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"Quackery" outlawed in registered pharmacy

A serious loophole in Britain's medicines laws has been closed by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society after a disciplinary hearing in which a widely sold alternative therapy was described as unscientific "quackery."

The society's statutory committee last month warned registered pharmacists that they would be struck off if they associated themselves "in any way" with a remedy called "spagyrik therapy." Spagyrik therapy, sold by Signalysis of Stroud, Gloucestershire, is described as a "system of diagnosis and treatment in one" and has been marketed particularly at people with a life threatening or chronic illness. The process entails distilling then evaporating a blood and urine sample and examining the resulting ash under a microscope to produce "an individualised patient oriented diagnosis." The ash is then mixed with herbs, diluted, and posted back for oral administration to the patient.

The company operates through a large national network of "practitioners"–some of whom are registered medical doctors–who take samples and administer the remedies to patients.

At a series of hearings, the company claimed that its sale of spagyrik liquids as medicinal products was lawful without a product licence because they were produced at a registered pharmacy and under the supervision of a superintending pharmacist, Mrs Jacqueline Wells.

The committee found Mrs Wells guilty of serious professional misconduct which "renders her unfit to be on the register." However, she has been given until October to resign from the company, and if she does so she will face a reprimand instead.

The directors of Signalysis, Kenneth Spellman, a retired town planner, and Rosemary Spellman, who ran the service, were told that they were guilty of "misconduct" under the Medicines Act. Their premises would no longer be registered as a pharmacy. Had they been pharmacists they would have been struck off, the committee ruled. They had been "practising quackery from the premises of a licensed pharmacy."

The committee concluded that the "spagyrik treatment and therapy has no pharmacological basis at all." It added: "It is not supported by any clinical trials. It is not scientific. It has no credible or respectable place in scientific literature."

Signalysis had also claimed exemption under the Medicines Act because the company employs and uses medical doctors. Dr Alec Forbes, a registered medical practitioner and the former medical director of the Bristol Cancer Help Centre, was listed on stationery as the company's medical consultant. The committee did not further consider the position of registered doctors who prescribe spagyrik therapy or who act as advisers to the company.

The committee conceded that Mr and Mrs Spellman had "over the years responded to criticism and altered their presentation of the therapy." Although "their references suggest that they are well intentioned and compassionate people," what they had done was "reprehensible."

Mr and Mrs Spellman had originally claimed that "in all chronic illnesses regarded as incurable, spagyrik is able to offer help and the alleviation of pain" and that it had a "high success rate ... in practically all illnesses of humans."

These and similar claims were dismissed as "exceptionally dangerous nonsense" by Dr Charles Shepherd, a Gloucestershire GP who had provided most of the evidence which the committee considered. "If they could do any of that, they would be in line for the Nobel prize. I am very glad that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society shares my view on this quackery. I hope that the General Medical Council will now look at the role of registered medical practitioners in this affair." He added: "Spagyrik was clearly being aimed at very vulnerable patients, many of whom may not have had a precise diagnosis. They were being relieved of their savings rather than their suffering."

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