Boots and homeopathy

[sphenisc]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...-because-they-sell-not-because-they-work.html

Admirable honesty, or an implication that Boots thinks consumers are too stupid to stop buying a product even if they're told it probably doesn't work?

 

[Rasmus]

Both.

 

[wilks]

From the Telegraph article
Robert Wilson, chairman of the British Association of Homeopathic Manufacturers, told the committee that there is "strong evidence" that homoeopathy works.

"Boots are a very important retailer, they sell a great deal of these products. If these products don't work beyond the placebo effect, why do people keep buying them?"

Boots is an important retailer and people buy these products because the British public in general trusts Boots the chemist and can't imagine that they would sell ineffective products.
Boots are are using that trust to mislead and to make money.

 

[Blue Wode]

You can read about another Boots homeopathy fiasco, in a piece written by James Randi in 2005, here:
http://www.randi.org/jr/200509/090905these.html#1

Snippet:

Mr. Dodd came upon a Boots booklet in a hospice for the terminally ill – which he correctly describes as, “a very vulnerable community.” The booklet touted homeopathy, which prompted Mr. Dodd to write an email message to Ms. Sue Williamson, the Boots Customer Care consultant. Following his first email inquiry to her on July 7th, he also had some telephone conversations with her giving details of the data in the publication. His June 7th email to her read:

I have read a Boots publication concerning homeopathic medicine in which it is stated that research has proved their efficacy. Will you please provide details of any research in which their efficacy has been proven?​

On August 15th – 39 days after his first inquiry – a reply came from Ms. Williamson:

Subject: Leaflet on homeopathic medicine
Reference number 2750220

Hello Mr Dodd

I'm writing further to our conversation some time ago and may I firstly apologize most sincerely for the delay to this reply.

I'm really sorry that I've been unable to obtain a copy of the leaflet you referred to and I'm therefore having difficulty in pursuing this matter any further.

However, I've spoken at length to our Project Manager who is responsible for our range of homeopathic medicines. He has confirmed that unfortunately due to confidentiality we wouldn't be able to share any information concerning the research quoted in the leaflet.​

Randi comments: I’ve long been aware of the strong English tendency toward privacy – they seldom even provide a return address on the outside of their posted mail – but this seems rather more than normal reluctance to provide basic, pertinent, information about a business that would be expected to share such important material with interested customers. What could be the dreaded “confidential” information about their safety/efficacy “research” that they would opt to keep from their clients? And, in passing, I find it strange indeed that an officer of the company was not able to obtain a copy of their own printed literature!

 

[Mojo]

From the Telegraph article
Robert Wilson, chairman of the British Association of Homeopathic Manufacturers, told the committee that there is "strong evidence" that homoeopathy works.

"Boots are a very important retailer, they sell a great deal of these products. If these products don't work beyond the placebo effect, why do people keep buying them?"

To quote The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin:

David:
...But why should anyone buy a pill that doesn't do anything?

Reggie:
Because it comforts them, David. It has no effects whatsoever, therefore it has no side-effects, you don't need to keep it out of the reach of children, and Catholics can take it. Alright?

 

[Professor Yaffle]

The chairman's response to the line about if they didn't work, why do so many people buy them, was "You're not being serious, are you?"; and later said (something like) "If you have all this defintive evidence, why don't you give it to Boots, because they don't believe you".

 

[Mojo]

...and later said (something like) "If you have all this defintive evidence, why don't you give it to Boots, because they don't believe you".

From the link to Swift that Blue Wode has posted above, it seems that they did give it to Boots, but told them it was a secret.

 

[rjh01]

See also this thread from 2006 Boots on the back foot re homeopathy

 

[edd]

From the link to Swift that Blue Wode has posted above, it seems that they did give it to Boots, but told them it was a secret.

To be fair to Boots, I don't see where in BW's link that it's justified to say that they have evidence from the BHA which they were told they could not reveal, and that they had at the time of the Science & Technology Committee Evidence Check but chose to claim instead that they had no evidence - I would have thought lying in such a way to them would be pretty serious but I can't see that there's any reason to believe they were anything less than completely honest at the hearing.

