A Sikh TV channel in Birmingham has been caught by the broadcasting watchdog for allowing a healer to claim he could treat cancer.<\/p>\n
Ofcom said parts, shown on Sikh TV, breached its rules around protecting viewers from harm by failing to say they should contact a GP before taking homeopathic remedies.<\/p>\n
The watchdog said in its ruling: “The presenter claimed to be able to treat a serious of illnesses and conditions, including cancer, schizophrenia, heart conditions and Parkinson’s disease.<\/p>\n
“He directly addressed viewers who were unwell, and therefore potentially vulnerable, and encouraged them to make appointments to see him.”<\/p>\n
The channel also broke the rules by allowing contact numbers for the presenter’s own business to be broadcast.<\/p>\n
The offending slot was shown on the Sikh Channel at 4pm on June 7 last year.<\/p>\n
Presenter of the channel encouraged sick and ‘vulnerable’ callers to book appointments at clinics in Birmingham, Manchester and Milton Keynes.<\/p>\n
He urged viewers with a wide spectrum of problems to call him with “any question regarding any physical, mental or emotional issues”.<\/p>\n
The presenter also told callers “alternative treatments” could be used to cure infertility problems, phobias of flying and illnesses like breast cancer or cystitis.<\/p>\n
In relation to lung problems, the healer stated that inhalers given by doctors were only “temporary” and that to cure medical issues permanently, “you have to come and meet us”.<\/p>\n
Once the Sikh Channel was made aware of the complaint, further programmes featuring the healer were pulled, Ofcom said.<\/p>\n
The regulator said it recognised the steps taken and reminded the channel of its role to ensure broadcasts “adhere to the code”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Sikh TV channel in Birmingham has been caught by the broadcasting watchdog for allowing a healer to claim he could treat cancer. Ofcom said parts, shown on Sikh TV, breached its rules around protecting viewers from harm by failing to say they should contact a GP before taking homeopathic remedies. The watchdog said in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,3,112],"tags":[998,1035,1034],"class_list":["post-26248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-news","category-top-stories","tag-faith-healer","tag-ofcom","tag-sikh-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}