Blog Archives

It would appear that, quietly and without fuss, the NHS Homeopathic Hospital in Liverpool has closed. It is difficult to know precisely what has happened. But there now appears to be no trace of its existence. Previously, only a few years ago, the British Homeopathic Association were boasting of five NHS hospitals dedicated to homeopathy. It now only lists three. We know that Tunbridge Wells closed after West Kent PCT withdrew funding. So, what happened to Liverpool? Of the remaining three hospitals, it is now difficult to call them dedicated homeopathic hospitals. The Royal London Homeopathic Hospital changed its name to the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine to reflect the fact that homeopathy was becoming less important as fewer referrals were occurring and other forms of quackery were...

Read more »

The ratchet on NHS homeopathy continues to turn. It would appear that the homeopathic pharmacy at the Glasgow Homeopathy Hospital has been closed. A note to local GPs is reminding them that they have no obligation to fill the hole left by this closure by prescribing homeopathy if patients ask for it. The Glasgow Local Medical Committee notes that there has been a sudden surge in requests from patients to prescribe homeopathic sugar pills after they have been unable to get them at the hospital. The Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital began its life as a homeopathic dispensary in 1880. According to the historian of homeopathy in the UK, Peter Morrell, the hospital grew rapidly in the 1930’s and finally moved to its current location, at the Gartnavel General Hospital Site,...

Read more »

Parliament is currently looking at creating a new defamation bill.You can now see their report on the issues and much of the evidence submitted to them here.I submitted the paper below to document how a blogger covering controversial subjects concerning public health, policy and the impact of pseudoscience is affected by the current chilling effect of English libel laws. There are many aspects of this new bill that look likely to shift the balance in the situations I describe below. In particular, the new draft bill requires a test of ‘serious and substantial harm’ to be shown. Public interest defenses are to be strengthened and requirements made that alleged defamatory words be read in the context of the article and not on their own. I welcome the recognition that...

Read more »

Last year, the homeopathic lobby group H:MC21, spent a significant sum of money by placing a full page advert in New Statesman magazine. The advert appeared to be calling for more NHS funding for homeopath whilst giving misleading information and denigrating critics of this quackery. In the Telegraph, Christine Odone wrote about her old magazine sinking to plugging nonsense, The pages once graced by George Orwell and George Bernard Shaw now feature a catalogue of factoids about the adverse side-effects of conventional drugs and the NHS’s wrong priorities. Professor Edzard Ernst, one of the academic researchers attacked in the advert, responded with an article in New Statesman, Rarely had I seen an advert so inaccurate and borderline libellous in a respected publication. The advert, which appeared to breach the...

Read more »

The Society of Homeopaths in the UK has constantly refused to engage in any meaningful way about how western homeopaths are travelling to Africa and setting up clinics that use homeopathic sugar pills to treat and prevent dangerous diseases, such as TB, malaria and HIV. This is a murderous practice. People will die if they are told that homeopathy is a ‘side-effect free’ way of treating or preventing these diseases. People will die if they are told that homeopathy is an effective medicine. Very often it is their members who are involved by either volunteering at these clinics or donating money. The Society has responded to these criticisms with bluster and obfuscation. A typical statement from them might read as, The Society of Homeopaths, the UK’s largest register of...

Read more »