prince of wales

In which a certain box of blinky lights is published in Slate.com pontificating about Prince Charles

oracknows — Wed, 18 Mar 2015 06:00:17 +0000

In which a certain box of blinky lights is published in Slate.com pontificating about Prince Charles

After a busy and late day yesterday, I didn't have any gas left in the tank, if you know what I mean, to produce Insolence as epic as my posts about The Food Babe and cries of antivaccine activists of "Help, help! I'm being repressed!" Or maybe I should say that Orac's power supply is drained and his Tarial cells need recharging.

Sometimes, however, serendipity happens. As you might have seen in the news, everybody's favorite Quacktitioner Royal (His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales) is in the United States for a visit. I wrote about it last month, and—miracle of miracles!—someone at Slate.com was interested, so much so that I was asked to do an article about Prince Charles and his love of medical quackery. So I did. And it was published yesterday. If you haven't seen it yet, check out Prince of pseudosciece.

An excerpt:

As an adult, the Prince of Wales has been outspoken in his support for quackery like homeopathy and other forms of alternative medicine, often using his official role to promote that advocacy. One glaring example of Prince Charles’ advocacy for “integrating” alternative medicine into conventional medicine occurred in 2006, when he addressed the World Health Assembly in Geneva to argue for the “integration” of “complementary therapies,” which he said “are rooted in ancient traditions that intuitively understood the need to maintain balance and harmony with our minds, bodies and the natural world” and that “modern medicine needs to accommodate a more integrated and holistic approach,” while advocating acupuncture and other forms of traditional Chinese medicine. The address provoked an article in the Federation of American Societies of Experimental Biology Journal by its editor Gerald Weissmann sarcastically titled, “Homeopathy: Holmes, Hogwarts, and the Prince of Wales,” which described a prince “at war with science.” The speech also led British science to strike back. Anticipating Prince Charles’ points, 13 of Britain’s most eminent physicians and scientists published an “Open Letter: Use of ‘Alternative’ Medicine in the NHS”, which was very critical of efforts, supported by the prince, to integrate “complementary therapies,” including homeopathy, in the U.K.’s National Heath Service.

Read the whole thing! And come back tonight or tomorrow for new Insolence.

oracknows Wed, 03/18/2015 - 02:00

Tags

complementary and alternative medicine

Homeopathy

Politics

Quackery

Skepticism/Critical Thinking

Foundation for Integrated Health

sustainable agriculture

complementary and alternative medicine

Politics

Nice article over in Slate. And you got a Dana Ullman comment too-- apparently you cut people and give them poisons to cure them of cancer.! This is apparently not nice in his book, even though sane people know it's, well, often effective.

And then there are the tone trolls saying you should be nice ot the visitor. It's really pretty hilarious.

Heh. I haven't looked at the comments since early yesterday. Perhaps I should wait until I get home from work, so that I can pour myself a nice beer or glass of wine before seeing comments like Dana's...

Nice to see the blinkenbox getting out and about, spreading his Insolence to all the great unwashed masses (Draconis pity them).

As to the benighted Brian, touch wood old Brenda's lizard genes should keep her running long after old age and/or stupidity has hustled the King Quacktitioner-in-waiting to homeopathic Heaven. As Britain's ambassador the old girl has never been less than consummately professional; I don't imagine she wants the idiot child embarrassing that legacy any more than the rest of us.

I liked the article, but your first statements about the monarchy annoyed me. I know the idea inherited positions is very alien to people in the USA (even if they don't grand real power) and if you have moral objections to the system that you consider outdated, that's your perogative (albeit a bit condescending).

However, you also mentioned cost's two times. Which is not based on facts. There is a lot of research that suggests the monarchy is a net winner for the Brits (tourism/brand/etc). Even when you solely look at direct costs and benefits souvenirs they tend to break even.

So many comment tears for poor benighted Prince Charles..... So sad...

I put up two comments directed at Mr. Ullman. He linked to an abstract presented six years ago at a cancer conference, which described the provision of a homeopathic "medicine" along with traditional evidence-based care for patients with advanced cancers.

From Ullman's link to that abstract, a description of the homeopathic "medicine":

"Methods: The drug psorinum (an alcoholic extract of scabies, scrub, slough, and pus cells) was administered orally at 0.01ml-0.02 ml/Kg body weight as a single dose in empty stomach per day and ongoing to all the participants along with allopathic and homeopathic supportive cares."

I challenged Mr. Ullman to provide us with his opinion about the use of "scabies, scrub, slough and pus cells" as a cancer treatment.

From what I hear, the Prince's estate in Cornwall turns a profit - largely via branded selling. Because some folks find proximity to royalty - even woo royalty - irresistible.

I forget, is the brand also selling homeopathic remedies? I wouldn't be surprised.

I find our next-in-line excruciatingly embarrassing on this issue.
The wider issue of how to run countries, is obviously also very controversial, and far be it from me to derail this admirably focussed blog with such a discussion.
But since you devote some space to this in your slate article, perhaps I might be allowed to point out that constitutions based on the unadulterated milk of pure reason have been tried and led in most cases to catastrophic results.
Even in the US where it's probably been most successful, you've had a bloody civil war over the interpretation of your constitution, which has in its time been found to be compatible with slavery, and by a solemn supreme court set up to decide these issues.

I'm sorry, but whenever I see this photo of Prince Charles I have to wonder "Is he trying to do a Tom Baker impersonation?"

I forget, is the brand also selling homeopathic remedies? I wouldn’t be surprised.

The Prince's brand was on homeopathic remedies, but I don't think it is any more. Our UK skeptics could tell us more.

@JGC -- I do think putting him in charge of the Tardis would be a big mistake.

@#6
“Methods: The drug psorinum (an alcoholic extract of scabies, scrub, slough, and pus cells) was administered orally at 0.01ml-0.02 ml/Kg body weight as a single dose in empty stomach per day and ongoing to all the participants along with allopathic and homeopathic supportive cares.”

At that dosage it would seem to be a detectable amount. That strongly implies that it is not homeopathic unless the original psorinum had already been diluted down to a "stronger" amount.

@#7: Wait, his estate is in Cornwall? The Prince of Wales' estate is in Cornwall? I guess even it's Prince can't stand to live in Wales.

@13

I think that’s why She is called the Duchess of Cornwall?

There is also a castle in Scotland, I believe.

I think the alleged "net gain" from British citizens subsidizing the royal family has to be weighed against losses related to national embarrassment, not least of which involves persecution of an eminent alt med skeptic (Dr. Ernst) who dared to challenge Prince Charles' quackery.

At least we can vote our anti-science nimrods out of office.

