Taking Osteopathy in Hand
An advert for a local osteopath appeared in my local free paper.
You know what’s coming next…
I’ve just sent the following complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority:
The advert makes claims about the following medical conditions:
Aches and pains
Lower back pain
Sciatica and slipped disc
Frozen shoulder & RSI
Arthritis & joint stiffness
Headaches & migraines
Whiplash & neck pain
Stress
Occupational injuries.I challenge whether:
1. osteopathy treatment is effective for any of these conditions;
2. the ad breaches the Code because it could discourage readers from seeking treatment of serious medical conditions, such as whiplash, by medically qualified practitioners.
It doesn’t need any more than that.
I’ll keep you updated and I’ll be blogging on the General Osteopathic Council’s Code of Practice sometime soon.
Update: 26 July 2009
Enter the name of the clinic into Google and this blog post is already the first hit. Second hit is the clinic’s own website, Head 2 Toe UK.
19 Responses to “Taking Osteopathy in Hand”
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Your challenge 1. Osteopaths provide a package of care well accepted in the medical community for these problems. If they can't use a combination of manipulation, exercise advice, soft tissue work and referral for prescribed NSAIDS/for imaging/to a specialist if appropriate to treat the above then there is no treatment left for these problems and spots injuries for not just osteopaths but Sports Doctors, Physiotherapists and Chiropractors.
If you had a neck sprain form a whiplash injury which was not recovering quickly and you were referred for say physiotherapy I suppose you would not attend as they would provide, particularly if they had a post grad masters in spinal care/were a grade 8/extended scope physio exactly the same care.
RE challenge 2
To quote a post from Skeptikat "I'm not sure if you are being deliberately obtuse or just a bit stupid"?
In case it's the latter please here's some help for you.
All of the above are medical conditions and all could have "serious" causes. Whiplash describes the mechanism of a type of neck sprain/strain which in some cases can be "serious" too. In most cases it is a minor soft tissue injury which recovers on its own or is assisted by NSAIDS and physical therapy.
Surely all we ask of an Osteopath, is that in their role as a primary health practitioner they can assess which ones are "serious" and to be referred for further assessment and which are appropriate for Osteopathic treatment. This treatment would normally again involve manipulation, soft tissue work, exercise instruction, referral to a GP/specialist for advise on medication eg NSAIDS.
The problem with your jumping on the post Simon Singh/chiropractic bandwagon is that you betray your poorly thought out argument and show a distinct lack of knowledge base.
If you're going to seriously challenge osteopathy's claims you need to demonstrate an awareness of the evidence base for and against osteopathic treatment of these conditions and what the evidence is that the more "medical" treatments can do any better. I'm fairly certain you have done absolutely no research into this matter whatsoever, but i might be wrong…..am i?
If you're going to take some kind of scientific/rational high ground you have to be prepared to walk the walk, and from what i can see, all you're doing is mudslinging.
What's your agenda and what's motivating you to attack osteopaths when you are coming from an evidently uninformed position and are accusing highly qualified primary health care professionals that they dont know what they're doing.
If you'ld like some information about osteopathy please feel free to contact me:
rickosteo@googlemail.com
oh and another thing, neither this blog OR the clinic come up anywhere near the top of the google list at all.
making false claims huh?
Rick,
Well said!!!
Don't be suprised that ALan/Zeno has failed to reply to you. This seems to be the norm when someone argues/debates a point that he cannot justly criticise or win against. Looks like round 1 to you!!!
Zeno seems to be happy with the fact that his blog post comes up on google. No doubt is because this will affect the Osteopath's business negatively and cause them distress whilst the Osteopath has no chance to defend themselves until the complaint is resolved, for all Zeno knows in their favour, but which may not be for some months. What a very unpleasant attitude to have to other humans.
Hope you all feel better after getting all your petulant wee comments off your chests, guys.
JB, way to cast aspersions. As even a cursory glance through this blog will reveal, it is not the norm for Zeno to ignore comments…at least those that are worth responding to. But sometimes other things take priority.
Rick, calm down. Zeno has made one complaint about one osteopath to the ASA. That isn't taking "some kind of scientific/rational highground" nor is it "mudslinging". To complain to the ASA one needs only be suspicious of claims made in advertisements. Don't you worry your little brain about it; this complaint is as much a test of the ASA as anything else.
That said, how can anyone with their reasoning faculties intact, be anything but suspicious of a therapy defined on the website of the British Institute of Osteopaths as stimluating the "preparation and distribution of fluids and free forces of the body" and promoting the "cooperation and harmony inside the body as a mechanism". That sounds lie woo of the first order and yet we have someone claiming this therapy can treat whiplash and migraine. And people pay him to do this?
By the way, JB, are you the same JB that I blogged about here?
http://skepticat.wordpress.com/2009/07/19-2/
Couple of things.
Interesting how people's responses online are invariably patronising when they disagree with someone else, saying things on here which they'd never have the courage to say face to face. Im absolutely fine with an open and honest debate Mr Skepticat but a bit less of the cheek Sir if you dont mind.
