A second ASA adjudication in two weeks against misleading marketing from Homeopathy UK

Summary: Homeopathy UK, formerly the British Homeopathic Association (BHA) has had its second (in two weeks) Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) adjudication upheld against its marketing.

Edit 20 May 2021: Les Rose has submitted a Serious Concern to the Association's Trustees about the failure to meet the public benefit requirement of the Charities Act (the Association is registered as a charity). I've also re-arranged bits of the post below and added a Table of Contents for clarity.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Table of Contents
1. Preamble
2. My ASA complaint
3. Further reading
4. Screenshots (that go with (2))

1. Preamble
On 5 May 2021 I spotted that the ASA had published its rulings including one about Homeopathy UK. As I also had a complaint about Homeopathy UK's website in the pipeline I was a bit puzzled and initially assumed it was mine (until I read and discovered that the complaint was made by the Good Thinking Society) and that mine was next in the queue. 

I didn't know that GTS had put in a complaint, and to be fair I don't think I'd mentioned mine to them either so they happened independently. I see from the statement** put out today by Homeopathy UK that they suspect we're all working together behind the scenes on these complaints but that wasn't the case in this particular instance - I'm not sure if they realise that several people keep an eye on homeopaths' (and homeopathy societies' and associations') websites.

The story has been picked up in The Times (including an opinion piece) and Mail Online. Prof Edzard Ernst has also written about it and it's also in the BMJ (see 3. Further Reading).

Below is my original complaint, I've not included the follow up discussions though as you can read the final output in the adjudication. My complaint didn't mention depression but it's not that unusual that the ASA might add in another concern after looking at the information for themselves. I did mention a page about cancer which has also been taken down - normally that would be referred to Trading Standards but presumably no need for that now it's been removed.

I've deliberately mangled the links that no longer work in the text below - if you want to visit them (all links now point to the main 'conditions' landing page anyway) you'd need to paste them into a browser address bar and delete the ^^.

2. My ASA complaint: relevant screenshots are at the end
Why is the British Homeopathic Association (now known as Homeopathy UK) allowed to have a page on its website listing almost 50 conditions "where homeopathy can help"? https://homeopathy-uk.org/homeopathy/how-homeopathy-helps/conditions 

None of that is true and several of the conditions are quite serious (allergies, asthma, cancer (!), circulatory problems, Crohn's etc). Each of these pages is written by a single author, drawing on their experiences of treating people who have the relevant condition. Of the 4 pages I've viewed in more depth (below) no evidence is offered beyond purely anecdotal. 

I was amazed to see cancer included (https://home^^opathy-uk.or^^g/homeopathy/how-homeopathy-helps/conditions/cancer), given the Cancer Act 1939, but on clicking through the claims are at least a bit softer (not claiming that homeopathy can help directly with cancer) though I think this phrase is concerning "A preparation of Mistletoe would be an example of a complementary medicine which has been shown to stimulate the immune system and when given alongside chemotherapy and radiotherapy can reduce fatigue and improve quality of life" as I don't think that homeopathic levels of mistletoe can do anything. 

Later on that page the author references this rather theatrical example "Along with Mistletoe injections, I also prescribed X-ray 30c on the morning of radiotherapy, along with Belladonna in the afternoon, both of which have been shown in one placebo-controlled trial to reduce the inflam­mation of the skin and deeper tissues that is caused with radiotherapy" - I can only wonder how diluted X-rays are prepared, or what they might be supposed to do. 

The diabetes page (https://home^^opathy-uk.or^^g/homeopathy/how-homeopathy-helps/conditions/diabetes) is also misleading - implying that numbness arising from nerve damage can be 'helped' with hemlock and (hopefully very diluted) lead. This is unlikely to be true. Worse, there is mention of 'helping' infected (leg / foot) ulcers by the application of calendula lotion, or 'helping renal function' with other remedies. 

The page on infertility (https://home^^opathy-uk.or^^g/homeopathy/how-homeopathy-helps/conditions/infertility) seems cruel, implying that homeopathy can help in any way in having a healthy pregnancy. The phrase "I prescribed Tub bov 10M, three tablets in one day, and two months later she missed her period" implies a causal relationship between the remedy and the pregnancy which is probably unwarranted. 

The page on psoriasis (https://home^^opathy-uk.or^^g/homeopathy/how-homeopathy-helps/conditions/psoriasis) suggests that conventional treatment can temporarily suppress the effects of the condition and includes the line that "Some patients are, therefore, looking for a more permanent “cure” for their condition", implying that homeopathy might offer that. I think that's incredibly unlikely and misleading, and I’m not sure that putting ‘cure’ in quotes minimises that. 

Jo

 

3. Further reading

1. Homeopathy site banned from discussing depression (19 May 2021) The Times, Kat Lay
2. Clamp down on bogus science of homeopathy (19 May 2021) The Times, Oliver Kamm
   
3. Homeopathy charity is hit by ad ban after claiming the treatment can be used for depression, diabetes and infertility (19 May 2021) Mail Online, Isabella Nikolic
4. Clamp down on the bogus science of homeopathy (19 May 2021) Edzard Ernst's blog  
5. Homeopathy UK told to take down articles saying remedies can help depression and asthma (20 May 2021) BMJ, Clare Dyer 
6. Re: Homeopathy UK told to take down articles saying remedies can help depression and asthma (21 May 2021) BMJ: Rapid Response, Jo Brodie (me!)
7. ASA to charity: Remove claims homeopathy helps diabetes and asthma (21 May 2021) C+D (Chemist + Druggist), Grace Lewis
   

ASA Adjudications against Homeopathy UK aka British Homeopathic Association 

• ASA Ruling on Homeopathy UK (19 May 2021) - mine 
• ASA Ruling on Homeopathy UK (5 May 2021) - Good Thinking Society's

