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In the wake of the report by the Science and Technology Committee (STC) on the lack of evidence for homeopathy, and the Chinese medicine poisoning, the BBC carried at least three very bad reports. Being a strong supporter of the BBC that saddens me.

Nevertheless it has to be said that the BBC does not always do very well on science reporting. Too many of the reports are anonymous -you don’t know who to blame or who to write to. Worse still, the BBC’s reports on its web site usually fail to link to original sources. This is unforgiveable: the ability to link to sources is the huge advantage of the web over print media.

The problem of balance in media reports

The question of balance is important. Ofcom imposes an obligation that reporting should reflect the balance of viewpoints. Section 5 of Ofcom’s broadcasting code says (emphasis is mine).

“Section 5: Due Impartiality and Due Accuracy and Undue Prominence of Views and Opinions”

“To ensure that news, in whatever form, is reported with due accuracy and presented with due impartiality.” “Meaning of “due impartiality”: “Due” is an important qualification to the concept of impartiality. Impartiality itself means not favouring one side over another. “Due” means adequate or appropriate to the subject and nature of the programme. So “due impartiality” does not mean an equal division of time has to be given to every view, or that every argument and every facet of every argument has to be represented.”

The BBC Trust has a very similar definition of "due impartiality".

It seems to me that in practice producers tend to use "equal time" too much, and that this often gives a quite misleading impression of the state of play of informed opinion. Nevertheless, inappropriate use of “equal time” is so common that it would not be worth a formal complaint. This post concerns cases of very unequal time,

Somebody said recently, it is as though after an air crash one gave equal time to the air accident investigator and a representative gravity-deniers association. That is scarcely an exaggeration of what happened on the BBC after the STC’s report.

Worse still, far more time was given (especially on ‘Call You and Yours’) to the viewpoint that any scientist, indeed any informed person, would regard as quackery.

This post gives details of three examples of highly partial reporting and it is the basis of complaints to the BBC. But since complaints to the BBC about science reporting rarely get far, a complaint

is being sent also to Ofcom.

(1) Call You and Yours: a platform for herbalists

You and Yours is often quite a good programme, They did an excellent job on a "snoring remedy" which I had unearthed. But on Tuesday 23 February they did a "Call You and Yours" phone-in programme which was badly researched and highly partial.

The presenter, Julian Worricker, didn’t know enough about the topic to ask the right questions, though I’d guess that the blame for the poor quality must lie more with the person who decided that the only "expert" on the programme was a herbalist, and with the people who screened the phone calls.

The programme was billed as being a reaction to the case of a Chinese medicine practitioner who poisoned a patient, and to the publication of the report of Science and Technology Select Committee which damned homeopathy.

The programme can be heard here (at you own risk of bursting a blood vessel) Download mp3 file (43.6 Mb)

The major mistake was that the only "expert" on the programme was Michael McIntyre who is chair of the European Herbal & Traditional Medicine Practitioners Association. McIntyre is a well known advocate of alternative medicine, who constantly fudges the need for proper evidence. He is very keen to increase the respectability of herbalists (like all alternative practitioners, he is desperate to be accepted as a real doctor). In fact McIntyre doesn’t even represent all herbalists. . He failed to mention, and the presenter apparently didn’t know, that 2553 herbalists (as of 24 Feb) signed a petition that opposes the sort of pseudo-regulation the McIntyre wants so desperately.

"We the undersigned strongly object to the Government’s proposals to statutorily regulate herbalists and change section 12(1) of the 1968 Medicines Act."

Not to mention this was a serious error on the part of the researchers for this programme.

This was a programme about alternative medicine in which the ONLY expert was a notorious alternative medicine advocate. It was one of the most highly biassed programmes I have ever heard from the BBC. McIntyre most certainly does not represent the views of science or medicine, as shown, for example, by the submission from Sense About Science, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, the Institute of Biomedical Science, the Medical Research Society, the Medical Schools Council, the Physiological Society and the Royal College of Pathologists. The opinion of these not insubstantial people was not mentioned anywhere in the programme.

Here is a summary of the main points in the programme. It shows the bias very clearly. Furthermore the people who selected the phone calls seemed to pick almost all people who advocated alternative medicine.

