Charlies dodgy influence strikes again

[Julien Sorel]

I am on free prescriptions included in which is paracetamol. Surely I could pay for my own paracetamol, I hear you cry. Indeed I could - and would- but I take eight tabs/day and I'm only allowed to buy sixteen (two days supply) at a time from Sainsbury's and 32 from my pharmacist and yet my GP can prescribe two hundred at a time. Now that's barmy

It isn't that barmy http://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...n-8486268.html

[LeMartinPecheur]

Why is it illegal to sell "beefburgers" that are really horse
and not for a well known chain chemist hailing from Nottingham to sell little plastic containers that contain none of the substance on the label ?

I'm not a lawyer but that seems like fraud to me
and whatever happened to the Trades Description act ?

Nice question Mr GG, says this slightly squirming trading standards officer!

1) Sorry, the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 (note spelling!) was laid to rest in 2008. Any misdescriptions offence would now be under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regs 2008 which does much the same job but has a higher burden of proof that 'the average consumer' is likely to be misled. So not only must it be proved that there is a misleading statement (such as that it 'contains' a particular chemical salt), but also that this average consumer will be misled, ie not realise that the statement 'in homeopathic potency' means probably not an atom there at all.

2) If you want to go for misleading statements about curing medical conditions, the burden of proof is on the prosecution, i.e. the manufacturers do not have to prove that it works, the prosecution have to prove it doesn't, and do so beyond reasonable doubt. As has been noted, the **** things do have some good effect in some patients but at levels indistinguishable from the placebo effect.The defence would be bound to adduce in evidence some trials where the effects do appear to register something above the expected placebo effect because small samples do produce slightly 'random', non-statistically-significant results. Do you fancy explaining the science and mathematics of all this to a court, probably an ordinary jury as that I suspect is where the defence would elect for trial?

3) The problems increase if you go for fraud. You have to prove that the defendant knew of the falsity. For this reason a prosecutor would probably want an individual fraudster not a Ltd Co as defendant because the task of imputing knowledge to Bloggins Ltd is fraught (i.e. would keep lawyers arguing the toss up to the highest courts of appeal for years). You'd be bound to find that any officer of the co would say they've been firm believers in homeopathy all their lives, and ascribe to it all their health and happiness It ain't fraud to try to pass on your own whacky beliefs!

4) The prosecutor under the CPUTRs is almost bound to be a cash-strapped local authority - it is they who employ us TSOs. Can't see this one being a winner really. However, private prosecutions are permitted so do feel free to have a go if you're feeling plush!

[Do I dare add 5), the possibility of Prince Charles appearing as witness for the defence??]

[amateur51]

I like rescue remedy.
It should be on the NHS.
Only then it would be more expensive, unless I was on free prescriptions !:

I use rescue remedy when I'm on the runway in a plane that's taxiing to take-off. It's quite illogical but that slight nip of brandy (ahem!) comforts me and helps me to focus on staying calm until we're airborne. But I buy my own. And these days I go by train

[gingerjon]

I am on free prescriptions included in which is paracetamol. Surely I could pay for my own paracetamol, I hear you cry. Indeed I could - and would- but I take eight tabs/day and I'm only allowed to buy sixteen (two days supply) at a time from Sainsbury's and 32 from my pharmacist and yet my GP can prescribe two hundred at a time. Now that's barmy

This is because your GP knows with reasonable certainty that you are not going to overdose on them.

Since restrictions were brought in on the amount of paracetamol that anybody off the street could buy in one go suicides from overdosing have declined.

It's barmy for you, sane for the suicidal.

[amateur51]

It isn't that barmy http://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...n-8486268.html

Point taken, but suicide by paracetamol is the uncommitted route. Pass the fresh Wilkinson's Sword and the Talisker

[Ferretfancy]

A very large number of people use Homeopathic treatments.Looking at the figures, maybe 10% of the population regularly use them
That is a lot of taxpayers to deny the kinds of treatment that they want.

I asked a number of people that I know who take , or have taken, homoeopathic remedies, if they could tell what homoeopathy is. Not one of them could give me an answer, in fact most of them confused homeopathy with herbal medicine. One lady told me that she had started taking the pills because she visited a homoeopathic vet, and what worked for her dog must surely work on her ! I wonder if the dog understood the principle.

Over several million years we have evolved the ability to think rationally, and yet Prince Charles and his advisors would like the NHS to offer a so called therapy that is the equivalent of observing the entrails of chickens under a full moon.

