“Well-being practices” based on pseudoscience have met with certain success in France. Of course, not all of them are fundamentally dangerous, can even bring comfort to their users. Everyone is free to use them and believe in their benefits, even if these are not proven. But it happens that practitioners deceive their clients, invent care claims in defiance of the facts demonstrated by scientific studies, or even lead them into sectarian aberrations. And the cases are many. For lack of interest, means or knowledge, the lack of reactivation of the health authorities and justice leaves in any case the families of victims distraught. So who can and should fight against charlatans?
Citizens and health professionals are trying to organize themselves on social networks and in associations. Some choose to publicly denounce dubious or dangerous practices, others to make a state of the science in order to compare the claims of care and the reality on the ground, drawing a clear line between medicine based on scientific evidence and the rest, so that the general public is well informed. Among them, the (No)FakeMed collective, created in 2018, which brings together many health professionals. If they made themselves known for their fight which led to the reimbursement of homeopathy, moreover supported by L’Express, they did not stop there. Acupuncture, auriculotherapy, chiropractic, sophrology, reiki, etc. : almost nothing escapes their radar. Interview with Pierre de Bremond d’Ars, general practitioner and president of (No)FakeMed.
L’Express: How did you come up with the idea of creating your collective?
Pierre de Bremond d’Ars: At the beginning, we were several caregivers who exchanged regularly on Twitter and we realized that we were wasting a lot of time during our care to break down received ideas, to explain what homeopathy really was, to explain that visceral osteopathy made no sense, to take just a few examples. On the strength of this observation, we decided at the start of the 2018 school year to write a forum addressed mainly to institutions and in particular to the National Council of the Order of Physicians to put an end to this mixing of genres allowing doctors to assert a title of homeopath. , acupuncturist or mesotherapist. We wanted it to be reimbursed, and above all to limit institutional recognition by universities and hospitals.
Following this platform, some of us received ordinal complaints sent by various unions of homeopaths and others. To these complaints were added threats of additional complaints, at the rate of two per week, as long as we did not present a public apology to an obscure category union. To respond to this blackmail and this legal instrumentation, we decided to organize ourselves as a collective, following the rules of an association under the 1901 law. This organization also enabled us to respond to multiple media requests and thus display our diversity.
But the attacks have not stopped for all that, since they have punctuated your daily life since your creation. What were the most significant?
The first threats were those of the unions of homeopaths, as I said. If they were able to frighten some of us at the very start, they quickly revolted and then galvanized us. Even if this dates back to 2018, everything is not yet over in 2022: most of the final court decisions rendered are in our favor, but others are pending or under appeal. We therefore continue to follow these files closely.
For our part, we filed an ordinal complaint against Ms. Martine Wonner who, beyond her status as a parliamentarian which gave her a place and a platform, used her profession as a doctor to disseminate massively and in a repeated false health information throughout the pandemic, whether on masks or vaccines for example. It was time for someone to stand up to remind us that being a health professional also means having obligations regarding the information we give to the general public during our speeches. There too, we are awaiting a passage with the disciplinary chamber of first instance.
Threats continue, such as harassment on certain social networks, and attempts at intimidation, like the gratuitous aggression by Eric Chabrière [NDLR : un professeur de biochimie, farouche défenseur de l’ex-directeur de l’IHU de Marseille, Didier Raoult] against a member of the collective, when he was talking about a personal subject. But our caravan continues on its way.
What motivates you to keep this course despite these attacks?
The motivations are and remain everyone’s health, as well as the right to fair, reliable and fair health information. It is increasingly important, at a time when the lobbying of pseudo-medicine is becoming more and more intensive and intrusive with certain politicians and ministers, to obtain media and above all institutional coverage of the battles being waged against charlatans and proponents of alternative medicine. The sectarian drift is ultimately never very far.
Who are the members of (No)FakeMed?
