King Charles III Has a History of Promoting ‘Quackery’ Alternative Medicine – Newsweek

Before he became Britain's monarch, King Charles III faced criticism over the years for promoting alternative medical therapies and treatments.

In 2019 for example, he received pushback for becoming a patron of the Faculty of Homeopathy.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, homeopathy "believes that using extremely minute diluted amounts of plants and minerals can help the body repair itself by promoting healing." Though popular, the Cleveland Clinic says that "there's no strong evidence for homeopathy's effectiveness greater than a placebo."

"We have been reminded only recently that plenty of homeopaths claim to be able to treat autism and discourage vaccination," Michael Marshall, of the Good Thinking Societya nonprofit organization that is self-described as "pro-evidence" and dedicated to combating "pseudoscience"said in 2019, according to The Guardian.

"If Prince Charles wants to have a genuine positive effect on the health of the nation he intends to one day rule, he should side against those who offer dangerously misleading advice, rather than fighting their corner," Marshall added.

Edzard Ernst, a former professor of complementary medicine at Exeter University, has frequently criticized King Charles III, writing a book about the royal's support of alternative medicine entitled Charles, the Alternative Prince: An Unauthorised Biography.

"Prince Charles contributes to the ill-health of the nation by pretending we can all over-indulge, then take his tincture and be fine again," Ernst said in 2009, according to Reuters. "Under the banner of holistic and integrative healthcare he thus promotes a 'quick fix' and outright quackery," Ernst added.

In a statement published by CNN in 2019 when King Charles III became the patron of the Faculty of Homeopathy, a spokesperson for the royal said the then-prince "believes that safe and effective, complementary medicine can play an important role in healthcare systems, as long as approaches are integrated with conventional treatments, a position he has reached after years of talking to experts in many different areas of medicine."

Newsweek has reached out to Buckingham Palace for comment.

The BBC reported in 2014 that an ex-cabinet minister claimed then-Prince Charles had asked him to press Welsh officials to add complementary medicine to the U.K.'s National Health Service.

"He had been constantly frustrated at his inability to persuade any health ministers anywhere that that was a good idea, and so he, as he once described it to me, found me unique from this point of view, in being somebody that actually agreed with him on this, and might want to deliver it," the former cabinet minister Peter Hain said, according to the BBC.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, complementary medicine "is a term used to describe types of treatments you may receive along with traditional Western medicine."

The BBC noted that a report commissioned by King Charles III that was published in 2005 found that the use of complementary therapies should be expanded within the National Health Service.

King Charles III became Britain's monarch after Queen Elizabeth II died Thursday at the age of 96. After his mother's death, the king said that he wants members of the royal family to observe official royal mourning for a week following her funeral.

Original post:

King Charles III Has a History of Promoting 'Quackery' Alternative Medicine - Newsweek