**Homeopathy UK have shared their "A message from our Chief Executive" statement several times on Twitter (though apparently not on Facebook) and the quote tweets for several of them are rather more critical. If you've been blocked and need to view the tweets in a private window while logged out you won't be able to see them via the Quote Tweet button (it requires login). Ignore that and just paste each link below into the search bar or visit https://twitter.com/explore - this, in essence, shows you mentions of that tweet (logically identical to the quote tweet format).

https://twitter.com/bhahomeopathy/status/1395005017741041671
https://twitter.com/bhahomeopathy/status/1395046861581455362
https://twitter.com/bhahomeopathy/status/1395281901116608515
https://twitter.com/bhahomeopathy/status/1395402698388873226
https://twitter.com/bhahomeopathy/status/1395674487429996546
https://twitter.com/bhahomeopathy/status/1396460917001494532

4. Screenshots (these were attached to my original ASA complaint): 

Homeopathy UK 01 - list of conditions

Homeopathy UK 02 - list of conditions

Homeopathy UK 03 - cancer and diabetes

 Homeopathy UK 04 - infertility and psoriasis

 

The Salisbury Homeopathy College appears to have shut its doors

Salisbury #Homeopathy College is apparently permanently closed (hooray) & no longer accepting applicants. Its website still implies that it's courses are accredited by the Society of Homeopaths but the Soc has already removed it from its own list of accredited course providers. pic.twitter.com/sVtbgMSixb

— Jo-nuary Blues 🌊 ❄️ (@JoBrodie) February 7, 2021

It's always cheering news when something comes to an end in the world of homeopathy. We've seen University courses close, websites taken down or amended, and of course the numbers of homeopathic items prescribed on the NHS have been dropping precipitously for a couple of decades (it's still clinging on though). 

Recently things have taken an even worse turn for homeopathy with bad news for homeopaths appearing in newspapers every few months, following a series of undercover reporting finding homeopaths making misleading claims and offering fake treatments or preventatives.

In January this year the Society of Homeopaths (SoH) lost its accreditation from the Professional Standards Authority (PSA). The PSA was concerned that the SoH had failed to prioritise public safety over the interests of its members and suspended accreditation, to be reviewed in one year. 

The Salisbury Homeopathy College was one of several colleges to have a course accredited by the SoH, which keeps a list of accredited courses on its website. This listing appears to have been removed some time after October 2020, though the College's own website still carries SoH logos and the suggestion that its courses are accredited. 

However it appears that the Salisbury Homeopathy College has now permanently closed. Its website says that it's no longer accepting applicants and its listing on Google indicates closure beyond mere opening hours. I don't know why it's closed or when that happened, but sadly the SoH still lists plenty of other places which will charge people fairly large sums of money (several thousand) to teach them nonsense. 

You can read about one skeptic blogger's visit to the College on its open day in 2018. One of its courses cost nearly £10,000 - I'm amazed its former students don't sue.

Another big plummet in #homeopathy on the NHS England

NB - these figures relate to England only. 

There should be zero homeopathy items being dispensed on the NHS, costing zero pounds but because the prescription cost documents are published every April I assume they capture part of the preceding year.

The new prescription costs were published today and can be found here: Prescription Cost Analysis - England 2019. For previous editions see this page.

The relevant bit is in this spreadsheet
Prescription Cost Analysis 2019 – Statistical summary tables [Excel: 3.8MB] - I used Edit / Find&Replace as a way to quickly find all instances of homeop via a whole workbook search. I also checked for the variant spelling homoeop but didn't find anything.

The Chemical Substances (ho!) tab gives the overview / average and it's in Row 1764 - 2,188 items were dispensed (last year 3,295) costing £48,109.32 (last year £55,044) with the cost per item having risen by about £5 to £21.99 (compared with £16.71 last year).

The NHS dispensed a third fewer homeopathy items in 2019 than it did in 2018. Hopefully this asymptotic crawl to zero will speed up a bit in future.

Image above shows the number of homeopathic items dispensed and the cost, click to enlarge or use the text version below.

Table One

Dispensed items	Of which class 2 items	Total cost (£)	Cost per item (£)
2,188	0	48,109.32	21.99

More detail in the Presentations tab, Rows 11708 and 11709.

Table Two

Dispensed items	Of which class 2 items	Total quantity	Total cost (£)	Cost per item (£)	Cost per quantity (£)	Quantity per item
529	0	49,491	3,231.72	6.11	0.07	93.56
1,659	0	120,544	44,877.60	27.05	0.37	72.66

Homeopathy, pumice stones, magical thinking and flights of fancy

tl;dr - gibberish :)

"S13 felt burning in her chest around the heart chakra towards her throat, also in her sacral chakra and spleen meridian."

All of homeopathy is utterly silly but a particular sort of open-minded* dimwittedness descends on homeopaths when they decide to 'prove' a new 'remedy'. This involves asking a selection of people to try it out and report on every little event, feeling or other whim that occurs to them. Remarkably tenuous explanations for these experiences are offered, relating to some imagined properties of the source material. It's quite astounding.

There are also some very silly remedies indeed, many skeptics have enjoyed the homeopathic antics that have given us remedies made of Berlin wall (for separation anxiety I think, or some such guff) and owl (for sleeping problems probably). Absolute drivel.



Despite being unintentionally very funny it's also rather sad and reading the Proving of the Pumice Stone from Montserrat organised by Leeds Homeopaths throws up the strong impression that homeopaths seem very keen to ascribe external influences (eg the remedy under investigation) to quite ordinary daily annoyances. It is as if they don't believe they have much control over their own lives.

The document begins with the notion that initially set things off, that a pumice stone is vageuly similar to osteoporotic bone and perhaps it could form a remedy for osteoporosis. There's then a treatise on volcanic rock and on Montserrat, pointing out the island had suffered "a traumatic history of hurricane and volcano damage" and that the homeopaths "think there are parallels with this recurring damage and loss with the amount of work done during the proving analysis which was mislaid, lost, redone (and sometimes found again afterwards)". Oh dear.