Since when is taking "some kind of scientific/rational highground" and/or "mudslinging" dependent on the number of complaints made? The action is the same once as it would be repeated a thousand-fold, and he is clearly implying that osteopathy has no scientifically sound theoretical basis. He's making this grand implication without stating that he knows otherwise and, im fairly sure, without having done much if any of his own research into the subject. This isnt really good enough. If you are going to set up a blog with an agenda to "out quacks", if you devote time to running down a profession then one would have thought the least you'd do is some research.
One of the things which you devout skeptics seem to fail to realise is that just because a subject hasnt been subject to RCTs, it doesnt mean it lacks evidence. The hierarchy of evidence means that some types of evidence are of greater scientific value than others.
However if there hasnt been an RCT conducted then its perfectly accptable to use whatever evidence is available until its disproved by a methodologically superior trial.
Theres plenty of evidence for osteopathy just a lack of high quality trials looking into it.
Not me skepti!!!
Rick, it's 'Madam' actually and I wonder if you have any idea what a pompous prat you sound. Look at your three posts. If you don't like being patronised, don't troll someone's blog airing your ignorant assumptions about them.
You seem to have misunderstood my post. Whether it's one complaint or one thousand complaints to the ASA, it is neither taking the highground nor mudslinging except in the perception of those being complained about and any allies they might have. The ASA is there to protect the public from false claims and anyone who suspects a claim about something important may be false has a moral obligation to challenge that claim by any legal means in order to protect the public. I trust you agree the public should be protected from false claims?
Most skeptics are well aware of the heirarchy of evidence and I fail to see what bearing this has on this complaint. As long as the ASA are satisfied by whatever evidence is offered to support this complaint, then that will be the end of the matter, even if the evidence is of poor quality.
As for your whining about zeno not being informed…how would you know? This is an assumption on your part, it's also a straw man and of no consequence.
mmm lovely
well, my assumptions about him were informed by his perhaps equally ignorant assumptions about osteopathy. Its slightly naive to think this complaint is purely an attempt to protect the public and not part of the witch hunt against, initially, chiropractors and now it seems osteopaths.
Its absolutely of consequence whether or not zeno or youself talk from an informed position, because if you are you might be worth listening to and be able to contribute usefully to a discussion on the subject and if you arent then you're purely pointing and shouting.
Of course feel free to continue your public saving service of reporting osteopaths to the ASA, im sure the public are falling over themselves in gratitude. Tis ironic that all this fuss comes at a time when i'm about to cancel the last of my advertising as its proven a total waste of money with the only effective way of growing a business being word of mouth.
Good luck with your campaign.
I find this subject very interesting. I suppose you always do when it affects you personally.
I have tried chiropractors previously and I currently see an osteopath. None of this was before I had been to my doctor many times with lower back problems over the last 20 years.
I also currently see an NHS phsyiotherapist. Interestingly he gave me the same three excercises to do as the NHS gave me 15 years ago! It may even be the same photocopied piece of paper! Is this a tried an tested technique that works or has treatment of lower back pain had no recent advances? I'll find out as the treatment continues.
I find it interesting that the physiotherapist is concentrating on mobility in my lower spine whereas the osteopath is concentrating on stiffness in my leg muscles. They are both 'treating' the same problem and I think both methods may have some merit.
My questions for those of you who know about these thing are: Are there any proper clinical trials of osteopathy? If not, why not? Are there clinical trials of physiotherapy? If not, why not? and If not, then where does that leave a patient like me?
Cheers,
Hi,
There are numerous small trials attempting to validate the efficacy of osteopathy and there is a reasonable amount of data out there to suggest positive results. The problem being that it is a very small profession about 3500 practitioners in the uk and there is very little funding for extensive research and large trials (no money in it).
On the subject that kicked this debate off, since the 1992 osteopaths act and more recently the statutory register was introduced (2000 or 2002 i think) that osteopaths are incredibly tightly regulated and well medically/clinically well trained, regardless of what you think of the therapy and techniques used, all UK osteopaths have reached degree level (i.e a similar level to medical school) in a combination of anatomy,physiology,neurology,pathology to name a few, also they are extensively taught clinical methods so training wise would be probably as well placed as anyone when conducting physical assessments.
On the subject of false claims in advertising i agree that it needs to be closely monitored, the above advert could be worded better.
Lastly i would only take information about osteopathy from the General Osteopathic council or the British Osteopathic Association as all others do not officially reflect the profession and can write what they want (British Institute of Osteopathy)
Thanks
Maggie- you can get degrees in homeopathy- just because you can waste many years learning a subject has nothing to do with the validity of the subject itself. Chiropracters are regulated- but when challenged you can see what a mess teh FCC have got into.
I don’t want to disparage osteopathy but there needs to be a lot more evidence before it can be advertised as a treatment- crying about lack of money doesn’t cut it. If you want to make claims you have an obligation to have the evidence to back it up- that is all zeno has asked the ASA to investigate.
Sympall- I was surprised to find that you are correct and you can take a degree in Homeopathy, mind you i did a degree entitled literature,life and thought so there are dodgy degrees across the spectrum, i would suggest that Osteopathy, like Physiotherapy is not one of them.
