Yesterday I wrote up what I'd been able to find out on the web about "Friends of Science in Medicine" (FoSiM) - but it only begs more questions without any good answers. For a lobby group espousing the Scientific method in its very name and demanding the highest standards of evidence and rigour of others, this absence of transparency, rigour and completeness should be anathema. That it hasn't been addressed in a month starts to suggest this is no accident.
It's a long piece (3,000 wds) and, disturbingly, I could find few hard facts, only rather a lot of uncorroborated snippets. It's mostly "all smoke and mirrors".
Monday 30th January, 2012, I heard Fran Kelly of ABC Radio National, interview Prof. John Dwyer and Dr. Kerryn Phelps in "New lobby opposes teaching alternative medicine" and audio download.
Really interesting and important stuff, more so that someone whom I respect and consider a 'serious' journalist should seek to interview a former professor of Medicine and Oncology [in places falsely attributed as "Cervical Cancer Vaccine creator" - that was Ian Frazer, also a member of FoSiM] and an ex-President of the AMA and a very high-profile leader of "Integrative Medicine" in Australia.
I jumped on the 'Net and tried to find out more, but drew a blank.
Even though there has now been significant coverage in the mainstream media and a veritable barrage on-line, it's very difficult to get any information, let alone good answers, on anything to do with this lobby group.
Even something as simple as: "Who are you and what do you stand for?"
On-line, they are a vague, shadowy, even slippery group.
The ASIC "National Names" database has them incorporated in NSW (INC9896756) on 13-Feb 2012, which isn't consistent with the claim from "Quack Treatments Duck for Cover" republished/included by Neil Johnston.
It is all welcome news to the Friends of Science in Medicine (FSM), an Australian organisation formed in December of 2011...
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