Frankly, I hope it's a long, long time before Prince Chuckles takes the throne. His predecessor, Edward VII, was 60 when he took the throne; his mother, Queen Victoria, reigned for 64 years. That nemesis of the American colonies, George III, was king for 60 years. Elizabeth's mother, the Queen Mother Elizabeth, lived to 102, so there's hope, there's hope.
Chuckles continues to market his line of Douchy, I mean Duchy, Originals, which now reaches to several hundred products.
As far as I can tell, Prince Chuckles is merely another exemplar of the slow decline of the genetic stock of British royalty.

I know a story about Charles and Camilla that I believe might be true ( written by a travel writer):

on a trip to Northern California, they wanted to see the fabled hippie town of Bolinas- the denizens of which attempt to limit tourist visits by taking down any signs that direct outsiders to their organic, sustainable, craft-laden, foggy surfers' mecca.
( It's located on the Point Reyes peninsula which includes protected land and shoreline) Obviously, they wanted to enjoy the perfect produce and earthy lifestyle.

However their driver had difficulty figuring out the back roads** and they had to give up because time was a-wastin' and they had another event of their itinerary. So they saw Inverness*** instead.

** I didn't; there's a good map at the park information building.
*** Inverness, CA, that is.

The Prince is a bit nutty on complimentary medicine but he is a also a strong critic of British architecture and if anything needs criticizing it is or at least was British architecture. -1 and +1.
Disclaimer: I have not been in the UK since about 2000.

On the idea that Americans find the monarchy quaint, well it has worked for a thousand years or so. Personally I have never lived an a republic and find the idea of doing so rather disturbing. And I'm not even British, we just have the same Queen.

I gotta say that picture of Prince Charles cracks me up every time. :-D

To the folks making a Fourth Doctor comparison, well, Prince Charles and also the Queen are apparently Whovians, though in accordance with proper protocol they maintain far more decorum on the subject than your typical Whovian is capable of. ;-) There is a video on YouTube of Charles & Camilla's official visit ot the Dr Who studios in 2013. They get to tour the set and such, and Nicholas Briggs was asked to show them how the ring modulator works to make his voice sound like a Dalek, and Prince Charles got to have a go at it himself. The sound quality is poor, but it is quite funny to hear his voice modulated Dalek-style, as the accent of the royals is definitely distinct from that of Nicholas Briggs.

However their driver had difficulty figuring out the back roads

I haven't been to the Point Reyes area in many years, so I have forgotten what signage practices are in that area, but depending on what you expect I can see how it would be a problem. In most of New England, especially the countryside, the people who put up street signs tend to assume that you know the name of the main road, so they only sign the side roads. (I even once saw a side road in a rural part of Maine that was signed for people going one direction on the main road; presumably if you were coming the other way, from even more remote parts, and wanted to turn on that side road, you knew that this was your turnoff.) This is a regular source of vexation for people who come here from places where main roads are also signed. Sometimes the signs that do exist are hard to spot, which makes things harder for people who don't know the area (I ran into that just yesterday, trying to find a location in a town I'm not familiar with, and ending up driving past the location three times before I figured out it was the place I wanted to go--and only then spotting the sign that marked the corner I was looking for.)

So yes, I would believe a driver getting lost on back roads, particularly if the Prince brings his driver with him as part of the entourage.

I have to second (third?) the comments which generally praise you for the article but dispute your opening assault on the concept of monarchy. There are quite a few quite good reasons, as explained by several schools of political theory, for keeping a "figurehead" monarchy going. Indeed, this is such a well regarded concept that many Republics have adopted it, by having head of state with zero day-to-day powers but with some form of reserve powers.

Looking to other examples that share the Crown with the UK, you could look at the King-Byng-Thing or the 1970s Australian constitutional crisis to see the value of a monarchy.

At least we can vote our anti-science nimrods out of office.

Pity we don't do it more often.

@palindrom #11 - you owe me a new keyboard. The mental image of Prince Charles in the TARDIS caught me by surprise. A LOT of surprise. ;)

Johanna -- Prince Charles in the TARDIS? Heh. Check this out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa-XnrXE56k

you could look at [...] the 1970s Australian constitutional crisis to see the value of a monarchy

The time in 1975 when the Queen's representative in Australia abused his powers and staged a coup, dissolving the elected left-leaning government and appointing a right-wing government he preferred? Is that really supposed to be a good example?

@jrkrideau #18

"worked for a thousand years"? Methinks your idea of working is somewhat different than mine, especially since one of Charles' namesakes lost his head, and the first three Georges had very unusual personal lives. They make the current Charles look positively staid.

@ Eric Lund:

It's a small narrow road in a wooded area. I understand that driving north is worse because there's a sharp left turn ( hey, it's Bolinas, it is sharply left) But it's relatively easy from the north and the park.

I enjoyed it immensely- an afternoon in the land of the lotus eaters- I met interesting older, hipsters in an ancient bar, talked with a shop owner who sold me soap and sang some really old songs and saw odd examples of amateur architectural diversity ( fixing up old homes that were sliding into the lagoon) and prehistoric looking plant species used as landscaping. And watching surfing in the fog.
People seemed quite happy when the sun made a brief
appearance. A re-fuelling station was very expensive because it was community owned, I believe, and funded affordable housing. You could leave off or take old clothes at a recycling bin.

@ Elliott:

It seems that there are quite a few 'peoples' republics' springing up around the English-speaking world.

GregH #21. Its far more than just a ''figurehead'' monarchy http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jan/14/secret-papers-royals-veto-bil… http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/24/prince-charles-letters-b… https://republic.org.uk/what-we-want/royal-finances

Its unaccountable and expensive, also there are more problems like the Royal Prerogative; this allows the Prime Minister to declare war or sign treaties (amongst other things) without a vote in Parliament, The Privy Council: A body of advisors to the monarch, now mostly made up of senior politicians, which can enact legislation without a vote in Parliament http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jun/17/politics.foreignpolicy then The Crown-in-Parliament; The principle, which came about when parliament removed much of the monarch's power, by which Parliament can pass any law it likes so ''we'' (Britons) have no guarantee of any rights

It doesn't seem like you can buy his branned water, sorry I mean his homeopathic treatments anymore. How sad! (unless I'm wrong??)

As a Brit I entirely agree with Orac's sentiments about our royal family. I regard them as an embarrassing anachronism. I doubt very much that tourism would suffer much if they vanished overnight, as most people come to see the historical residences and archaic pageantry like the changing of the guard, rather than in the hope of a glimpse of an inbred aristocrat.

BTW, being called a madman by Ullman is a huge compliment; kudos to Orac.

I read the article but not the comments section so I might have to pop over and browse. My late MIL was obsessed with the British royal family, in particular Princess Diana, and when my hubby cleaned out her house he found a treasure trove of memorabilia on the British royal family. Thankfully he had the good sense (and taste) to let it go to the estate sale and not bring it back home. I agree that we should do more voting out of office of idiots here in the US, sadly that seems to be a more and more rare occurrence and instead we seem to be actively electing the most moronic individuals we can find.