(1) A lengthy anecdote relating a miraculous “cure” of fibromyalgia with homeopathy. No challenge or alternative interpretation was offered.

(2) A pharmacist (for heavens sake) who said she’d "seen results" from homeopathy and didn’t care whether or not it was placebo. She wasn’t challenged on the problem of lying about whether or not is placebo. We’ve had cause before to worry about the quality of advice given my pharmacists.

(3) Another long anecdote from a nurse (!) claiming to have been "cured" if fibroids by acupressure and cupping. No challenge or alternative interpretation was offered.

(4) Then some emails read out, mostly pro-quack. Only one claiming no effect (in asthma) but that was an anecdote too. Mostly more miracle cures.

(5) Michael McIntyre has the first of several long speeches. advocating more research. There was an advertisement for his web site "promotes best practice" (allegedly). He talks quite seriously about "reflexology" and so on, as though it were real subject (it isn’t; its "principles" are made-up fantasies).

He said. "We need more research in how complementary medicine works". Notice the inbuilt assumption that it does work. This is directly contradicted by the fact that the USA has spent over a billion dollars on CAM research and come up with not a single useful treatment. Why did the researchers and the presenter not know about this, and challenge McIntyre? Once again, the programme researchers seem to be Incompetent.

(7) A caller was mildly critical of fact the Norwich council can’t to anything about claims made by TCM shops (actually Trading Standards could, but generally don’t, but this wasn’t pointed out to the caller).

(8) A caller from Somerset makes the good point that alternative medicine becomes just medicine once it is shown to work.

(9) Michael McIntyre is challenged about evidence, and gives a lengthy speech about why proper RCTs aren’t necessary. They are necessary, but he isn’t challenged. Plus the usual excuse about lack of money for trials. What about that billion dollars?

(10) The Somerset caller says why restrict yourself to herbs? Good point, but no response.

(11) McIntyre gives another long speech in which he propagates the myth that the impurities in herbal medicines are in some way helpful, or synergistic, This is the only justification that herbalists have for giving impure drugs, but there isn’t the slightest evidence to think it’s true. McIntyre should have been challenged about this, but wasn’t.

At no point was McIntyre challenged about the danger of giving drugs (herbal or otherwise) in unknown doses, as herbalists do. He should have been challenged.

(12) Worker (unspecified) in NHS psychiatry says placebos were used to get patients off drugs. The presenter misses the point by asking if the placebos should be paid for by the NHS. The question he should have asked is about ethics of deceiving patients, but presenter did not do this.

(13) A blatant advertisement from a "health food store" in Barnoldswick. The owners are "pharmacy technicians" (since most pharmacists seem to have difficulties about evidence,

this can’t be regarded as a high qualification). They plug the supplements (almost all unnecessary, a few dangerous) that they sell.

(14) McIntyre again. Says something more or less sensible about drug interactions.

(15) By this time I’d emailed and got in a quick bit about the valuelessness of anecdotes, but was .cut short before I could talk about regulation.

(16) McIntyre defends anecdotes, predictably enough. This time the presenter did raise a good point about how anecdotes should be verified by proper tests but McIntyre again evades the main point that most herbs have not been properly tested, and isn’t challenged.

(17) More emails. A man who takes sage for sore throats. One says "of course homeopathic remedies are placebos but placebos work"; "homeopathy is an extraordinary system for industrialising

the placebo effect, but used by responsible practitioners it has a valuable place". Once again the ethics of deceiving patients with hocus pocus in order to elicit a placebo effect was not raised.

And one caller raised the usual red herring about dogs responding. This, yet again, went unchallenged. Why wasn’t it pointed out that it is the human who reports the state of the dog who has the placebo response?

(18) Then on to regulation. The researchers and presenter seemed to be quite unaware of the near-unanimous opinion of scientists and also of the Royal College of Physicians, that regulation in the form

proposed by the Pittilo report will be ineffective, and will do more to harm patients than to safeguard them. There is more than one way to regulate, and this uninformed intervention was especially

unwelcome at a time when the government is considering the question.

(19) Lady with MS said that acupuncture didn’t do her any good at all, but she didn’t like to tell the acupuncturist. But the obvious conclusions were not drawn.

