The German adult education centers also make a significant contribution to the dissemination of questionable and unscientific healing methods such as homeopathy, Bach flowers and Schuessler salts.
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Issue 34/2018
Hocus-pocus - get away!
Healers, gurus, charlatans - The boom of alternative medicineDigital Edition | Printed Issue | Apps | SUBSCRIPTION
This was the result of a comprehensive data analysis by SPIEGEL, in which the health programs available online at a certain date were evaluated by around 350 of the approximately 900 adult education centers (VHS). (Read the whole story in the new SPIEGEL here.)
Courses on ayurveda for hypertension and acupressure in dogs, gemstone healing, kinesiology, singing bowl massage, aromatherapy, laughter and hormone yoga, meridian stretching, chakra dance, Lomi Lomi, cupping and spagyric. Edzard Ernst, Emeritus Professor of Complementary Medicine at the University of Exeter, gave the SPIEGEL a detailed evaluation of the 33 questionable procedures that were most frequently found in VHS.
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From acupressure to laughing yoga methods of alternative medicine in check
- In every fifth adult education course in the important program section Diseases / Healing Methods, the SPIEGEL analysis revealed, a questionable alternative medical procedure is taught.
- More than every eighth course even concerns a form of therapy that is completely ineffective or scientifically not even studied.
The VHS Erfurt was on the survey date of all examined Adult Education centers the one with the most questionable alternative medicine offers, the VHS Leipzig offers the fewest of such courses: There is only every 23rd course offer.
All employees of the VHS Erfurt, explains their director Torsten Hass, are "open to any topic, which corresponds to our quality standards and our municipal educational mission and is in demand by the citizens".
"Otherwise you could also offer courses in car breaks"
It is absurd, if the VHS offers "contribute to the national stupidity," complains Edzard Ernst. There had to be clear standards. "Otherwise one could also offer courses in tax evasion or car-quacks, because the demand would certainly be great."
The SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach is appalled by the results of the SPIEGEL analysis. He expected "a functioning quality control by the adult education centers, based on scientific studies."
About 60 percent of the education in community colleges is financed by public funds, which come from the municipalities, but also from the federal and EU states.
"Adult education centers have to be able to control themselves adequately," says Jürgen Windeler, head of the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care, which scientifically evaluates medicines and healing methods. "And if self-regulation does not work, you should think about canceling public money for VHS courses on questionable cures."
Although most adult education centers have introduced quality management systems, the Federal Health Working Group of the German Adult Education Association has written a 19-page paper with recommendations on program structure. But these measures are voluntary.
The German Adult Education Association is of the opinion that scientific evidence is "not the sole criterion for the legitimacy of a learning content". In addition, doctors also applied the classified as questionable treatment, and health insurance companies were "not fundamentally different from these methods".
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