Congrats! May it bring enough new readers to fund your lab.

Ah, Denice --- the People's Republic of Cambridge is not one of your nouveau republics. It's an old joke here.

Witness some local long-established businesses:
The People's Republik Bar (that's the way it is spelled)
Revolution Books (between Harvard & MIT). I have no idea how they manage to stay in business.
Chameleon Tatoo and Body Piercing, which is proud to be the "First and Finest licensed Tattoo and Body Piercing shop of the People's Republic of Cambridge, Massachusetts."

Also, don't forget that back in the 80's, Cambridge established the first "Peace Commission", complete with a peace director, who was given "the responsibilities of establishing a sister city relationship with a city in the Soviet Union, instituting the first peace curriculum in Cambridge's schools, and working with elected officials through the National League of Cities to find ways to address the looming threat of nuclear war". (I'm not making this up--it's right off the city website).
This clearly worked, since the Soviet Union fell not long after. (Bear in mind, we're talking about alternative woo here, where correlation = causation").

Getting back on the topic of Charles, P of W, my late PhD advisor (who was British) met him once, and as I recall, was distinctly unimpressed. I wonder if that meeting was a factor in why my advisor never returned to his homeland after retiring from academia.

@ Elliott:

I have visited the fair PR of C many times.

[The other ( US) PRs are ( most likely**) Berkeley, Oakland, Boulder, Brooklyn and Woodstock- Brattleboro's too small; then there are the PRs in the UK and Canada.]

FYI one of the founding mothers of TMR, Alison MacNeil, lives in Cambridge and even was a therapist there. She's writing a novel.

** I deliberately leave off Austin - not the same vibe.

Denice,

Agree with you about Austin.
I nearly got arrested there once--for jaywalking.

I "liked" Palindrom, lilady and JP over at Slate: good comments, focused on the topic at hand. JP (I think it was) really tore a strip off Dana; I'd bet that smarted. A huge avalanche of posters, too!

@ Elliott:

Not That I've ever been there.

I wouldn't mind so much if he was just Charlie Windsor (really Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, but they changed their name during World War 1), some nutty old inbred guy who has never done a day's work of real work in his life and has some wierd opinions, but I'm technically committing high treason by criticising him because he won the lucky sperm contest.

he won the lucky sperm contest.

What about the egg?

*Sigh*

@4: the old canard about tourist money derived from the royals is not actually quantifiable (I would love to see the supposed "research"), i.e. separating out the supposed influence of the royals on tourist spend from all the other factors.

And even if it was that is out-weighed by their malign influence: Charlie boy's direct interference in our supposedly democratic processes (see The Guardian's long-running attempts using FOI to allow us to see how he tries to influence ministers; jis interference in planning decisions; his role in getting Edzard Ernst sacked; and...and...); their symbolic position as the head of a corrupt and corrupting aristocratic system which has no place in a supposedly mature democracy; their weaselly attempts to avoid paying tax to the same level that a standard PAYE (that's the Pay As You Earn payroll-based income tax for the non-UK-ians) slave like me does; their role in maintaining the role of inherited and definitely not earned privilege in society...

Do I need to go on?

That we give this not at all bright berk, who was fiddled into Cambridge, and his incoherent mess of attempts at thought any kind of credence does NOT speak well for this country.

The sooner we grow up and get shot of these parasites the better!

GregH, as someone who has to suffer through a figure monarchy, and it is not even ours, I am struggling to think of one benefit.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Charles holds the odd views he holds precisely because he won the lucky egg contest. If his parents had been Mr and Mrs Windsor, greengrocers of Woolloomooloo he would have been too busy holding down a day job rather than thinking he has the solution to all those uppity peasants.

Roman @36 -- Thanks! Or, perhaps, merci!

As for the "We'll never be royal" topic (readers are Strongly Urged to look up Weird Al Yankovich's video parody, "Aluminum Foil"), this certainly brings to mind Farcical Aquatic Ceremonies.

@Elliott
"1000 years'
Well there have been a few ups and downs, but it's still there and it's still the family business (Though I'd like a few DNA tests).

In fact, an executive presidency like the US has strikes us as an anachronism, something UK and the Commonwealth evolved away from 3 or 4 centuries ago.

Well,

here it is, a link to the transcript of the long-awaited speech by His Royal Highness. I leave it to you all to form your own opinions.......local reaction is in the second link.

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2015/03/20/charles-spee…

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2015/03/20/prince-charl…

Oh, joy. His Royal Quackiness will be gracing us with his presence in March

oracknows — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 02:30:47 +0000

Oh, joy. His Royal Quackiness will be gracing us with his presence in March

Oh, goody. Here's something we didn't need here in the US. While Australian skeptics have successfully been rallying to put a stop to a series of lectures from American antivaccine activist Sherri Tenpenny, we're going to have to put up with a far bigger name in quackery showing up right here in the good ol' U. S. of A. I'm referring to His Royal Highness, the Quacktitioner Royal, Prince Charles, the next King of England. Yes, in March he and Camilla will be here on a four day tour that will include a trip to Louisville to give the keynote address to a symposium on health and nature on March 20. Here's the press release:

At the request of the British Government Their Royal Highnesses The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall will make a four day visit to the United States of America from 17th – 20th March 2015. Their Royal Highnesses will undertake a broad range of engagements to promote the UK's partnership with the United States in key areas such as sustainability and climate change, creating youth opportunities, encouraging corporate social responsibility and promoting historical and cultural links.

Their Royal Highnesses will mark major anniversaries in American history as they visit the nation's capital, Washington DC, on the 17th, 18th and 19th March. On Friday 20th March, Their Royal Highnesses will travel to Louisville, Kentucky where they will highlight the work being done by members of the local community and charitable organisations to protect, preserve and promote the health and well-being of the people of Louisville through community cohesion, clean air and food literacy initiatives.

Now here's the weird thing. I've done a bunch of Googling, and I haven't yet been able to find a news story that specifies what, exactly, this symposium in March in Louisville is. Who is organizing it? Who else will be speaking there? All it's referred to is either a "symposium on health," or an event where he and Camilla will highlight food literacy, sustainable growth, and efforts of local community organizations to protect the health of the people of Louisville. I found this quite odd. For Prince Charles to visit anywhere in the US is a really and truly a BFD, and any organization that landed the Prince of Wales as its keynote speaker would be expected to be bragging about it and publicizing it.

Then I came across this article on The Daily Beast by Nico Hines entitled ‘Witchcraft’ Believing Prince Charles to Lecture U.S. on Medicine, and this is all I could find out:

The event in Kentucky is being organized with the support of Democratic governor Steve Beshear, the mayor of Louisville and the Owsley Brown Charitable Foundation, which was set up in honor of the former chairman of one of the great bourbon companies--his son-in-law Matthew Barzun is the U.S. ambassador in London.

