Perhaps I was mistaken. Everything I had read and heard of homoeopathy led me to believe it was just a pile of rotten excrement passing itself off as a “science”. I’ve even blogged about it in disparaging tones (here, here, here and here).

But I’ve had the scales pulled from my eyes. The truth of the matter has finally been revealed. Dr Charlene Werner has skillfully pulled all the strands of modern physics together, the bits that us mere mortals cannot hope to fully understand (like General Relativity and String Theory) and shown how this advanced physics underpins the great science of homoeopathy. It’s also fascinating to hear that there’s so little mass in the universe that one can, for all practical homoeopathic purposes, simply ignore the M in E = MC². One lives and learns.

What’s more, did you know that 70% of how you physically function is through “the vision system”? It must be true. Dr Werner has a whole website dedicated to this.

South Africa has emerged out of a particularly shameful period of AIDS denialism. This was led by denialist-in-chief, ex-president Thabo Mbeki and his demented sycophant, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, minister of health (and kleptomaniac alcoholic). This evil duo caused at least 300,000 deaths through the implementation of their criminal pseudo-science.

The anti-science atmosphere created by these monsters opened the door to a panoply of quacks and pedlars of death. The most famous of these was Matthias Rath. This vitamin salesman persuaded Manto to promote his brand of quackery while he attacked ARVs. Read Ben Goldacre’s account of Rath, even if it’s just to see how dangerous pseudo-science is.

This fertile ground was eyed by those water salesmen, homoeopaths. The charge to exploit Africa’s extremely vulnerable AIDS sufferers was led by one Jeremy Sherr. He is apparently well-known among homoeopaths in Britain. As Orac so amusingly notes, “Of course, to me being ‘famous’ in homeopathy circles is much the same as being famous in the con artist circles…”. He claimed to have set up a research programme in South Africa (debunked by South African Skeptics) with homoeopathic “medicine” alone as one of the arms of the trial – knowing full well that using a placebo in an AIDS trial is highly unethical.

As the homoeopaths moved in – such as the Maun Homeopathy Project in Botswana – an alarmed group of early career medics and researchers wrote an open letter to the the World Health Organisation calling for the body to issue a clear international communication about the inappropriate use of homoeopathy for five serious diseases, including HIV/AIDS. As Juliet Stevens, Medical Student, University of Oxford (on placement at Somerset State Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa) said in the letter:

“Despite awareness in Britain of the medical burden in South Africa, little can prepare you for seeing this first hand. On the Paediatric wards infants are diagnosed with stage 3 HIV/AIDS on a daily basis, and TB meningitis is rife. The minimal cost of state healthcare is prohibitive for some, and denial regarding HIV diagnoses is still common, making the population here a vulnerable target for unproven therapies.”

Now the tide is turning. To its credit the new Zuma administration in South Africa has reversed Mbeki’s disastrous policies and ARVs are being vigorously distributed. And the WHO has positively responded to the open letter:

The WHO has responded to the open letter and said that it DOES NOT recommend the use of homeopathy for treating HIV, TB, malaria, influenza and infant diarrhoea. The Director General’s office has confirmed that the responses from WHO departments (below) “clearly express the WHO’s position”. Today the Voice of Young Science network, has written to the health ministers of all countries to publicise the WHO’s position, asking them to combat the promotion of homeopathy for these dangerous diseases.

The message should come out loudly and strongly from Africa: Homoeopaths, take your worthless bottles of water and sugar pills – along with your groundless promises to the desperate and poor – and GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!

Here is an hilarious sketch from the BBC show “That Mitchell And Webb Look“. It takes a huge swipe at homoeopathy, this time its use in the ER.

The only problem with it is that the dilutions they use are much too low (or is that “weak”?). Good god! That would mean there could be actual “active” molecules in the dilution! No, no, no – a dilution of 1 million to 1 is 1 in 10⁶ – you want at least 1 in 10³⁰. And in an emergency, nothing less than the strongest is called for. How about 1 in 10¹⁵⁰⁰?

(Hat tip: wandapec)

But no matter how much we lampoon homoeopaths, they have come up with a real cure. For thirst.

The kerfuffle surrounding the British Chiropractic Association’s libel action against science author Simon Singh has resulted in a group of bloggers closely examining the claims made by chiropractors in Britain. And they found them wanting. This has spooked at least one group of chiropractors and judging by the slew of correspondence between blogger Zeno and the General Chiropractic Council (GCC), the entire industry seems to be spooked. The GCC seems to be going as far as to attempt changing the rules of complaint.

Three weeks ago today I wrote the following letter to the BCA:

Dear Sir

Thank you for drawing my attention to the defamatory nature of the word “bogus” through your action against Simon Singh. I had no idea the word meant anything other than “fake” – as in the opposite of genuine. On looking up the word in the dictionary I did indeed notice that there are many pejorative meanings attached to it, including “fraudulent” and “counterfeit”. I was surprised that using such a common word to criticise a set of scientific claims could land one in such trouble. I have always been careful of my facts but it appears it is much more important to be careful of one’s vocabulary.

The publicity around this case has piqued my interest in the claims made by chiropractors, a group of people I had always thought of as back manipulators. I notice that there have been a large number of complaints made against British chiropractors. This has spurred me into investigating if similar claims are made by chiropractors practising in South Africa. My preliminary investigation has shown that indeed the same claims – used as basis for the complaints in Britain – are being made here. I am now going through the various rules and regulations that would apply to South African chiropractors, including advertising standards and healthcare acts, to see if any are being breached.

