The Spanish government has announced plans to eliminate alternative medicine from health centres and universities. The move is being presented as a “pioneering offensive” to ban ‘pseudo-therapies’ from public funded health venues, and Spain is calling on other EU members to rally behind it.
The proposal was unveiled earlier this month by science and health ministers from Spain’s newly formed socialist government, led by prime minister Pedro Sánchez.
Government officials have not specified exactly what will fall under the label ‘alternative medicine’, but mention has made of homeopathy and acupuncture.
“Public and private establishments that include pseudo-therapies will not be able to call themselves health centers,” commented Health Minister Maria Luisa Carcedo.
“The government considers that, besides not working, pseudo-therapies “negatively affect health by perpetuating illnesses, causing others or even increasing the risk of death.” According to the government, they do this by “encouraging a person to substitute or delay taking conventional medicine of proven safety and effectiveness,” which “reduces the effectiveness of these (conventional) treatments.”
As well as eliminating CAM approaches from health centres and hospitals, the government’s new initiative – which it calls the Health Protection Plan Against Pseudo-therapies – wants to end the teaching of alternative medicine in Spanish universities.
The Spanish government’s intervention comes two months after 400 Spanish scientists signed an open letter calling for action against pseudo-science following the death of a cancer patient who refused traditional medicine.
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