So this explains much. Barzun likely knows the Prince due to his role as US Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Not surprisingly, I don't know much about Barzun, but I was amused to see his travails (and, admittedly, his good humor) over his ill-fated attempts to learn to speak some Welsh. What is clear is that Barzun must be at least somewhat susceptible to the blandishments of England's Quacktitioner Royal, as evidenced from this story from November:

On 15 September, while President Obama was meeting with his advisers in the White House and deciding how to unleash the world’s most powerful military machine on the Islamic State in Iraq, his ambassador to Britain, Matthew Barzun, was spending the day in a field in Gloucestershire, learning about nitrogen-fixing plants and the dangers of sub-clinical mastitis in cows’ udders. The reason was simple: Barzun was visiting Prince Charles’s organic Home Farm. Wearing boxfresh Hunter wellies, Barzun picked his way around some cowpats to take a close look at a field of organic red clover. He snapped a photo on his smartphone.

For the past 34 years, the farm has been one of Charles’s chief passions. It has become the agricultural embodiment of his beliefs about everything from the natural world to the globalised economy. On winter weekends, he can be found – wearing his patched-up tweed farm coat – laying some of the farm’s hedges to keep alive one of his beloved traditional farming techniques.

I get the feeling from this article that Ambassador Barzun must think that what the Prince is doing with respect to agriculture, at least, is a good thing, and maybe it is. Unfortunately, as has long been documented by a cadre of UK skeptical bloggers, such as Le Canard Noir, David Colquhoun, and Edzard Ernst, the baggage that comes along with Prince Charles' environmental activist is activism in favor of quackery, in particular homeopathy.

Indeed, it's impossible for me not to note that Edzard Ernst recently published a book entitled A Scientist in Wonderland: A Memoire of Searching for Truth and Finding Trouble. It's an accurate summary of his life; for Ernst started out as a proponent of "complementary and alternative medicine," believing that rigorous science would validate many of its treatments. He turned out to be wrong about that, but he did the right thing and went where the science went, becoming in the process one of the most prolific and persuasive critics of alternative medicine. As a result he came into direct conflict with Prince Charles, who was known for doing whatever he could to promote homeopathy and "complementary" medicine, as described by Hines:

Earlier this year, Prince Charles was accused of using his position to gag one of Britain’s leading academic critics of alternative medicine. Professor Edzard Ernst said he was treated “like shit” by officials at the University of Exeter after a complaint about his conduct was made by Prince Charles’s office.

''Prince Charles's attempt to silence me, it seemed, had been successful,” wrote Ernst, who describes the Prince of Wales’s medical views as “quackery.”

Ernst said ''the most unpleasant period of my entire professional life'' began in 2005 when he criticized a draft report into alternative medicine that had been commissioned by Prince Charles. The report said complementary medicine was cost-effective and should be made available through the National Health Service.

Ernst provoked fury at Clarence House by describing that conclusion as “complete misleading rubbish.” Sir Michael Peat, Charles’s principal private secretary, wrote an official letter of complaint to Ernst’s boss claiming that he had been wrong to criticize the report before it was formally published. Ernst would ultimately take early retirement and his department was closed down in 2011.

This is one reason, among others, I admire Edzard Ernst. He must have known that directly and harshly criticizing a draft report commissioned by Prince Charles was perilous to his career. The Prince is, of course, a very powerful man, and he's shown before that he doesn't take kindly to criticism of his beliefs. As Ernst himself relates, it's not surprising that Charles is so deeply into quackery, because the Royal family is "famous for using homeopathy and other doubtful treatments while they are healthy, and for employing the very best conventional medicine has to offer as soon as they are ill." Also, the young Prince Charles went on a journey of "spiritual discovery" with guru and guide Laurens van der Post into the wilderness of Kenya. van der Post was described after his death by a biographer as a "a fraud, a fantasist, a liar, a serial adulterer and a paternalist" who "falsified his Army record and inflated his own importance at every possible opportunity." A believer in vitalism and derided by many (correctly, as it later turned out) as a charlatan, he nonetheless became an advisor to Margaret Thatcher, and, as Ernst describes, a spiritual advisor—guru, even—to the young Prince Charles. It was also his belief in vitalism, apparently transmitted to the young Prince, that provided the "crucial link to alternative medicine," given that so much of alternative medicine is based on vitalistic beliefs.

If you want an idea of just how far down the rabbit hole of alternative medicine, "complementary" medicine, or "integrative medicine (or whatever you want to call it) Prince Charles is, just check out this article he wrote in 2012. It's full of almost every alt-med trope you've ever seen me deconstruct over the last decade. He even descends so far as to criticize medicine for treating "only the symptoms," urging doctors not simply to "treat the symptoms of disease, but actively to create health and to put the patient at the heart of the process by incorporating those core human elements of mind, body, and spirit." Then he writes:

To achieve this – and there are many who support this – I would suggest that medicine may sometimes need to become less literal in its interpretation of patient needs and more inclusive in terms of what treatment may be required – in other words, to understand how symptoms may often simply be a metaphor for underlying disease and unhappiness. It is also vital, it seems to me, to recognize that treatment may often be effective because of its symbolic meaning to the patient through effects that are now being increasingly understood by the science of psychoneuroimmunology.

In short, I suspect it will always be a struggle if we continue with an over-emphasis on mechanistic and technological approaches.

"Symbolic meaning"? Symptoms "may often simply be a metaphor for underlying disease and unhappiness"? Medicine should be come "less literal in its interpretation of patient needs"? What the hell does that mean? Certainly it doesn't sound too different from quackery like the German New Medicine. He even trots out the "best of both worlds" trope about "integrative medicine"! Basically, the Prince's "post modern medicine" does truly seem to argue that science is just another narrative.

Even worse, the Prince has been known for practicing what he preaches, even trying to sell it to the masses, once promoting Duchy Herbals Detox Tincture, which is a food supplement combining artichoke and dandelion that promises to "rid the body of toxins while aiding digestion." In response to the introduction of this product, the Prince faced unprecedented criticism for peddling quackery. Simon Singh even accused him (correctly) of only hearing the science he wants to hear. Ernst has called him a snake oil salesman.

But what about the Owsley Brown Charitable Foundation. Oddly enough, it's hard to find much out about this foundation, although this link lists most of its recent grants, and they don't have much, if anything, to do with medicine, but rather more to do with the arts.

As I was perusing various links, I also found out:

Kirby Adams of The Courier-Journal reports that the symposium will be held by the Institute for Healthy Air, Water and Soil, chaired by Christina Lee "Christy" Brown of Louisville, who is one of four board members of the England-based Sustainable Food Trust. Her son, Owsley Brown III, is one of three board members of the Sustainable Food Alliance, the trust's U.S. partner.

