Professor calls Prince Charles, others "snake-oil salesmen" (Reuters)

LONDON, Jul (Reuters) – A leading professor of complementary medicine accused Britain's heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles and other backers of alternative therapies on Monday of being "snake-oil salesmen" who promote products with no scientific basis.

Edzard Ernst, who is stepping down from his post as Britain's only professor of complementary medicine at Exeter University, also said a long-running dispute with the Prince about the merits of alternative therapies had cost him his job -- a claim Prince Charles's office denied.

"Almost directly, Prince Charles has managed to interfere in my professional life and almost managed to close my unit," Ernst told reporters at a briefing.

A spokeswoman for Prince Charles told Reuters the royal heir was not involved in the dispute with Ernst and that she would not respond to professor's comments about snake-oil salesmen.

Ernst's complementary medicine research unit at Exeter's Peninsula School of Medicine had been threatened with outright closure, but the university has now offered it a reprieve and says it is seeking a successor to Ernst to lead it.

"It looked as though I had to go, and that was the price for the unit to continue," Ernst said. "I pay the price gladly as it is a small price to pay for the unit to continue."

Ernst said that during his 18 years of researching the efficacy of hundreds of different types of alternative medicine -- from acupuncture, to herbal remedies, to homeopathy and chiropractic therapy -- he has found that "snake-oil salesmen and pseudo-science are ubiquitous and dangerous."

Asked whether he included Prince Charles in that category, he said, "yes."

He said Prince Charles, a long-time advocate of alternative and integrated medicine and sustainable agriculture, was one of the main obstacles to allowing proper scientific analysis of the efficacy of complementary therapies.

Referring to the prince's Duchy Originals food company as "dodgy originals" he said the firm's promotion of a "detox" tincture made from artichoke and dandelion was an example of how the prince peddled scientifically unproven therapies.

In 2009 Ernst accused Prince Charles of "outright quackery" for promoting the detox tincture and other such products "under the banner of holistic and integrative healthcare."

The 62-year-old prince founded Duchy Originals in 1990 to promote organic food and farming, with profits going to charity.

Duchy Originals describes the product as "a food supplement to help eliminate toxins and aid digestion" and a spokeswoman for the firm said it had no comment about Ernst's remarks.

Ernst's dispute with Prince Charles dates back to 2005, when the professor was asked to look at a report by an economist, Christopher Smallwood, who was investigating whether alternative remedies were cost-effective and should be offered more widely on Britain's taxpayer-funded National Health Service (NHS).

Ernst objected to the report and decided to voice his concerns before it was published. In one section, the report said the NHS could save billions of pounds if some doctors could switch from prescribing conventional medicines to offering alternative therapies. "That was so unspeakable to me that I had to speak out," Ernst said.

Ernst was accused in a letter from an adviser to Prince Charles, Michael Peat, of having breached a confidentiality agreement on the report and an investigation was launched. Ernst was cleared of wrongdoing, but he says he had by that time lost the support of his institution and its commitment to raise more funding for his work.

A spokeswoman for Prince Charles said he "had no knowledge that a letter was being sent to the University of Exeter by Sir Michael Peat about Edzard Ernst's breaching of confidence of the Smallwood report in 2005" and was not involved in the dispute.

Ernst and his team have run many clinical trials and published more than 150 so-called meta-analyses of other studies into complementary and alternative medicines.

He says he has identified around 20 such therapies which "demonstrably demonstrate more good than harm" including the herbal remedy St John's Wort for the treatment of mild depression, hypnosis for the relief of labor pain, and hawthorn for the treatment of congestive heart failure.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Myra MacDonald)

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Beyonce, others enjoy "Glastonbury effect" in UK charts (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) – Beyonce heads the British album charts at the midweek stage, with "4" outselling its nearest rival by three to one boosted by her weekend appearance at Glastonbury, sales data showed on Wednesday.

According to the Official Charts Company (OCC), the 29-year-old R&B star is set to top the ranking by the end of the week, which would be her second British number one.