A couple of the provers suffer accident or injury during the time of the proving - of course this is magically linked to some negative effect of the remedy. Amazingly these injuries are not immediately solved with homeopathy, as you might expect, but seem to cause more lasting problems. Not much of an advert for homeopathy!

"...another prover broke her arm on the way to take the prover's baseline appointmentand had to withdraw from the process as a consequence. (This same lady was then off work for 3 months and only recovered properly a year later)." - gosh, how is such a thing possible when we all know that taking a single pill nearly always solves such problems immediately!

Another homeopath "fell and tore her right Achilles tendon before the closing meeting which then meant she could not attend it as planned. It was a severe injury that took a long time to recover from and she still felt traumatised a year later." - this seems like a fairly straightforward injury for homeopaths to heal, surely.

As well as the injuries there are surprising examples of people getting stuck in traffic - things that hardly ever happen normally, apparently. OK this one is fairly rare but I expect there's a fairly mundane reason: "One prover had a wall socket catch fire for no apparent reason."

Quite a few of the dozen or so homeopaths involved dropped out or didn't complete their assignments but the next few pages of the 16 page PDF are full of a range of their reported irritations, illnesses or then suddenly feeling energised and capable (imagine if you were to write down every event or emotion that happened to you in a week, you might find a bit of variability!). There's even a bit about their dreams in there.

2020 seems like a really good time to put away childish things and give homeopathy up for good.

Their document was published in 2016 under a Creative Commons share alike licence, so I've used the same licence for this post in the unlikely event that you want to re-use it (even commercially). Be my guest (but you must link to this blog).

*as in so opens brains have fallen out


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Misleading homeopathy marketing (again) - complaint submitted to Advertising Standards Authority

I'm grateful to 'BrownBagPantry' the prolific tweeter of homeopathy-related matters. Her screenshot of Alan's (zeno001) tweet alerted me to a problem with the claims made by Highgate Holistic Clinic in a tweet and on their website. I would have missed his tweet on the #homeopathy tag as Alan hadn't tagged it, so my thanks to BrownBagPantry for being solely responsible for bringing it to my attention and causing me to submit a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) about the clinic's misleading advertising. Had I been looking at the tag on Christmas Day I might well have seen the clinic's own tweet (as they did hashtag it) but I wasn't, so all credit to BrownBagPantry.

Normally if I'd spotted one of Alan's tweets about a misleading advert I'd have DMed him asking if he'd reported it and he might reply that he had, or that someone else had already done so, or that he was perhaps waiting until after the holidays before tackling it etc. However that's not going to happen today as I'm just going to get on with the complaint and add the text here here.

I've taken screenshots of the tweet and parts of the website to share with the ASA though I hadn't planned to add them here.

Background research
Highgate Holistic Clinic's website claims that the homeopath is a registered member of the Society of Homeopaths however double-checking on the 'Find a Homeopath' site indicates that she's a member of the Alliance of Registered Homeopaths, but doesn't mention SoH membership. As a courtesy I'll let the SoH know about this in case she isn't and the info is incorrect.

Text of my complaint to the ASA
Note - the online form doesn't permit hyperlinks (where the link is behind a word) so the link was pasted in full in a list at the end with a number in brackets next to the relevant part of my text, eg [1]. It also doesn't permit bold or italic so the text has been slightly reformatted for clarity here. The text of a complaint must also be less than 5,000 characters (I had about 1,800 to spare).

--oo--   --oo--   --oo--   --oo--   --oo--   --oo--   --oo--

I'm complaining about a tweet from a clinic, the text of which implies that homeopathy can cure conditions, and the content of two pages from the clinic's website.

The tweet
"#Homeopathy is based on the principle of ‘like cures like’. In other words, a substance taken in small amounts will cure the same symptoms it causes if taken in large amounts." - it is not possible for homeopathy to cure any symptoms so the text of this tweet is misleading.

The tweet links to a page on the clinic's website, which says
"Danielle Abramov is committed to homeopathy as it treats the person as a whole without the side effects of conventional medicine" - I think this statement may discourage people from visiting a doctor or from taking real medicine. It implies that medicine offers only side effects.

"...working with them towards improving their health naturally – offering a real alternative to or support for conventional treatment." - this implies that homeopathy is an alternative to conventional treatment, and also implies that it is a 'real' alternative. It isn't. I've no objection to 'support for conventional treatment' though.

"In India homeopathy is considered to be equal to allopathic medicine." - this is largely untrue but what is relevant here is the implication that homeopathy should be considered as some sort of real thing, implying that it can help people.

"Danielle Abramov is also a qualified Vega practitioner. The Vega machine is a non-invasive, painless, diagnostic tool for determining some of the causes of ill health, be it persistent viral, fungal or bacterial overload, vitamin or mineral deficiency, food intolerance or emotional blocks." - the Vega machine is not a valid diagnostic tool and you have previously noted that it is "not capable of diagnosing [respiratory allergy and sensitisation to common aero-allergens]", I do not believe it is capable of diagnosing viral, fungal or bacterial overload either. Also a lay homeopath [one who is not also a doctor or other healthcare professional] is unlikely to be competent to diagnose any health conditions (using this or any other 'diagnostic' tool).

The website also has a page on therapies that includes a section on homeopathy
The section on homeopathy says that it "... can help with many issues such as Asthma, Anxiety, Allergies, Bronchitis, Childhood Diseases

Coughs, Colds and Sore Throats, Depression, Digestive Disorders, Earache, Eczema, Exhaustion, Emotional issues, Fibroids, Grief, Headaches & Migraines, Menopause, Menstrual Complaints & Infertility, Pregnancy & Birth, Sleep Problems, Thyroid Imbalances, Urinary Disorders, Vaccination Side-Effects, Varicose Veins etc." - none of these can be helped by homeopathy, some are serious medical conditions that need appropriately qualified medical care and support. I also do not believe that homeopaths or clinics are allowed to list named conditions.