Now it makes more sense. Prince Charles has addressed Sustainable Food Trust functions before. Also, the Sustainable Food Trust appears to have a bit of an anti-GMO bias (or at least a problem with interpreting science). For example, when the GMO "pig study" came out, the Sustainable Food Trust Chief Executive, Patrick Holden characterized it as "another in a series of recent studies that have identified negative health impacts in animals consuming GM crops," comparing it to the "study by Professor Gilles-Eric Séralini and colleagues in 2012 which found high rates of cancer and other problems in rats fed GM maize for two years," concluding that "there should be no further moves to introduce GM crops into the UK, or GM food into the human food chain until these issues have been fully investigated by independent scientists." Of course, the Séralini study and the pig stomach study were both absolutely awful studies whose conclusions were, to say the least, not supported by the data. When Séralini managed to find another journal with low enough standards to publish his study again after it had been retracted, the Sustainable Food Trust approved. This is not the first time such bad science was presented credulously.

No wonder His Royal Highness of Quackery has agreed to deliver the keynote address.

I suppose I can hope that he'll stick with history and sustainable agriculture without spouting off about his favorite quackery. After all, it'll only be four days that we in the US have to put up with Prince Charles. My poor fellow skeptics in the UK have to put up with him all the time and could well have to put up with him as their king.

oracknows Sun, 02/22/2015 - 21:30

Categories

Medicine

I always enjoy watching Charles in action. It's quite amusing to watch a reasonably intelligent man grab entirely the wrong end of the stick and run with it.
As to what he's like as King, well, hopefully he'll be able to keep quiet about it, as it's going to be his job not to express any opinion more controversial than 'and what do you do?'

Reasonably intelligent? Never been any evidence of this intelligence. I apologise in behalf of the UK for foisting him on you all. Give us back John Oliver and we'll hide Chuck's passport.

symptoms may often simply be a metaphor for underlying disease and unhappiness.

On second reading, I believe I understood that HRQ was getting at. He is going for the whole hypochondriac/wholeness/"you feel physically bad because you don't feel mentally good" approach.
It's annoying. On one hand, a number of chronic diseases (like migraine and back pain) seem indeed to have a psychological aspect.
On the other hand, even these diseases have somatic components, i.e. something is wrong inside your body, and having positive thoughts isn't going to fix it.

In short, the Prince seems to believe strongly in the Power of Placebo.

Now, how is that different from telling people "it's all in your head" ?
I will give you some symbolic meaning.

First reading was much on the lines of "for a metaphor, some symptoms have a nasty bite", and "whatever he is smoking, I want some".

Sidenote:
Today's welcoming ads was about some detox product, with before/after colonoscopy pictures. Dunno what it was a metaphor for, but it's symbolic meaning was painfully imprinted in my brain.
Thanksfully, upon refreshing, an advertisement for a MMO took its place.

I believe the Queen has decided to live long enough to make sure that Charles doesn't get to be King.....

Gah. Apostrophe fail.

"its symbolic meaning", not "it's"

Apologies for triggering the grammar nazi in any reader.

@Lawrence, yeah. In fact, I've heard a rumour that Charlie won't be king after his darling mum either steps down or passes on. He's blotted his copybook too badly. I don't know if it's true or not, but it seems plausible.

I still have a copy of the protest letter I wrote to the venues that ultimately cancelled Dr Tenpenny's event booking should someone require it.

I doubt it would do any good as no one would cancel HRH's visit.

I think his support of Gerson Therapy was the beginning of the end and our Commonwealth ties are indeed very loose now.

Why blog about this symposium before we even know what it's about or whether Prince Charles will promote any kind of health fraud or unproven medicine?
I like those terms better than "alternative medicine" because they are more accurate and less partisan. Homeopathy of the 30C dilution kind, really is health fraud - it can't work. Herbal preparations labelled "homeopathic" might work, and they deceive some people into thinking that "homeopathy" of the 30C dilution kind works.
There are a lot of labeling tricks involved in "alternative medicine", and that's an important part of the deception involved. It would be great if alt-med practitioners and those selling "alternative" preparations had to include some kind of statement to their patients and customers, as to whether the remedy cannot scientifically work, is not proven to work, or has tentative scientific evidence in its favor.
Same thing for MD's - when they promote remedies that are unproven they should have to tell the patient.
It's all just medicine, after all - with varying amounts of scientific evidence supporting it.

@ Orac

I'm sorry to report that the "Sustainable Food Trust approved" link is not working correctly (before-to-last link).
One of your pals over at Science-based Medicine has a similar issue with the link to the National Post article ("Questions about Hippocrates:...")

@ Orac

Your pal did a nice follow-up on Brian Clements, by the way. Keep these snake oil peddlers in the spotlight. Even if they are royalty.

After reading a few linked articles, I'm currently fairly annoyed with alt-med folks. They talk big about mainstream agencies "suppressing" or "bullying" their opponents, but don't seem all worked-up when it's their side doing it. Brian Clements is having some troubles with former employees having asked for whistle-blower status, and Edzard Ernst had his career ended for daring to tell HRQ he was wrong.

@Laura - incorrect. Alt-med has little to no evidence supporting its use, for anything.

As a Brit I'm embarrassed by this twit*. I'm embarrassed by the fact that our royal family still has any power at all in a democracy. Can't you guys keep him and Camilla? Make them an attraction at Disneyland or something? Please?

* That may be treason.

I believe the Queen has decided to live long enough to make sure that Charles doesn’t get to be King…..

...and of course, the Queen Mother lived to 102.
I predict that Chuckles will be King, but not till his mid-eighties.
I also predict that about that time, Canada and Australia will become republics.

"the next King of England" and Scotland , Wales and Northern Ireland.

In connection with the Sustainable Trust's support for the infamous Carman-Vlieger "pig inflammation" study purporting to show harm in GM feed - it was interesting to that Greenpeace has just released documents showing that a prominent climate change-denying scientist failed to reveal that many of his papers were bankrolled by energy-related industries (wait for it, there's a connection):

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/us/ties-to-corporate-cash-for-climate…

Greenpeace is apparently up in arms about this undisclosed conflict of interest and the fact that Dr. Soon gets undeserved attention as a scientific outlier (and their position is quite justified). At the same time, however, Greenpeace has no problem promoting the dubious work of outliers on the question of GMO safety. Greenpeace has referred to Judy Carman (co-author of the pig inflammation study) as a "respected international scientist". Greenpeace apparently had no problem with the study's gross defects or the fact that Carman's co-author on the pig study, Howard Vlieger, failed to reveal that he ran a company selling non-GMO feed and that his company helped bankroll the study.

http://www.marklynas.org/2013/06/gmo-pigs-study-more-junk-science/

So "conflict of interest" is a relative evil for Greenpeace - terrible when the other guy does it, not worthy of mention when your "respected" source is associated with it.

