Chinese Herbal Medicine could be seen as the acceptable side of alternative medicine. It does not suffer from the utter implausibility of homeopathy, nor does it appear to rely on supernatural mechanisms such as with Reiki. Indeed, herbal medicine appears to be nothing but a primitive form of pharmacology with the practitioner diagnosing disease and then prescribing the right chemicals: the Chinese method is through herbs; the ‘western’ method through [read more…]
I was going to call this post “The Failure of IT at Ofquack”, but I think the failure is a little deeper than computers. The Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council have recently put the following announcement up on their web site: Website Hackers We are extremely disappointed to have to share with you that we have had a number of unprecedented attempts by hackers to disable our website. We are [read more…]
My automated scans of the internet for all things about quackery have thrown up some interesting news today. The German newspaper Bild is reporting that an academic homeopathy journal is about to publish the discovery of fragments of a new edition of Hahnemann’s Organon. (translation here from “Die Entdeckung einer verlorenen siebte Auflage des Organon?”) For those not familiar with the origins of homeopathy, its inventor, a German doctor, wrote [read more…]
The economic downturn may mean that you are thinking of retraining as an alternative healer. You might be tempted to invest your redundancy money or savings in training courses and equipment. Think again. It may be far cheaper and much more lucrative to invent your own brand new form of quackery. Most forms of alternative medicine are at most only a few decades old or have only become popular recently. [read more…]
It does not take a lot of analysis to realise that the newly formed Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council is going to be in a desperate financial state quite soon. The CNHC, or Ofquack to its friends, was launched this year after being set up by Prince Charles’ charity, the Foundation for Integrated Health, backed by funding of about £900,000 from the Department of Health. Ofquack is the “national voluntary [read more…]
Prince Charles is being labeled a quack in today’s news. And not a moment too soon. The BBC report that “Prince Charles has been accused of exploiting the public in times of hardship by launching what a leading scientist calls a “dodgy” detox mix.” Dodgy Originals, as now they will become known, is selling three herbal tinctures. Two of them, echinachea and hypericum, are the first herbal preparations to be [read more…]
In today’s Pulse, the magazine for GPs, a spat between Dr Michael Dixon and critics of alternative medicine has been reported. Dr Dixon, chairman of the NHS Alliance, was accused of breaking GMC guidelines by issuing ‘misleading or incorrect’ statements about alternative medicine. The NHS Alliance is not actually part of the NHS, but is an independent body that acts a bit like a club, lobby and research organisation into [read more…]
Various news sources and pro alternative medicine web sites have been telling us this week that a trial involving NHS GPs in Northern Ireland has shown that referring patients for homeopathy, reflexology, acupuncture and other CAM has highly successful outcomes. I see this as nothing short of an attempted fraud to extract NHS money for traders in quackery. Let me explain. For example, the Princes Foundation for Integrated Health tells [read more…]
A few weeks ago, newspapers were carrying remarkable stories about a Scottish mineral water, Deeside Water, that could halt aging, reduce wrinkles and have amazing anti-oxidant effects – a remarkable fountain of youth. Newspapers gushed with reports of this amazing scientific discovery. Even the BBC had previously reported that Deeside Water could “treat rheumatism, skin conditions and stomach complaints” . Deeside water were celebrating a press release from Queen Margaret [read more…]
Just a short post to note how radio station LBC 97.3FM (London’s Biggest Conversation) have utterly failed to understand the strength of feeling that exists out there about their attempts to silence debate regarding their appalling coverage of the MMR issue. My blog has seen one of the biggest spikes of traffic since the Society of Homeopaths tried to shut me down. They failed. I became stronger. Thousands of people [read more…]
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