where is the magic?

A lot of boring old doctors want to get the magic out of the Health Service.

The letter, organised by Michael Baum, emeritus professor of surgery at University College London and signed by Nobel prize-winner Sir James Black and Sir Keith Peters, president of the Academy of Medical Science, among others, complained that the use of such therapies drained resources from other areas.

"I'm all in favour of treatments that make people better but there is the issue of evidence," Professor Baum told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"How do we know that what we are witnessing is a real effect or a placebo? If the placebo is non-toxic and cheap, it doesn't matter.

"My concern is the issue of opportunity cost. If the NHS is spending good money on placebos at the cost of not providing effective medicines, then it does matter. "

I’ve always thought alternative cures actually fulfil a psychological need for explanation. They provide a metaphysical or “scientistic” explanation for placebo cures, which seems to be necessary for their function. And there does seem to be evidence that placebos do work, though no-one can work out why. Of course, these explanations are also political in the sense that they offer explanations for when placebos don’t work. "They've never been properly tried". "It's your fault for not believing hard enough" and so on.

Maybe the problem here is actually lack of imagination. We can’t agree on an explanation that appeals to anything wider than the subculture that’s grown up around alternative cures. Naturally, this wouldn’t cure as many people as boring old science. But I’m quite struck by the idea that those of us with a rationalist approach may in some cases be denying ourselves the opportunity to enable placebos to work, along with the opportunity to lick toads, dance naked around dolmens on warm summer evenings, etc, etc. The obvious short term solution to this problem is for advocates of alternative cures to set themselves up as a religion, offer their nostrums in the name of charity, and rely for financing on their grateful customers. That way, they shift the marketing on to their own ground instead of having to bother with double blind tests.

On the other hand, as a taxpayer I find the idea of an official government Department of Magic quite attractive and offer in advance to conduct its media relations work, reporting directly to Prince Charles, our shaman in chief. But I’m not growing a beard. Oh, no…

Comments

[Alex]

Well, I profess to be a Yorkshire Ranter, and I have a beard, but I suspect it's more of an "engineer beard" given most of my views (even though I'm not an engineer).

[jamie]

Better than a media a "media beard", I suppose...what other kinds of beard are there out there?

[Robert Jubb]

People have said that I look like either a Mennonite or Abraham Lincoln, which I think is entirely due to a perhaps unwise beard.

[Alex]

Aren't they the ones who chop off their own bollocks, or was that Old Believers? I'm getting confused about sects these days

[jamie]

I think that was the Khlysty. The Old Believers refused to accept reforms in the Russian Orthodox church in the 17th Century; I think they just went on beleiving in the old fashioned way.

[Rob]

I think the Mennonites are kind of like the Amish, but a bit less so. I only look like one, though, so don't ask me.

[ajay]

It's quite something to think of people so conservative that 17th century Russian Orthodox priests condemned them for not moving with the times...
Incidentally, you're thinking of the Skoptsy, a subsect of the Old Believers, not the Khlysty, who were ascetic and limited themselves to flagellation (Rasputing may have been a Khlyst).
There were also Raskolniks, who practised self-immolation; Danilovtsy, who practised partial marriage, Adamants, who refused to use money or passports; the Confession of the Grandmothers; Dyrniks, who rejected ikons and prayed through holes in the wall; and Doukhobors, who rejected the Trinity.

Anyway, as any fule kno, it's a Ministry of Magic. See Rowling, passim.

[jamie]

Ah, yeah...come to think of it, weren't the Khlysty the "milk drinkers"?