" ..he can be found – wearing his patched-up tweed farm coat – laying some of the farm’s hedges ... his beloved traditional farming techniques. "

Reading this passage I suddenly recalled Woodehouse's Lord Emsworth of the Blandigs Castle fame. Dunno why, obviously there cannot be any connection with the old dear.

@TBruce: There's a definite possibility that Charles will be past retirement age before he begins his job. :-)

Charles is 66, isn't he? What's the retirement age in the UK?

So he is - I didn't think he was quite that old. There isn't actually a default retirement age in the UK any more, but it was 65.
https://www.gov.uk/retirement-age

I suppose there are people with weird ideas in more royal families. We have a Dutch princes who talks to trees, mice and other animals. Our former queen Juliana employed a faith-healer. And there is a Belgian prince who states he can talk to the dead.

Has anyone checked out the Lexington Kentucky thoroughbred horse auctions? When the Queen mum died her racing stable was handed off to her daughter and I expect Charles will receive the Royal Stables as part of his inheritance.

HRH the Queen is on record as viewing her ascension to the throne as a lifelong commitment...she disparages the fact that some of her royal relatives have traditionally handed off their queenships to their heirs (The Netherlands, anyone?).

I'm willing to keep Charles and Camilla, if the Brits will repatriate Andy Wakefield and Polly Tommey.

How I would love to chalk this all up tp th idiocy of monarchy, but then we not too long ago elected a felloe who thought pollution came from trees, and 'serious' Presidential candidates who deny evolution and AGW get more flack when then visit the UK than they do here.

At least homeopathy isn't destroying the ecosystem and causing once eradicated VPDs to spread.

@Renate: Anyone can talk to the dead. It's when they tell you the dead talk back that you need to worry.

I suppose there are people with weird ideas in more royal families.

Because it's a bad idea when cousins marry.

lilady:

"I’m willing to keep Charles and Camilla, if the Brits will repatriate Andy Wakefield and Polly Tommey."

That made me laugh, and I second the motion!
(News flash. sadmar and lilady agree on something. World continues to rotate on axis...)

Peraps as substitute royalty, they'll take RFKJ as well?

@ Rebecca

Lady Claire: How do you know you're God?
14th Earl of Gurney: Simple. When I pray to Him, I find I am talking to myself.

I vote no to the quack trading, unless we can find a small, remote uninhibited island ready to take the lot of them.

Nice to know my taxes are funding groundbreaking new science as opposed to the globe trotting lifestyle of some lunatic leftover of the aristocracy.

I believe when Glenda snuffs it there is a plan to replace Charlie with a reasonably intelligent lettuce.

Alt-med has little to no evidence supporting its use, for anything.

That's a huge generalization. It depends on what you label "alt-med" and there's tentative evidence that some "alt-med" works.
The label "alt-med" is both deceptive - it's just medicine - and confusing because it lumps together a huge variety of practices for which there are varying amounts of evidence that they work. And in some cases, good reasons to believe they can't work.
And that confusion muddies people's thinking.

'Sustainability' and 'sustainable' are blaring buzzwords amongst the alt media charlatans I survey- they promote organic, GMO-free, sustainable agriculture ONLY. In addition, anti-vax media moms follow a similar script as they believe that toxins and chemical contamination contribute greatly to autism and chronic disease.

Interestingly, Mike Adams is about to unveil his sustainable project (see Food Rising/ Natural News) tomorrow. Actually ,his supposedly fabulously innovative, 3D printed inventions for non-electric hydroponics resemble classroom kits used to teach kids about plant growth 50 years ago. The other idiot teaches health retreat payees how to grow sprouts in your spare room for extra nutrition, cash and survival when the economy and civilisation crash simultaneously ( see Gary Null.com retreat photos). Poor city folk can just stake out an abandoned property and grow vegetables to their heart's content which they can sell at farmer's markets for high prices or donate to the homeless.

HRH fits right in with these unrealistic activists: you can putter about a purist garden when you sit upon millions of pounds or dollars and don't have to care for a family or appear at a job periodically.

"he can be found – wearing his patched-up tweed farm coat – laying some of the farm’s hedges"

For some reason this reminds me of Tom Lehrer's line: "he majored in animal husbandry, until they caught him at it one day."

Laura -- Please stop this "it's just medicine" -- you're giving me a rash..
You seem to want to carve out room for Echinacea supplements [good luck on finding any Echinacea in them!] while agreeing that there MIGHT BE "good reasons to believe [other practice] can't work."

The theme here is Prince Charles' nostra and I'd say he is alt-med stupid all the way down..

That should be FARMERS' markets

Laura,

It depends on what you label “alt-med” and there’s tentative evidence that some “alt-med” works.

Not a lot. I have browsed the NCCAM website looking for CAM treatments that work, but there's very little of substance there, despite NCCAM spending $127.7 million every year to fund research into CAM including support for clinical trials. OCCAM is equally disappointing.

Perhaps you are unaware of Tim Minchin's opinion on the subject (animated version):

"By definition", I begin
"Alternative Medicine", I continue
"Has either not been proved to work,
Or been proved not to work.
Do you know what they call "alternative medicine"
That's been proved to work?
Medicine."

Interestingly, sustainability advocates who espouse AGW beliefs (-btw- Mikey DOESN"T) may promote veganism as a more sustainable solution that contributes less to global warming.

"After all, it’ll only be four days that we in the US have to put up with Prince Charles."

Perhaps we will have Dr. Mark Hyman to look forward to.

If anyone can find a way to humiliate Charlie-boy while he's Stateside, that would be welcome. Send us a couple more Republican presidential candidates and we'll return the favour.

@ Rebecca Fisher

He says he has contact with the dead, so I suppose he thinks they talk back.

‘Sustainability’ and ‘sustainable’ are blaring buzzwords amongst the alt media charlatans

This is true and very unfortunate. These are words I would like to see reclaimed by science. There are excellent science-based initiatives regarding global food sustainability, which have at their core the use of genetically modified crops. There are many collaborative institutions moving this forward, but one I would point out just because of some personal familiarity is the Yale Sustainable Food Program. While these hard working people are trying to bring the best that food science can offer to the parts of the world that need it the most, diet book authors and aristocrats are lecturing the world on the evils of GMOs while floating words like “sustainability” as if the concept were their own. Perhaps Chuck would be shocked to learn that tweed coat organic clover farming may be somewhat different from the methods used to empower the Third World to have a sustainable future. Perhaps his symposium speech title will be “Let them eat kale!”

