124 health professionals and doctors published in the Figaro a tribune denouncing alternative medicines that they consider dangerous, ineffective and expensive. This collective demands the exclusion of these esoteric disciplines from the medical field, the radiation of the doctors who continue to promote them and the non-reimbursement of drugs or care linked to these practices.
Strong words, an uncompromising position
The signatories speak of “pseudo-medicines with unproven efficacy and fanciful promises. Under the guise of an alleged harmlessness much less obvious than it appears and producing a speech bordering on conspiracy, maintaining the confusion in the public mind between scientific medicine and beliefs, these disciplines at the head of which sits l homeopathy does more harm than good“. The authors still deal with these practices and particularly thehomeopathy of “esoteric discipline“.
It is also without concession that the signatories express themselves on their colleagues: “It is easy and rewarding to display your knowledge. It is much more difficult to explain and accept your limits. The temptation can then be great to practice care without any scientific basis. This temptation has always existed. It was, and still is, fed by charlatans of all kinds who seek the moral guarantee of the title of doctor to promote false therapies with illusory effectiveness.“.
Consequently, the signatories of the platform ask, among other things, the Council of the Order of Physicians and the public authorities to:
- no longer authorize doctors who continue to promote these medicines to use their title
- no longer recognize the diplomas ofhomeopathy, mesotherapy oracupuncture like diplomas or medical qualifications
- no longer produce in the faculty of medicine “…” diplomas based on practices whose effectiveness has not been scientifically demonstrated
- no longer reimbursing social security contributions for care, drugs or treatments from disciplines that refuse their rigorous scientific evaluation.
The response of the Order of Physicians
Asked by the Quotidien du Médecin, the Order of Physicians recalls that “it officially recognizes four alternative and complementary medicines:homeopathy, the’acupuncture, mesotherapy and manual medicine osteopathy“. And that” if, to exercise the last three, a doctor must follow an IUD which can give right to the title (and therefore to the affixing of the specialty on the doctor’s plate), homeopathy is considered as a simple activity orientation – any doctor can therefore exercise it “. However, the Order insists on the fact that this exercise must be”do with discernment, and homeopathy can in no way replace medicine“.
According to her “several doctors who have used homeopathy instead of conventional treatments have been “severely punished“by the disciplinary chambers, under the obligation for a doctor to ensure”conscientious, dedicated and science-based patient care“(article 32 of the code of ethics) and that of bringing”fair, clear and appropriate information about his condition, the investigations and the care he offers him“(Article 35). “
The opinion of Dr Dominique Pierrat, general practitioner and medical consultant at TopSanté
“What fly stung the 124 signatories of this appeal? We can understand that in this period of mistrust of certain drugs and vaccines, doctors want to set the record straight. When it is serious, the homeo is not enough! But rejecting an ancient medicine like acupuncture, which still treats many patients in Asia today, seems strange. As for the reimbursement of these “alternative” medicines, more correctly qualified as complementary by many caregivers, this is another problem. Venotonics have not been reimbursed, that is not why doctors have stopped prescribing them, nor that they should be banned from doing so … Isn’t the objective of doctors to relieve patients? And is supportive care in oncology unnecessary?“
List of signatories on www.lefigaro.fr
Read also:
Homeopathy singled out by academies of European sciences
Homeopathy, what is it?
Homeopathy in the United States will have to prove its worth
