BBC Devon Promotes Dangerously Deluded HIV Homeopaths in Africa

21st May, 2013 17

Last week, BBC London broadcast a dreadful programme promoting an animal chiropractor despite the fact that there is no good evidence chiropractic is of any use on animals and that chiropractors can only work with animals under very tightly defined circumstances. Yesterday, BBC Radio Devon managed to go one better with an amazingly misguided interview with a homeopath who had been to Tanzania to treat people with HIV. The Judi [read more…]

Society of Homeopaths Seeks Accreditation from the Professional Standards Authority

8th May, 2013 27

Health regulators do an important thing: protect the public from the potential risks that health care providers and their practices pose to their clients. Risks cannot be avoided in health care. For any treatment that will have effects, there is the risk that there will be detrimental effects which may outweigh any benefit. If a patient is informed of these risks and benefits, good decisions can be made. Alternative medicine [read more…]

Homeopaths Embrace Vaccination Against Measles – Or Do They?

17th April, 2013 53

  There is no general reason why a child in the UK should suffer measles. We have excellent and safe medical  technology to ensure communities can be free from this nasty disease. And yet, we are seeing hundreds of children in South Wales currently being infected and many being hospitalised. Your favourite Tory MP, Dr Sarah Wollaston, has been concerned about her own constituents in Totnes where full MMR uptake [read more…]

Homeopathic Quality Control – It’s Nonexistent

12th February, 2013 51

Christopher Brookmyre’s short story place b., contained in his anthology, Jaggy Splinters, includes a rather amusing story about how a journalist goes undercover to sting the fictitious NHS Hospital, the Edinburgh and Lothian Homeopathic Hospital. What would happen if there was a break-in by sceptical activists at a homeopathic pill manufacturers where the pills were swapped for blank sugar pills? How would the homeopaths at the hospital react when newspaper stories [read more…]

Why Does the MHRA Not Close Down these Homeopaths?

18th January, 2013 69

BBC South West have again produced an excellent investigation into the practices of homoeopath,s this time focusing on the trade in sugar pills sold as vaccines for children. Given the alarming number of cases of Whooping Cough in the region, and the low vaccine uptake in some areas, there is concern that parents using such products could be putting their children at serious risk. The BBC found Prince Charles’ favourite homeopathic pharmacy selling sugar [read more…]

2013 Will See the End of NHS Homeopathy Hospitals in England.

27th December, 2012 98

On the 7th of January 2013, the Cotham Hill site of the Bristol Homeopathic Hospital will close and the staff will move to a new NHS development, the South Bristol Community Hospital. A report into the move states that the homeopathy service has been in rapid decline over the past few years with the current levels of patient referrals being insufficient to support their own premises. In 2009/2010 there were 898 new [read more…]

Will Any Homeopath Say Homeopathy is no Substitute for Radiotherapy?

7th December, 2012 247

The story is tragic. A young mother with a child with cancer, fearing that radiotherapy will do more harm than good, and believing homeopathy and other natural cures give her child the best chance, fleas to escape a court ordering treatment. She was found in East Grinstead and the child has been taken into care and she is in court. Her position is quite understandable. The ‘natural health’ world is [read more…]

Chekhov, Homeopathy and the Placebo Effect

4th September, 2012 233

What can Anton Chekhov tell us about the placebo effect? Chekhov is best known as a great writer of short stories. But he was also a doctor and wrote many tales of medicine and doctors in everyday life. But recently, again, I have seen homeopaths claim that Chekhov “used [homeopathy] and swore by its curative effects”. No doubt, the source for such claims come from the American homeopathy entrepreneur, Dana Ullman. [read more…]

FDA Raises Serious Concerns About UK’s Nelsons Homeopathics

9th August, 2012 155

Nelsons, UK manufacturers of such products as Bach Rescue Remedies,  and a range of Homeopathic sugar pills, such as Teetha, have been inspected by the US authority the FDA as their products are exported to the US. The FDA reports many concerns about their manufacturing processes in London and have ordered them to report how they are going to remediate their concerns. It all makes rather odd reading, as I [read more…]

Bupa no longer covers Homeopathy

3rd August, 2012 16

So, a quick note to mark that the latest changes in T’s & C’s from Bupa simply state that they will no longer provide cover for homeopathic  treatment. Aside from the NHS, Bupa is perhaps the most well known health care provider in the UK. Many people will receive extra cover through Bupa through work place schemes.  Bupa, formerly the British United Provident Association, is a private company, but with no [read more…]

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