Back to school

It’s open season again in the battle between us sceptics and the evil, evil CAM people, and I must admit we are getting bruised.

Not that we ain’t trying, but with every move we make we seem to be getting our faces knocked in. If you ask me this is a direct result of the childish pranks that the ‘Voice of Young Scientists’ are getting up to these days. Not that I didn’t warn them. ‘Young does not mean childish’, I said, but like the kids they are they just won’t listen. So here they are again pulling the silly 10:23 campaign out of the hat. If it backfired once it’s going to backfire again, I told them. But on they go, and to make things worse they are launching the even more infantile ‘homeopathic vodka’ binge:

A BBC2 programme in support of the 1023 Campaign is to be screened on 14th September: Quote: “As part of a documentary for the BBC, the 10.23 Campaign created a new product – QED homeopathic vodka. Taking great pains to prepare the vodka absolutely correctly, to the most vigorous of standards, we then took to the streets to find out what people thought of this new product and the £40m-a year homeopathic industry.”

They may not get intoxicated from that placebo bunk, but they sure are acting like drunks, so who’s to know the difference?

It gets worse. Now the kids are launching a juvenile protest outside the Department of Health. The Voice of the Very, Very, Very Young Scientists will be offering free diplomas to practise ‘Old Wives Traditional Medicine’… Sigh… what can I say, reminds me of my early high school days.

The thing they don’t get is that the British public are not stupid, and it won’t do to offend British grandmothers if you don’t want your head smacked with an umbrella. Those Brit’s love their underdog; the more they push their immature self indulgent pranks the more support homeopathy is going to get. I guess it’s left to mature people like me to carry on a more serious campaign. Anyway, that’s what mum keeps saying.

And while the kids are playing games we are being punched all over!

Prof. David Colquhoun got the boot from the CNHC Conduct & Competence Committee! Read Here

An academic has been sacked from a committee of the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council …after practitioners drew attention to his outspoken criticism of alternative medicine. David Colquhoun, Honorary Fellow and former chair of pharmacology at University College London, applied to join the “conduct and competence committee” of the CNHC when it was established in 2008 as a self-regulatory body for practitioners of alternative medicine.

Now we all know that David applied for the committee as a publicity gimmick, but there you have it, just another attention-grabber that backfires on the more serious sceptics, like myself. Just look at the embarrassing quote this kind of stunt results in:

(having David in the committee): “…is like asking a racist to be objective about the circumstances of racist crime”.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch… Here is a snippet from a recent and most revealing interview with ‘Prof’ Edzard Erntz, fired head of the Exeter University Complementary medicine dept:

“So is it correct that you did not acquire the additional medical title ‘Homeopath’ but took further medical education courses in homeopathy? If yes, which ones? Ernst: “I never completed any courses.”

In short, it appears that the leading ‘authority’ on homeopathy has no qualifications in homeopathy. Read more here

But perhaps most embarrassing of all are the revelations on Ben Goldacre. Benny has finally been dragged out of the closet. I had to cringe when I read it, a bit close to home, and all I can hope is that this won’t happen to me one day… Lord knows I have connections with some of the very same companies. And just read the comments; they rip poor Ben and our other friends to pieces.

A few choice quotes:

It has been a lamentable feature of Ben Goldacre’s contribution to the public discussion of science in the UK that he has everywhere generated an atmosphere of intolerance in support of his views, and rather than raise the tone of the debate it has encouraged a new kind of scientific infantilism, in which you deride your opponents and defer to authority.

It appears that Ben’s old man was a company boy too:

Goldacre senior was a co-author of a study of the effects of GlaxoSmithKline’s notorious Urabe strain version of MMR, Pluserix, after it was suddenly withdrawn from public use in 1992.