I don't' believe the BHA has any definitive evidence, and I don't see reason to believe Boots took any non-definitive evidence from the BHA on the basis it should be kept secret and then were less than clear about that to the Committee. Not that I also believe they have been blame free when it comes to selling homeopathic treatments.

 

[Cuddles]

I really don't see why anyone finds this at all surprising. Boots is a for-profit company. They sell people what people want to buy. People want to buy homeopathy. Therefore Boots sell it. The only part I find at all interesting is that Boots are happy to admit that, since companies seem to have a habit of trying to pretend they're not just in it for the money. Presumably it's mainly because they're before parliament and it could have ended going badly for them if they weren't completely honest from the start.

I think perhaps the part that confuses some people is that Boots, like other similar shops, actually have two almost entirely separate parts. They have the trained pharmacists that give out prescription drugs and some advice, and they have the general shop. The homeopathy part only concerns the latter.

The former only give out drugs on prescription. Regardless of what their opinions on certain drugs are, they ultimately have to do what the doctor has told them to do. If a doctor prescribes something homeopathic, that's really nothing to do with Boots who simply fulfil the order. The part where Boots actually gets a choice is in what to stock in the rest of the store, where the over-the-counter stuff is mixed up with sun cream, first aid kits, batteries, cameras and the like. This is the part where Boots has chosen to stock homeopathy. And of course they have. This isn't a health care provider dedicated to making people better, it's a shop dedicated to selling things to people. OK, a lot of the stuff is health related, but that's where it ends.

 

[Blue Wode]

I think perhaps the part that confuses some people is that Boots, like other similar shops, actually have two almost entirely separate parts. They have the trained pharmacists that give out prescription drugs and some advice, and they have the general shop. The homeopathy part only concerns the latter.

Apparently that's not universally true:

Dangerous advice from Boots: a small sting.

I have been into several Boots stores, sought out the most senior pharmacist that I can find, and asked them the following question. “I have a 5 year old son who has had diarrhoea for three days now. Please can you recommend a natural remedy”. The response was interesting. In every case but one, the pharmacist reached for a copy of the Boots pamphlet on homeopathy, and thumbed through it, while desperately, but unsuccessfuly, trying to retain an air of professional authority. Then one or another homeopathic treatment from the booklet was recommended. In only one case out of six did the pharmacist even mention the right answer (GP and rehydration). One pharmacist, who turned out to have qualified in Germany, was very insistent that homeopathic treatment was inappropriate and that I should should start rehydration and take the child to the GP. The other five, including one who had an impressive-looking badge saying “consultant pharmacist”, did not even mention rehydration.

Conclusion The education of the pharmacists was clearly insufficient for them to give reliable advice. On the contrary, their advice was downright dangerous.

More...

Can you trust Boots?
http://www.dcscience.net/?p=191

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

http://www.boots.com/en/Nelsons-Bryonia-30c-84-Pillules_870304/

Contains ingredients:
30c Bryonia dioica, sucrose and lactose

How can a product be said to 'contain' a 30c dilution of anything?

Perhaps we're going about this the wrong way folks. How about calling the weights and measures people instead?

ETA: http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/advice/advice-business-ftgdsandservicessum15.cfm

accurately describing goods and services

The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 prohibit traders from misleading consumers about a product by giving false or deceptive information about a number of matters. To breach the majority of the Regulations, the misleading action or omission must cause, or be likely to cause, the average consumer to make a different transactional decision (eg make a purchase which he would not otherwise have made).
Some practices are banned in all circumstances. The Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008 prohibits misleading business-to-business transactions.

Would you buy a pill that said on the label it contained only sucrose and lactose?

 

[Soapy Sam]

While it's true that the Hom. "remedies" are on the general shop floor, not in the pharmacy, I have asked several Boots pharmacists whether Hom. pills have any benefits. All have hedged. There clearly is training in presenting a "company line".
None has actually claimed they ARE effective, but they do tend to stress the "Many people find them effective" cop-out argument.

The critical factor to me is the expectation of the general public that the pills would not be on sale in Boots if they had no effect. This public trust is being abused.