DW@35: I'm not sure there's a big difference between veganism and the sort of vegetarianism that allows consumption of eggs and dairy products, but it is true for most people that vegetarianism contributes less to greenhouse gas emissions than eating meat (especially beef; pork and chicken are much less egregious). The rule of thumb is that you have to feed an animal about 10 calories worth of food to get 1 calorie worth of meat, and you have to transport that livestock feed.

There are some exceptions, such as the Inuit. They live mainly on the tundra of North America, so most of them have never seen a vegetable (fresh, frozen, or canned) that wasn't flown in. Although their traditional diet of whale and seal meat (which is what is locally available to them) has problems of its own: these species concentrate things like mercury. The Inuit, unlike your average anti-vaxer, have good reason to fear heavy metal poisoning.

I need to read a bit more about Professor Ernst.
It sounds like he had a fairly thankless gig to start with. I can't imagine folk were clamouring at his gates to fund his area of research, or at least not if it wasn't giving the results they so craved, and there can't have been many journals lining up to publish negative results. proving that something doesn't work is sadly lot less glamorous and lucrative than going all dunning-Kruger about how wonderful it all is.

In this case speaking the truth about science in a UK academic establishment effectively torpedoed his career and the whole department all because it put someone's nose out of joint. That is really quite frightening.

@ Eric Lund:

I know that there's a realistic aspect to decreasing consumption of meats ( both personal health related as well as environmentally) altho' that isn't how they represent it- as with vaccines, they exaggerate the risks and downplay the benefits- to them raising chickens is just as bad as beef.
No shades of difference here- it's all black and white.

Prince Charles' heart is in the right place, I dare say. Whilst his wellies are slip-sliding about in cowpats his head is floating around the clouds. Van der Post got to him at an impressionable age.

Chuck is enough to make this small-r republican think "Long live the Queen!"

I've been known to talk to trees, but I have no illusion that they're listening. That one is in fact a metaphor, because I want to remember that they are providing things I value (such as oxygen, plums, and shade).

But now, here's the really weird thing.

In 2014, Prince Charles apparently arranged the delivery of 5 million doses of MMR vaccine to the Philippines when measles broke out following a typhoon there. Not homeopathic vaccines. Real ones.

There are excellent science-based initiatives regarding global food sustainability, which have at their core the use of genetically modified crops.

Exactly. It annoys me greatly to hear 'organic' agriculture praised as 'sustainable,' when many 'organic' practices are harder on the environment than the non-'organic' alternatives.

Sustainability and GMOs should skip hand-in-hand through drought-resistant fields.

Prince Charles was (and hopefully still is) an avid Goon Show fan. Perhaps he'll do his Bluebottle impression in Louisville.

The rule of thumb is that you have to feed an animal about 10 calories worth of food to get 1 calorie worth of meat, and you have to transport that livestock feed.

FWIW, livestock eat a lot of things that are purely indigestible by people. It has also been found that proper grazing techniques improve the soil considerably.

MESSAGE BEGINS-------------------------

Shills and Minions:

I know I've been remiss in my reports to you of late, but rest assured, my ceaseless evildoing continues apace.

What I must caution against is vexing an Egg Mother of the Imperium. As you know, Good Queen L'izz has been at the forefront of planetary subjugation for more than 400 terran years. Like all warrior-caste leaders of our Ova-Matriarchy, she is passionately defensive of her hatchlings, no matter what their . . . faults may be.

Despite a string of disappointing male descendents that have displayed less than stellar intellect, the House P'aam K'vach (or as you call it, "Windsor") will not tolerate mockery or jibes. As Forward Mavoon of the Great Fleet, I must answer to a frequently testy sovereign when the joking and degrading heats up. This usually involves a trip to her nasty, cold rock. I don't like that. It's cold. It upsets my molt. Don't ever upset a Glaxxon's molt.

So please, for your old, evil overlord's sake, lighten up on Chucky, will you? At least I think that's what the hatchlings are saying nowdays. Lighten up? Lightning up? Well, whatever . . .

Yours in Pure Pharma Evil,
Lord Draconis Zeneca, VH7ihL

Forward Mavoon of the Great Fleet, Grand Vitara of Merseyside, Monkey Master of Mars

00111100011110001111010101111001

Glaxxon PharmaCOM | John O'Groats Lair

---------------------------------------MESSAGE ENDS

FWIW, livestock eat a lot of things that are purely indigestible by people. It has also been found that proper grazing techniques improve the soil considerably.

Right, if they're grass-fed. The vast majority of livestock in the present agricultural system, though, are fed corn and soy that has to be transported to the factory farm. The cow sh*t, too, instead of improving the soil, becomes another environmental problem.

So I don't honestly know - in today's system, what percentage of animal feed is grass/hay/alfalfa/milo (or silage) and what percentage is corn or soy? The last time I visited a working cattle farm it seemed that the bulk of the first year was grass.

But that was some time ago.

I noticed that dairy farms will use the manure to on their pastures. Tillamook, OR has a distinctive odor. It turns out that our hotel was too close to those pastures, and on days when there is not much wind you can see the sprayers with very brown water arcing over the fields of grass.

By looking at a map we thought Tillamook would be a good place to visit parts of the Oregon coast, which it was. But the odor made us pack our bags early and find a different spot to continue our coast vacation.

That was a few years ago, and it seems that sometimes that causes water problems. So I looked it up, and noticed that they are working on solving a few manure problems: Tracing Steps from Dairy to Digester–the First Site Visit to Scenic Tillamook.

@Meph:

I've been looking through the intertubes a bit, and I'm getting different numbers. Most cattle do spend the first part of their lives at pasture, although I'm getting numbers that range from an average of 7-9 months at pasture to claims of 12-15 months. I have to say that the first figure seems more correct to me, just based on my limited experience with the small calf/cow operation we had when I was a kid. (A hobby farm, really.) The cows we sold were usually less than a year old, if memory serves. (I realized just now that I have no idea where they went - they just got sold at auction.)

According to this USDA page , 70-90% percent of a cow's diet at a feedlot is composed of grain and concentrated protein, and the feeding/finishing period lasts from 90-300 days. (The average time to market for a cow is 15 months.)

@Chris:

Oh yeah, Tillamook. I was out at the Oregon coast over the holiday break with some relatives, and we made the obligatory stop at the Tillamook Cheese Factory. The smell was certainly noticable. Somehow, I don't remember it smelling that much when I was a little kid, but I'm sure that's just some strange function of memory.

Apparently, yeah, a lot of manure is sprayed on fields and thus actually put to use, but in areas with lots of feedlots and dairy farms, it's often overused, and the runoff even from the farms where manure is sprayed is the biggest source of pollution of US rivers. It causes problems with wells and other sources of drinking water, too.

Gah, link fail. It works, though. This USDA page.

