Homeopathy
Why homeopathy?
I first started using homeopathy in 1982, when conventional medicine was failing to help me. I found the effects so extraordinary that I started studying homeopathy and conventional medicine in order to become better informed about the relationship and differences between the two approaches.
I quickly discovered that the main difference was that homeopathy was based on a scientific approach to medicine, whereas conventional medicine has never moved beyond empiricism – the application of ad hoc solutions without any overarching theoretical framework.
Eventually, this led to my training at the London School of Classical Homoeopathy, and qualifying as a homeopath. My dissertation on the connection between inequality and disease was later published in a homeopathic journal (see below).
Homeopathy: Medicine for the 21st Century
In addition to working as a homeopath, I got involved in the creation of the charity Homeopathy: Medicine for the 21st Century (H:MC21), which educates the public about homeopathy, and specifically challenges the nonsense put about by those opposed to this system of medicine.
In particular, I have written Halloween Science, a detailed analysis of the junk science book Trick or Treatment, co-authored by Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst. It was a fascinating experience to see how they dressed propaganda up to look like science, and how, in doing so, they not only contradicted basic scientific principles, but even their own statements! I never cease to wonder at how many people have been taken in by it.
I have produced many other publications and a other material for H:MC21.
Journal Papers
The dissertation I wrote while training as a homeopath was published in the journal Homeopathic Links, under the title 'Do the Miasms Have Their Origin in Social Changes?' It can be downloaded here. Written some years before The Spirit Level, this ground-breaking article exposes the correlation between chronic diseases and social inequality, and links the homeopathic theory of miasms to historical evidence of disease and social change. I also identifies the crucial role of oppression in increasing the effects of disease during the period of colonisation.
Online articles
The article 'A Check without Balance' was published by Counterfire in 2010, together with an abbreviated version 'Cutting on the Bias'. [N.B. 'A Check without Balance' is no longer available on counterfire.org, but can be read here.] These articles addressed the way double-standards were being used by a Parliamentary committee in order to try and remove homeopathy from the NHS. The committee's report has become a standard reference point for criticism of homeopathy, including when in 2017 NHS England recommended that practitioners not use homeopath.
In fact, the report's conclusions that homeopathy was a placebo treatment were based on misrepresentation:
Firstly, the authors alleged that they were investigating the evidence for homeopathy, but they then excluded all discussion of the extensive basic science evidence (which was not susceptible to the placebo effect) on the grounds that the theoretical explanation for this evidence was implausible.
Secondly, they relied on a heavily criticised study of over 100 trials [1] which they claimed showed that homeopathy was no better than placebo. This study actually showed that homeopathy was better than placebo, but it authors went on to arbitrarily select a mere 8 trials, and based their negative conclusions about homeopathy on these alone.
-
Aijing Shang, Karin Huwiler-Müntener, Linda Nartey, Peter Jüni, Stephan Dörig, Jonathan A. C. Sterne, DanielPewsner, Prof. Matthias Egger, ‘Are the clinical effects of homoeopathy placebo effects? Comparative study of placebo-controlled trials of homoeopathy and allopathy’, The Lancet, 366 (2005), 726-732.
Awards
In 2012 I received an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Society of Homeopaths in recognition of the work I had done with H:MC21 for the campaign to defend homeopathy. I have continued with this work in recent years, though at a lower level of involvement.