Charles, an alternative medicine king: The new monarch has spent years promoting homeopathy — despite criticism from scientists

• King Charles III has advocated for alternative medicine, including homeopathy, since the 1980s.
• Charles once backed a company that treated cancer through fruit juice and coffee enemas. 
• He founded an alternative medicine agency. It closed in 2010 after a director laundered money.

King Charles III has a long history flirting with alternative medicine and treatments that aren't supported by science.

In the 1990s, then-Prince Charles launched the Foundation for Integrated Medicine, a charity created to advance acceptance and understanding of alternative medicine in the UK.

Though constitutionally independent, the organization took federal money in the 2000s to advise on "the regulation of massage, aromatherapy, reflexology and other complementary therapies." 

The foundation shut down in 2010 due to allegations of fraud and laundering £253,000. 

While the King's continued advocacy homeopathic and herbal treatments has drawn criticism from scientists and the public, he has indicated that, as reigning monarch, he won't be so vocal about political and social causes, such as promoting environmental policies to curb climate change.

"I'm not that stupid, I do realize that it is a separate exercise being sovereign," he told the BBC in 2018.

But his views remain a talking point, particularly in light of the booming interest in wellness and alternative medicine today.

In the 90s, Charles ventured into alternative medicine and organic foods

According to New York Times archives, the King told doctors at the British Medical Association's annual dinner in 1982 he was "frightened" at how often doctors prescribe medicine to treat sickness.

"I would suggest that the whole imposing edifice of modern medicine, for all its breathtaking successes is, like the celebrated Tower of Pisa, slightly off balance,'' he said. ''It is frightening how dependent on drugs we are all becoming and how easy it is for doctors to prescribe them as the universal panacea for our ills.''

His speech spurred new research into homeopathy and led to increased sales for alternative medicine products, per the Times. 

Eventually, in the 1990s, Charles launched the Foundation for Integrated Medicine to integrate alternative therapies into the UK's National Health Service. (This was around the same time he set up Duchy Originals, a company that sells and promotes organic foods.)

In 2010, the UK arrested a senior aide at Charles' foundation for fraud and money laundering £300,000. The organization shut down soon after the arrest.

A spokesperson for Charles said he was "proud of the achievements of his foundation, which has brought together hundreds of advocates of integrated health," the Guardian reported.

Charles recently became patron of a homeopathic organization

Charles has voiced support of alternative therapies, including a cancer therapy that treated patients with "13 fruit juices a day, coffee enemas and weekly injections of vitamins," the Guardian reported. He publicly supported Gerson Therapy, a company that sold such therapies, at a 2004 healthcare conference.

In 2019, Charles became patron of the Faculty of Homeopathy, a global organization promoting the practice.

Critics said Charles' involvement in FOH contradicts the view of the UK's National Health Service, which said homeopathy should not be recommended to the public due to the lack of evidence of the therapy's effectiveness. (FOH did not immediately respond to Insider's request for a comment.)

"If Prince Charles wants to have a genuine positive effect on the health of the nation he intends to one day rule, he should side against those who offer dangerously misleading advice, rather than fighting their corner," the Good Thinking Society, a non-profit that promotes science-backed treatments, said in a statement reported by CNN at the time.

Homeopathy is a medical system developed in Germany more than 200 years ago that uses plants, minerals, and animals to treat illness. Homeopathy does not employ standardized dosing and treatments, meaning two people with the same condition can receive different treatments depending on their practitioner. There is no standard schooling or training among homeopathic practitioners, Bloomberg reported. 

At the time of his appointment, the Palace defended Charles' patronage, telling CNN that Charles "believes that safe and effective, complementary medicine can play an important role in healthcare systems, as long as approaches are integrated with conventional treatments, a position he has reached after years of talking to experts in many different areas of medicine." Buckingham Palace did not immediately respond to Insider's request for a comment.