The Goldacre dynasty seems to be one of several with on-going connections and strange family ties with the MMR affair. It read like Who’s who- list of corrupt Pharma ties, including

• Dr Evan Harris, the former MP…is the son of paediatrician Prof Frank Harris who sat on the Committee on Safety in Medicines and the adverse reactions to vaccine committee
• Paul Nuki, the Sunday Times features editor, who hired journalist Brian Deer to investigate Andrew Wakefield with the statement “I need something big on MMR” was the son of Prof George Nuki who was on the Committee on Safety in Medicines when MMR…
• The Davis brothers Sir Crispin and Sir Nigel. Sir Crispin was CEO of Reed Elsevier, publishers of the Lancet… was also a non-executive director of MMR defendants GlaxoSmithKline, and Sir Nigel was the High Court judge who upheld the Legal Services Commission to withhold funding from the MMR case a week later without disclosing a family connection to the case… He neither disclosed his GSK directorship or his brother’s judicial involvement in the case.
• James Murdoch CEO of News International, publishers of the Sunday Times joined the board of GlaxoSmithKlein…This was immediately followed by renewed “overkill” type attacks in Times newspapers on Andrew Wakefield by Brian Deer and others.

It goes on and on. Most embarrassing is showing Benny boys site for selling ‘anti quack T shirts and mugs’ crap: Vomit here.  Did I say childish? Who is ever going to take someone playing that kind of cheap gimmick seriously???

Like I say, badly bruised this month, and I don’t think the back to school pranks are going to make it any better.

It’s raining

Well it may be mid-summer, but it feels like rain. Either that or someone is pissing on us from a great big height.

Just read the Government Response to the Science and Technology Committee report ‘Evidence Check 2: Homeopathy’

http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_117810:

I really didn’t want to write about this issue in public, but as you know this blog is where I share my private thoughts. And at the moment they are gray and cloudy. After all that work: The Science and Tech Committee,  the ill-fated 10:23, all our blogging, lobbying,  pushing and ‘convincing’, and now the Government has just kicked us straight down the drain!  Poor Tracy was in tears, and the guys had to order double drinks on the rocks.

I’m quoting a few bits here, just to get it off my chest:

We believe in patients being able to make informed choices about their treatments, and in a clinician being able to prescribe the treatment they feel most appropriate in particular circumstances, within the regulatory and guidance frameworks by which they are bound…

…our continued position on the use of homeopathy within the NHS is that the local NHS and clinicians, rather than Whitehall, are best placed to make decisions on what treatment is appropriate for their patients – including complementary or alternative treatments such as homeopathy – and provide accordingly for those treatments.

How dare they! Who gave clinicians the right to a free choice? That’s what pharmaceutical companies are for! Lord knows we give out enough free pens and trips to the Bahamas. Ungrateful, that’s what I call them. And who gave patients the right to decide?! Since when do they know what’s good for them? I think it is just plain irresponsible to leave people’s health choices to themselves. Just imagine, those little old ladies having to choose all by themselves. Someone has to make decisions for them.

And now the government is going to waste a whole 12 Million pounds out of the NHS overall budget £100 billion. What a disgrace – that money could fund 10 minutes research into the latest cloning techniques. And if we clone you all, you won’t need to decide any more, will you?!

As you can see there was no way I could write about this, so I did a recycle job on the same old tosh. Well, that’s what they pay me for, isn’t it!  However, it’s a bit difficult to knock research when the Government paper says:

…it is therefore vitally important that the scientific evidence base for homeopathy is clearly explained and available.

And recommends: … further research cannot be categorically ruled out. If proposals were to come forward which could further clarify the impact of homeopathy, they would be considered in the usual way.

Homeopathy has a long tradition in Europe and is a recognised and widely used system of medicine across the EU. And the EU states : “Whereas, despite considerable differences in the status of alternative medicines in the Member States, patients should be allowed access to the medicinal products of their choice, provided all precautions are taken to ensure the quality and safety of the said products.”

Bloody commies. Makes me ashamed to be working in France. Not that they don’t have 40,000 homeopathic pharmacies there! Merde!

Last and not least:

It is not open to the UK to set aside its obligations in European law to provide regulatory arrangements for homeopathic medicines.

Check mate I guess. Unless we start hassling the whole of Europe.

If things carry on this way the boss is not gonna pay. I can’t just sit here blogging all day for free you know.

Anyway I’m sick of this freedom thing. Time to get out of here! Did anyone say China?

Paranoia, Conspiracies and Leaks

Those deluded homeopaths are at it again. Now they believe that there is a conspiracy against them, people spying on their schools. What nonsense! If that turns out true I will eat my anorak.

