Nov 27
With thanks to The Telegraph and Will Storr 20.11.11:
Eventually, they found tumours on her brain, and they grew and spread. They tried chemotherapy. She felt sick. She gained four stone in four weeks. Her hair fell out over one weekend. She had to lift her eyelids with her finger to see. She had a wheelchair, a stick. Her bowels stopped moving. Her sight was so bad she couldn’t watch television or read. So she just lay there. Read the rest of this entry »
With thanks to Ian Sample, science correspondent at guardian.co.uk, Nobel Prize in Chemistry for dogged work on ‘impossible’ quasicrystals awarded to Daniel Shechtman.
How cruel and taunting science can be to anyone who breaks the mould of ‘accepted’ wisdom. It is good news to know that despite the vicious attacks on free thinking and true scientific observation, every now and then, the stunning and the unexpected is sometimes heard through the cacophony of dementors and detractors!!
Linus Pauling, a colossus of science and a double Nobel laureate, mounted a frightening “crusade” against him. After telling Daniel Shechtman to go back and read a crystallography textbook, the head of his research group asked him to leave for “bringing disgrace” on the team. His discovery was extremely controversial. In the course of defending his findings, he was asked to leave his research group. However, his battle eventually forced scientists to reconsider their conception of the very nature of matter …
In addition to the kudos of the award, Shechtman receives 10 million Swedish kronor (£934,000). Read the rest of this entry »
My belief in honest science has been restored and my faith in human nature washed in cool waters!! A most heartfelt thank you to all the honest scientists and sceptics with whom I am privileged to share this world!!!
Can these honest people now make the leap to comprehend the way the pharmaceutical companies push out lies and misinformation (*see below) to destroy any perceived threat from the competition posed to them by homeopathy and alternative medicine?
Just how far does their honesty and integrity actually go?
Richard Smith was an editor for the British Medical Journal for 25 years. For the last 13 of those years, he was the editor and chief executive of the British Medical Journal Publishing Group, responsible for the profits of not only the British Medical Journal but of the whole group, which published some 25 other journals. He stepped down in July 2004. He is now a member of the board of the Public Library of Science, a position for which he is not paid. Richard Smith is Chief Executive of UnitedHealth Europe.
FOR HOMEOPATHY: A PRACTICING PHYSICIAN’S PERSPECTIVE by Richard Moskowitz, M. D.
I am writing in response to “Against Homeopathy: a Utilitarian Perspective,”1 by Kevin Smith, Ph. D., whom I commend for the clarity of his writing and the thoroughness of his logic. I suppose I should also derive some comfort from the fact that, contrary to the advice he gives to his readers, he takes homeopathy at least seriously enough to go to such trouble to denounce it.
Long familiar to every homeopath, his main argument that homeopathic remedies are nothing but placebos was already current in Hahnemann’s time, decades before Oliver Wendell Holmes made it famous 150 years ago,2 and has since been incorporated into the conventional wisdom. When I was in medical school, the term “homeopathic dose” was used almost affectionately to signify an amount of medicine far too small to have any noticeable effect; and even today, as various modalities of alternative and complementary medicine enter the mainstream, and many American physicians aspire to broaden their outlook in order to accommodate them, most would probably still agree with Dr. Smith, at least in private, that homeopathy defies common sense, ordinary logic, and some basic laws of chemistry. Read the rest of this entry »
Homeopathy and the New Fundamentalism: a critique of the critics by Lionel Migrom on http://www.similima.com/2008:
ABSTRACT
Though in use for over 200 years, and still benefiting millions of people world-wide today, homeopathy is currently under continuous attacks for being ‘unscientific’. The reasons for this can be understood in terms of what might be called a ‘New Fundamentalism’, emanating particularly but not exclusively from within biomedicine, and supported in some sections of the media. Possible reasons for this are discussed.
This may have consequences in the future for how practitioners, researchers, and patients of homeopathy/CAMs engage and negotiate with primary healthcare systems. Read the rest of this entry »
Feb 27
With thanks to The Huffington Post and Dana Ullman 27.2.2011:
I believe what prevents men from accepting the homeopathic principles is ignorance, but ignorance is criminal when human lives are at stake. No honest man faced with the facts of homeopathy can refuse to accept it. He has no choice. When I had to face it, I had to become a follower. There was no choice if I were to continue to be an honest man. … Truth always demands adherence and offers no alternative.
John Weir, physician to George VI and to four generations of British monarchs. Read the rest of this entry »
With thanks to The Huffington Post and Dana Ullman 30.1.11:
In a remarkable interview published in Science magazine of December 24, 2010, (1) Professor Luc Montagnier, has expressed support for the often maligned and misunderstood medical specialty of homeopathic medicine. Although homeopathy has persisted for 200+ years throughout the world and has been the leading alternative treatment method used by physicians in Europe, (2) most conventional physicians and scientists have expressed skepticism about its efficacy due to the extremely small doses of medicines used.
Read DNA molecules can ‘teleport’, Nobel Prize winner claims
Read French Nobelist Escapes “Intellectual Terror” to Pursue Radical Ideas in China
Read Nobel Scientist discovers scientific basis of homeopathy
Read Luc Montagnier Foundation proves homeopathy works
Read more about scientific research on homeopathy Read the rest of this entry »
Part of the Introduction to *The Lost Book of British Homeopathy by 
Sue Young
Of Elephants and Mice and The Vital Force Copyright©Sue Young November 2010
During the early part of the 20th Century, two theoretical systems emerged – the Theory of Relativity and Quantum Theory – two systems that were not necessarily in contradiction to one another, but they nonetheless split the World into two opposing camps.
Albert Einstein 1879 – 1955 and the Theory of Relativity led to the Manhattan Project (6) and the total dominance of modern Materialism, Parascience (1) and Scientific Fundamentalism. Max Planck 1858 – 1947 and his theory of Quantum Theory led to far more uncertainty and vulnerability (6). Read the rest of this entry »
*A Brave Medical Life, The Founder of Homeopathy, BBC Radio 4, Friday 10 December 2010 by Mark Whitaker, reviewed by 
Peter Morrell
Although this recent radio programme was informative, it was also misleading and something of a disappointment.
Though it was generally factually accurate, it said Hahnemann spent ten years after graduation looking for a suitable medical practice. In reality, he only practised medicine on a regular basis as his main income from 1780-1 until soon after his marriage in November 1782 and he did not resume regular medical practice for about nine years when he was commissioned to start treating Herr Klockenbring in 1792.
The programme was a disappointment because it did not convey the best possible slant on his life, choosing to emphasise things of little consequence and failing to explore some things of greater consequence. Read the rest of this entry »
Written by Louise Mclean at Homeopathy Heals 1.10.2010:
When the Government recently decided to support patient choice and continue funding homeopathy on the NHS, there were howls of outrage from leading medics and skeptics alike. Its statement published at the end of July appeared to ignore the Chief Scientific Advisor’s advice, as well as an Evidence Check Report published last February by the House of Commons’ Science and Technology Committee.
In its response to the conclusions of the Report, the Government decided to continue paying around £4 million a year to keep homeopathy available to NHS patients. This was great news for those who choose it but the British Medical Association (BMA) were not impressed. At their annual conference in July they had voted against the funding, despite the fact that the founder of our public health service, Labour MP Aneurin Bevan, had pledged his commitment to homeopathy at the birth of the NHS in 1948. Read the rest of this entry »