Years ago, I worked on a documentary that was a brainchild of Prince Charles, and spent a couple of days working in his presence. He was easy to talk to, but the yes men who surrounded him seemed to control his ideas. There's no crime in not being very bright, but there's a real danger when a man's fantasies are attached to influence.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

This is because your GP knows with reasonable certainty that you are not going to overdose on them.

...one hopes

[gingerjon]

[This is an aside] Listerine was first sold as a surgical antiseptic for hospital use in the 1880s. It was a flop and was re-branded as a treatment for gonorrhea and a floor cleaner before - in the 1920s - becoming a cure for bad breath (for which the company invented the name 'halitosis').

The 'side affects' of viagra were noted when it was being trialled for treating high blood pressure.

[teamsaint]

I use rescue remedy when I'm on the runway in a plane that's taxiing to take-off. It's quite illogical but that slight nip of brandy (ahem!) comforts me and helps me to focus on staying calm until we're airborne. But I buy my own. And these days I go by train

Its not illogical at all. Your(and my) fears may be exagerated above the actual risk, but fear of flying is not an illogical fear.

[gingerjon]

I like rescue remedy.
It should be on the NHS.
Only then it would be more expensive, unless I was on free prescriptions !:

Just to repeat though: even if I didn't think homeopathy was just sugar pills hit with a magic stick it wouldn't matter what I or 10% of the UK population think anyway. What matters is the best use of the NHS budget in keeping the country healthy. That's why people in darkened rooms have to pore over stats and cost benefits. These are cold, awful ways of doing things. But they are really the only fair way. (To use a phrase coined about the BBC: the NHS is a bus, not a taxi.)

[Julien Sorel]

Point taken, but suicide by paracetamol is the uncommitted route. Pass the fresh Wilkinson's Sword and the Talisker

That's a very good reason to take away as far as possible the materials for spur of the moment, impulse Paracetamol overdose. In cases of survival it can lead to liver and brain damage and to kidney dialysis and though I've no personal knowledge I understand it's not a pleasant way to die.

[umslopogaas]

#59 amateur 51, I've been following this thread with interest, because as a one-time scientist I have had a bit to do with active ingredients and their effects over the years. Most of what I might have had to say has been better said already by others. But, to pick up on your point about paracetamol, I didnt actually know you were limited in the amount you could buy from the shop, but it does make sense, because paracetamol overdose is a favourite method of suicide. One tablet will not cure your headache, two will and twenty will kill you. Not that the restriction would deter anyone serious about suicide from accumulating twenty tablets over a few days, but suicide is sometimes impulsive, so there may be a few people alive today because they couldnt get a lethal dose when they wanted one. I've actually got a box of two hundred in a drawer, prescribed by my GP when I was recovering from a fall, and since I didnt take most of them, I could kill myself many times over - but at least I had to go to my GP to get them. And just at the moment I'm not in the mood for a lethal dose.

[jean]

...One lady told me that she had started taking the pills because she visited a homoeopathic vet, and what worked for her dog must surely work on her ! I wonder if the dog understood the principle...

Of course it didn't.

It knew nothing whatsoever about what was being administered to it. It had no preconceptions about what effect it was supposed to have.

The placebo effect does not work on animals.

Think about it.

[Pikaia]

Those people who wish to access Homeopathy pay their taxes too, and if they want NHS money spent of it then that should be their choice.



Plenty of treatments under conventional medicine are (also?) completely useless, EG incorrect prescription of antibiotics.

The NHS should provide treatment that actually works, and the general public are not the people who are qualified to decide what works, so they should not be prescribed magic water because they have an erroneous belief that it does. Doctors should not make the same mistakes as their patients.

If conventional medicine sometimes doesn't work, it does not follow that quack medicine does, so your second comment is irrelevant!

[teamsaint]

Just to repeat though: even if I didn't think homeopathy was just sugar pills hit with a magic stick it wouldn't matter what I or 10% of the UK population think anyway. What matters is the best use of the NHS budget in keeping the country healthy. That's why people in darkened rooms have to pore over stats and cost benefits. These are cold, awful ways of doing things. But they are really the only fair way. (To use a phrase coined about the BBC: the NHS is a bus, not a taxi.)

Fairness , and costs benefits are important. if 10% of the population really do want a proportion of the NHS budget spent on homeopathy, then that is enough people to warrant serious consideration under the "fairness" category, I would have thought. That is not to say that the money should be spent without consideration of its actual benefit for those people who want homeopathic remedies, (whether or not the current science supports their views and wishes.) If , for example , 100% of people who ask for a homeopathic remedy then return for another conventional course of treatment, then it would clearly be unwise to spend any NHS money on the the homeopathic treatment.