I noticed that the Health Minister is stating that homeopathy should remain available on the NHS despite there being absolutely no evidence of it’s efficacy being greater than placebo.
What really caught my eye though were the figures quoted for money spent by the NHS on making water and sugar pills available to us.
After some hard questioning from the committee, Mr O’Brien revealed up to £10 million was spent on homeopathic treatments by the NHS last year, despite no evidence they were effective beyond placebo.
£10 million for medicine that contains no medicine.
Homeopathists claim that water has memory and that dilute solutions of substances that cause symptoms can cure those same symptoms. That’s not all though, the solutions are ridiculously dilute, so much so that homeopathic medicines don’t actually contain an active ingredient…it’s the water’s memory of those active ingredients that cures you. Why then does the water forget all the other stuff it’s no doubt had in it that could affect the medicine? Where do they get this pure, untouched, memory free water from to start with?
I’d say it’s snake oil but it’s not, it’s water. £10 million to treat people with water.
Makes me mad. Anyway, here’s James Randi telling you why it’s so stupid.