2017 – The Quackometer Blog

Animal Acupuncture is Animal Cruelty

22nd September, 2017 29

This morning, the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town, tweeted that it was ‘nurturing their precious penguins’ by giving them a range of quack treatments including ‘laser therapy, acupuncture and magnetic pulses’. The linked article explains, Teddy [a rescued rock hopper penguin with arthritis] has also undergone an operation on his right foot, had pulse magnetic therapy and receives medical attention on a regular basis. Quite what this ‘medical attention’ [read more…]

The Rudolf Steiner School Kings Langley’s Fight For Existence

5th September, 2017 104

The Telegraph reports in an ‘exclusive’ that Rudolf Steiner School Kings Langley (RSSKS) has been ordered to close by the government. Six weeks ago, I reported on how the School had received a series of terrible inspection reports that resulted in the school being unable to take on new pupils. The Secretary of State for Education has now issued a notice for the school to be deregistered and closed. The [read more…]

Homeopaths’ Paranoia Reaches New High

14th August, 2017 44

Bristol CCG are one of the few remaining NHS commissioning services in England that still fund homeopaths. They are considering decommissioning the provisioning of homeopathy, mostly though a private company run by a homeopathic doctor in Bristol. This service is the last sad remnant of what was once a dedicated NHS homeopathy hospital in Bristol. The local NHS is seeking your views on whether public money should be spent on this [read more…]

The Resistible Rise of Steiner Education in the UK

12th July, 2017 37

It has been reported today that Canterbury Steiner School is to close as it is no longer financially viable. It would appear that they cannot get enough children into this independent, fee-paying school to keep it running. This comes only a matter of weeks after the school appeared confident that it could attract many new entrants and expand. Canterbury is not the only Steiner school in the UK that is [read more…]

By Jonrawlinson (http://www.flickr.com/photos/london/75148497/) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The Charity Commission’s Consultation on CAM Charities. My Submission.

18th May, 2017 5

Tomorrow is the last day you can submit your thoughts to the Charity Commission on the charitable status of Complementary And Alternative Medicine organisations. After several years of activity by campaigner and clinical scientist Les Rose, the Commission has finally agreed to look into whether it is right to award the benefits of charitable status to groups that promote quackery. This blog has been highly critical of many quack charities. [read more…]

David Tredinnick Standing Again as MP for Homeopathy.

5th May, 2017 3

David Tredinnick has been the Conservative MP for Bosworth since 1987. During that time, he has worked tirelessly to promote the interests of alternative medicine businesses, mostly homeopathy. With the General Election approaching fast on June 8th, Tredinnick has once again put his name forward in the constituency of Bosworth, and will ask the good voters to elect him so he continue his work promoting superstitious medical beliefs in the UK. [read more…]

Huddersfield Family Raising Funds for Burzynski

22nd April, 2017 9

It is not possible to imagine the distress that the Sitkowska family must find themselves in as their child, Cristiano, has an aggressive tumor and they have been told there is no more that can be done to save his life. I look at my own children and imagine how hard I would fight to do something to change the situation. Cristiano has been through treatment ordeals and it has not [read more…]

The Charity Commission’s Failure to Stop Quack Charities

5th April, 2017 14

The regulator of charities in the UK, the Charity Commission, is undertaking a consultation into how it should approach registering charities that promote so-called Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). The Commission have an obligation to ensure that only organisations that provide a benefit to the public gain the benefit of charitable status. CAM, by definition, is the set of medical beliefs and practices that are based on pseudoscientific and superstitious [read more…]

Just One Drop: Dreadful Homeopathy Propaganda

9th March, 2017 221

Homeopaths are launching a new film about homeopathy. As you can see from the trailer above, this is a film that sets out to ‘educate and promote’ homeopathy to the world. It is conspiratorial in tone and credulous in its presentation and shows disgusting quackery being sold to parents of children with autism. I have not been able to see the whole film yet – but the trailer clearly shows [read more…]

Homeopathic College Pays Heavy Price for Helping to Screen VAXXED

17th February, 2017 35

Andrew Wakefield’s plans to have a glamourous premier showing of his new film VAXXED in London’s West End failed after the cinema bacame aware of the content of the film and cancelled the contract. There then followed a desperate search by the VAXXED team to find an alternative venue. They did this successfully and decided that to ensure this new screening was not ‘sabotaged’ by scientists the location would be [read more…]