[bpsdb] Recently, I joined a number of other bloggers in writing about the new alternative medicine "regulator" (to use a very liberal definition), the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council, nicknamed OfQuack. Observers like me were somewhat puzzled by the idea of the Department of Health paying substantial sums of money to enable industry lobbyists to set up a regulator their own industry. Our concerns appear to have been justified by the current outbreak of censorship on the site.

I wrote a comprehensive guide to OfQuack recently, but the gist of it is that the CNHC are a body set up, with government funding, to act as regulators for the alternative medicine industry. For some bizarre reason, the government agreed to give money to alternative medicine lobbyists working for HRH Prince Charles to set this body up (no, really). Since then, they have been working their way through a seven-figure slush fund, somewhat hampered by their total lack of credibility: many alternative medicine practitioners are almost militantly hostile to the idea of regulation (god forbid they should have to prove their treatments work), while the idea of lobbyists regulating their own industry is absurd to most other rational people.

The worst fears of skeptics were confirmed when the CNHC released the minutes of one of their quarterly board meetings, held in November.

12 PR Strategy

[...]

JG suggested the possible use of patients with ‘good news’ regarding complementary therapies on www.patientvoices.co.uk.

In other words, this "regulatory" body was happy to consider the idea of feeding positive reviews to a popular website. This is like OfCom going into web forums to encourage people to switch to British Telecom. It is absolutely absurd, and I make no apology for repeating this brilliant summary of the problem from an anonymous commenter on the Bad Science forums:

What worries me much more is that http://www.patientvoices.co.uk (on which patients can post comments about their experiences) has been a genuinely valuable site, to which I frequently refer medical students, in order to promote integrated, holistic, patient centred rational medicine. If it becomes swamped by posts of those with a financial interest at the behest of a Government funded organisation, then I would be deeply dismayed. And this is listed under "PR" - not even pretending to be about good health. I would complain. but the complaint would have to be to those who set it up. So I plan to just despair.

Unsurprisingly, these minutes gained some notoriety - they were the perfect example of everything that critics felt was wrong about this organization - a sort of smoking gun if you will. But with a depressing inevitability, they can no longer be found on the CNHC website. While the original Word document is still there, the link that used to be on the Board Minutes page has, at the time of writing at least, vanished, and I can find no way to navigate to the minutes anywhere on the site. The document has not been deleted, but for now at least it is hidden from view. On the same page, the CNHC state that their board minutes will be made available as part of their "commitment to transparency". If they plan to honour that commitment, I expect to see the link reappear in the near future.