(20) Presenter asks McIntyre leading question "it does work for some and not for others ". No hint there that the ones it "works for" might be the ones who were going to get better anyway. McIntyre himself actual pointed out that some forms of MS (‘relapsing’) undergo spontaneous remissions but of course fails to draw the obvious conclusion that any. He apparent effect of acupuncture could well have been a spontaneous remission. He went on to say (without any evidence) that "acupuncture may help". He relied on the standard line that "more research needed", but failed to mention the vast amount of research that has already been done which shows that acupuncture is probably little more than a theatrical placebo. See, for example, the Nordic Cochrane Centre review and Barker Bausell’s book, Snake Oil Science.

(21) An email points out that anecdotes are no substitute for proper tests. McIntyre then misquotes Sir Michael Rawlins(chair of NICE). He claimed, as most quacks do, that Rawlins had endorsed anecdotes as an acceptable form of evidence in his lecture. This is not what he said at all. In fact Rawlins was referring to treatments that had already passed RCTs and saying that they should be followed up in the wider population of patients to see if they lived up to their initial promise. This interpretation of his words was published in the BMJ after I’d checked it was correct with Rawlins himself.

In the same lengthy speech McIntyre claimed "There really isn’t any dummy acupuncture". This is absolutely untrue, but was not challenged. Huge ingenuity has gone into devising retractable ‘stage dagger’ acupuncture needles, as well as trials that use real needles inserted in the "wrong" positions. One of the most consistent findings in CAM research is that sham acupuncture is not distinguishable from "real" acupuncture. McIntyre, needless to say, didn’t mention this, He should have been challenged but wasn’t.

(21) Declan Naughton (Kingston University) advocates greater "regulation". "If we have trained herbal practitioners" it will make it safer for everyone. Thw revelation of what is actually taught on these degrees shows that, on the contrary, they endanger patients, He claims that use of purified antibiotics leads to problems with drug resistance. There isn’t the slightest reason to think that resistance has anything to do with purification, This was a red herring but went unchallenged. I notice that Naughton has published in Medical Hypotheses, a journal for wild speculations that is not peer-reviewed

(22) Donald Kerr a TCM practitioner, supports McIntyre in looking for statutory regulation. "like the GMC". He is not challenged on the extent to which real medicine and TCM have a sound basis. Like most alternative medicine advocates, he goes for the usual diversionary tactic of criticising western medicine which he refers to as "prescriptive medicines" [sic]

(23) London herbalist Michael Simmons. His web site claims that "Medical Herbalists are trained in the same diagnostic skills as orthodox doctors b". This is simply not true, The fact that herbalists claim it is true mereyl shows how they endanger patients.

(24) Marc Seale, chair of the Health Professions Council (HPC) now appears. he says one very interesting thing "things like false advertising would be dealt with by the regulator". He also acknowledged that there is a strong feeling among scientists and physicians that statutory regulation would give a "false sense of legitimacy " to the area. This latter point was entirely missed by the programme and that seems like another example of incompetent research. But Seale still doesn’t seem to understand the problem, as outlined here and in a joint submission from Sense About Science, the

Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, the Institute of Biomedical Science, the Medical Research Society, the Medical Schools Council, the Physiological Society and the Royal College of Pathologists. This submission opposed regulation of the sort favoured by McIntyre and Seale, but wasn’t even mentioned. Once again, all the speakers were on the same side.

(25. Back once again to McIntyre, who lamented that after ten years of trying, he still hadn’t achieved statutory regulations for herbalists (to the joy of 2500 herbalists), That is simply because they have not fulfilled the requirements for statutory regulation, as laid out in the House of Lords report (2000). That was not mentioned either. Agani the researchers appear not to have done their job properly.

(26) The presenter, Julian Worricker, refers to Prof. Edzard Ernst as a “divisive figure in this field”. That is a highly partial way to refer to the person who has done more than any other individual to bring together objectively the evidence for the effectiveness of alternative medicine. Ernst has every scientist and every informed person behind him.

(27) McIntyre again. He misrepresents Ernst’s views and misrepresents the strength of the evidence for the efficacy of herbal medicines, which are mostly untested.. But he is not challenged.

