I heard a rather frustrating radio broadcast a while ago on BBC Essex and sent them an email to complain. Here is the correspondence;

I recently took the time to tune into the BBC Essex Mid Morning programme on which there was a segment about the mystical practice of Reiki. In this segment the Reiki practitioner claimed she could heal animals with Reiki, the presenter said that we all have an electrical field around us and the Reiki practitioner then went onto say that all objects have an electrical field around them and have an ‘energy’. She did not offer any emperical evidence or further information about what this energy is or indeed to support her claims that she could heal animals by waving her hands over the top of them.

I do not feel that a letter of complaint is the correct medium for me to offer the evidence to refute these claims. Suffice to say that there is a wealth of material available online should your researchers had taken the time to read it. A cursory email or call to Sense About Science, (http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/) an independent charitable trust set up promote evidence and scientific reasoning in public discussion, might have provided you with the necessary information with which to responsibly present a segment on alternative ‘medicine’.

As a major news and entertainment outlet the BBC has a responsibility to its listeners to provide accurate information. I considered this segment an advert for spiritualism and an alternative medicine that has been proven time and time again not to work better than a placebo. Your presenter clearly had no intention of questioning this guest sceptically and was more than happy to support her claims and give her a platform on which to advertise her pseudoscience.  

At no point in the segment was it suggested that should you have an animal in need of medical care that you should first consult a vet. I feel that it is incredibly irresponsible of you to imply that going to a Reiki healer is an effective and responsible way of providing treatment for animals.

I would suggest in the future that if you are going to talk about alternative ‘medicine’ for animals or people then you offer your listeners an expert’s advice such as a vet or doctor who is aware of the placebo effect and the post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning for which these treatments exploit as evidence for their claims.

It would be reassuring to hear some sort of concession on your part that this segment was poorly researched and that you will be doing everything in the future to ensure that this does not happen again.

Here is the response written by the Assistant Editor in the absence of the Editor:

I’m sorry you were unhappy with the item we featured about reiki for horses. I’ve now had a chance to listen to the interview.

The feature was a description of an event which took place at a horse sanctuary in Essex.

There was no mention of reiki as a substitute for veterinary medicine, nor was there mention of reiki being the only medical treatment provided for the horses in the horse sanctuary. The guest did say that reiki was “effective,” and also claimed the owner of the sanctuary has seen her vet bills go down.

I am happy that the interview was a straightforward piece about a recent event.

While I am pleased that the Assistant Editor took the time to listen to the segment again, and satisfied with her description of the piece she completely misses the point. Whether the reporting was of an event that took place is irrelevant, my complaint still stands that this was platform for which a pseudoscientific practitioner had to promote her particular brand of woo. Despite not specifically saying that Reiki was a substitute for veterinary medicine I think the implication was there, particularly given that they claimed the owners vets bills had gone down. It is a great shame that stuff like this continues to be broadcast at all and especially when the presenters don’t even bother to ask one sceptical question.

I did not follow up this email but maybe they will remember my complaint and recommendation to contact Sense about Science next time they plan on advertising woo.