You might think what’s good enough for the royals is good enough for you, but action taken by the government’s medicines regulator has shown that, when it comes to your wellness, this may not be the case after all. After an investigation by BBC Inside Out South West, a homeopathic pharmacy, endorsed by the Queen and Prince Charles, has been told to stop advertising sugar pills as childhood vaccines.
According to the investigation, specialist retailer Ainsworths has labelled a number of their homeopathic products with the name of childhood illnesses, or as vaccines for those ailments. Amongst the remedies labelled were Meningitis Vac Hib, Measles Vaccine, Rubella Vaccine, Pertussin and Pertussis Vaccine, which is the scientific name for whooping cough, hence the government’s medicines regulator stepped in.
The findings also included evidence that the company’s owner, Anthony Pinkus, was prepared to recommend homeopathic pills to parents as an alternative to the whooping cough vaccination. Last year, 13 babies died of whopping cough and the UK has been experiencing the worst outbreak of the disease since the 1980s. Pinkus denied this recommendation, and did not accept that the remedies labels were misleading as the products were clearly ‘in no sense medical pharmaceutical drugs’.
However, the BBC investigators wrote to him posing as a concerned parent of an unvaccinated child, and Pinkus recommended several of his homeopathic pills including Pertussin for whooping cough prevention. He admitted it was a personal choice of his, but when he was asked whether or not the child should be vaccinated, Pinkus said he would use Pertussin ‘alone’, but if the child was vaccinated as a ‘compromise’, the Pertussin pills would ‘offset the side effects’.
According to Professor Edzard Ernst, an expert on complementary medicine, ‘Homeopaths say some sort of “energy” stimulates the body to heal itself. That is a very nice theory but it’s not supported by any clinical evidence and the clinical trials don’t support it either. One of these products is to protect or to treat meningitis. That is a condition that is potentially fatal. Ineffective treatment for fatal disease is life-threatening.’
Ainsworths is a London-based company, and has two Royal Warrants for supplying homeopathic products. Royal warrants are given to companies who supply the Royal Family with goods or services, and they can display the relevant royal arms with the words ‘by appointment’, albeit under strict rules on using and displaying these royal arms. At present, the only people who can award a royal warrant are the Queen, Duke of Edinburgh and the Prince of Wales, and Prince Charles is a known a supporter of homeopathy in spite of a lack of scientific evidence for its effectiveness beyond a placebo.
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