Ha-ha. Another obvious symptom of their collective paranoia. We scan every one of the homeopathic websites, blogs and forums, such as Minutus, on a daily basis and we can find no evidence whatsoever that anyone is monitoring their activities. We don’t discuss them, don’t comment about them, and don’t spend our days and nights planning campaigns to eradicate them in parliament, homeopathic hospitals or Boots. Nor do we don’t try to conceal our identities. See? – it’s just paranoia!

Why should we care? We never even heard of homeopathy until they started attacking our organisations. We are peace loving folks who mind our own business. Who gave homeopaths the right to think anyone is trying to hassle them. No one from the Reiki people, the National Guild of Healers, ghost busters, or even the Church of England has ever accused us of a conspiracy, and they are as airy-fairy  as they get. So why would anyone imagine we concern ourselves with homeopaths. Homeo-who?

And then they claim that we are Phrama funded. Ridiculous! Just because their annual turnover exceeds 1.5 billion euro doesn’t mean they are a threat.

Just to see how objective we are, check out

we don’t take money from Pharma

But what really concerns me is that there may be a mole in one of our secret organisations! This is making me nervous. They are stalking us and we must take preventative counter measures at once.  Maybe some electronic listening devices, some hidden cameras and a crack counter espionage force; I always fancied myself a bit of a Tom Cruise.

Remember kids. Just because you’re paranoid does not mean you are not being followed.

Down and out in Paris and London

I’ve been quiet for a while, sorry. I’ve been pretty down – It just seems that there is nothing much to say, things are crumbling.

Our campaign against CAM is floundering. The more we attack, the more it seems to thrive. It appears that after every attack we launch on the homeopaths more people buy those bloody remedies. Homeopathy is thriving again. My guess is that everyone is bored with our antics. Personally I think it all started after that dumb 10:23 campaign. I never liked it in the first place. Worse still over 60 MP’s have now signed on the EDM supporting homeopathy. I guess that’s what they call backlash

http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=40517&SESSION=903

All in all this month has gone badly. It started with Edzard Ernst being given the boot by Exeter University. I guess even his sponsors realised he has passed his sell by date. Then poor old Simon Singh had to resign from his post at the Guardian amid much collective sobbing from his fan club.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/12/simon-singh-goodbye-libel-reform

Simple Simon says: The problem is that I have spent the past two years being sued for libel, which has taken up huge amounts of time. And now all my remaining spare time is being devoted to campaigning for libel reform. The crippling and prohibitive financial cost of defending a libel case is often highlighted, but the equally terrible cost in terms of time and stress is rarely mentioned.

Singh later won his appeal on April fool’s day, but as the poor fellow constantly reminds us in his whimpering, he lost 200,000 pounds. Ouch, I bet that hurt! And those chiropractors know their business, they aren’t going to let go. They spend six years studying how to crack people’s bones and deal with law suits, so I suppose they ‘adjusted’ his bank balance.

Another surprise was Randi coming out of the closet – what a trick from the master magician. Naturally I support him being gay, so no problem of course. But imagine suppressing your sexuality till the age of 81. I mean what would that do to your mind –  fry it, I suppose. Maybe it is difficult for him to deal with his truth. Once a trickster always a trickster.

http://www.metroweekly.com/news/last_word/2010/03/the-amazing-randi-is-gay-debun.html

Talking of identities being revealed, another one that had to come out of the closet recently was my old mate Crack of Bent, who got exposed through a gaffe on map, and had to come clean for all to see. Embarrassing, restricting and a source for a lot of trouble

I’ll be totally honest here (not my usual style I know). I am terrified of being exposed like Randi and Allen. I’ve done my very best to hide my identity, but there are signs of some people doing very serious diggings. I really don’t want my sources, connections and sponsors out of the closet, and most of all I don’t want my employers to know about my nocturnal activities.  I guess my brain will have to fry too – losing a lot of sleep lately.

From bad to worse

I’ve really had a bad week! There are now 30 MP’s signed up on that EDM. This is backfiring badly. And if homeopaths carry on writing to their MPs there will probably be more. Lucky most of them are lazy twerps who wouldn’t pick up a pen to save their ass.

