Alternative medicine's most loyal (and royal) advocate… The pilloried Prince's noble crusade marches on! Time for an update in the ongoing saga of what I call the Modern-day Battle of Britain: The struggle between the conventional medicine doled out meagerly and after horrendous waiting and paperwork by the tired, socialized British medical system, and alternative ("complementary" in UK lingo) medicine techniques advocated by the high-profile, yet largely powerless Royal family. To recap: In the recent past, I've written about the Queen Mum's unprecedented selection of an alternative medicine advocate as her personal physician (Daily Dose, 5/11/204), likely due in no small part to the influence of Prince Charles, himself among the world's most outspoken advocates of naturopathic remedies. I've also kept you informed about the Prince's own machinations within the UK's ponderous system to try and bring complementary therapies to the masses (Daily Dose, 8/9/2005). These efforts included the formation of the Foundation for Integrated Health, a new adjunct to the UK's department of health (called the DHS). The sole purpose of this new entity is to research and promote complementary medical techniques so that Britons will be able to benefit from ALL of medicine, not just the pill and scalpel variety. Yet despite recent polls from the BBCNews and others showing… - 71% of "John Bulls" wanted more information on complementary therapies like herbal medicine, chiropractic, and hypnotherapy
- 38% feared their conventional doctors' reactions to these types of treatments
- 85% of British GPs claim not to know enough about complementary therapies to advise their patients
…elements of the notoriously vicious British press last year attacked the Prince's alt-medicine stance, gleefully re-publishing a letter from one of the UK's leading cancer specialists that ridiculed Charles to the entire medical community! But despite the media's continuing portrayal of him as a spoiled, passion-less, air-brained gadabout, "Bonnie Prince Charlie" is hanging tough - and even advancing his agenda in spite of opposition from the tabloids and the European Union (read more on this in Daily Dose, 8/9/2005). Keep reading, and take heart… **************************************************** Despite his repeated thrashing in the media, the maligned monarch commissioned the former chief economics advisor to London's prestigious Barclay's Bank to compile a report of the estimated savings that integrating complementary medicine into the mainstream medical system in Britain would yield. Among the report's findings: - Up to 3.5 billion pounds (6.3 billion dollars) could be realized by offering JUST ONE alternative medicine treatment - chiropractic care - as a standard option for back pain under NHS guidelines
- As much as 480 million pounds (850 million dollars) could be shaved from prescription costs if just 10 PERCENT of GPs would begin offering homeopathic alternatives to drugs. As one example of this…
- A full 38 million pounds (around 75 million dollars) could be saved by switching appropriate depression patients from antidepressants to Saint John's Wort
According to the AFP (Britain's answer to the AP) article, the report is scheduled to be delivered to the DHS this month. But only time will tell whether the medical mainstream in the UK (not to mention the media) will be swayed by the dollars of the matter… They certainly aren't persuaded by sense. Always "complementary" of the Prince's principles, William Campbell Douglass II, MD | 
