I have an aggressive form of arthritis and was for a long time swayed in my judgement by the emotive and persuasive language of alternative medicine. I read ‘Snake oil and other preoccupations’ by John Diamond (it’s excellent, have you read it?) and found my ideas fully revised by his brilliant words. I got a really fantastic immunosuppressant and can now run and walk as much as I like. I am relieved to have binned crazy diet ideas and to have chucked out all the expensive bottles of homeopathic pills and vitamins that I once bought slavishly in my desperation to be well.

I’ve given a lot of thought as to the mechanisms by which I allowed myself to be persuaded that ‘alternative’ medicine was better than empirical evidence, clinical trials and the science of actual medicine. I’ve come to the conclusion that the honesty of hospitals and doctors, the brutish realities of mortality, failure, human error, the limits of science, the gore of surgery and the actualities of illness invited my fear and denial much more than the soothing confines of a homeopathic ‘clinic’ ever did.

In basic terms, it’s just much nicer to go somewhere where you will talk to someone for a whole hour, get lots of attention, feel heard and have your emotional woes tended to, than to go to the noisy hospital where time-pressured doctors and nurses rush you in and out of waiting rooms, cut off your sentences and brush away your worries about odd moles, rashes etc. that have been worrying you.

But I know where I’d rather go each time; Hospitals are amazing and we have some of the most incredible medicines in the world available. Yes, some of the side-effects are horrific, Yes, some of the medicines are quite toxic, Yes, some of the procedures are invasive. But illness is a messy business, steeped in the possibility of death, grounded in the visceral, mucky, ever-perishable realities of our bodies. Our bodies are not some kind of amazing temple that resonates magically to vibrations, however tempting such an idea may be.

Winterson should know this, and if she wants to heckle from her position of relative influence she needs to find a new language; one that trades the fuzzy, miraculous, feel-good quality of her above mythology for something that deals in anti-retro-viral drugs. They aren’t nearly as sexy as homeopathic medicine in name or concept but as Edwin Cameron points out, they do work, and – as you point out – that’s a message that needs to get out there so that frightened and exploitable patients in need of decent healthcare don’t get the impression that the Magic Beans of Joy will save them.

Nobody is more of a sucker for a miracle-tale than someone who is totally freaked out by a health condition they have, shame on Winterson for telling us stories.