 

[Information Analyst]

There was someone from the Telegraph - i.e. not the writer of this particular piece - on BBC Breakfast this morning, up against a GP who claimed she was happy to prescribe homepathic "remedies." It wasn't particualry balanced, because the GP was allowed to get away with dusbious claims like, "more studies show homeopathy works than don't," while neither the journalist nor the BBC anchors were knowledgable to counter her. Someone mention the dilution of homepathic products, then started talking about it in terms of, "if it's only 1 percentage, can it have an effect," with that exact figure.

 

[edd]

It was a terrible report. As I tweeted when I saw it, I'd have sooner seen Guy Goma back as a better qualified interviewee than the 'skeptic' on our side.
The 'GP' is also president of the 'Faculty of Homeopathy' and works in one of our homeopathic hospitals.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8382265.stm to see it (UK only probably)

 

[Rolfe]

Would you buy a pill that said on the label it contained only sucrose and lactose?

I have to say I did exactly that, from Boots, when I took up the challenge to "prove" Belladonna 30C, issued by a homoeopath. I'm not sure if I kept the photos I took (the homs at H'pathy Forums demanded proof I really had acquired the stuff, so I took a picture of the bottle sitting on a current newspaper). Anyway, although the big print said "Belladonna 30C", the small print said, quite clearly, "Contents: sucrose, lactose".

Actually, it tasted like sucrose so I don't know how much lactose was really in it. I suspected they didn't just want to put "sucrose" because that might have been a bit obvious.

I think the manufacturer of that preparation was given as Nelsons.

Rolfe.

 

[Soapy Sam]

So these pills had the same relation to Belladonna that a Milky Bar bears to chocolate - and both have similar active ingredients?

 

[Deetee]

You implying milky bars contain no chocolate?

 

[Mojo]

It wasn't particualry balanced, because the GP was allowed to get away with dusbious claims like, "more studies show homeopathy works than don't,"

Actually, what she said was "far more of them are positive than negative", which is true because the FoH use this rather odd categorisation in which "negative" trials are those which find that homoeopathy is worse than placebo. Trials that simply fail to support it are described as "inconclusive". see for example this FoH document on the British Homeopathic Association website:

Up to the end of 2008, 138 RCTs had been published: 60 positive;10 negative; 68 not statistically conclusive.

So while more trials fail to support homoeopathy than support it, there are still more positive than negative trials. Of course, this still ignores the problem of trial quality. Meta-analyses have consistently shown that good quality trials are more likely to be negative, and have even demonstrated that in the best quality trials there is no effect beyond placebo (e.g. Linde & Melchart: Randomized controlled trials of individualized homeopathy: a state-of-the-art review. J Altern Complement Med. 1998 Winter;4(4):371-88, or Shang et al. Are the clinical effects of homoeopathy placebo effects? Comparative study of placebo-controlled trials of homoeopathy and allopathy. Lancet. 2005 Aug 27-Sep 2;366(9487):726-32). Even the most positive meta-analyses have to qualify their already tentative findings because of the poor quality of many of the trials.

 

[rjh01]

http://www.boots.com/en/Nelsons-Bryonia-30c-84-Pillules_870304/

Contains ingredients:
30c Bryonia dioica, sucrose and lactose

How can a product be said to 'contain' a 30c dilution of anything?

Perhaps we're going about this the wrong way folks. How about calling the weights and measures people instead?

ETA: http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/advice/advice-business-ftgdsandservicessum15.cfm

accurately describing goods and services

The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 prohibit traders from misleading consumers about a product by giving false or deceptive information about a number of matters. To breach the majority of the Regulations, the misleading action or omission must cause, or be likely to cause, the average consumer to make a different transactional decision (eg make a purchase which he would not otherwise have made).
Some practices are banned in all circumstances. The Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008 prohibits misleading business-to-business transactions.

Would you buy a pill that said on the label it contained only sucrose and lactose?[/url]



Would you buy a pill that said on the label it contained only sucrose and lactose?

I am going to defend homeopathy. The above quote means that for information to be misleading a person must make a different purchase because of this information. Well if a person came into the shop to buy a homeopathy product (or even a "natural product") and walked out with a homeopathy product then he cannot have been mislead. I do not think any shop has any obligation to tell a customer that they are wrong.


Now I need to wash my hands for typing this.