Here is what the EDM says:

That this House expresses concern at the conclusions of the Science and Technology Committee’s Report, Evidence Check on Homeopathy; notes that the Committee took only oral evidence from a limited number of witnesses, including known critics of homeopathy Tracy Brown, the Managing Director of Sense About Science, and journalist Dr Ben Goldacre, who have no expertise in the subject; believes that evidence should have been heard from primary care trusts that commission homeopathy, doctors who use it in a primary care setting, and other relevant organisations, such as the Society of Homeopaths, to provide balance; observes that the Committee did not consider evidence from abroad from countries such as France and Germany, where provision of homeopathy is far more widespread than in the UK, or from India, where it is part of the health service; regrets that the Committee ignored the 74 randomised controlled trials comparing homeopathy with placebo, of which 63 showed homeopathic treatments were effective, and that the Committee recommends no further research.

Irritating!!!

Then this whoever it is on The Voice of Not So Young Homoeopathy (What’s that mean, that they are older and wiser then us?!), goes and proves that only 3 MPS voted for the recommendation against homeopathy on the NHS, and most of them were only half there!

Here what the not so old says:

So let’s get this straight – the report and its recommendations that led to the media snow this week, and the dramatic assertion that the public have been duped since 1948 by NHS placebos masquerading as medicine, is the result of a report ratified by THREE MPs: TWO of whom were NOT EVEN PRESENT AT THE COMMITTEE MEETINGS – and ONE of the two was NOT EVEN A MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE when the hearings were held, and is due to stand down at the election in May this year.

Shit, Shit, shit. I was really hoping no one would notice that! So now it’s 3 against 30. Lucky we have the media eating out of our hands. Nothing like a bit of spin, eh, Tony?

You can read the whole bloody thing here. I did, and I didn’t enjoy it, so I had to respond somehow. Couldn’t think of much to say, so I just went for the good old ‘Homeopaths are paranoid’ bit. Only thing is, I’m using it a bit too much lately. And as we all know, just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean you’re not being hacked. Well I know that!

Silly of me to knock Carol Boyce for lobbying her MP, should have checked on that earlier. Anyways, lobbying MP’s is a privilege of the privileged, so leave it to us. What right do you have to lobby, were the experts, so back off!

And to top it all up, me old mate Ben Goldacre goes and writes an article biting off the hand that feeds us! I couldn’t believe it when I read, quote:

Homeopathy doesn’t work. But are the claims for other medicines any better?

Drug ads that don’t back up their claims show how dumb doctors can be about evidence and how lax regulation has become

Talking about Drug research and related advertising in medical journals (such as our Darling Lancet), Ben says:

The results were abysmal. Only half of the claims in the adverts were supported by the specific trials referenced and, of all the trials, only 55% got a score of “high quality”. Overall, only 39.2% of these adverts referenced a high-quality trial which supported their claim. This is not the first time such a study has been conducted. Villanueva and colleagues, in 2003, published a paper in the Lancet assessing claims for cardiac medication adverts in six Spanish medical journals: of the 102 references they could trace, 44% did not support the promotional statement. Similar results have been found in psychiatric drug adverts, and in the field of rheumatology. To offset any suggestion that I am cherry-picking, a review in the Public Library of Science’s open access journal PLoS One found 24 similar studies, and overall only 67% of the claims in adverts were supported by a systematic review, a meta-analysis or a randomised control trial. And he concludes: But it is only the most obvious illustration of the fearsome depths into which these problems extend. We are in very big trouble.

What’s the world coming to? Pass those pink pills, please.

P.S. I was on the verge of getting depressed, but one naïve homeopath made my day and commented on that Homeopathy cancer research  on my blog. Of course we all had a little fun with that. Pity all the other wised up and moved out. Come on boys, keep helping my rating!

Disappointing!

What a disappointment! I told them, I told them, I told them. But they had to go along with that childish prank 1023, and now it’s sure to backfire. Just who is going to buy that performance? Not Boots! And the British public might be naïve not knowing who sponsors us and all, but they aren’t dumb. Well most of them, anyways.

The concept was just totally naff from the start. I mean who’s going to buy them swallowing a whole bottle of homeopathic pills and then running off to drink coffee, when everyone knows that coffee antidotes ‘nothing pills’. Whats more I told them that a homeopathic overdose is taking lots of doses separately, not all together. Even I know that, and I know bugger all about homeopathy. I suppose they were scared. I mean so many of them called into homeopathic pharmacies just to check it was safe, and of course everyone heard about that. Fools!

