The Western Australia branch of the Cancer Council has been nominated for the 2024 Bent Spoon award for the promotion of pseudoscience, in this case offering therapies based on the pseudoscience of reiki and reflexology.
The Cancer Council WA is a registered charity with the stated purpose of working “with our community to reduce the incidence and the impact of cancer” based on “the most solid foundation of evidence available in every practice we embrace”.
While the Cancer Council nationally reviews “complementary” therapies in its publications, in some cases highlighting doubts about their efficacy, the WA branch offers free complementary therapies to cancer patients and their families, the choice “guided by evidence-based best practice and research”. (None of the other state-based Councils seems to offer these therapies.)
The WA Council says that “Complementary therapies such as massage, beauty therapies, and reiki, are used in conjunction with conventional medical treatments and are increasingly considered an important part of supportive care, that helps people address a wide range of challenges beyond medical treatment or cancer. They aim to improve general wellbeing, quality of life and can help people to cope with the side effects of cancer.”
It adds that the therapies it offers have “demonstrated safety for use with people affected by cancer”, which is not surprising if they do nothing that might be considered invasive, let alone a therapy.
The inclusion of reiki, which is a system in which the practitioner passes their hands through the air over the patient, often without touching them, supposedly to help “balance” their energy flows, is particularly concerning for an organisation designed to help people during and after their diagnosis for cancer and subsequent evidence-based treatment.
The WA Council describes reiki as “a system involving the laying on of hands, developed in Japan in the early 20th century and is believed to have the capacity to bring balance to the physical, body, mind, emotional and spiritual aspects of an individual. … Research has found that the effect of reiki can be demonstrated through changes to a recipient’s biology after they have received reiki for 30 minutes. Changes to biological markers suggest that Reiki can contribute to a decrease in anxiety and an increase in relaxation.”
It says of reflexology, a system of massaging the soles of the feet for supposed nerve-based links to other parts of the body, that “Clinical trials have shown that reflexology reduces pain and anxiety and helps improve quality of life, particularly for those receiving palliative care.”
In contrast to the WA branch, the NSW Cancer Council says about reiki that “There is no reliable evidence that reiki has any benefits. Anecdotal reports suggest that reiki is calming and relaxing, often helping to relieve pain and anxiety, reduce stiffness and improve posture.”
It adds of ‘healing touch’, a general description of non-contact ‘energy-based’ treatments which include reiki, that “There is no scientific evidence of an energy field or that energy therapies have any benefits.”
Reiki and reflexology were also recently included in the list of therapies no longer covered by the NDIS.
“Quality of life” is one aspect of the WA Council’s offering, though intrinsic to that must be the hope of patients that these “therapies” will help them in the treatment process.
Tim Mendham, executive officer of Australian Skeptics, said “There are many treatments which could offer an improvement to quality of life, but not all of them claim to be medically-valid or based on a ‘solid foundation of evidence’.
“The council also offers massage and beauty therapy services, and while these could be seen to offer a ‘calming’ benefit, they do not claim to be efficacious in actually treating cancer.”
The Skeptics’ Bent Spoon is awarded to the “perpetrator of the most preposterous piece of paranormal or pseudoscientific piffle” of the year and has been awarded since 1982. Past winners include the ABC, SBS, ‘Paleo’ Pete Evans, Walkley award-winning journalist Ross Coulthart (who is nominated again this year), the Australian Vaccination Network, RMIT and Wollongong Universities, and a psychic dentist.
The winner this year will be announced during Skepticon, the Skeptics’ annual convention, to be held at the University of Technology, Sydney, from November 23-24. This will be the 40th consecutive convention for the Skeptics, thus earning itself the nickname of Skepticon XL.
The Cancer Council WA’s description of its free therapies can be found at tinyurl.com/cancerwacomplementary.
