Quack Treatments – Page 6 – The Quackometer Blog

The Homeopaths and the Advertising Standards Authority

1st April, 2011 21

It is now the end of the Nightingale Collaboration’s first month of operation. This newly formed organization was set up to “challenge misleading claims in healthcare advertising”. In particular, TNC is focusing on the bizarre world of Pseudoscientific and Superstitious Medicine: an area that appears to get away with the most ludicrous health claims with little attention from any authority. In its first month, the Nightingale Collaboration asked people to [read more…]

In Five Years, the Society of Homeopaths Have Learnt Nothing

5th January, 2011 43

Hat tip to the Quackometer on BBC Newsnight… Before they reconsider their damning response. here it is… with annotations in red Society of Homeopaths does not endorse “preventative” treatment in serious tropical diseases The Society of Homeopaths, the UK’s largest register of homeopaths with 1,500 members, does not endorse the use of homeopathic remedies with a view to preventing serious tropical diseases such as malaria and yellow fever. [read more…]

Escaping the Cult of Homeopathy

13th December, 2010 69

How are we to understand the persistence of alternative medicine beliefs? Despite the absurdity of many of the claims of the various superstitious medicines, we see very entrenched positions amongst believers, hostility to criticism and an imperviousness to external mainstream views. Why do people fervently lock themselves into such positions? Over the past few years, as I have researched the the world of alternative medicine , one of the most [read more…]

Homeopaths Find The Solution – Hire PR Consultants.

6th December, 2010 33

Under the banner of One Vision, One Voice you can watch the conference as it used a PR Consultant to brainstorm a set of ‘themes’ for how homeopathy should tackle its problems. There is nice insight at the end to see how they think they can counter the threats to their trade that are appearing globally from people realising that all they trade in is sugar pills. It would appear [read more…]

I Have Been Putting on my Shoes

22nd November, 2010 46

The Internet does not forget. This is, arguably, the single most important techno-sociological change that we, as individuals, corporations, celebrities and politicians, have had to learn over the past decade. And it is a lesson that appears not to have sunk in at all. Everything we do on the web, whether that be browsing, blogging, twittering or updating Facebook statuses, leaves a trail. And once that trail is set, there [read more…]

On the The Reckless Physicking of Amateur Females.

16th November, 2010 35

It would appear to be important for homeopaths to show how the rich, blue blooded and famous are supporters of homeopathy. One might suggest that in lieu of meaningful scientific evidence for homeopathy, appeals to the beliefs of the influential and celebrities are all that are left. Dana Ullman, America’s chief propagandist for homeopathy, takes this approach to its zenith with his book, The Homeopathic Revolution: Famous People and Cultural [read more…]

Chiropractors at War with their Regulator, the GCC

1st November, 2010 550

From Richard Lanigan’s blog, we learn that the head of the four chiropractic associations have written to the GCC to state that their members have no confidence in their regulatory abilities. Richard Brown, President of the British Chiropractic Association has written the letter, co-signed by Ross McDonald, Kevin Proudman and Bernadette Martin, the Presidents of the Scottish Chiropractors, the United Chiropractic Association and the McTimoney Chiropractors respectively. The letter notes [read more…]

The Curious Case of Oxford University Press, Homeopathy and Charles Darwin

15th October, 2010 111

Science is a human activity. And as such, it is subject to the full range of fallibilities of thought and action that people are capable of. Within science you will find sloppy and wishful thinking, error and even fraud. But science, rather uniquely, has methods designed explicitly to minimise human biases, reduce error and correct mistakes when they are found. It is this inherent error correction that makes science a [read more…]

The Futility of Finding Physical Explanations for Homeopathy

10th October, 2010 52

From the very first decades of homeopathy’s existence in the early 19th Century, mainstream scientists have dismissed its claims for one simple reason: the extremely dilute nature of the remedies. As Oliver Wendell Holmes remarked in 1842 “So much ridicule has been thrown upon the pretended powers of the minute doses”. Today’s modern understanding of the atomic nature of matter makes the homeopathic principle of dilution appear nonsensical. Many remedies [read more…]

John Benneth, Brian Josephson and an Absurd Talk at Cambridge

9th October, 2010 82

On the 1st of October, a rather unusual talk was held at the Cavendish Laboratories in Cambridge, entitled “The Supramolecular Chemistry of the Homeopathic Remedy”. The talk was at the invite of Nobel laureate Brian Josephson and was to be given by a chap named John Benneth. Josephson is a known supporter of parapsychology, telepathy and homeopathy. Now Benneth may well be known to critics of homeopathy as he is [read more…]