People aren’t stupid are they? I mean what were they trying to show, that they didn’t drop dead in 10 minutes? That wouldn’t have happened if they swallowed a mix of chemotherapy and sleeping pills. No wonder homeopathic remedy sales go through the roof after every one of our campaigns.

Worst of all, just look at the people who showed up. Who’s going to take that bunch seriously? I mean hallo!!! You have to look or speak intelligently to be taken seriously. I said it in the best way I could at the pub meeting, I just didn’t want to offend anyone, you know.  Better to stay at home and write blogs or comments; just don’t show your faces. What bunch of ragamuffins, with all the eloquence of 17 year olds.

Well that’s what you get for planning campaigns in the pub. Next time just carry on commenting on MY blog, OK? Leave the jobs for the pro’s- like me. Cause I’m a research scientist!

The homeopaths are on our side

Well guys n’ girls, you’re going to find this one difficult to believe, I know. So do I. The homeopaths are on our side. Yesterday, this old bird calling herself Hunney Samuelman or something like that, calls to tell us that her homeopathic organisation is supporting our ‘Overdose Demonstration’. In case you don’t know, this is a stonking idea we came up with at the pub the other night.

It goes like this. We all meet at at 10:23am on January 30^th (10.23- see, just like the name of our campaign, which I’m sorry to say I still think is a bit dumb), more than three hundred homeopathy skeptics nationwide will be taking part in a mass homeopathic ‘overdose’ in protest at Boots’ continued endorsement and sale of homeopathic remedies, and to raise public awareness about the fact that homeopathic remedies have nothing in them. Brilliant init?! I get excited just fantasising about it – Hurummph!

So this Hunney chick says she thinks it’s a great idea, but if we do it we got to do it properly. What do you mean, I ask. Well, she says, first of all you aren’t going to impress anyone like that, cause I mean what do you think people expect – that you take the remedy and turn green or sprout extra ears or fall down dead on the spot? I mean even if you stood there taking Valium or Lithium or Chemotherapy nothing much would happen unless you repeat it three times daily for a few days. Hmmm…the old birds’ got a point you know. OK, so we repeat it three times daily for a week, no harm done, there’s nothing in there, see!

Then she says, you aren’t going to impress anyone by each taking different remedies, are you? We aren’t? No, says Miss Hunney, you see homeopathy is based on something called the law of similars, have you heard of it? Can’t say I have really. I mean all I care about is that the silly cult is based on giving nothing, and that’s how I make a living, ha-ha.

Well yeah, She says, like duh, you have to choose the remedy you take carefully if you want to make a real impression. OK, what do you suggest, says I. So she says, you know we support you, so to really make this work I suggest you all take Lachesis 30C three times a day for a week or two, that should make a media impact. Lachesis, I say, what’s that? Oh don’t worry about it she says, nothing in it, right? Right!

Anything else, I ask her. Well, if you want some variation, some of you could try Glonoine 30C, again three times daily for a couple of weeks. And after that you could all try Plb 9 Millimetre.

OK, says I, whatever, but do we have your support?

Definitely she says. You’re going to have a blast!

`

10:23

Well guys and girls, isn’t this exciting! we are about to start our ultimate anti Homeopathy campaign 10:23, and our Twitters are quivering with anticipation. Yes I know it’s really naff name and all, but nothing perfect. We were all sitting down at the old Pub on Thursday night , bored and wondering what to do next, and we get to thinking about our next move against those mad, mad, crazy, maniac, insane, murdering, rabid homeopaths (OK, we’d had a few pints by then). And then old Col says how about ‘10:23’, and we are, like, WHAT???. So his says, yeah you know Avogadro’s number and all. So we kind of like say, Hey Col, chill man, like maybe you’ve had one too many, easy on the old G and T’s old man. But you know what he’s like, once stuck on something that’s it. And he’s the guy with the connection and all, so like, the name stuck. A bit embarrassing, I know.

