A pressure group is being formed to oppose alternative health therapies which have no proven benefit.
Dr Graham Sharpe, a Wellington anaesthetist, said a group of GPs and non-medical critics of medical "quackery" would meet next week to get the new organisation under way.
He said it would be a "nuts and bolts" meeting aimed at preparing for a more public launch.
Dr Sharpe rejected comparison to a kind of "Sceptics Society," saying that was a more philosophical viewpoint, whereas his group would be prepared to prosecute medical health carers who were not working "in the public good."
"A lot of nonsense is being peddled in the guise of alternative health care," he said, with reference to his recent criticism of colonic irrigation in the New Zealand Medical Journal.
Dr Sharpe said the medical profession had been criticised in the past for "protecting its own patch" so the as-yet-unnamed group was inviting non-medical members.
Last month, the Government set up an advisory committee on "complementary health care," with a brief which included possible regulations for alternative health care and an investigation into areas that could complement conventional medicine.
- NZPA
Group to fight medical 'quackery'
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