The Official College of Physicians of Girona has denounced the promotion of acts linked to pseudosciences in health and has demanded rigor and responsibility from public administrations and health centers when they support activities in this field. The entity has set its position after the celebration last week in Palamós of a talk by Xevi Verdaguer organized by the Department of Youth of the City Council.
In a statement, the COMG reaffirms its commitment to medicine based on scientific evidence, the protection of patients, and the defense of good professional practice. The college considers it necessary to preserve health information that is clear, truthful, and responsible, especially when it is directed at vulnerable groups or is presented with the appearance of biomedical legitimacy.
Petition to the Palamós City Council
The school has explained that it recently asked the Palamós City Council for the cancellation of the talk titled Habits and nutrition to improve the energy and performance of our sons and daughters. Despite that request, the activity ended up being held last week.
The conference was organized by the Department of Youth of the council. In the promotion of the event, the City Council presented Xevi Verdaguer as a nutritionist and physiotherapist, in addition to being a specialist in Psychoneuroimmunoendocrinology, known by the acronym PNIE.
The Palamós City Council has indicated that the speaker offered the conference as a nutritionist and maintains that the content of the talk was adapted to the program organized by the council.
Warning about PNI and serotherapy
The COMG maintains that it has also followed the space that some centers give to pseudosciences such as PNI, psychoneuroimmunology, or serotherapy. Regarding psychoneuroimmunology, it specifies that, understood as a field of research, it exists and it is legitimate to study the interactions between stress, the nervous system, the endocrine system, and the immune system.
"That does not equate to the existence of a recognized own clinical discipline" - Col·legi Oficial de Metges de Girona
Along those lines, the college emphasizes that the so-called clinical PNI is not a recognized health specialty, that there is no official enabling qualification, and that it does not have formal scientific backing comparable to that of a regulated clinical discipline. It also warns that the use of denominations such as PNI, PNIE or clinical psychoneuroimmunology can generate confusion among patients and erroneously transmit that it is an officially recognized and endorsed area.
Risks and request for responsibility
The medical entity of Girona maintains that this type of proposals tend to simplify complex health problems, resort to a terminology that can transmit an appearance of rigor and professionalism, and offer answers and services that do not always conform to the standards of evidence and transparency required in the healthcare field.
The COMG adds that a public report from the Col·legi de Dietistes Nutricionistes de Catalunya ratifies the lack of scientific endorsement for these therapies. That document warns that they can entail an increase in economic cost, exposure to adverse effects, loss of quality of life and useful life of patients, worsening of prognosis, and also a higher healthcare cost by having to treat patients with more advanced evolution and worse prognosis.
With this stance, the college insists that administrations and health centers exercise extreme caution when covering activities related to health, especially if they can project an appearance of scientific backing which, in the entity's opinion, does not correspond with the standards required in clinical practice.