section_path: Personal interests/Alternative medicine
section_name: Alternative medicine
paragraph_text: Alternative medicine
  
  Charles has controversially championed alternative medicine, including homeopathy. He first publicly expressed his interest in the topic in December 1982, in an address to the British Medical Association. This speech was seen as "combative" and "critical" of modern medicine and was met with anger by some medical professionals. Similarly, the Prince's Foundation for Integrated Health (FIH) attracted opposition from the scientific and medical community over its campaign encouraging general practitioners to offer herbal and other alternative treatments to NHS patients.
  
  In April 2008, The Times published a letter from Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter, which asked the FIH to recall two guides promoting alternative medicine. That year, Ernst published a book with Simon Singh called Trick or Treatment: Alternative Medicine on Trial and mockingly dedicated to "HRH the Prince of Wales". The last chapter is highly critical of Charles's advocacy of complementary and alternative treatments.
  
  Charles's Duchy Originals produced a variety of complementary medicinal products, including a "Detox Tincture" that Ernst denounced as "financially exploiting the vulnerable" and "outright quackery ". Charles personally wrote at least seven letters to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency shortly before it relaxed the rules governing labelling of such herbal products, a move that was widely condemned by scientists and medical bodies. It was reported in October 2009 that Charles had lobbied the health secretary, Andy Burnham, regarding greater provision of alternative treatments in the NHS.
  
  Following accounting irregularities, the FIH announced its closure in April 2010. The FIH was re-branded and re-launched later in 2010 as the College of Medicine, of which Charles became a patron in 2019.