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The document, which seeks to promote action against health pseudosciences such as homeopathy, was signed by 2,750 doctors and scientists from 44 countries. It is the first global effort to address the rise in therapies without scientific evidence.
“Let me be clear: pseudosciences kill. And not only that, but they are practiced with impunity thanks to the European laws that protect them ”. (Read: Are we going crazy with pseudo-therapies?).
Thus began the first international manifesto against pseudoscience in health. A document promoted by ten associations, signed by 2,750 doctors and scientists from 44 countries, which seeks to clarify that “neither the science sector nor the health sector supports practices that contradict scientific evidence”. It also hopes to raise media awareness on the problem of pseudotherapies and to start a fight against these practices around the world. (It may interest you: European scientists sign a manifesto against pseudoscience)
The manifesto begins by highlighting the cases of several deceased from health pseudoscience: Francesco Bonifaz, 7, who died of otitis in Italy because his doctor had prescribed homeopathic treatments instead of antibiotics; Mario Rodríguez, 21, who was treated with vitamins to beat cancer and died in Spain. Or Jacqueline Aldersiada, 55, who stopped her asthma medications following her homeopath’s recommendations and died in Ireland. Like them, thousands of more people in the world have decided to give up traditional medicine and treat themselves with alternative treatments that are not scientifically validated, putting their lives and their health at risk. (We recommend: crystals for healing, pure quackery)
The phenomenon of homeopathic treatments and other non-scientifically based therapies is increasing on a global scale, so the intention of this manifesto is to address it, for the first time, from an international perspective, asking that the regulations that maintain these pseudotherapies and present them as “drugs” even if their medical usefulness in addition to placebo has not been demonstrated, they are re-evaluated.
“They sell sugar to the sick and make them believe they can cure them or improve their health. This has caused deaths, and will continue to do so, until Europe admits an indisputable reality: scientific knowledge cannot bow to the economic interests of a few, especially if it involves deceiving patients and violating their rights ”, states the manifesto.
For the signatories, not only must the promotion of homeopathy be stopped, but also actively fight to eradicate “public health scams involving the more than 150 pseudotherapies present in our territory”. The exhaustive list includes pseudoscientific therapies such as acupuncture, angelotherapy, new German medicine, biomagnetism, iridiology, orthomolecular therapy, apitherapy, aromatherapy and ayurveda, crystal therapy, cupping, facilitated communication, homeopathy, iridology. , MMS, naturopathy, reflexology, Reiki, EFT, Gerson therapy, alkaline diet … and a long etc., on which the lives of thousands of citizens depend. (It might interest you: the reprimand of 250 scientists to journalists)
“There is a belief that there is a conflict between the freedom of choice of medical treatment and the elimination of pseudotherapies, but that is not true,” the letter says. “According to Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, everyone has the right to medical assistance. Lying to sick people to sell them useless products that can kill them violates citizens’ right to receive accurate information about their health. Therefore, although a citizen has the right to forgo medical care by being adequately informed, it is also true that no one has the right to lie to him to obtain an economic gain at the cost of his life ”.
From the point of view of the signatory doctors and scientists, it is not even acceptable that European laws protect these practices. So they ask for measures to be taken and laws to help stop this problem and stop pseudotherapies, “because they are not harmless and produce thousands of people affected”. “It is inconsistent that Europe is raising concern about the phenomenon of disinformation and at the same time protecting one of its most dangerous types: disinformation on health problems”, they conclude.
The manifesto is presented in a key context. In the midst of the pandemic, many fake treatments have been presented as the cure for the coronavirus. A recent study published in American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, and quoted by the newspaper El País, has compiled more than 800 deaths, nearly 6,000 hospitalizations and 60 blindnesses caused by the use of false remedies and the consumption of harmful and toxic products for the treatment of COVID-19 in countries such as Iran, Turkey or India.
In Colombia, the Ministry of Health has also issued several warnings against COVID-19 treatment “kits” which have been widely circulated on social media and which promote self-medication, increasing other dangers such as kidney damage, poisoning or gastrointestinal injury. The Istituto Superiore di Sanità also announced that, following the pandemic, poisoning with detergents and disinfectants such as hypochlorite and other detergents increased in the first half of the year.
The insistence against COVID-19 (but which also applies to pseudoscientific treatments that claim to cure all types of diseases) is the same as always: “These substances should NOT be consumed as a cure, their usefulness does not exist”.
Read: Are we going crazy with pseudotherapies in Colombia?
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