--oo--   --oo--   --oo--   --oo--   --oo--   --oo--   --oo--

What happens next?
Several years ago the ASA changed the way it handled homeopathy-related complaints. Rather than asking homeopaths to provide evidence for particular claims the ASA took a more holistic view and, recognising that homeopathy doesn't work for any condition, determined that any homeopathy claim was misleading and that there was no need to undertake an investigation for each complaint submitted. Instead, each complaint is handled as a case of non-compliance by the Compliance Team - so my complaint will be handled by them and I won't know the outcome (only adjudications are published).

There's apparently a complaint in with the Australian Commonwealth Ombudsman about the NHMRC's Homeopathy report

Update 4 Dec 2019: I've received a holding letter from the Ombudsman while they consider my request.

---

Well this'll be confusing :) The Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) released a report on homeopathy in 2015 pointing out that it's not much cop and shouldn't be recommended as a treatment. Lots of homeopaths were very cross about that and apparently three homeopathy-supporting societies* put in a complaint to the Commonwealth Ombudsman the following year, in August 2016, saying that the NHMRC had done wrong.

It's now November 2019 (three years and three months on) and to my knowledge the Commonwealth Ombudsman has not produced a verdict (or indeed a peep) about the apparent complaint.

In April 2017 Edzard Ernst reported on an article in What Doctors Don't Tell You which said that a complaint had been submitted. The Australian Skeptics society tried (in May 2017 and August 2017) to find out if there really had been a submission to the Commonwealth Ombudsman and were told by a source in August there that there was no record of submission.

A news article from ECHAMP on 22 January 2019 said that the Commonwealth Ombudsman's verdict was imminent. Still no sign of it though.

I've emailed the Commonwealth Ombudsman (copy below) to see if I can find out any other information. I'm not an Australian citizen so they might just ignore me, or they might be unable to tell me anything about an ongoing investigation. It's also possible that I've phrased things in the wrong way and I need to get better at FOIA requests!

*The Australian Homeopathy Association, Complementary Medicines Australia and the Australian Traditional Medicine Society. According to the Homeopathy Research Institute these three bodies used some of the HRI's own analysis of the NHMRC 2015 report. The HRI wrote about the complaint to the Commonwealth Ombudsman but the other three organisations appear to have been rather quiet about it.

---

Dear Commonwealth Ombudsmen and Ombudswomen :-)

I am writing to you under the FOIA scheme to find out about the existence and status of a complaint apparently made by homeopathy societies to you in 2016 about the conduct of and report from the NHMRC. Please note that I am not an Australian citizen (I'm British) so I'm not sure if you will be able to respond to me but if so please let me know if there's a charge, I will be happy to contribute. My questions are in red.

The reason that I am asking if any complaint has been made is because the existence of this submission from homeopathic societies has been called into question by the Australian Skeptics who could find no record of it (in April 2017). They also reported (in August 2017) that it appears that no submission was received by you, so its status is a bit of a mystery!

On the Homeopathy Research Institute's (HRI) page (below) they claim in the first paragraph that the Commonwealth Ombudsman is in receipt of a complaint submission from the CMA, AHA and ATMS August 2016. 1. Please can you confirm if you have received a complaint document from those organisations relating to the NHMRC?

The second paragraph implies that you made an initial assessment of their complaint and found that it was of sufficient merit to warrant an investigation. 2. Please could you confirm that you (a) made this assessment of its merit and (b) found that it warranted further investigation.

3. Could you also confirm if an investigation was launched and what meetings (dates) were set up and with whom (organisations).

Source / Linked PDF for Executive Summary

A news article from 22 January 2019, from European Coalition on Homeopathic & Anthroposophic Medicinal Products (ECHAMP) indicated that your verdict on this report was 'imminent'. 4. Are you preparing a verdict on any complaint you've received from these homeopathy societies?

Source

5. If so, will such a verdict be made public, and when?

Thank you very much

Jo Brodie

A burst of newspaper articles critical of homeopathy

tl;dr Thanks to efforts from the Good Thinking Society and skeptical activists homeopathy is in the news again, this time it's further criticism of the decision to accredit the Society of Homeopaths' register.

If you've enjoyed the recent burst of articles in the news that have been critical of homeopathy you might like to know that the Good Thinking Society are the people to thank for this. They are currently crowdfunding funds to support a Judicial Review against the decision to accredit the Society of Homeopaths. If you're able to, you can donate here.

---

The latest crop (and a bumper crop it has been!) of stories relates to the decision made by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) to re-accredit the Society of Homeopaths (SoH) for 2019-2020 despite concerns that some of their members claim to treat autism and others offer 'alternatives' to vacination. Their re-accreditation is up again for renewal and anyone was able to share their thoughts about whether they should be re-accredited (I shared mine) as long as they submitted their thoughts by 22 October 2019. The SoH first received PSA accreditation in 2014.

• Going forward - quite a few people think the PSA should not re-accredit the SoH from Jan 2020 and have written to ask them not to do this
• Retrospectively - The Good Thinking Society (GTS) would additionally like a ruling on the PSA's previous re-accreditation of the SoH (2019-2020). They have been given permission to proceed with a Judicial Review to look into that decision, and to see if it can be rescinded. You can help with the costs of the judicial review too, with a donation.

The GTS have caused this latest splurge of newspaper articles because they asked the head of NHS England (Simon Stevens) to write to the PSA and share his thoughts about SoH accreditation - and he did, and it has caused quite a stir. I'll remember this next time I see homeopathy advocates saying that skeptics have no influence ;)

1. Daily Mail
NHS chief Simon Stevens blasts homeopathy as 'dangerous' and blames the industry for fuelling antivaxx myths
27 October, 22:01
They broke this story with a front-page which is itself a lovely surprise.

