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 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…]
I read a rather disconcerting thing the other day. Apparently, the ‘close doors’ button on lifts (elevators, for my American friends) does not work. It is there to give us a sense of control in the tin box suspended on a rope. We press it but the lift control mechanisms decide when the doors should actually shut according to their pre-programmed cycles. My reaction was of course total disbelief. For [read more…]
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 field. The Prince of Wales and his new Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council are right behind [read more…]
In my last post I discussed how Hopi Ear Candles has nothing to do with the American Hopi tribe and was a technique that had only been scalding ear drums since the Eighties. Quackery likes to sell itself on its ancient roots and traditional heritage. But, by the looks of it, most quackery techniques have much more modern roots. Someone emailed me to ask if I could expand on this, [read more…]
Quacks like to tell us that their healing arts are thousands of years old and based on ancient principles that have withstood the test of time. Like most things in their advertising spiel, it is a canard and does not bear any resemblance to the truth. Reiki, Reflexology, Osteopathy and Chiropractic are around a hundred years old. Homeopathy is about 200 years old and even acupuncture as we know it [read more…]
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…]
If you are worried about the activities of an alternative medicine practitioner, there is not an easy way to find the right authority who might look into it. The Advertising Standards Authority are very effective at investigating complex matters, but can only really rap knuckles and leave traders to carry on pretty much unharmed. Often, the only damage is an ASA ruling placed well down in the Google result list. [read more…]
On the eve of the Cheltenham Festival, the race organisers are battling to repair the storm damage after ferocious winds have been bashing the West of England. Cheltenham is one of the biggest events in the racing calendar and for one of the most famous jockeys, Tony McCoy, a little storm damage has been the least of his problems. McCoy fractured two vertebrae in a fall two months ago and [read more…]
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…]
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