Margaret McCartney: Charities should respect evidence.

Being well off and well connected is no barrier to a belief in nonsense. In fact, the more money you have, the easier it seems for healthcare professionals to liberate you from it. Justin Trudeau, Canada’s premier, created a new science post at cabinet level and is willing to explain quantum computing to a press pack. But even he undergoes cupping, an evidence-free complementary therapy used by self styled lifestyle gurus such as Gwyneth Paltrow. Reading systematic reviews, I despair at the lack of adequate evidence for this intervention. A recent supplement in the Financial Times reported on the Lanserhof medical spa in Austria, where a week’s stay costs over €3000 (£2660) for one person in the “basic” programme. The spa was described as a feast of “detoxing” with intravenous drips “to help me ‘de-acidify,’ which alongside bowel work is the big game play here.” Clients have abdominal ultrasound and undergo “bioenergetic diagnosis,” which helps to “localise dissonances in your energy field and resolve them through bioenergetic intervention and regulation.” Other interventions include being wrapped in goat butter. We could argue that allowing people to fritter their money away helps redress health inequalities if the tax they pay on such treatment funds healthcare for others. But it also exposes them to risk of harm, profits people selling quackery, and allows a societal acceptance that this sort of thing is somehow aspirational and OK.