I don’t know if you sometimes check out the Australian Skeptic website, but one of the features is the
‘Bent Spoon Award’.
I’ve written about the Awards before – here’s an entry from 2005:
Nominee: Medibank Private
Nominated by: Malcolm Cluett
Date: 22/07/2005
I would like to nominate Medibank Private for the Bent Spoon award.
There is an Medibank Private advertisement that is being screened on TV and in the cinema. It shows an ambulance speeding through city traffic, to the aid of some individual lying on a grassy hill, perhaps stricken with a heart attack. The lights are flashing and the siren wailing.
When the ambulance arrives on the scene, the back doors open to reveal not medics on white coats, but rather a Chinese acupuncturist and an Indian mystic. The interior of the ambulance is suitably decorated.
Yes, apparently if you call emergency services, having a bunch of acupuncturists turn up will help you in a life-threatening condition… what the??!?!
I’m watching an old episode of ‘House’ (Season Two, Episode Fifteen) on Channel Ten – around 9.20pm, that advertisement comes on the screen. Three or so years since it was last screened.
The last time I saw it, I was in a movie theatre, and it was blaring on the big screen as part of the usual before-feature cinema advertising. My partner and I went out the very next day and changed health providers, on the basis of that advert.
Guess the advert will now have the honor of being entered into the Bent Spoon Awards for another year. Don’t forget that you can also complain to the Advertising Standards Bureau if you find an advert particularly offensive or misleading. I’m looking into this too.
… and no, the irony that the particular episode of House featured someone getting poisoned by an ‘alternative medicine treatment’ for arthritis via gold sodium thiomalate didn’t escape me…
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I doubt complaining to the advertising standards bureau will be worth it. After all, they are only advertising the fact that alternative medicine is covered by their policy, not that it actually works.
The best thing to do is what you have already done – cancel your policy and tell them exactly why. I don’t want my premiums going up because the insurance company pays out for treatments that don’t work.
oh God, I hate CAM so much. Still getting over my “live blood imaging” experience from Mind Body Wallet, where I had to be dragged away before my head exploded. Funny, I work in heart disease and I don’ t remember coming across acupuncture and chanting as a treatment for massive MI. Must check PubMed again…
I thought the ad itself was gold, in the (what I assume was) unintended irony.
“Quick! I’m really ill. Call my acupuncturist!”
Once you’ve pointed this out to people they can see how absurd it is.
Still, if it’s around after over 3 years, it’s probably working…
Gah, maybe I am cynical… but seriously, the implication and support is just really misguided in my view.
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