I think the crux of the problem is the funding, the body of evidence that exists does tend to show physical therapy as effective in treating certain conditions but much of this is dismissed as trial sizes are too small, which is fair enough in principle as everyone wants large properly run trials, but in practice this means only the large pharma companies and orthodox medicine gets to choose what becomes validated or tested, and i think this is possibly why such strong views are generated on both sides.
With reference to this blog Zeno seems like he has a bit of an axe to grind with complementary medicine and not just bad science. I’d like him to write to the ASA challenging whether a certain kitchen towel does indeed have the power of an elephant.
That’s a curious comment in your last para, magpie, if I may say so. Obviously zeno does have an axe to grind about altmed – as I do myself – and that’s why he complains about it. It’s interesting to me that the criticism most frequently levelled at those who take the trouble to complain about things they believe to be wrong is that they should be complaining about other things instead (or as well).
There is only so much time available for this kind of activity and I’d respectfully suggest to anyone with a bugbear about anything that they do their own complaints about the things they don’t like and leave the rest of us to complain about what we don’t like.
Btw, re your comment on my blog that I am ‘blinkered’ – I’m still waiting for you to start a discussion at ThinkHumanism so that you can show me where I’m going wrong.
Regards
Magpie55
The US National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine spent nearly one billion dollars on AltMed research and has come up with not one jot of evidence for a wide range of CAM nonsense.
The US public spent 34 billion dollars of AltMed, so it is BIG business and more than capable of funding half decent research. The problem is Big Quacka is just not interested in doing proper research, because they know the results would seriously damage their profits.
Read the excellent Quackometer for further details of this.
If you think the claims made in the advert for kitchen towels were misleading, why don’t you complain to the ASA? It is very easy to do – just follow the instructions on the ASA website.
Hello both Zeno and Skepticat, thank you both for your responses, i enjoy both your blogs and am interested in your standpoints regarding alt med.
I agree with you both that kitchen towels are not really at issue here but i wanted to know whether it was the flouting of advertising guidelines or just chiropractors that got your goats.So why is alt med such a bugbear? (Skepticat does explain in her blog) but why Zeno? …
Anyway Zeno i started reading your link to the excellent Quackometer and was initially a little put off by the inclusion of Yoga, surely this cannot be in the same quack bracket as homeopathy? This i think is partly the my problem with these debates that there is no distinction between alternative therapies (certainly not in this blog) So I feel that the $34 billion research may perhaps be a little inflated as seemingly everything is lumped in together regardless, though i take your point that it is big business, should be evidence based and yes big quacka corp may have a vested interest in not investigating their claims too closely.
That said it’s the little guy you are attacking here and i am just curious to where the motivation for your efforts comes from?
Skepticat you make a valid point, i accept that you should only be complaining/blogging about the things you believe wrong, i just hope for balance in the evidence presented for your cause.
I still think you may be a little blinkered (though am less confident with fewer G&T’s in the bloodstream)I will try and start a discussion soon on ThinkHumanism and would value you input and yes it’s going to be about that NHS MMR vac. leaflet.
(Was going to sign off with clever quote but too tired, perhaps next time) Magpie.
Hello everyone,
This a message to all educated people (no offense) in this, and other blogs.
I believe that we are losing the battle with this bunch of time-wasters just by enabling them and posting comments in their REAL quackery websites. I have already fallen int to this trick by leaving a couples of comments in Zeno’s Blog website and eventually realized that I was playing their game, their rules.
If I had as much time as Zeno has, I would probably make a blog myself but, never mind! Zeno, apologies if making blogs is your actual job; but what a job mate.
I am a medical doctor and also a chiropractor and, despite being aware of the Simon Singh vs the BCA issue and his desperate seek for help, only recently I realized how many loser and unqualified people out there are using the net to gain popularity and happily make a fool of themselves.
I bet that no one of these blog ‘quackers’ have anything to do with either chiropractic or osteopathy in first person but they saw an opportunity to prove something….. to themselves, after al it’s their job.
Those people work on two basis:
1) they insult the public by undermining their intellect; arrogantly pretending to offer help and clarification, when, as a matter of fact, they create more confusion and disruption within a functional health system,
2) they know that they will get comments and responses only from specific readers (us), as it is very unlikely that a bank clerk or a busy architect really cares about searching a research paper that shows evidence for whiplash treatment (no offense to any jobs/professions; I could have used, as an example, housewives or scuba divers)
Do not even waste time visiting these ‘quack’ websites; I personally do not believe that people who really want to help the public spend huge amount of time compiling massive blogs on the net. Furthermore, I reckon that, the only qualification they have (if any) is writing nonsense to upset the public. Does anyone really believe that ’skepticat’ (or dog, or rabbit) really holds a scientific recognized (or unrecognized) degree? I don’t!
I know for a fact that chiropractors, as well as osteopath, receive intense training (in some aspect even more intense than medical doctors) and have a profound knowledge of medical conditions and their treatment/management.
So let’s waste time NO MORE. Let’s go back to real work. We got patients to help.
Regards,
Oops! this is another of Zeno’s blog! I am in real trouble now. I’m almost sure he will use my post to ‘help the public’ and compile another quack blog to discredit the General Medical Council.