The louder a food screams ‘natural’ or ‘healthy’ at you, the further you should run. That is the somewhat counter-intuitive message of Michael Pollan’s essay, Unhappy Meals. Pollan tells us to avoid those food products that come bearing loud health claims. They’re apt to be heavily processed, and the claims are often dubious at best. Don’t forget that margarine, one of the first industrial foods to claim that it was [read more…]
Bertrand Russel said, What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires — desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting [read more…]
Professor Joan Higgins, Chair of the Federal Working Group on Complementary Therapies, is in charge of setting up the Natural Healthcare Council (Ofquack). From April, this will be a voluntary self-regulated body that will be tasked with protecting the public from the dangers of alternative medicine. The Professor wrote to the Guardian today to complain about Polly Toynbee’s straight talking article, I am sorry that Polly Toynbee feels that the [read more…]
The ambush by the Prince of Wales on the various factions of Alternative Medicine by announcing the set up of the Natural Healthcare Council, Ofquack, is starting to have effects. In the Guardian yesterday, Polly Toynbee ran an article entitled, Quackery and superstition – available soon on the NHS. She argues that we should, Put not your trust in princes, especially not princes who talk to plants. and despairs how [read more…]
It looks like the campaign to clean up homeopathy is having effects! A new supplier of homeopathic remedies appears to have entered the market with the promise that “we won’t lie to you”. They say, “For some reason, many homeopaths feel they have to tell their patients lies and fairy stories, and try to baffle them with pseudo-science. Here at FairDeal Homeopathy, we treat you like adults, and only tell [read more…]
Prince Charles’ Foundation for Integrated Health and its new regulatory quango, the Natural Healthcare Council (or Ofquack, as it is bound to become known), is due to launch in April. Ofquack is designed to be an ‘independent self-regulatory body for complementary therapists. In 2000, the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee looked into the regulation of non-medically trained health workers. It asked the Prince of Wales Foundation to [read more…]
How should homeopaths be regulated? I am not sure I have made up my mind yet about what I would like to see and I am not convinced there is a perfect solution. However, I hope some debate has been kicked off by all the goings on last year, here and on various other blogs and forums. One thing I am pretty sure of is that homeopaths have pretty much [read more…]
As I am sure you are aware, the marketing departments in pharmaceutical companies employ hoards of cartoonists to mock the alternative medicine industrty, alledgedly. Here is the latest attempt to reduce the grand holistic arts to beano style ridicule. Joseph Hewitt’s Ataraxia Theatre obviously has a thing going on about homeopaths. His latest scribble is a beautifully observed mocking of the absurdity of homeopathy. Joseph Hewitt is an English teacher [read more…]
I do find the Bible disappointing in one or two areas. For a work supposedly divinely inspired, it is remarkably lacking in handy life enhancing tips like how to cure nasty diseases and relieve common aches and pains. There really is little in the way of pharmacology and medicine in the Bible. Not even basic lifestyle, exercise and nutrition tips. “Do not smoke” should have made it into the commandments, [read more…]
There is nothing new under the quackery sun…
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