2. The Times (article)
NHS chief wants homeopathy to lose official stamp of approval
28 October, 00:01

3. The Times (editorial)
The Times view on calls to revoke accreditation of homeopathic practitioners: Bad Medicine
Homeopaths can cause great harm and deserve to be stripped of their accreditation
28 October, 00:01

4. The Guardian
Head of NHS voices 'serious concerns' about homeopathy
28 October, 07:51

5. BBC
Health bosses' 'serious concerns' over homeopathy
28 October, 10:57 (based on link's first appearance on Twitter)

6. The Independent
NHS bosses bid to blacklist ‘bogus’ homeopathy amid fears of anti-vaccine misinformation
28 October, ~12.31pm (based on the article's author's tweet)

The story has also spread into specialist news stories including The BMJ (Homeopathy should have professional accreditation revoked, NHS leaders urge, 29 October) and the Pharmaceutical Journal (NHS England expresses concern over accreditation of homeopaths, 29 October) and Google News lists plenty of other places where it's been published.

Background
With activism there are always two things - the meat* and the marinade. The meat is the big-change stuff like policy changes, regulatory action and so on whereas the marinade relates to the background in which opinion towards a topic changes. Both support each other.

With homeopathy it's become very clear that in the last few years there have been an increasing number of negatively-framed newspaper articles on the topic, a notable comparison with articles in previous years which were often rather fawning towards homeopathy and other alternative medicines.

It feels like it might have reached a bit of a peak this week with a front cover on the Daily Mail (which is finally pivoting towards encouraging parents to vaccinate) criticising homeopathy.

Apparently there may be some more stories in the pipeline on homeoprophylaxis though possibly Brexit and election news have taken over for now. Anyway I've written a Wikipedia article on Homeoprophylaxis just in case.

Three days after news of Simon Stevens' letter to the PSA broke the SoH had not issued any response - no news story on their blog, no tweet or Facebook post and they've either declined to comment to the authors of these articles or not replied as far as I can tell.

Inexplicably the British Homeopathic Association published a short piece bemoaning the latest crop of news articles but much of it is mistaken or incomplete so I'm not sure that helps much.
*or meat substitute for veggies or vegans!

Homeopaths are delighted that a draft report has been released - not sure why

tl;dr - Homeopaths are cock-a-hoop that a report has been released containing the phrase "encouraging evidence" (for homeopathy) but several mentions are just saying that "the term 'encouraging evidence' has not been defined" and highlighting problems with the conclusion. There are 6 'positive' mentions (in favour of homeopathy) in the report. All have been corrected with an annotation highlighting that it was a mistake.

---

Here's the draft first report from 2012, it's 294 pages long (293 pages plus a one page statement at the front from the NHMRC's CEO Anne Kelso saying that -

"NHMRC strongly encourages interested members of the community to refer to the 2015 NHMRC Information Paper: Evidence of the effectiveness of homeopathy for treating health conditions. Contrary to some claims, the review did not conclude that homeopathy was ineffective. Rather, it stated that “based on the assessment of the evidence of effectiveness of homeopathy, NHMRC concludes that there are no health conditions for which there is reliable evidence that homeopathy is effective.”"

The 2015 report (all 2015 docs can be found here) has an accompanying statement with some fairly strong warnings about NOT using homeopathy.

Table of Contents
1. How frequently does the phrase "encouraging evidence" appear?
2. How does the phrase "encouraging evidence" appear?
3. Full details of how "encouraging evidence" is used on each page - 13 to account for
4. Conclusions and rationale for this post
5. Background to the report
6. References
7. Screenshots of search strategy and results

1. How frequently does the phrase "encouraging evidence" appear?
Searching in the 2012 draft report (using Ctrl+F or Command+F on a Mac) for "encouraging evidence" brings up 12 mentions of 13 instances (one isn't picked up in the automatic search). Four are on p9, one each on pages 10, 11, 12, 54 and 236 with two instances on pages 85* and 138. By the way there are also 25 mentions of "no convincing evidence".

*Of the two mentions on p85, one is not picked up by the search. One is a mention, the other an annotation cancelling it.

2. How does the phrase "encouraging evidence" appear?
There is a rough split between statements in the report suggesting that there is encouraging evidence for homeopathy and statements that are annotations, highlighting that the conclusion was incorrect. It's not a 1:1 mapping of a positive phrase with a negative annotation because other phrases are also used (eg "See comments on issues with this section of the report on page XX").

Seven mentions are positive (all are corrected with annotations), 2 are neutral and five are negative. 

Three instances of the negatives say
"The term 'encouraging evidence' is not defined in this report. There are inconsistencies as to how it is interpereted." - examples found on pages 9, 85 and 138.

3. Full details of how "encouraging evidence" is used on each page - 13 to account for
All page numbers are those counted in the PDF by Adobe eg p10 of 294 refers to page "ix" in the document and p85 of 294 is actually page 72.

3a. Page 9 - four mentions
Page nine says that there is encouraging evidence for the effectiveness of homeopathy (one mention) for fibromyalgia, otitis media, post-operative ileus (first time to flatus), upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) in adults and side effects of cancer treatment. All are given 'Grade C'. The annotations (two mentions) point out the flaws - that 'encouraging evidence' isn't defined and that Grade C has sometimes been used to mean 'encouraging evidence' and sometimes 'no convincing evidence' so it has been applied inconsistently.

The last mention is the phrase "listed above under encouraging evidence [Grade C]" which I've taken to be a neutral statement (one mention).

3b. Pages 10-12 - three mentions
Context: Table 1 in the report is a 'Summary evidence of effect of homeopathy by condition' for 27 conditions. The phrases "no convincing evidence", "inconclusive / equivocal evidence", "insufficient evidence to reach a conclusion" or "no evidence" appear next to all but two.