Please advise me what word/s I could use to describe claims not backed by scientific evidence. Or claims for which scientific evidence is said to exist but not disclosed. Clearly, I will avoid using the word “bogus”.

My interest is not in impugning anyone’s dignity or reputation, nor to convey deliberate attempts to defraud. It is simply in examining if practitioners claims breach any standards or rules, and bringing such breaches to the attention of the authorities. I’m sure this approach would be enthusiastically endorsed by the BCA.

Once again, thank you for drawing my attention to this important matter.

Yours faithfully

Tim Beck.

Strangely, I have had no reply.

I have indeed been examining the claims made by chiropractors in South Africa. In broad summary, most of them make the same claims that are the subject of the complaints in Britain. I will follow up in a later post with more details of these claims.

However, all the chiropractors I investigated call themselves “doctor”. Now this is a “claim” that elicited complaints in Britain. I wanted to find out what the position in South Africa is so I trolled though Health Department sites, the Health Act (as amended, as amended…), various codes of conduct and anything else I could find. Oddly, in all of this I couldn’t find a single reference to who is and who isn’t entitled to call themselves “doctor”.

Chiropractors have to be registered by the Allied Health Professions Council of South Africa (who don’t have a functioning website) so I phoned them and was pleasantly surprised to get an informed answer. Which is this: Both registered chiropractors and homoeopaths are entitled to call themselves to call themselves “doctor”. To register they have to have completed a five or six year masters degree (available at Durban University of Technology and University of Johannesburg), followed by an “internship” year.

So that, at least, is above board. Their medical claims, however, surely can’t be legislated away. Or can they? Watch this space.

I did wonder, what could they possibly be studying for six years? Perhaps, for homoeopaths: 1001 Ways to Administer a Placebo. And for chiropractors: 600 Diseases You Have Never Heard Of Which Are Cured Through Clicking The Back.

In a recent post I recounted the sad tale of little Gloria Thomas who died from complications arising from untreated eczema. Her only “treatment” had been homoeopathic preparations that had no effect since homoeopathic preparations contain no active ingredients. Unfortunately this sort of neglect of treatable conditions and diseases is very common. Have a look at this list of people, some quite well known, who are victims of non-treatment by homoeopathy.

You might have noticed in the what’s the harm list that it included the case where a homoeopath peddled a “homoeopathic” concoction that killed three and blinded seven:

Gundawar was a homeopath who sold a new tonic, recently introduced on the market, that was supposed to reduce fatigue. He himself died, along with several of his patients. Several others were blinded, and other cases occured elsewhere in India.

Clearly this was highly toxic and was most definitely not homoeopathic.

For a better understanding of how homeopathy works, watch James Randi’s explanation:

Religion often makes people do – and defend – the strangest things. But never so strange as when parents knowingly let a child die rather than defy some arcane religious dictate. Jehovah’s Witnesses immediately spring to mind. Many children – and many more adults – die each year from refusing life-saving blood transfusions. For purely religious reasons. Not that there’s any clear “thou shalt not…” injuction against blood transfusions. No, you’ve got to contort your mind around a few obscure words in the bible to see any possible interpretation against blood transfusions. And for this JWs are willing to die – and kill their children. Very, very strange things indeed.

Of course it’s not only Jehovah’s Witnesses, nor indeed only Christians, who are willing to sacrifice their children at the alter of religious dogma. Take the recent case of Daniel Hauser, a 13-year-old cancer patient who refused medical treatment. The boy is illiterate and appears to have little understanding of the chemotherapy treatment and the fact that his form of cancer, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, is very curable in the earlier stages. His mother actually went to court to justify his decision – based on religious principles. His family belong to a faux Native American cult called Nemenhah, who peddle “cures” for AIDS and cancer. Feeble little Daniel Hauser’s parents were willing to let their son die through their belief in a religion run by a huckster. Luckily the court came to his aid and he will have a chance to live.

Some are not so lucky.  Take the sad case of little Gloria Thomas, aged nine months. Her homoeopath father, Thomas Sam, let his little daughter suffer to her death from a case of eczema. Her skin got infected and with her body trying to fight it she could not get enough nutrition from her mother’s milk. She died in a pitiful, highly malnourished state – in great agony.

So what religion proscribed proper medical treatment for this innocent baby? What promise of after-life glory was made in an ancient manuscript? What undeniable holy truth led her parents to the conviction that they should spurn the medical advice of many, many doctors to treat their baby’s skin with medicines and relieve her of her terrible suffering?

Homoeopathy.

As they watched their child die, they persisted in treating her with pure water – with nothing. Was Thomas Sam a true believer? Did little Gloria Thomas’s mother, Manju Sam have absolute faith in giving pure water – without so much as a single molecule of active ingredient – as treatment to her easily treatable baby? What would cause a mother and father to reject the the urgings of various health professionals and persist in pursueing homeopathic remedies which time and again obviously had no effect? Wouldn’t some inkling of doubt creep into their deluded minds?

This bears all the hallmarks of religous fanaticsim. Homoeopathy is not a science.  At best it can be called psuedo-science.  It is such a crazy idea, so far removed from the realms of the possible, that it takes blind faith to believe that it can have any effect at all in treating any condition. In the pantheon of strange ideas, homeopathy is up there with the stangest.

Gloria Thomas’s parents were convicted in an Australian court of manslaughter by gross criminal negligence. They face 25 years in jail. Thomas Sam is unrepentant.

Homoeopathy might not be a religion, but it sure looks like one.