Interesting

I have been blogging here since the end of 2006 and no post has attracted as many comments as yesterday's has done. Obviously Homeopathy is a very hot potato at the moment - which I had failed to realise.

I did not say whether I believed or disbelieved and I'm not about to do so now. What I am in favour of is free speech. What I am not in favour of is attempting to intimidate people into agreeing with you which I can't help feeling is what http://www.1023.org.uk/ are trying to do with their campaign. The whole thing leaves a nasty taste and reminds me of the vitriolic debate which the Swine Flu vaccine attracted in certain quarters.

I need not repeat here some of the totally outlandish conspiracy theories which surrounded that vaccine. But much of the Internet debate I read on the subject struck me as people getting very forceful and insistent that everyone should believe what they were saying because they had the only right answers. The people who were arguing for the vaccine and for people to make decisions about it based on their own individual circumstances were far more measured and controlled and using much less emotive language.

In fact if you want to convince me of anything then at least use rational and non-emotive language or I shall immediately think you have a personal axe to grind - likewise insults don't work. By the way if we're talking about complementary therapies then please do not spell the word as 'complimentary' which means something completely different.

LATER

I have just been reading the FAQs on the above mentioned website and come across Q4 which talks about confusing correlation and causation and suggests if you get better after taking a Homeopathic remedy then you would have got better anyway and it is your immune system which has caused the recovery or the placebo effect. Why on earth don't we make more use of the placebo effect? But you could argue the same thing for allopathic medicine - whatever is said here about scientists being really clever mortals who can get rid of these effects. Science does not have all the answers in my opinion any more than it has ever had all the answers at any period of mankind's history. Flat Earth anyone?

Why campaign against Homeopathy?

I've just read about this campaign: www.1023.org.uk

Apparently it is going to stage a mass 'overdose' outside Boots branches on 30 January to highlight how useless Homeopathy is. Why? What harm does it do to anyone if people believe in Homeopathy? Even if it only works as a placebo it is still not to be sneezed at since in drug trials a placebo often comes out quite well. What this campaign are basically saying is that other people shouldn't believe in it because they don't. They appear not to realise that Homeopaths will not try and treat you when they know you have something which needs conventional medicine and they will not tell you to throw out all your conventional drugs and just take Homeopathic remedies.

I'm sure Her Majesty the Queen will be duly impressed - and amused.

I find this sort of thing makes me very angry. How can you campaign against someone else's views? I don't like tattoos and body piercings but I wouldn't go and march up and down outside a business that sells these things. It is a matter of individual choice.