Should alternative medicine be brought under mainstream regulation?

Regulation is definitely needed. The Quack Miranda Warning isn’t enough. Anything that claims medical benefit should be required to be thoroughly tested.

Regulation is the way forward for the various professions in Alternative medicine.
Osteopathy has been in the UK since 1998 as a self regulating entity with the government able to step in should the system fail.
Chiropractic is the same.
In order to register you must have completed a recognised training program or a rigourous assessment if you were in practice before the act came into force.
The Number of Osteopaths went from 5000 pre registration to 3000 post registration.

GOsC (General Osteopathic Council) has a number of people sitting on the board in charge of regulating it. 50% are Osteopaths and 50% are lay people with professional status. Some of whom will have no healthcare training at all but it may include conventional medical practitioners also.
The Idea of having a mixed board is so that the board isn’t dominated by osteopaths and other people from different walks of life can put in their input.

in 2007 the HPC came into force. All healthcare practitioners who didn’t have a government or government backed regulator are supposed to register with this body before practicing any healthcare. This isn’t self regulating but directly by the government. Interestingly in the UK this is when Physio-therapy finally became a closed shop.
The criticism of this and the reasons why self regulating professions lobbied to remain self regulated was the council was divided into umbrella’s and there may have been 10 professions under 1 board. consequently rullings would be made to professionals by people who didn’t fully understand their profession and it was felt unfair rullings could be made.
The positive side was it would have been much cheeper per member to register. The GOsC had to do a lot of lobbying to convince us to vote against this new system because our registration costs would have droped by more than 50%

Some healthcare providers unfortunately are still not obliged to register and this is a gap which needs to be closed.

In New Zealand and Australia the Government directly registers Osteopaths and Chiropractors.

What the article seems to be suggesting is the medical profession should regulate all practitioners of alternative and conventional medicine.
This is a massive conflict of interest and would get quashed in court immediately. The medical profession has tried to pull stunts like this before and have failed.
What business does the medical profession have regulating Osteopaths? Most Doctors haven’t got a clue what I actually do.
It would only be fair for medical physicians to regulate Osteopaths if Osteopaths regulated medical physicians. Otherwise there is too much scope for denying regulation in order to stop the competition and dominate the healthcare market.

In regards to RCT evidence before being allowed to practice on the General public if you are going to apply that to us, apply it to the surgeons as well. There are very few randomised controlled trials for surgery.

In regards to safety, no system of established alternative medicine manages to kill or harm as many of its patients as conventional medicine.
If it is to be judged on safety alone really we should be banning conventional medicine and letting altmed continue.

If you are only going to allow treatment protocols that have been fully trialed and passed as safe, we must look at the testing system.
Currently whoever has a product, drug etc designs the experiments, tests it and then releases the results to the regulators who either pass it of fail it.
This is not independant an open to massive abuse and is inherently flawed. It is also reductionist which the scientific model is waking up to as an inadequate testing model.
Firstly the whole testing procedure must be overhauled and made fully independent and then all products and protocols tested before implementing such sweeping changes. New testing Models would need to be developed as well as quite clearly RCT’s are not appropriate in all cases.

Also am I a product?
Is a tens machine a product?
Are we instead applying a treatment without chemical intervention which would happen if you used, drugs herbs, supplements etc.
How can you regulate us and Physiotherapist or Chiros if there is no product as such?

Should you also legislate against lovers touching each others thighs unless they see a qualified practioner and it has been established it is safe to do so?
Should they do courses on sensual touching and intercourse and not be allowed to do so unless they have completed their training?

Edit:
”Don’t be a douche, man.”
Rhianna, if you are going to use insults can you at least have the courtesy to use the more classy British ones instead of the colonial ones madam.
There is a difference between legislating and regulating for safety and regulating us into a Nanny state.
I’m also trying to illustrate some things would need careful consideration before regulating them. Reiki doesn’t even involve touching someone so unless you acknowledge something is going on, if theyare doing nothing why should they be regulated?

Maybe you’ll feel better if Dr Frank sensually massages your thighs. Lets hope he is deemed safe and competant to do so….

Edit 2:
”Self-regulation is of course, no regulation at all, especially in a field where everyone shares the same delusions (and self interests!)”

So Dave does that mean you are in favour of disbanding the General Medical Council which is a self regulating body and having the regulation of doctors handed over directly to the government?
The Osteopathic profession was given an option. We were told to get our act together and self regulate or the government would do it for us. The government and GOsC were in consultation throughout before implementation of the act and would step in if the system failed or was inadequate.
Something I should also point out is self regulation seperates power from the government and seperates us from a changeable government agenda.
Theoretically the government may want to introduce a measure which is unethical or immoral and force practitioners to implement it. As a seperate body through the courts we would be in a much better position to challenge it.
Anyone who is regulated will be able to tell you the regulators are a royal pain in the bum (whoever they may be). They aren’t there for the practitioners, they are there to protect the public!
Having said that if I were to be judged I would rather it be by people who know what I do (at least some of them) as opposed to people who don’t.

Know the cause, thank you kindly sir.

Edit3:
Nice to See Rhianna has altered her post to be more respectful. You’ll find I’ll do the same. Sorry for the Sexism gary but Rhianna and Dr Franks posts in the past have both declared their love for each other as have their profiles. I haven’t looked at them lately.

Gary, in the UK the regulation of medicine, osteopathy and chiropractic is identical. Self regulating.
In New Zealand the government regulates osteopathy. I’m not sure if medicine is self regulating or government here. It makes no odds to me to be perfectly honest. The system we have works reasonably well and the most improtant thing is protection of the public. My first choice is self regulation but in New Zealand I am happy for the Government to do it because we are a small group and the cost of self regulation would be large. The board that regulates us does have an osteopath on it so I’m fine with it.

Different regulators regulate different things because a regulator that is too large can become a monster out of touch with its members.
Although we all provide healthcare we provide it quite differently from the medical profession.

If you want to understand what reductionist is, look it up.
Its a term the Medical profession is confortable with and freely admits to be that.

Edit4:
I asked Dave in a private e-mail if he supports deregulating the GMC and handing regulation of doctors over to the governement. this was his reply:

”Subject: Re: Self regulation
Message: If the GMC were shown to promote voodoo and superstition with a health care record lagging behind the rest of the world, then yes, absolutely.”

OK Dave, exactly how does GOsC promote voodoo and superstition and have a healthcare record lagging behind the rest of the world? refrerences and examples please.

Good article.

Self-regulation is of course, no regulation at all, especially in a field where everyone shares the same delusions (and self interests!)

Certainly some basic regulation should be brought in, mainly to prevent outrageous claims for cancer, AIDS and disease cures etc that have no scientific foundation. Also to prevent poorly qualified people from attempting to make diagnoses when not qualified or trained to do so. Restrict claims to treating stress, depression, nervousness etc, where a bit of placebo may well do some good.

Ultimately, you’re never going to rid the world of these nutcases, there’s too much money to be had selling snake oil, they’ll manage to wriggle around any legislation that may be put in place though if we can stop the more extreme ones who think they can treat typhoid with water etc, then hopefully a few lives can be saved.