The collective, which was called FakeMed at the time, is mainly made up of health professionals, to which are added sympathizers wishing to help, each in their own way. We are mostly doctors, but also pharmacists, midwives, nurses, physiotherapists, dental surgeons, in particular, practicing in private practice, in clinics, in public hospitals, and for some in the university. We have always wanted within the collective to assert a plural face, representing the diversity of our demands. The objective is not to bring out outstanding individuals but rather a strong message.
The members of the collective believe that medicine must adapt its practices to the facts and seek to disseminate these facts by popularizing it on the Internet and in the media.
NoFakeMed
After the Covid period, we have all been overloaded with our professional activities, but have tried to maintain the activity of the collective, which is all the more essential in view of the place taken by charlatans during the pandemic, and the massive dissemination false health information. The association is now called Collectif NoFakeMed and is made up of 200 members. Its board of directors includes general practitioners, specialists, hospital practitioners, a physiotherapist and a dental surgeon.
Some critics argued as early as 2018, and still today, that you were a group of ultra-connected young doctors organizing themselves in particular on Discord, a messaging system widely used among video game enthusiasts. They did not hesitate to mock this otherwise assumed “geek” side.
I’m not sure we’ve been mocked for being connected, but there’s no denying that the relative “youth” of some of our members has been heavily targeted by our opponents. Our knowledge of social networks allowed us to go into a field that is usually the target of “slippers” [NDLR : thérapeutes qui dérapent] and so-called “alternative” manipulators. A field neglected by institutions, orders, and health authorities. We were therefore able to point out inadmissible deviations and still observe today that in this field, the health authorities remain relatively powerless.
Our geek side may make you smile, but everyone can see the seriousness of our work and the quality of our publications. The discourse with the general public should not be left to the slippers who often master the principles of communication and the rudiments of manipulation. We are health professionals, not image professionals. So, obviously, all this is learned and for this purpose, we exchange a lot, using the means of today and in particular the social networks. They are also good ways to discuss the various social issues that are close to our hearts and of interest to us, starting with issues of prevention, care and public health. Yes, we are connected, but it is essential to be in 2022.
And you are now interviewed by the Ministry of Health in the context of the “Doctolib controversy” which broke out after health professionals – including members of your collective – were indignant to find, on the main platform for taking medical appointments in France, the presence in particular of naturopaths trained by personalities giving dangerous, even illegal advice: is this an accomplishment?
In 2018, after our forum castigating unconventional care practices, the Minister of Health at the time, Agnès Buzyn, seized the High Authority for Health (HAS) to settle the debate concerning the interest of reimbursement. of homeopathy. On this occasion already, we had submitted a file to the HAS, in order to be heard and that the institution goes in our direction.
Similarly, in 2022, we were received by the Minister of Solidarity and Health, Olivier Véran, to express our concern about the massive dissemination of false health information, as well as the significant number of abuses. sectarian originating in a request for care, denounced by the Miviludes [NDLR : Mission interministérielle de vigilance et de lutte contre les dérives sectaires].
It seems to us that our positions, massively based on respect for ethics and elementary scientific bases in medical research as in medicine, are not at fault for the moment. It is a logical continuation, that today, the authorities and institutions, including the Orders of health professionals, exchange with us around these questions of health, unconventional care practices, health abuses and others.
What are the next fights you want to lead?
Our work is part of time: charlatans are multiplying, their practices are diversifying, and a lot of false health information is still being disseminated. We will have to continue to inform, share and popularize knowledge, as well as to exchange with institutions and the media.
We will continue to ensure that the public can benefit from reliable and solid information, in order to make good choices for their health, both physical and mental. For this, we will continue to create content on our website www.nofakemed.fr and on social networks, to meet with institutions so that prevention and treatment proposals are based on evidence, to monitor and issue the alert on slippers, charlatanic practices, fake news and the risks of sectarian aberrations. And we will continue to be independent, especially vis-à-vis pharmaceutical companies.