It's Disgusting

  On Sunday word hit Facebook that there was a Homeopathic company in Australia that was promoting the use of homeopathy to combat radiation poisoning in Japan in the wake of the earthquake damage to their nuclear reactors. Many bloggers have since posted their responses to counter this dangerous - life threatening idea.

Here are just a few: Phil Plait, The Merseyside Skeptics, The Punch & Ben Radford

  Soon after The 10:23 Campaign posted their link to the story, American homeopath Kate Birch waded into the debate with claims of how effective these little sugar pills or bottles of water are in  helping radiation sickness, malaria, AIDS, etc. This woman is either deluded, willfully ignorant or a dangerous scammer.

HM's Shame.

Last year while I was still living in the UK I signed this petition that said:

The House Commons Science and Technology committee has recently undertaken an evidence check on the usefulness of homeopathy and has now published its report.

The conclusions are unequivocal. They say "To maintain patient trust, choice and safety, the Government should not endorse the use of placebo treatments, including homeopathy. Homeopathy should not be funded on the NHS and the MHRA should stop licensing homeopathic products."

The government should implement these recommendations as soon as possible.

 

Today in my email I received this message:

You signed a petition asking the Prime Minister to implement the
recommendations of the House Commons Science and Technology committee
evidence check on Homeopathy.

Her Majesty's Government has responded to that petition and you can view it
here:
http://www.hmg.gov.uk/epetition-responses/petition-view.aspx?epref=nohomeopathy

I'm so glad I no longer am paying for the NHS to support this, now off to fight the fight here in the States (and no this doesn't mean I'm not going to support the fight in the UK anymore.

Ironically, while looking up the government links for this blog, I found this image in the heading for the NHS Direct site:

How can you trust a system that pays for homeopathic treatment? 
In doing so they are giving out a signal that such treatment actually works.
There is a good sign tho - they have removed homeopathy from this site
(pending a review by the Department of Health policy team responsible
for complementary and alternative medicines.)

Useless Warning

I get headaches - I take ibuprofen & paracetamol to get rid of them. Yesterday I looked at the information sheet that was included in a pack of paracetamol caplets from Boots, the British pharmacy. Included in the info was a warning to contact the pharmacist for any interactions if taking any other drugs - prescribed, over the counter, herbal & homeopathic.

Homeopathic??? Does this mean that I need to ask if there might be an interaction if I take a candy drop & paracetamol?

Bloody heck!

Click the title
of this post for
a related blog by
PodBlack Cat.