So anyways, there we were , like, discussing when to start, and the guys say why not now, no time like the present and all that, let’s get them while they’re low after we nailed the, with the old WHO- BBC trick (Ha-ha, that was a great, those Beeb bods will swallow anything we feed them!). But inside I’m thinking like, noooooo, cause It’s Mercury in retrograde right now, s’not gonna work. Well I couldn’t say that out loud with all those skeptiks around, but I’m a bit freaked out. You see I’ve had some bad experiences with Merc in retro, and strange enough I buy into that stuff, even though I’m a research scientist (Did I mention that before?)

So I’m lying in bed later that evening with an early hangover, and I start to think, like, after we Kill, kill, kill, mutilate, smash, annihilate, obliterate or at least maim all the homeopaths, where’s all the funding gonna come from. I got a cold sweat sudden like. You know I’m up at 6 every morning on the old Google alert and twitter, following every lead there is, blogging and sending nasty emails all day long. It’s a full time job, and I deserve every penny I get. But I realised suddenly, hey I got to leave some of these homeopaths around for bashing, cause I don’t fancy a round with the Chiropractors after the bloody nose that Singh got, and like no one’s gonna fund me against the church, and lets face it they make similar claims to the hom’s – think about it – healing and belief and prayer and energy and holy virgins and all that). Who’s going to fund that? I mean I don’t really fancy getting back to experimenting on all those mice in cages. Even worse, whose gonna read my blog!? Who’s going to even notice little me? Nightmare.

Note to self for the morning: Leave a few homeopaths alive!

Yours, in 10:23ness, G

Journalist for a Change

I do love it when journalists make a change. Here we are warming up to our little campaign, and the first spring flowers are starting to show in the papers. Nothing to do with us, of course, but today’s article in the ‘independent’ by Jeremy Laurance, is so aptly titled: “The terrible harm that alternative medicine can do”. Couldn’t have put it better me old self! That’s Eloquence. Mind you, having it tucked between articles on ‘The 10 best office chairs’ and ‘the 10 best sex toys’ doesn’t do it any favours.

Never mind that he has cobbled together a whole lot of ‘cut and paste’ from stuff that’s so old it has a thin fungal layer growing over it. And obviously he can’t much tell the difference between his elbow, herbalism, nutrition and homoeopathy. Who cares! It’s the headlines that do the damage, and that’s what we get paid for.

Anyways, I got to thinking about it, and maybe that level of article is just a bit too simplistic. I mean even Joe Public, or come to think of it even an Independent reader, would find that article a bit naive. Especially when any one with two pence of brain can see the damage that pharmaceuticals do every day – I mean that’s what I call REAL damage.Laurance talks about some Ugandan doctor’s therapy using vitamins for cancer. Well the only negative proof he has is that the Government refused to give him a license (surprise!). So I liked the way he converted that into ‘The Terrible Damage of Alternative Medicine’- must remember to use that trick. Good thing most of the readers don’t look at articles like this one, cause then they would really see damage, Rambo style, ha-ha! (Oh go on, have a look, just don’t pass it on, ok):

Click to access cancer-treatments-nexus.pdf

But the real genius stroke is mixing homoeopathy in with beetroot therapy! Now that’s journalism – bring it on.

Like I said, it is good to see a journalist making a change. Just compare his previous article re drug company sponsorship – see below. I mean he mentions SAS but he obviously forgot to look at our sponsor page. Way to go, Laurance!

Why NICE gets blasted – and drugs companies get a free pass

By Jeremy Laurance

Drug companies have always bought influence by sponsoring patient groups (see today’s page one story in the Independent). How much influence do they wield? If your charity depends for half its income on the industry then it is harder to argue, as Timothy Statham, chief executive of the National Kidney Federation, does in a comment posted below my story, that “the receiving charity would never allow such sponsorship to influence the way it represents its patients’ interests.”  To most people that would represent a conflict of interest at the very least, which ought to be declared.

Larger charities, such as the Royal National Institute for the Blind and the Alzheimer’s Society, now make the sources of their funding clear. But the smaller charities, who often make the most noise, are less transparent. Is transparency enough? It is a good first step, but the question still remains whether groups that accept funding from the drug industry are prepared to challenge it. The evidence suggests not (and this is as true of the large charities as of the small ones). How else can one explain the one sided nature of the debate about the cost of cancer and other drugs, which has seen opprobrium heaped on NICE while the drug industry and the prices it charges have escaped criticism?