This week in the New Statesman Magazine, an article by Edzard Ernst will be appearing that responds to a dreadfully misleading advert by the homeopathic charity HMC21.

Ernst will say,

I was shocked by an advertisement in the accompanying supplement, “Social Care: Who Pays?”, referring to me and my work. Rarely had I seen an advert so inaccurate and borderline libellous in a respected publication. The advert, which appeared to breach the British Code of Advertising, was by a lobby group called Homeopathy: Medicine for the 21st Century (H:MC21). It contained unjustified attacks on myself and colleagues, including statements that gave a dangerously false impression of homoeopathy’s therapeutic value.

That advert is now in the hands of the Advertising Standards Authority.

William Alderson is Chair and Treasurer of HMC21. Until a few days ago, he was listed as a Director of the Society of Homeopaths, and a member of their professional standards committee.

Board of Directors Profiles

William Alderson RSHom

William was voted on to the Board of Directors at the 2010 Annual General Meeting, and is a member of the Professional Standards Committee.

Having first turned to homeopathic treatment when conventional medicine failed to help, William’s interest was stimulated by the discovering that there was a coherent theory underpinning his successful treatment. For the next 18 years he read about both homeopathy and orthodox medicine, finally training as a homeopath. He qualified from the London School of Classical Homeopathy in 2005. A paper based on his final year dissertation was published in Homeopathic Links in 2008.

There is now no mention of Alderson. What could have happened? Have the Society removed him as a Director? Or are they just removing information about him ahead of the innevitable repurcussions?

http://www.homeopathy-soh.org/about-the-society/Bod.aspx

Companies House list William Alderson’s appointment as a director, but not his removal. Curiouser and curiouser… http://bit.ly/bvDXlY

I do wish I was a fly on the wall.