Homeopathy on the rocks at last in Britain

Good news from the UK: a British governmental committee agrees that homeopathy is rubbish, and shouldn’t be funded.

The NHS should stop funding homeopathy, MPs say.

The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee said using public money on the highly-diluted remedies could not be justified.

The cross-party group said there was no evidence beyond a placebo effect, when a patient gets better because of their belief that the treatment works.

I’m glad they decided that placebos aren’t good enough. Homeopathy has had a privileged place in Britain for far too long.

And my schadenfruede is off the charts. Let’s hear from the quacks.

Robert Wilson, of the British Association of Homeopathic Manufacturers, said he was “disappointed” by the findings.

He said the MPs had ignored evidence that homeopathy was effective.

“There is good evidence that homeopathy works, for example in animals and babies, neither of which experience placebo effects.”

Wrong. Animals and babies don’t experience placebo effects, but judgments about how the animal or baby feels are made by caregivers, who are susceptible to the placebo effect.

And Dr Michael Dixon, medical director for the Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health, set up by Prince Charles to promote complementary medicine, disputed the findings, saying homeopathy still had a role in the NHS.

“We should not abandon patients we cannot help with conventional scientific medicine.

“If homeopathy is getting results for those patients, then of course we should continue to use it.”

Homeopathy is not getting results. That’s the point, dipstick.

There’s no down-side to this. Public money will be saved, or perhaps used for treatments that actually work. Patients will be better served, since they’ll get real medicines instead of fake ones. And the fakes will have a harder time plying their phony trade.