homeopathy – Page 5 – The Quackometer Blog

How to become a Daytime TV Expert: The Jayney Goddard Story

7th May, 2008 39

Professor Jayney Goddard is the president of the Complementary Medical Association (CMA), “the world’s largest professional membership body for complementary medicine” and has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. She studied homeopathy at Imperial College for five years and has won numerous awards. According to various sites, she is “considered to be among the world’s leading experts in complementary and integrated medicine.” Impressive stuff. No wonder [read more…]

Neal’s Yard Remedies ‘rapped by medicines regulator’

6th May, 2008 7

In a recent post, I described how Neal’s Yard Remedies had withdrawn their Malaria homeopathy pills. Their press release said, as this is obviously a contentious issue which is causing customer concern, we have decided to withdraw the product, Malaria Officinalis 30c from sale with immediate effect. I described this as bullshit, just like the rest of their press release. The much more likely cause was that they were being [read more…]

On Bullshit and Mindfucking

1st May, 2008 17

Edzard Ernst has accused practitioners of alternative medicine of lying to their patients. In last week’s New Scientist he gave an interview where he described his childhood experiences with homeopathy, and his subsequent medical and homeopathic training, and his work in the only German homeopathic hospital. His conversion to doubt has been slow and guided by the evidence. He now believes that homeopathy is nothing more than a placebo therapy. [read more…]

Neal’s Yard Ethical Bullshit Remedy

28th April, 2008 252

Neal’s Yard Remedies has announced that it is withdrawing is Malaria Officinalis 30C homeopathic remedy from sale. This is the absolute minimum it could have done given that its Exeter Branch was recently caught out by the BBC South West programme Inside Out selling this remedy as protection against malaria. (I wrote about this staggering event recently.) What reason do Neal’s Yard give? Let’s look at their press release in [read more…]

Neal’s Yard Remedies Offers Lethal Homeopathic Malaria Advice

13th April, 2008 28

Unbelievably, nearly two years after BBC Newsnight exposed ten homeopaths offering dangerous advice to travellers about malaria protection, the BBC have found high street chain Neal’s Yard Remedies offering sugar pills as protection against malaria. The BBC, in a press release, said, The presenter of [BBC] Inside Out South West Janine Jansen was sold homeopathic remedies by the manager of Neal’s Yard in Exeter and was advised that she could [read more…]

The Vets Who Make People Feel Better

22nd March, 2008 43

Some years ago, a well meaning but utterly deluded friend gave me a book entitled Natural Remedies For Your Cat by Christopher Day. It is a slightly disturbing tome that appears to recommend homeopathic remedies for pretty much everything – from fleas to gunshot wounds. Rational cat lovers might find this book pretty disturbing. In many ways, it is a classic homeopathy text. It sees homeopathy as verging on the [read more…]

Las Mariposas Clinic: Costa Del Quackery

8th March, 2008 86

Watching the antics of quacks is funny and I hope some of that humour comes across on this blog. Sometimes, however, humour just appears to be so misplaced. Las Mariposas Clinic, in Torremolinos, Malaga, Spain, is a clinic that offers homeopathic and nutritional cures for cancer. They promise, “Unique methods that induce the natural remission of cancer and other illnesses” Nothing about this is likely to be funny. The clinic [read more…]

Should Cochrane Call for More Research Into Homeopathy?

1st March, 2008 14

The Cochrane Collaboration is an independent network of volunteers, funded only by donations, that collate systematic reviews of the evidence base for healthcare interventions. You can go online and view for yourself the current best thinking on how effective various treatments are. It is an important resource. (And you can help making it free throughout the EU by signing here.)Cochrane does not just cover conventional treatments, but also reviews alternative [read more…]

Homeopathy Research Institute – The Highest Scientific Standards…

16th February, 2008 19

The Homeopathy Research Institute (HRI) has been set up by homeopaths Alex Tournier (who apparently works for Cancer Research UK) and Clare Relton (who is based at the University of Sheffield). The Alliance of Registered Homeopaths in one of their rare press statements have made much of it. They say, The aim of the Homeopathy Research Institute is to promote and facilitate high-quality scientific research in the field of homeopathy. [read more…]

“Nothing Acts as Well as FairDeal Homeopathy”

8th January, 2008 12

It looks like the campaign to clean up homeopathy is having effects! A new supplier of homeopathic remedies appears to have entered the market with the promise that “we won’t lie to you”. They say, “For some reason, many homeopaths feel they have to tell their patients lies and fairy stories, and try to baffle them with pseudo-science. Here at FairDeal Homeopathy, we treat you like adults, and only tell [read more…]