She was one of several acts to enjoy the "Glastonbury effect," where media exposure of one of the world's biggest music festivals boosts performers who appear.

The event ran from Wednesday to Sunday, with U2, Coldplay and Beyonce grabbing most of the limelight with their headline slots on the final three days.

Besides her new album, Beyonce's single "Best Thing I Never Had" was on course to enter at number six, one of seven tracks by the singer in the Top 75.

Among others to benefit from Glastonbury with big gains in the album rankings were Chase & Status, Mumford & Sons, Aloe Blacc, Noah & The Whale, Plan B, Elbow and Coldplay.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Tobey Maguire, others are sued over poker winnings (AP)

By ANTHONY McCARTNEY, AP Entertainment Writer Anthony Mccartney, Ap Entertainment Writer – 1 hr 46 mins ago

LOS ANGELES – "Spider-Man" star Tobey Maguire and other celebrities have been caught in a web of lawsuits seeking to reclaim more than $4 million won during unlicensed poker matches at upscale Beverly Hills hotels, court records show.

The lawsuits were filed by a bankruptcy trustee attempting to recoup money for investors who were duped in a Ponzi scheme.

The legal actions claim the clandestine Texas Hold `em matches were played between 2006 and 2009, and that card players won hundreds of thousands of dollars from Bradley Ruderman, architect of the Ponzi scheme.

Maguire is being sued for $311,000 plus interest. In all, 22 people have been individually sued to try to recoup money.

Among them was Nick Cassavetes, director of "The Notebook." The trustee is attempting to recover nearly $73,000 plus interest from the actor-director.

His attorney, Ronald Richards, said Cassavetes engaged in no wrongdoing and may try to settle the case for a reduced amount or fight it on the basis that the money cannot be reclaimed.

The lawsuit cites only one 2007 game in which Cassavetes was involved.

He was sued along with others who received a check from Ruderman. However, the matches weren't documented, so it was unclear if Ruderman lost the money himself or was paying for another player, Richards said.

"The theory that is being advanced by the trustee is what we call a novel or original theory," he added.

Maguire's attorney, Robert Barta, did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment but was expected to file a response to the suit later this week.

Also being sued is billionaire businessman Alec Gores, who along with his brother attempted to buy Miramax Films last year. Another defendant is "Welcome Back Kotter" star and poker afficianado Gabe Kaplan, who is being asked to return $62,000, records show.

Gores is being sued for $445,000. In a statement, his attorney Patricia Glaser noted the businessman had not been accused of wrongdoing and she wrote "there was nothing improper about the poker game that is the subject of this lawsuit."

"Mr. Gores will either successfully resolve the claim against him or successfully defend against the claim," Glaser wrote.

She also represents Kaplan, records show, but the statement made no mention of him or any other defendants.

Ruderman was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison earlier this year after pleading guilty to two counts of wire fraud, two counts of investment adviser fraud and willful failure to file taxes.

Richards, who also represents others who were sued over their poker winnings, said none of the players faced any criminal penalties.

"The statutes in California aren't designed to prosecute players for playing poker," he said, adding that the statute of limitations on any gambling charges would have expired or would soon expire.

Bankruptcy trustee Howard Ehrenberg filed the lawsuits in late March, attempting to recoup money on behalf of people who invested in what the legal action called a Ponzi scheme organized by Ruderman.

The suits contend the defendants have no right to keep money won from Ruderman, since the games did not have the appropriate government licenses.

Tournaments were held in luxury hotels in Beverly Hills and organized by a woman identified as Molly Bloom, who is being sued for nearly $475,000 paid to her by Ruderman, the lawsuits say.

Richards, who said he represented Bloom in the past, said she ran a catering and events business and simply received payments from Ruderman for her services.

In addition to trying to recoup money related to the poker games, Ehrenberg has also sued four of Ruderman's associates and relatives to try to reclaim more than $280,000 in gifts and loans.

___

Associated Press Writers Thomas Watkins and Greg Risling in Los Angeles, and Oskar Garcia in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/celebritydocket

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