closed with 26,372 supporters. Her goal was 25,000. Of course there is clearly a massive selection bias with petitions of this sort. 26,372 might seem a lot, but does it represent a consensus of New Zealanders? Also I suspect many people who are on the mailing list of change.org glance at almost everything and sign if it doesn’t look terrible. What’s the harm right? Let people have it if it makes them feel better? Of course whether or not it represents a consensus of New Zealanders is actually not the point, I realise. OK, so this is turning into a bit of a rant about how petitions don’t prove much. (It’s true though!) They also don’t do much, thankfully, as in this case, Ms Falk reported back from the Health Minister, Via Essential Services Response Team that “given the lack of evidence around the clinical effectiveness of natural health services and products, the Ministry of Health has determined that they are not essential during Alert Level 4.”

Common sense prevailed!

I don’t wish to be unkind to Ms Falk, or suggest she is insincere in her desire to be allowed to continue to help New Zealanders (that said, clearly there was self interest since she is a practitioner). I’m sure however that readers here don’t need it explained why it’s a bad idea that Natural Health products and services be included as essential services. If you do, just try replacing the term “natural health” with “unproven, or ineffective” as you read, you’ll be fine. What follows are my thoughts on Ms Falk’s argument justifying her petition.

Ms Falk begins her argument with a few unsubstantiated claims about the widespread use (50% of adults and 70% of children!) of “Natural Health” services and products in New Zealand, and a claim they’re recognised by the WHO. She doesn’t specify which ones though. Falk’s disinclination to exhaustively list the things that come under “Natural Health services” is a problem, because she was asking the government to act but not clearly (or even at all) defining what services her request applies to. Assuming it’s everything that isn’t covered by conventional or “mainstream” medicine, granting Falk’s request may mean practitioners of any and all types of unproven treatments (eg. homeopathy, acupuncture, naturopathy, shiatsu, reiki and chiropractic) will feel validated to open up shop during a lockdown. They may encourage clients to visit them for treatment, during a lockdown. Not to mention the perceived credibility it may add.

By demanding rights for consumer’s choice under “Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights Regulations 1996…under the Health and Disability Commissioner Act 1994…” (hereafter just called “the Code” for ease) Falk is begging the question by assuming it’s a foregone conclusion that these services work, and are on the same level as proper science based healthcare. The Code is more about the duties of providers than the choice of consumers. The Code is not about our right to choose medicine that doesn’t work, it is actually about our right to not be ripped off by services that don’t do anything. In fact the only time “choice” is mentioned in the Code, it is regarding the consumer’s “right to an informed choice…”. Here it is about regulating the service so that consumers are not being taken advantage of. Validating all “Natural Health” services by calling them “essential” is not serving the ends of consumer’s informed choice in my opinion. The closest it comes to being about what Falk is making it out to be is under the “informed choice and consent” section:

“Every consumer has the right to express a preference as to who will provide services and have that preference met where practicable”.

This part of the Code is not about a right to choose the type of service, it’s about the right to choose “who will provide services”. As it applies to all health practitioners the Code is about duties, not rights. In short, all providers of health services have obligations to meet standards including products and treatments that work, and that don’t interfere with other drugs. This latter issue is important as there are some “natural” and “alternative” drugs that interfere with other drugs, there is no regulation and practitioners are not always trained or educated about this. Alternative practitioners could be literally making things worse for their clients, and many of them may not even know. Ms Falk’s referring to the act was, in my opinion, a thinly veiled attempt to pretend her petition was about the choice of her clients, and not at all about her being able to sell her products and services during the level 4 lockdown.

The most important issue here (especially at this time of health and economic crisis) is: Do any of these non defined alt health services Falk wants included as essential services work? We can’t know for sure about them all, because she has not listed them. But as for her statement:

“Their clinical usefulness in helping to strengthen the body’s resilience against diseases and combat ill health has a long-standing track record.”

There is no credible evidence that these services are of any benefit.

Services, treatments, practices, and drugs that do work, that help, are already part of so called “mainstream” medicine. Homeopathy is just fraud. Naturopathy is unregulated primitive drugs at best, and at worst unscientific remedies and nonsense that, as stated, is known at times to make things worse by interfering with proper medicine. Science has kept what works, and discarded what doesn’t. While I can appreciate Ms Falk’s revenue stream will be affected by the current crisis, there is no credible evidence for these practices. Naturopaths and homeopaths are not medically trained professionals, and they do not have any real contributions to make to the health of New Zealanders. While the government is handing out money to struggling New Zealanders and everyone is suffering, it is extremely distasteful to consider that some of those New Zealanders may be encouraged to spend that cash supporting people who sell unproven and sometimes dangerous treatments and services.

This is why we urged the government not to grant Ms Falk’s request to “expedite Natural Health services and products being included as an essential service across Aotearoa” but to retain the status quo, where only scientifically proven treatments and medication are regarded as essential. We are thankful to report that our government followed the science in this regard.