From the very first decades of homeopathy’s existence in the early 19th Century, mainstream scientists have dismissed its claims for one simple reason: the extremely dilute nature of the remedies. As Oliver Wendell Holmes remarked in 1842 “So much ridicule has been thrown upon the pretended powers of the minute doses”.
Today’s modern understanding of...
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On the 1st of October, a rather unusual talk was held at the Cavendish Laboratories in Cambridge, entitled “The Supramolecular Chemistry of the Homeopathic Remedy”.
The talk was at the invite of Nobel laureate Brian Josephson and was to be given by a chap named John Benneth. Josephson is a known supporter of parapsychology, telepathy...
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Part of the wonderful new world of regulated alternative medicine is the insistence that all registered practitioners undergo Continuous Professional Development. Just like in real professions, quacks will be expected to attend a certain number of hours per year in keeping their skills up to date and learning about the latest developments in their...
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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...
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As my own personal tribute to Homeopathy Awareness Week, and as promised in my last post, I would like to critique a paper that has appeared in this Summer’s edition of the journal, Homeopathy in Practice.
The article is entitled “Hormesis, epitaxy, the structure of liquid water, and the science of homeopathy” and is by...
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In this story, a supplement industry spokesperson resorts to Creationist ‘Science’ for their evidence to support the ‘crucial’ nature of supplement pills, shows how we should eat like Inuits, without the messy business of catching fish (or dying young), and has a pop at one of the UK’s most respected academics when he dares...
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Well, today’s news has had lots of Wi-Fi scares being reported. Tonight’s Panorama is going to look at the ‘dangers’ of bringing Wi-Fi into schools. Let’s wait to see what they have to say, but early reports do not bode well as they are claiming that their ‘independent tests’ showed WiFi produces EM levels...
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A press release today from the Economic and Social Research Council talks about recent research on how the public evaluates the information on health websites. The concluding message is simple:
When searching for health advice online, consumers often reject websites with high quality medical information in favour of those with a human touch.
This is not...
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Those of you who have read my last blog entry might be under the impression that I believe the Daily Mail is a deeply ignorant and offensive paper that panders to its bigoted readers’ prejudices and does nothing but promote its right wing individualistic nonsense. Furthermore, I may have left the impression that the...
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The Quackometer has been up and running for just about a year and has seen some serious traffic increases over the past six months. Starting off with just a few hits per day, the daily unique visits now stand in the many hundreds, with a peak recently of several thousand. Cripes! What started off...
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