Page 10
Cancer treatment symptoms (one of three mentions) says that there is encouraging evidence for topical calendula and Traumeel S. The annotation says "See comments on issues with this section of the report on page 40". [NB page 40 = p53 of 294]

Page 11
Fibromyalgia (two of three mentions), annotated with reference to page 70. [NB page 70 = p83 of 294]

Page 12
Upper respiratory tract infections (URTI) (three of three mentions) - annotated with reference to page 139. [NB page 139 = p152 of 294]

3c. Page 54 - one mention
There is one positive mention of "encouraging evidence for topical calendula... and Traumeel S" but this is then trashed in the comments. The annotations are a bit brutal including "incorrect - see below" and "The conclusions for topical calendula and Traumeel S cannot be justified AND WERE NOT CONFIRMED BY THE EXPERT COMMITTEE" (their capslock). The annotations also point out that the Traumeel S study was based on a small clinical trial of 32 participants. I don't think they're very impressed.

3d. Page 85 - two mentions
One mention of encouraging evidence for fibromyalgia treatment with a Grade C given. The other mention is the annotation saying that the term isn't defined and is inconsistently interpreted. Another annotation says that "this conclusion is flawed" and goes on to say that it should be a D.

3e. Page 138 - two mentions
One mention suggests encouraging evidence for postoperative ileus and this is immediately thwacked with "not defined / inconsistencies".

3f. Page 236 - one mention
This part of the report contains all abstracts of all the references considered / used, with a comment below.

"Although there is some encouraging evidence for hypnosis, herbal medicine and acupuncture..." - homeopathy is not actually included in this bit at all. It is subsumed into the phrase "there is insufficient evidence to suggest that other CAMs are effective for the treatment of childhood conditions". Pleasingly this is one of Edzard Ernst's papers (Ref 43).

4. Conclusions and rationale for this post
So there we have it. The draft first report, released to such fanfare from homeopaths, does not support homeopathy. The NHMRC does not recommend its use in any condition. Since homeopaths will probably try and use this report to suggest that regulatory bodies should loosen their restrictions on homeopathy (eg NHS and RCVS) I thought it best to have something to point people to saying why this is pointless.

5. Background to the report
A few years ago an Austrlalian study was commissioned by the NHMRC to examine the evidence relating to the use of homeopathy to treat a variety of health conditions. There were a number of problems with the draft of the 2012 report - it included studies of lower quality and was not clear about how it graded the quality of studies.

A second report was commissioned, and later published in 2015 and concluded that the evidence for homeopathy was not impressive. Hardly a surprise given that pretty much all overviews of the evidence come to the same conclusion.

Homeopaths were annoyed that the earlier 2012 draft report wasn't published. They were under the impression that the first report had shown some success for homeopathy and that this had been deviously edited out in the second report, unfairly implying a negative effect for homeopathy.

The first draft report has now been released and homeopaths are very happy that the phrase "encouraging evidence" appears in the document, such as -

"...in which the author concluded that there is “encouraging evidence for the effectiveness of homeopathy” in five medical conditions." ⁽¹⁾

It would be more correct to add the word 'wrongly' or 'mistakenly' between 'author' and 'concluded'.

Appended at the start of the draft report is a statement from the CEO of the NHMRC, the text of which is at the top of this post. The HRI has managed to draw this conclusion from it -

"We also welcome the valuable clarification provided by NHMRC CEO Prof Anne Kelso, that NHMRC’s second Homeopathy Review published in 2015 “did not conclude that homeopathy was ineffective”, despite claims to that effect in media reports and by anti-homeopathy campaigners." ⁽¹⁾

Incidentally there is an important but subtle difference between these two statements
1. There is evidence that homeopathy does not work
2. There is no evidence that homeopathy works

6. References and further reading
(1) NHMRC finally release first report on homeopathy (27 August 2019) Homeopathy Research Institute https://www.hri-research.org/2019/08/hri-statement-on-release-of-first-report-by-nhmrc/

See also Hinner Feldwisch's thread https://twitter.com/hfeldwisch/status/1166440559386517510

7. Screenshots of search strategy and results
Click to enlarge any that need it.

Ctrl+F or Command F brings up the Find option

Click the gearwheel to bring up the full search options

This is what I searched for in the document - encouraging evidence

There were actually 13 instances but only 12 appeared in the automated search. All are accounted for in my post.

The annotations for page 9 were particularly brutal.

Open letter to Autism Directory about having CEASE Therapy offering homeopaths in their listings

I sent this text on 7 July 2019 via Twitlonger (a third party app which will send out a tweet for you containing a link to where the text is stored). Authorise the app, write your text and it will do the rest. If you begin the text with an @ it will send it as a reply (in which case don't fill in the title bit as that'll ruin the reply format).

As of 18 July 2019 the listings remain.


https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1squjpj

@AutismDirectory @GWT82 Re: https://www.theautismdirectory.com/listing/homeopathy-cease-therapy

Please remove listings* for CEASE Therapy from your directory as the treatment cannot help people with autism and is exploitative. The acronym stands for "Complete Elimination of Autistic Spectrum Expression" (itself a misleading statement).

The treatment involves supplements and vitamins, at much higher doses than recommended by the NHS, and can result in diarrhoea and stomach cramps. Tinus Smits (the inventor of CEASE) celebrated diarrhoea as being some sort of 'evidence' of detoxifixation of vaccines https://twitter.com/UKHomeopathyReg/status/1109070117223235585

There have been various efforts to stop misleading claims made by people offering CEASE (and in some non-UK cases to stop CEASE practice) as this treatment does not work and is effectively a form of medical neglect with potential harms to autistic kids.

1. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA, UK) has sent Enforcement Notice to 150 homeopaths offering CEASE treatment to remind them of permitted and non-permitted marketing claims https://www.asa.org.uk/news/cease-therapy-claims-must-stop.html. Some of these homeopaths who have failed to comply have been referred to Trading Standards.

2. The Federation of Holistic Therapists (UK) will not accept onto its register any homeopath offering CEASE therapy (or homeoprophylaxis - which means offering homeopathic remedies as a [non-functional] alternative to vaccination) - see Section 3.4 in this PDF https://www.professionalstandards.org.uk/docs/default-source/accredited-registers/panel-decisions/annual-review-panel-decision-fht.pdf and general "not endorsed" info on their page https://www.fht.org.uk/therapies/homeopathy. Their register has been accredited by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA, who report to Parliament).

3. The Society of Homeopaths (SoH) still permits CEASE-offering homeopaths onto their register though the PSA has been working with them over the last two years to try and reduce the risk to the public from this https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/27/more-than-120-homeopaths-trying-to-cure-autism-in-uk. They were re-accredited in 2018/2018 with some restrictions then, controversially, the PSA (re)re-accredited their register in 2018/2019 https://www.professionalstandards.org.uk/docs/default-source/accredited-registers/panel-decisions/society-of-homeopaths-annual-review-2018.pdf

4. Last week The Good Thinking Society submitted a request for a Judicial Review of the PSA's decision (to re-accredit the SoH) "to keep autistic children safe from homeopaths who offer harmful CEASE therapy" https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/gts-cease-psa/ (also https://goodthinkingsociety.org/good-thinking-files-judicial-review-over-psa-reaccreditation-of-society-of-homeopaths/)

5. Many CEASE practitioners have a listing on an official CEASE website which the Dutch equivalent of the ASA has found to be in breach of advertising standards http://ukhomeopathyregulation.blogspot.com/2017/10/more-on-cease-therapy.html

6. Naturopaths in British Columbia, Canada are not allowed to advertise or offer CEASE therapy, nor are they allowed to offer anti-vaccination materials or advice, nor claim that vaccination can cause autism https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/naturopath-college-outlaws-therapy-promising-complete-elimination-of-autism-1.4682714

7. Homeopaths are working with vulnerable children without having a DBS check and those who are not members of a Society (registered or otherwise) have no particular oversight for safeguarding. This is effectively a feral treatment (the treatment and advice are often offered via Skype).

In response to the many, many concerns about CEASE and about the regulatory changes some homeopaths are using alternative names (eg EASE for "Easing Autistic Spectrum Expression") or the more general "homeopathic detox" - but cynically the underlying 'treatment' is the same. Please watch out for this.

CEASE Therapy has been around for a while but has only recently become prominent in the last couple of years and as such it wasn't included in the UK's Westminster Commission on Autism publication about Harmful Interventions for Autism https://westminsterautismcommission.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/a-spectrum-of-harmful-interventions-web-version.pdf

Please do not promote this pointless but harmful treatment to people with autism or parents of autistic children.

*These are the homeopaths listed on your page who offer CEASE, please remove these listings.

• Acorn to Oak Health
• Liesje Cochrane
• Paula Lattimer
• Gill Marshall Homeopathy
• Roberta Young
• Jak Measure
• Dr.Joshi's Center for Autism
• Miranda Parson's Homeopathy
• Alison Roberts Homeopathy

Thank you
Jo

I've created a Wikipedia page for the Society of Homeopaths

A few months ago I spotted that the British Homeopathic Association (BHA) and Faculty of Homeopathy (FoH) had Wikipedia pages but the Society of Homeopaths (SoH) didn't and I'd been meaning to create a page to redress that. It's been interesting revisiting some of their activities and with their recent re-accreditation by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) and the Judicial Review into that decision that has been requested by the Good Thinking Society I thought it was time to get a move on, so here it is: Society of Homeopaths.

The BHA's page begins with a paragraph about when the association was formed and by whom, then highlights that homeopathy is an unevidenced pseudoscience before going on to highlight two examples of BHA's activities. The first is about the quality (apparently not great) of the evidence they submitted to the House of Commons Evidence Check on Homeopathy from 2009, the second is about their failed Judicial Review of NHS England's decision to top funding homeopathy.

I followed the same pattern for the SoH page and so far I have the following information in there.

• An Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) adjudication against the SoH in 2013 for engaging in false advertising and discouraging people from seeking essential treatments
• SoH considered legal action in 2016 against the ASA after it wrote to UK homeopaths to remind them of the rules for marketing material, but they were advised against it by their legal advisor
• In 2017 skeptics* complained to the PSA about the SoH as their members were offering CEASE therapy for autism. The PSA put some obligations on the SoH in place but re-accredited them. One of the obligations was to publish a position statement on CEASE (and monitor risks from member homeopaths offering this).
• In May this year there was an undercover interview by The Times with a number of homeopaths one of whom was both a member of the SoH and also offering 'homeoprophylaxis' (an alternative to vaccination, which doesn't offer any protection). Rather than bring about disciplinary proceedings the SoH defended the member and said they would complain to the press regulator.
• As a result of the PSA re-accrediting the SoH (on 1 April no less) the GTS has filed a request for a Judicial Review to be undertaken of that decision, you can read more about that here (and donate to the crowdfunder).

*the term skeptics refers not just to bloggers and activists by doctors, scientists, healthcare professionals and patients who are concerned about health claims.

