What’s Woo Worth?
A common excuse for the lack of proper research in CAM is that “only Big Pharma can afford to do research”. Alt-Med apologists like to assert that there’s no money in it (homeopathy, herbal remedies etc) and so they can’t afford to do the research. I think that’s rubbish. Here’s why: Read the rest of this entry »
Did You Just Call Me A Cult?
In the wake of Ben Goldacre’s excellent recent articles on homeopathy in The Lancet and The Guardian (reproduced in The Daily Mail), several blogs have been started with the intention of defending the indefensible – homeopathy.
They Work For You
As it is possible to contact MPs quite easily now and I was wondering why homeopathic remedies are exempt from the requirement for medicines to show proof of efficacy, I decided to ask a few questions.
Purple and Woo
Several people seem to have picked up on the use of purple and similar colours on ‘woo’ sites. I wondered if woo sites used more purple than other sites. EDIT: Purple is definitely not the woo colour of choice. It’s green. Bright green. Shield your eyes… http://www.jabs.org.uk/forum/ Read the rest of this entry »
Preacher Torture
Brainwashing and Alleged Abuse – the Lord’s Work?
A headline in Bradford newspaper the Telegraph & Argus reported on Wednesday that a “‘Preacher’ Tortured His Sons” http://archive.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/2007/11/14/205073.html. The trial is ongoing, so any mention of torture in this post is referring to alleged torture. Quotes are verbatim, the opinions are my own and refer to what I think of the alleged crimes. Read the rest of this entry »
Lionel Milgrom and the Nazis
There’s been some letters to the eCAM journal http://ecam.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/eletters/4/1/7. The e-letters from Daniel Chrastina, Austin Elliot and Simon Baker make for interesting reading. Lionel Milgrom responds to these letters with a rant about Edzard Ernst ‘bringing up the Third Reich’.
My response to Milgrom’s Nazi complaint follows. Read the rest of this entry »
Water, Water Everywhere…
Nor any drop to drink. With apologies to Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I’m using just a tiny amount of his poem ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ in the hope that this tiny amount, heavily diluted with my own words (and succussed when I bang my head on the keyboard in frustration, most likely) will prove to be more powerful than the original. Sounds like a load of old cock? It is – but so is homeopathy and still we have ‘water, water everywhere’. The latest example I’ve spotted is… Read the rest of this entry »
A Failure To Engage
Just a quick rant. I’m getting sick of organisations and individuals who express their viewpoint and then do the equivalent of running away with their fingers in their ears shouting ‘lalala’. I find this incredibly frustrating and I’m not sure what (if anything) it achieves. This failure to engage can be seen on many websites from anti-vaccine forums through online newspaper columns and even MP’s blogs.
Stuff And Nonsense 
