Just heard Simon Singh on Radio 4’s Today programme talking about homeopathy again, rubbishing three randomised controlled trials that seem to indicate benefits despite the fact that he “only looked at them very quickly last night”. Very rigorous, that, Simon! Anyway, thanks for dismissing them for us so we don’t have to bother looking at them at all.

He also claimed: “Look, I would change my mind in an instant if there were any credible evidence…” Shouldn’t that be: “Look, I will rubbish any evidence you put forward in an instant…” or at least, after only looking at it very quickly. What more is required anyway when you already know you’re right?

Then he suggested that continuing to fund homeopathy was “dangerous”, citing a single case of a woman in Australia who had cancer and chose homeopathic treatment but died, allegedly entirely because of that. Simon, that is simply scaremongering. First of all, you have no idea what her take on that was. Pharmaceuticals kill people in their thousands - not going down that route is a matter of principle for some. People even have the right to refuse treatment of any kind. You are assuming that her decision would surely have been different if she had known the outcome. Would you assume that in all the fatal cases that took the conventional cancer treatment route? Don’t most of those people assume: “Oh well, I guess the doctors did all they could, but my number was up”? They might be a bit miffed if someone started using their personal fate as a way of calling modern cancer treatments into question, but you don’t hesitate to do that in the case of homeopathy.

Finally he said: “Would we allow pharmaceutical treatments to be used if there was no evidence to support it?” Well now, let’s see: Prozac and Seroxat only got approval in the clinical trials because the drug company witheld the trial data that showed that they didn’t work any better than the placebo. Nicotine Replacement Poisoning only has a 6% success rate at one year, exactly the same as willpower according to the Iowa study and the Borland report, to name but two of many reports coming to the same conclusion (see Evidence section on this site).

Both still being prescribed today… so yes, Simon. Evidently we do. This is exactly why you and old Eddie Ernst have ZERO credibility, because neither of you EVER admit that. Bugger all to do with science, it’s all about money and ideology, and you’re either not quite clever enough to realise that, or not honest enough to admit it. Now, I know bog-all about homeopathy and I’m not interested in it either, but I just love the way these self-appointed “quackbusters” pretend pharmaceutical products are genuinely “evidence-based” with regard to efficacy and safety. It’s not homeopathy that’s killing and hospitalising thousands of people every year, Simon. It’s pharmaceutical products. See Daily Mail Article here on this site for more about that. People need to know this stuff for their own safety.

Filed under: Drugs on Trial, Nicotine by Chris