^ Or it doesn't work. The second iteration does, though.

tangentially related to the topic of quackiness, but has anyone here heard this story before: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11…
It's turned up in one of the larger NZ newspapers & is attracting the usual attention and alas! the editor of that section of the paper is not into investigative journalism, I'd like to respond but could use some expert advice!

PS the sooner NZ becomes a republic, the better!

Sorry hares, this year it's going to be Mad as a March (meta)Monarch.

Anecdotes are data, but barely useful data. I have an anecdote.

An ex- cow-orker has a small hobby farm, and he raises a few beef critters and a coupla piglets. His cows eat grass most of the time, but come the harvest, for a few weeks prior, they eat corn. It seems that grass makes the fat yellow (and good beef has some fat). The reason for the corn is to turn the fat white.

Yellow fat and white fat taste the same, but, well, us Americans find yellow fat off putting. So, while he sells some very good Angus beef that live most of their days in a very nice field, eating some very nice grass, making some very lovely steaks (some of which are in my freezer), by a lovely river, he does have to buy them a bit of corn.

NZ skeptic: Are we sure the vaccines were real? It's also possible that his PR team organized it and just put his name on it. Reminds me of the local Republican who's currently attempting to get funding for repairs to some Ojibwe and Dakota schools- he could actually be sincere (5%), but the chances are his team is prodding him.

Most cattle do spend the first part of their lives at pasture, although I’m getting numbers that range from an average of 7-9 months at pasture to claims of 12-15 months. I have to say that the first figure seems more correct to me, just based on my limited experience with the small calf/cow operation we had when I was a kid.

This has kind of been sorted through in the past (yes, I'm tired and punting on digging up the threads), but IIRC going from "Beef Magazine," the main market distinction is between feeder calves and yearlings.

Plain head counts would seem to need to be corrected for weight gain. (I think I've unearthed one paper that analyzed age-yield, but I'm really not going to try to search the comments for that one.)

I hope the royal quack does become king eventually. I think his reign will provide a tremendous boost for republicanism*.

*I'm not referring to the American political party.

Almost all beef cattle are born on cow/calf operations. These are almost entirely grass based. Beef calves are usually weaned around 7-9 months of age. At this point they are feeder calves are some are sent to feedlots and some are backgrounded. A typical feedlot diet will be corn silage (the entire corn plant so it is high in roughage) and soybean meal with vitamins and minerals. When light feeders are put in the feedlot, they will reach market conditions (certain backfat thickness) at a younger age.

Backgrounded feeder calves are usually grazed on crop stubbles, wheat fields or pasture. They are sometimes supplemented with crop byproducts that are not used for human food. Examples include pulp from organge juice or beet bulp from sugar beat production or even things like cotton seeds or peanut hulls. But a big byproduct is distiller's grain as a by-product of the ethanol and biofuels industry. These backgrounded feeder cattle are raised until 1000 pounds or so and may be 2 years of age. They are then sent to a feedlot where they are finished to a certain backfat thickness.

Grass fed beef is a pretty small niche marker. I have worked with one farm that could get over 80% choice (a measure of intramuscular fat that is highly associated with palatability) in their grass fed animals. However, the US cow herd had a big change in genetics as government policy made corn cheap. We went from an Angus and Hereford based cowherd to a more exotic breed influence of cattle which mature later and grow bigger. These animals are much harder to finish on grass.

The Edzard Ernst affair isn't the only example of Charlie misusing his position: The Guardian (a newspaper in our part of the world) has long been trying to have letters he writes to ministers, presumably to try to influence decision-making, made public.

Then there is the influencing of planning decisions in London...And the special dispensation he gets, as Duke of Cornwall, to be allowed to challenge decisions which might affect any of his land...

Please, dear American cousins, can you just keep this numpty when he visits?

You know, Charles deserves a bit of . . . sympathy ? for persevering even after fully knowing he is the man who will not be king. Further, from all reports, I've heard he's a good chap, and not at all an upper class twit like you'd expect. Well, except for his rather dotty beliefs about "alt-med". Um, and the fact that he's an upper-class twit. Sorry, your highness, have to say it.

So nice to see you, Lord Draconis!! *obsequious groveling*

Speaking of homeopathy, I thought you'd all enjoy this.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-8-worst-wastes-money-in-medicine/

Royal aromatherapist promoting swine flu treatments

sciencepunk — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 03:30:02 +0000

Royal aromatherapist promoting swine flu treatments

Potions & Possibilities, makers of high-end toiletries and aromatherapy products, are claiming their products to be effective in the control of deadly swine flu.

circulated on the internet lists "Top 10 tips for natural infection control". Originally circulated in May, it was reissued again in July. The document contains elements of sensible advice scalped from the the Department of Health ("Catch it, Bin it, Kill it") blended with outrageous nonsense of a more profitable kind. For instance, here is founder Julie Foster's recipe for a "sanitiser room spray":

...as above but add 5 ml of Geranium to the vodka and top up the mix with 100ml of water. Use in a spray or tie pre-soaked ribbons to the bars of a domestic fan to diffuse into the room.

"What is Geranium?", I hear you ask. Well, according to the Potions & Possibilities website, it's a fragrant oil that "has a close affinity with the female system" and is "emotionally soothing". If that doesn't get rid of airborne flu virus, I don't know what will!

Tea tree oil features heavily in Foster's advice, undoubtedly because it has known anti-microbial properties. Foster seems to believe that it is "the most powerful antiseptic known to man" which explains why the Army used it to eradicate anthrax spores from Gruinard Island. Oh no, wait, that was formaldehyde, wasn't it? My bad. Still, if you're infected with the early stages of swine flu, Foster believes that the smell alone of tea tree oil will protect you:

Apply a few drops of premium, therapeutic Tea Tree Oil onto the fabric between bra cups or on outer clothing at the neck where it won't show. Your body's heat causes the Tea Tree to rise so that you are constantly breathing in this amazing oil with its antiviral and antibacterial powers.

Potions & Possibilities also produce a range of herbal soaps in conjunction with that cathedral to alternative nonsense, the Royal Palaces. Herbs are harvested from the royal gardens and processed in Suffolk for sale in palace shops. In a perfect world, someone with the power and education that comes with such a fortuitous accident of birth would be living up to his title as Protector and saving us from charlatans like Foster. As it is, the Prince is a dogmatic defender of indulgent make-believe, and it's up to broke state school guttersnipes like me to point out the fantasies touted by herb sellers.

Julie Foster says she is available for additional comment and expert aromatherapy and natural health advice. Perhaps you could ask her for evidence to support her claims for aromatherapy as an effective prophylactic against swine flu. You can contact Foster through Sharon Lovett on 07971096725 or 01394 386161 or email: sharon@potions.co.uk.

Thanks to Brendon for the original source.

sciencepunk Tue, 08/11/2009 - 23:30