At least half a million people trust pseudosciences and pseudotherapies in our country. They are the tip of the iceberg of a public health problem, according to the Collegiate Medical Organization (OMC), which warns of the risk of these techniques, which for many patients involves delaying or abandoning treatments with a scientifically proven curative nature.
Based on energy, one’s own body or mind or nature, they range from homeopathy and acupuncture – which are the most used and which are regulated in other countries – to other more minority ones such as zero balancing, cupping therapy, magneto-therapy or floral therapy. Doctors warn against resorting to them, especially in cancer patients or with mental health problems, neurological or chronic diseases.
“Everything that is natural does not have to be harmless and resorting to these therapies is especially risky in psychiatric or oncological patients because we have seen many cases that abandon treatment or arrive late for it or have a loss of opportunity or compromise the family’s income. ”, he explains to COPE Rosa Arroyovice president of the WTO and coordinator of the Observatory against Pseudosciences, Pseudotherapies, Intrusism and Health Sects (OPPISS).
Very varied profile and mainly to alleviate pain
Alleviating physical pain and sometimes also mental and emotional pain is what leads most people to resort to pseudotherapies. According to a study published in 2021 by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) The profile is very varied, both old and young, men and women of any social origin and cultural level who, with pseudotherapies, seek to distance themselves from medicalization, boycott the commercial interests of pharmaceutical laboratories or receive more attention to their health problems.
Eliana She is 30 years old and for her traditional medicine is the last resort: “I only go to the doctor when I have no other choice and I avoid taking any drugs because they make me feel bad and I prefer Chinese medicine. When my back hurts I resort to cupping therapy or cupping, it relieves me and I have even learned to handle it and use it with people around me like my boyfriend. What I see is that it serves to undo the knots that form in the back and relax the tense areas.”
Your boyfriend has opted for electro acupuncture on some occasions. Ruben 32 years old: “It doesn’t cure you, but you feel a little better, they put electrodes on your legs and although I feel exhausted, it works for me. For my knee, when it hurts, I do take some spidifen.”
Andrew The 53-year-old is convinced that alternative medicine “works and is less chemical than pharmaceutical medicine. I suffer from my stomach, but I don’t take medication for reflux, I make some smoothies with vegetables that I think help me more.”
Verify who assists us and what degree of responsibility they assume
Embrace therapy, diaphragm therapy, geotherapy, metal therapy, reflexology, music therapy, laughter therapy, light therapy, vacuum therapy…, the list of possibilities is long and they are all included in the Ministry of Health that next to the Collegiate Medical Organization encourages those who consider using them to first verify from reliable sources what each one consists of, their scientific basis and their degree of effectiveness and also safety. One of the websites where it is possible to learn about these therapies and the evidence collected around each of them is #coNproof.
“They tend to be miraculous, they fall outside the framework of evidence-based medicine, and are not accessible in public and paid healthcare. There are many people who resort to them and it is difficult to quantify them because many later do not recognize it because they regret it or because they have lost their money. And all because it is always more difficult to understand a good scientific argument than to subscribe to a belief or to what you want to try or what you would like to happen,” he points out. Stream.
The viralization of social networks and the pandemic have triggered the use of these types of techniques and remedies without a scientific basis and not all patients are delighted. Only in the General Council of Psychology they receive an average that ranges between 200 and 300 complaints annually.
“Everything can have a side effect because if it does not have any potential side effect, it does not have any therapeutic effect either. The fact that there are safe techniques does not mean that they are effective either. We must go to the original sources of the information and not trust any copy and paste, see where the proposal they are making comes from and who is responsible for what may happen to us,” emphasizes the vice president of the Collegiate Medical Organization.
And to do this, he recommends, first of all, checking that the person who is assisting us is a licensed and licensed professional, without trusting the posters that hang on the wall that can be falsified. We must also ask about the scientific evidence about the technique they are proposing. And then verify everything with the official schools and also on the official pages. At risk is not only our economy but, above all, our health.
In Arroyo’s opinion, there are clear gaps in our legislation that should be corrected, since as he explains, only intrusion can be prosecuted and reported to medical associations or directly in court. The problem is that many of those who sell us these therapies and their so-called alternative medicines “many times do not even have civil liability insurance in case something happens.”
“We doctors have responsibility, we risk being sanctioned and also expelled from the association. Another person who is not a healthcare professional and who is selling anything continues to do so without any problem. The Health Products Advertising Law should also be modified because when the sales of these therapies and products are made online there is no way to report it, much less when the headquarters are outside the territory.”
Another difference between doctors and other people who are not doctors is what happens in cases of negligence. In the health system there are protocols and extensive documentation about each case, something that always happens to us with pseudotherapies.
“A person with cancer is told that they are killing him with chemo and that he should opt for an alternative therapy that is much better and without those side effects and if the patient dies no one can file a complaint, the family members cannot do so because they can only do so. the patient and it is already too late,” Arroyo laments.
There is a lack of regulation that is also demanded by the natural therapies sector.
In Spain, as in the rest of the countries, there is a growing trend towards the use of natural therapies. However, there is no specific regulation at the state level that globally regulates natural therapies, although there is more specific regulation in the field of homeopathic medicines and herbal medicines.
From the National Association of Professionals and Self-Employed in Natural Therapies (COFENAT) which brings together 13,000 professionals, remember that the most in-demand natural therapies such as osteopathy, acupuncture and homeopathy are regulated in several neighboring countries, including Portugal. They consider that its regulation in Spain is the only way to keep healers out of the sector and thereby improve the safety of citizens.
From the Collegiate Medical Organization point out that a therapy that is effective in one area may be considered pseudotherapy in another. For example, hyperbaric therapy, with a legitimate scope of application in decompressions, is a pseudotherapy in the treatment of autism and they recognize that a pseudotherapy can be a legitimate field of study without conclusive results yet.
They point out that a large part of pseudotherapies are based on immersing patients in a relaxing environment where they enjoy dedicated attention. The placebo effect generated by feeling cared for disguises the lack of effectiveness of these techniques. They denounce that by appropriating the word therapy they seek to equate it with legitimate practices such as radiotherapy or physiotherapy.
Several of the proposals are used, as reported by the WTO, as a hook or cover by sectarian-type movements that seek to separate people in vulnerable situations from their family and from any medical treatment.