McIntyre goes on to misrepresent the BMJ Clinical Evidence paper which, he says, shows that 46% of all treatments are not proven to be effective. It is hard to be believe that McIntyre is really unaware that a large proportion of those that were not shown to be effective are CAM treatments, herbal medicine and the like. Professor John Garrow has pointed this out (see, also Healthwatch)

“It is true they chortle, but they have got their facts wrong. The 46% of treatments which are not proven to be effective is 46% of all treatments for 240 common conditions – and very few are used in the NHS. The great majority are treatments used by alternative practitioners. “

If McIntyre was not aware of this he should have been, If he was aware of it he was being less than honest. In any case the programme’s researchers should have been aware of it and McIntyrere should have been challenged. He wasn’t.

(28) A bizarre phone call from someone who seems to think that real medicines are not labelled with their ingredients

(29) Seale is asked if alternative medicine can be regulated like real medicine He says they’ll check degrees. If the checking is done properly, he’ll find endless dangerous made-up material like that revealed here. No degrees on TCM would pass and the whole edifice would collapse.

(30) Another presenter says "it all depends on peoples’ experiences which side they are on".. No! That is simply not true. Well it may have been be true of the phone callers, but is both misleading and untrue in general, The divide is actually between those who are aware of, and care about, evidence and those who do not. Some people actually take the questions seriously, but this comment reduced the discussion to the level of the life style section in a downmarket women’s magazine. One expects more of the BBC.

(31) McIntyre pleads that herbal medicines must be all right because they are used widely on continental Europe. This non sequiter went unchallenged.

(32) Seale says we must wait for Department of Health consultation on Pittilo recommendations. Quite right. For the sake of patient safety, one must hope that the Department of Health will listen to the evidence, and not implement them, despite McIntyre’s success in putting one side of the story on this programme.

(33) McIntyre laments the fact that Europe is bringing in some very sensible regulations about herbal medicine. Again he had free rein to air the views of some (not all) herbalists, with nobody there to support these sensible measures.

(2) Guilty plea in Chinese herbal ‘cancer’ case

This BBC web page gave a very unbalanced account of the case for and against statutory regulation< of traditional Chinese medicine. It simply echoed the (uninformed) view of the judge that "more regulation is necessary" but it was apparently quite unaware that the form of this regulation is at present under consideration by the Department of Health.

The vast majority of scientific and medical opinion is against the particular form of statutory regulation recommended by the Pittilo steering group, and the author of this anonymous report should have been aware of that. Why was there no reference to the submission from Sense About Science, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, the Institute of Biomedical Science, the Medical Research Society, the Medical Schools Council, the Physiological Society and the Royal College of Pathologists? These are bodies whose views should not have been ignored, as also the individual submissions here and here. It may be acceptable for a judge to be unaware of this powerful body of opinion. It is not acceptable for BBC reporters to ignorant of it.

The web page does now contain a short statement from Sense about Science which goes a small way to redress the imbalance, That was inserted only after a phone call to the BBC from a member of parliament.

(3) Woman claims that homeopathy cured her cancer

On February 23rd 2010m the BBC showed a an utterly irresponsible item. A homeopath, Gemma Hoefkens, claimed to have been cured of cancer by taking homeopathic sugar pills. There was nobody to point out the utter impossibility of this claim, just some not-very-probing questions fromt the presenter.

Hoefkens promoted her own web site during the interview. It is illegal under the Cancer ACt 1939 to claim to be able to cure cancer and this video must come very close to breaking that law. Some interesting inconsistencies in Hoefken’s account have been pointed out on the Ministry of Truth web site . This was a new low point in science reporting.

Follow-up

This complaint has been sent to the BBC. But the Ofcome web site says

“However, we cannot consider complaints about accuracy in BBC TV and radio news or complaints about impartiality in BBC TV and radio programmes. These complaints have to be dealt with by the BBC.”

This seems to preclude any independent outside adjudication. Not good.

Mark Henderson wrote a nice piece about impartiality in The Times (Feb 4 2010), “Science Matters: The BBC’s balancing act“. He expresses views that are, in many ways, similar to mine.