Huge win against homeopathy in the UK!
Break open a bottle of bubbly, it’s time to celebrate! And remember to dilute the alcohol as much as possible if you want to really get drunk. We’ve been treated to some really exciting news for skeptics, rational thinkers, and the public in general! Today, the House of Commons published its report on an investigation into homeopathy. The MPs urge that the government withdraws NHS funding for homeopathy. This is absolutely fantastic, and it gets even better.
Homeopathy would actually be funny, if it wasn’t so tragic. Homeopathic is the air guitar of medicine. It’s fun to pretend, but you still aren’t actually doing anything. Technically, the governent officially accepts that homeopathy is nonsense. The problem isn’t what they think of homeopathy, but the fact that they still fund it. However, the Science and Technology Committee concluded that NHS funding for homeopathy should be scrapped based on the evidence indicating that it doesn’t work beyond the placebo effect. The Committee also attacked the pseudoscientific explanations offered that supposedly demonstrate how homeopathy works. Their conlusion: Homeopathy is quackery and there is no justification is having the government fund anything to do with it.
A fantastic addition to the report was the conclusion that clinical trials of homeopathy should stop. Why? Because as we’ve been saying all along, “There’s Nothing In It!”
Now, this is a dream come true for a lot of intelligent people who have been campaigning against the use of homeopathic products. NHS funding should go towards real medicine. But I’m equally pleased by the Committee’s thoughts on the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). They concluded that the MHRA shouldn’t allow homeopathic product labels to claim they have active ingredients when they don’t, they shouldn’t be able to make medical claims on these labels, and such products shouldn’t be licensed by the MHRA at all!
This is so much more than I hoped for. During the last few months, skeptics have been pushing forward with the 1023 campaign in order to educate the public about homeopathy. One of the first goals was to urge that Boots stop selling homeopathic products. Over the previous weeks, skeptics have covered the country in leaflets and posters, they have blogged about the campaign, and we have even “overdosed” on homeopathic remedies outside Boots stores. Has this campaign had an effect that helped bring today’s fantastic results? I’m not sure. But I am certainly sure that the campaign has helped the general public understand that homeopathic products are deceptive and even dangerous. Many individuals are now aware that homeopathic remedies often contain no active ingredients. Many individuals are now aware that homeopathy can kill, as can any alternative to real medicine. If you choose an alternative to medicine, you may be choosing an alternative to health. The campaign has a role to play in demonstrating why the House of Commons is making the right decision.
The government still have to address this report, but the evidence is good. The facts are there. Homeopathic products do not work beyond the placebo effect, and the labels on such products fail to inform the public that they are taking a placebo. It is in the interests of our government that only real medicines are funded, and that the public understands that they are taking sugar pills containing no active ingredients when given homeopathic remedies.
On the UK Parliament website, the Chairman of the Committee, Phil Willis MP, said:
This was a challenging inquiry which provoked strong reactions. We were seeking to determine whether the Government’s policies on homeopathy are evidence based on current evidence. They are not.
It sets an unfortunate precedent for the Department of Health to consider that the existence of a community which believes that homeopathy works is ‘evidence’ enough to continue spending public money on it. This also sends out a confused message, and has potentially harmful consequences. We await the Government’s response to our report with interest.
So do I. In the meantime, three cheers for rational thinkers everywhere! I’m sure many of the general public will be upset because their favourite flavour of woo is getting knocked. But in the long run, this could lead to money being spent on more useful things, and the general public will benefit directly. This is also superb PR for the skepticism movement. Maybe people will start to think, “what else do I assume is real medicine?”
Next stop: Chiropractors. We’re coming for you.
P.S. I couldn’t help but share this comment I saw a couple of months ago:
“I don’t see the point of homeopathic medicine anyway. Why can’t they use the same medicine as straight people?”
Posted on February 22, 2010, in Alternative medicine, Pseudoscience, Skepticism and tagged 1023, Alternative medicine, homeopathy, Pseudoscience. Bookmark the permalink. 10 Comments.
Peter Harrison
I await with baited breath an intervention from the Woo-Master General, Charles Windsor….
I’m curious to see what happens if he has some kind of public reaction to the report.
Excellent news and not too soon in coming. I can’t wait to see the fallout from this, though I doubt anything will happen as quickly as I would like. 1 down, eleventy billion other flavours of woo to go.
Hi, I’m Quid Sapio, and I discuss your post on my blog…
http://quidsapio.wordpress.com/
If you like a debate we can link to each other and keep comparing notes – unless you’re afraid of being bested
Peter. On your post about skepticism you say:
“……because they are homeopathic remedies and not real drugs, they are the exact same products. If our bodies can supposedly tell the difference between a homeopathic remedy designed to help us sleep, and one designed to cure itching, surely technology can also tell the difference.”
It would be wise to ponder this a bit more. Your understanding of homeopathy – as indeed on other matters – represents a fairly limited and rudimentary form of conditioning that passes for being ‘sceptical’, such is the trend these days of ‘freethinkers’ (whatever they are).
Thank you.
I don’t see why you should take people’s freedom to choose what kind of medical treatment they want. This is not a democratic way of doing things. It’s all about the need of the patient. So I think this is great. Homeopathy has been around longer than the regular health system. Check your facts. When the Spanish flu came 30% of the people treated by the regular doctors died. On the other hand the people treated by homeopathy had a mortality rate of only 2%!
Natuurtherapeut, Daan van der Meulen, Holland.
The caption of your blog”Reality is my Religion”is a true assertion of an open minded person. However if you open up your mind to Advaita Philosophy which deals with rudiments of all manifest creation and which has nothing to do with any religion you will soon realize that Reality is beyond all conceived perspectives of the mind and personal experiences of the present. We accept the reality of our present existence implicitly and feel all sensory experiences directly. But the past experiences have to be recollected on a screen of the mind and the the futuristic events imagined on surmised expectations. Our state of existence holds snugly to the realities of our present cognizing experiences in a continuous procees of recession from past to updating present and advancing future. Here what we implictly take for granted is our basic conscious process activating our minds constatly to help perform its various directive actions more importantly those of external sensory perceptions. Thus the Advaita philosophy establishes through simple examples of daily experiences that the mind itself has no independent stature and has to depend on energizing consciousness to perform its intended actions. Now if we can lit up our imagination as true scientific observers and compare the working of computer CPU with electrical energization of required potentials many paralles between the two,viz.the mind and the CPU,will become obvious regarding the modes of working of a synthetic intelligent machine and our own primarily created individual structures. Although sitting among friends discussing actively on a particular subject a wink of disinterested fall of consciouness into sleep shuts off sight and hearing inspite of loudness of talking and bustling of activity. We know consciously how to create electrical energy by the principles of energy transfomation and succeeded in generating and distributing it constantly as the most fundamental form of all mundane energy sources as evidenced by the versatility of present applications. Can we do so with our own consciousness or search where to look for? We have to accept it unresevedly if we attempt to comprehend the reality of our present existence without faith in belief generated in our minds or support of an omnipresent allmighty God only to realize that our present exitence is the result of procreative deliberations of our paternal and maternal ancestors of bygone centuries whom we have never seen and yet never dare to refute their erlier existence to substantiate our present one.
Vureo has the highest quality flash games as well as selection. click to go to vureo.com
Pingback: Petition for Prime Minister: End NHS funding for the air guitar of medicine « Reality Is My Religion
Pingback: Articles about the Homeopathy Evidence Check #evcheck #ten23 « Xtaldave's Blog O'science