Andy L – Page 38 – The Quackometer Blog

Fun with the Code of Ethics

22nd May, 2008 6

The Society of Homeopaths have recently had their 30th Anniversary Annual General Meeting and Conference at Leicester University. Lots of pop and cake were undoubtedly consumed. Various guest speakers were there talking nonsense and various ‘breakout’ sessions allowed homeopaths to share their delusional experience with each other. One session will be on “Perils and pitfalls in practice” given by Patricia Moroney the current Professional Conduct Officer. She says, There will [read more…]

How Life Healthcare Coped with the Terror of an ASA Investigation.

14th May, 2008 32

The Advertising Standards Authority is one of the few regulatory bodies in the UK regularly prepared to tackle the untruthful and unsubstantiated claims made routinely in the alternative health industry. It is also one of the weakest regulatory bodies in the UK. Nothing could highlight that more than how Life Healthcare (trading under the url http://www.reverseageing.com/) dealt with an investigation. Life Healthcare had made an advertising leaflet for a product [read more…]

How to become a Daytime TV Expert: The Jayney Goddard Story

7th May, 2008 39

Professor Jayney Goddard is the president of the Complementary Medical Association (CMA), “the world’s largest professional membership body for complementary medicine” and has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. She studied homeopathy at Imperial College for five years and has won numerous awards. According to various sites, she is “considered to be among the world’s leading experts in complementary and integrated medicine.” Impressive stuff. No wonder [read more…]

Neal’s Yard Remedies ‘rapped by medicines regulator’

6th May, 2008 7

In a recent post, I described how Neal’s Yard Remedies had withdrawn their Malaria homeopathy pills. Their press release said, as this is obviously a contentious issue which is causing customer concern, we have decided to withdraw the product, Malaria Officinalis 30c from sale with immediate effect. I described this as bullshit, just like the rest of their press release. The much more likely cause was that they were being [read more…]

On Bullshit and Mindfucking

1st May, 2008 17

Edzard Ernst has accused practitioners of alternative medicine of lying to their patients. In last week’s New Scientist he gave an interview where he described his childhood experiences with homeopathy, and his subsequent medical and homeopathic training, and his work in the only German homeopathic hospital. His conversion to doubt has been slow and guided by the evidence. He now believes that homeopathy is nothing more than a placebo therapy. [read more…]

Neal’s Yard Ethical Bullshit Remedy

28th April, 2008 252

Neal’s Yard Remedies has announced that it is withdrawing is Malaria Officinalis 30C homeopathic remedy from sale. This is the absolute minimum it could have done given that its Exeter Branch was recently caught out by the BBC South West programme Inside Out selling this remedy as protection against malaria. (I wrote about this staggering event recently.) What reason do Neal’s Yard give? Let’s look at their press release in [read more…]

The ‘Close Doors’ Button

23rd April, 2008 23

I read a rather disconcerting thing the other day. Apparently, the ‘close doors’ button on lifts (elevators, for my American friends) does not work. It is there to give us a sense of control in the tin box suspended on a rope. We press it but the lift control mechanisms decide when the doors should actually shut according to their pre-programmed cycles. My reaction was of course total disbelief. For [read more…]

A Footnote to Darwin and Homeopathy

17th April, 2008 18

The homeopaths, like Dana Ullman, treat original scientific works like scripture – as a source of truth. Their own Hahnemannian scriptures trump scientific knowledge and evidence at all turns. This fact exposes their pseudoscience. I bet the majority of practicing biologists have never read Darwin’s Origins. Homeopaths like the authority of scientists, celebrities and politicians. It gives them a source of validation that is independent of the reality of the [read more…]

It’s a Stitch Up

15th April, 2008 9

It’s the big story this morning all over the British papers – the new killer in our midst – vitamin pills. Today, a new Cochrane review tells us that guzzling antioxidant vitamin pills ‘do us no good and may be harmful’. The Independent tell us that, We swallow them by the bucketload at great expense but there is no evidence vitamin supplements do us any good, and they may even [read more…]

Neal’s Yard Remedies Offers Lethal Homeopathic Malaria Advice

13th April, 2008 28

Unbelievably, nearly two years after BBC Newsnight exposed ten homeopaths offering dangerous advice to travellers about malaria protection, the BBC have found high street chain Neal’s Yard Remedies offering sugar pills as protection against malaria. The BBC, in a press release, said, The presenter of [BBC] Inside Out South West Janine Jansen was sold homeopathic remedies by the manager of Neal’s Yard in Exeter and was advised that she could [read more…]