The Media Code for Homeopaths

4th February, 2011 7

As I reported in December, various homeopathy groups from the UK have held a conference, hosted by a PR firm, in order to develop a ‘single voice’ in the face of criticism of their trade. One of the results of that conference was a ‘Media Code’, a set of rules designed to help homeopaths present their views to the media. Recent attempts to defend their practices have been pretty disastrous, [read more…]

The Homeopaths’ Response to the CBC Marketplace Programme

16th January, 2011 40

This week, the Canadian consumer affairs programme Marketplace devoted its episode to looking at the claims, practices and regulation of homeopathy. It is a pretty damning account and the homeopaths are up in arms about it, as we shall see. This prime time programme is likely to do the homeopathy trade a lot of harm in Canada. And the main reason is that it did a good job of exposing [read more…]

In Five Years, the Society of Homeopaths Have Learnt Nothing

5th January, 2011 43

Hat tip to the Quackometer on BBC Newsnight…   Before they reconsider their damning response. here it is… with annotations in red   Society of Homeopaths does not endorse “preventative” treatment in serious tropical diseases The Society of Homeopaths, the UK’s largest register of homeopaths with 1,500 members, does not endorse the use of homeopathic remedies with a view to preventing serious tropical diseases such as malaria and yellow fever. [read more…]

Escaping the Cult of Homeopathy

13th December, 2010 69

How are we to understand the persistence of alternative medicine beliefs? Despite the absurdity of many of the claims of the various superstitious medicines, we see very entrenched positions amongst believers, hostility to criticism and an imperviousness to external mainstream views. Why do people fervently lock themselves into such positions? Over the past few years, as I have researched the the world of alternative medicine , one of the most [read more…]

Homeopaths Find The Solution – Hire PR Consultants.

6th December, 2010 33

Under the banner of One Vision, One Voice you can watch the conference as it used a PR Consultant to brainstorm a set of ‘themes’ for how homeopathy should tackle its problems. There is nice insight at the end to see how they think they can counter the threats to their trade that are appearing globally from people realising that all they trade in is sugar pills. It would appear [read more…]

The Curious Case of Oxford University Press, Homeopathy and Charles Darwin

15th October, 2010 111

Science is a human activity. And as such, it is subject to the full range of fallibilities of thought and action that people are capable of. Within science you will find sloppy and wishful thinking, error and even fraud. But science, rather uniquely, has methods designed explicitly to minimise human biases, reduce error and correct mistakes when they are found. It is this inherent error correction that makes science a [read more…]

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