Un­der the laws of T&T, it is il­le­gal to rep­re­sent one­self as a med­ical prac­ti­tion­er with­out the req­ui­site qual­i­fi­ca­tions. Yet, every week, al­ter­na­tive med­i­cine sell­ers do ex­act­ly that on ra­dio pro­grammes. So Dr Claude Khan, speak­ing at the South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty's sym­po­sium for World Di­a­betes Day on Mon­day, was quite cor­rect in say­ing that such peo­ple should be put in jail.

"There are peo­ple with­out one day of med­ical train­ing who are sell­ing drugs to di­a­bet­ics," Dr Khan said. "That is crim­i­nal. They should be locked up."

Sec­tion 22 (1) (b) of the Med­ical Board Act states that, "Any per­son not be­ing a mem­ber of the Board or the hold­er of a tem­po­rary li­cence who as­sumes or us­es the ti­tle 'doc­tor,' 'sur­geon,' or 'physi­cian' or any af­fix or pre­fix in­dica­tive of any such ti­tle as an oc­cu­pa­tion­al des­ig­na­tion re­lat­ing to the prac­tice of med­i­cine; (c) ad­ver­tis­es or holds him­self out as a per­son au­tho­rised or qual­i­fied to prac­tise med­i­cine or surgery; or (d) pur­ports to prac­tise med­i­cine, is li­able on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion to a fine of ten thou­sand dol­lars and to im­pris­on­ment for two years."

Many of the pur­vey­ors of al­ter­na­tive med­i­cine prod­ucts use the ti­tle "Doc­tor" in their ra­dio and tele­vi­sion ad­ver­tise­ments, even though their so-called de­grees, usu­al­ly from non-ac­cred­it­ed in­sti­tu­tions, are in un­sci­en­tif­ic fields like natur­opa­thy or home­opa­thy. Many of their ads bold­ly state that they can cure all ill­ness­es. So it is more rather than less like­ly that these herbal­ists have con­tributed to the deaths of sick peo­ple who might oth­er­wise have sought prop­er med­ical treat­ment.

"The Med­ical Board should put things in place to pre­vent the mis­in­for­ma­tion that is go­ing out," Dr Khan sug­gest­ed, but, un­for­tu­nate­ly, coun­ter­act­ing this scourge is not so sim­ple. For one thing, pro­vid­ing sound ed­u­ca­tion to the pub­lic on med­ical mat­ters would re­quire more ad­ver­tis­ing than the al­ter­na­tive health prac­ti­tion­ers–and who is go­ing to foot that bill?

More­over, peo­ple are more in­clined to be­lieve un­sci­en­tif­ic mes­sages which of­fer hope of a sure cure than more bal­anced in­for­ma­tion from re­al doc­tors and sci­en­tists which might on­ly of­fer man­age­ment of the dis­ease. Even the late Steve Jobs, un­de­ni­ably a very bright man, died at the age of 56 be­cause he ini­tial­ly turned to al­ter­na­tive med­i­cine for his pan­cre­at­ic can­cer where­as, had he sought prop­er med­ical treat­ment ear­ly, he would have stood a good chance of be­ing alive to­day.

It should be not­ed, how­ev­er, that not all the pre­scrip­tions of­fered by al­ter­na­tive med­i­cine prac­ti­tion­ers are use­less. Many of them rec­om­mend di­et change to their clients, es­pe­cial­ly re­duc­ing con­sump­tion of sug­ar, white flour and white rice. Apart from the place­bo ef­fect, this alone may be re­spon­si­ble for any ac­tu­al im­prove­ments in health. The prob­lem aris­es when these peo­ple dis­cour­age their clients from go­ing to qual­i­fied doc­tors.

What can be done? The an­swer is not to ban al­ter­na­tive med­i­cine sell­ers out­right. Af­ter all, peo­ple should have the choice to waste their mon­ey, but that choice needs to be an in­formed one. It would there­fore send a strong mes­sage if the au­thor­i­ties make an ex­am­ple of the more promi­nent herbal­ists and natur­opaths who have been us­ing the ti­tle "Doc­tor" il­le­gal­ly.

But, per­haps more im­por­tant­ly, the me­dia which car­ry the in­fomer­cials for these peo­ple should man­date that they not rep­re­sent them­selves as med­ical ex­perts and, per­haps, al­so in­clude a dis­claimer that the prod­ucts ad­ver­tised have not been sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly test­ed.

At the very least, all par­ties to this sharp prac­tice might save them­selves an ex­pen­sive law­suit.