Free The Best Australian Science Writing 2012 by Elizabeth Finkel Page A

provides the infrastructure for the delivery of all kinds of services that we rely on in our lives, but it is a network that few us can ever hope to ‘travel’ on ourselves. What unites Jim Carter and other theoretical outsiders is their belief that the freeways of fundamental physics are a public resource. Not only do these men want access to those roads; they insist that the vehicles they build themselves are just as legitimate as any of the insiders’ fancy automobiles.

    Outsiders
    Beating gravity

The ill-effects of quackery v scientific evidence
    Cassandra Wilkinson
    Following the untimely death of Steve Jobs there has been continuing speculation about the extent to which his treatment was critically delayed by early efforts to employ alternative medicine.
    Fortune magazine reported that the Apple founder had tried to treat his condition with alternative therapies for nine months. When these efforts proved futile, he had a Whipple procedure, a liver transplant and surgery to remove a tumour. Walter Isaacson, who wrote Jobs’s authorised biography, has said publicly that Jobs understood at the end that he had made a mistake.
    It’s not clear from second-hand reports exactly what Jobs was doing, but it appears to have required at one point that meals be prepared without pans. This may sound like the kind of eccentricity we expect from genius but, disturbingly, a large number of mainstream Australians are putting their faith in unproven health treatments.
    Vitamin company Blackmores courted controversy with its launch of a pharmacy-only range of what it described as ‘complementary treatments’, which it proposed would be recommended by pharmacists in conjunction with prescription medication. The company claimed the treatments were ‘products that are backedby scientific evidence’. Facing criticism that these products had no proof of efficacy, Marcus Blackmore argued: ‘Any criticism of their potential benefit highlights the need for further healthcare professional education.’ Which basically means anyone who doesn’t agree with him needs to be educated on how to agree with him.
    Blackmore went on to say: ‘Consumers are well protected by one of the strictest regulatory systems in the world under which every manufacturer must hold the evidence to support the claims they make.’
    This claim is certainly true of companies that make actual medicine. It’s far less true of companies that sell ‘alternative therapies’ and ‘complementary medicine’. Under Australian law, complementary medicines are not assessed for efficacy but companies must certify to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) that they hold evidence of their claims.
    Carol Bennett, chief executive of Consumers Health Forum, points out that the National Prescribing Service has reported that most producers fail to meet compliance requirements, 33 per cent have had their listing cancelled by the TGA and 15 per cent of products have been withdrawn when informed that TGA was investigating their claims. She wrote in Crikey : ‘A large number of these products are little more than placebos. Almost all complementary medicines are able to obtain the [TGA’s] Australian label, whether they work or not.’
    Ken Harvey, of La Trobe University’s school of public health, writing in Australian Prescriber , summed up the problem as ‘a proliferation of products of dubious efficacy, with promotional claims that cannot be substantiated’.
    Notwithstanding this, and despite criticism by the Australian Medical Association, most private health insurers cover complementary medicines including, for instance, homeopathy. Leaked reports recently suggested that the National Health andMedical Research Council was considering declaring homeopathy baseless and unethical ‘for the reason that homeopathy (as a medicine or procedure) has been shown not to be efficacious’.