Abstract
Is it all right to argue with the Prince of Wales? Or, if not treasonable is it disrespectful? I hope not because while there is nothing wrong with our future king being consensual or imperious (and what is the point of monarchy without a bit of imperium?), if he wishes to engage in controversy he should be prepared to engage in debate like everybody else.
He seems a good man with good intentions. No doubt so were the wise ancients who believed disease was punishment from the gods or caused by disturbances in humours or meridians. So were the inventors of thalidomide.
The problem is that Charles wants science when it comes up with the answers he wants but anecdote and spiritualism when it does not.
In so-called conventional medicine it is not ethical to give people treatments that have been shown not to work. Is he proposing that we should give patients treatments for which there is no empirical proof of efficacy, and do so without coming clean to them about disappointing contra-evidence?
As for compassion, yes resources are squeezed and sadly that can mean compassion is sometimes marginalized. But the National Health Service remains the most popular institution in Britain because on the whole it cares for people very well.
What we can all agree on is the inter-connectedness of injury, disease, pain, unhappiness and lack of self-esteem. That is why science has led to treatments that go beyond the physical including cognitive-behavioural therapy. But that does not mean vaccination was only a partial treatment for smallpox, or that Paracetamol is not normally the only necessary remedy for headaches.
HRH has more influence than most. It is a shame he uses it to promote ‘integrative’ health which really seeks to insinuate Pre-Enlightenment quackery back into mainstream medicine.
Footnotes
Competing interests None declared