Next to investigate, write, reference and add are

• Info on the 2006 Newsnight undercover 'sting' into homeopaths offering homeopathic alternatives to malaria prevention medicine, alongside a lack of general advice about bite avoidance. Some of the homeopaths involved appear to have been SoH members (a spokesperson from the SoH certainly appeared on follow-up programmes). This will take time to unpick as I need to remind myself of the sequence of events, and of SoH's involvement.
• Related to the above, a year later in 2017 blogger @lecanardnoir wrote a post about the SoH's response about their members re: the malaria sting and received a legal letter asking him to remove his post (which he did). Doing so triggered a chain of events resulting in the mirroring (copying, republishing) onto over 60 other sites and was probably the first time I hear the phrase the Streisand Effect (in which by seeking to hide information you end up drawing more attention to it).
• A retrospective link to this 2014 article which appeared when the SoH first began to be accredited by the PSA, pointing out how ill-advised this seemed.
  "It’s unscientific for a medical regulatory body to give accreditation to homeopaths" - New Statesman (18 September 2014)

Obviously I want the Wikipedia article to be reasonably encyclopaedic (kind of the point!) but I don't think it's necessary to itemise every single thing. Here are some things I've not added, or only lightly referenced.

• I've added the latest (as at Sep 2018) official number of society members (according to PSA's accreditation document) but struggled to make sense of the membership numbers overall so haven't included further information. Their current 'About us' website page has 1,200. In their 2009 submission to the HoC EvCheck they give it as 2,500, in 2013 it was 1,300.
• Probably I won't add anything about the problem of Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford University letting the SoH have their conference and AGM on site despite concerns about legitimising homeopathy, not to mention how the university's autistic students might feel about that happening. 
• Also there's some stuff about alleged links between a (former) SoH staff member and the long-since debunked MMR-autism controversy but that might require legal considerations, so probably best left out for now.
• The SoH has today published a news article on the fact that members can add additional therapies to their insurance package. Some SoH members offer a range of services, including homeopathy, but the standard insurance covers them only for homeopathy. Whether or not society members are underinsured might be a bit niche for Wikipedia.

The purpose of this post then is to combine some stuff that's on Wikipedia with stuff that isn't. I think it's important and helpful to have overview information of a topic, particularly where something involves many years of historical skeptic activism. It's easy to forget things and so useful to keep it all together.

Homeopathy company in Germany issues lawyerly notices to skeptics for saying homeopathy doesn't work

Yesterday I read a new post from Edzard Ernst highlighting that a homeopathic company in Germany, Hevert Arzneimittel, had sent legal letters to homeopathy skeptics asking them to stop saying that homeopathy doesn't work and to sign an agreement to that effect or they'd have to pay just over 5,000 euros to the company.

A couple of the German skeptics affected have tweeted copies of their letters. Some Twitter apps / platforms have a 'translate' button below tweets, if not you can paste the text into Google Translate and select German to English.

In early May another homeopathy group reported Bernd Kramer to the German press association for his criticisms of homeopathy, which he tweets, and he adds updates to his thread eventually leading to the tweeted legal letter from Hevert shared on 16 May 2019.

On 24 May Natalie Grams (herself a former homeopath) tweeted her own legal letter (English translation), by which time tweeted responses to @HevertNatur's Twitter account had become robustly critical and mocking, and voluminous.

As far as I'm aware people who received the letters had not been critical of the company itself, they'd just pointed out that homeopathy doesn't work.

Given the phenomenon of the Streisand Effect (drawing even more attention to something when seeking to remove some small level of attention already received, see also Verschlimmbesserung) it seems an odd action to take, as lots of people are now sharing info about the legal action. As a consequence they are now criticising the company as well as reiterating that homeopathy does not work with the rallying cry "Homöopathie wirkt nicht über den Placebo-Effekt hinaus" or "Homeopathy does not work beyond the placebo effect".

Today Hevert has published a statement on its Facebook page (though not mentioned at time of writing on its Twitter page) explaining the action it has taken in trying to prevent criticism of homeopathy in Germany. It's interesting to note that they specifically acknowledge the effectiveness of UK skeptics^ in getting legal restrictions introduced on homeopathy* in Britain, which followed from commentary that was critical about homeopathy (a pattern they are hoping to avoid occurring in Germany). Again the (over 200) comments on the page are now critical of the company's actions and asking for evidence that homeopathy is more effective than placebo.

The comments on Edzard's post are interesting and helpful and put things into context in terms of German law. Commenter Joseph Kuhn suggests that the company may be able to assume that, legally, authorised homeopathic products are considered effective: "The German law on drugs assumes efficacy for authorised homeopathic remedies (remedies with an indication)" and so perhaps it's not unreasonable to expect people to respect that assessment.

Eppur (non) si muove, however.

^this includes scientists, doctors, patients - not just bloggers
*For example homeopathy has largely been removed from the NHS and is no longer allowed as a first line treatment by vets. There's also been a tightening of permitted marketing claims and much greater scrutiny of them.

On the overreach of homeopaths and why homeopathy now finds itself in difficulty

There's a scene in Family Guy where Peter (the dad) asks to see the newspaper (Brian the family dog is reading it) and expresses surprise at the lack of mention of a certain ornithological piece. As Brian starts to ask Peter what he means Stewie (the baby) tries to stop him, but too late, Peter starts singing Surfin' Bird.

I can't help wondering if my poor friends think the same whenever homeopathy is mentioned in my earshot ;)

To most people homeopathy is a harmless pastime, you feel a bit under the weather, you take a pill 'for' it (or 'for' you - it's never entirely clear), you get better. If asked they might ascribe the getting better to the homeopathy and ignore the possibility that they'd have got better anyway. Friends of skeptics probably wonder why we get so exercised about this. Here's why.

If homeopaths and homeopathy stuck to "helping people feel a bit better when they're under the weather" - let's call that Moderate Homeopathy - I'd expect you'd not hear much of a peep from doctors, nurses, vets, scientists, patients, skeptic activists and anyone who's ever given a sideways look at a homeopath opining that they can cure or prevent a serious disease - let's call that Extremist Homeopathy.

As is often the case Extremist Homeopathy flourishes in the vacuum of Moderate Homeopathy's utter failure to call it out. It's incredibly rare to hear a homeopath correct or criticise another homeopath's ideas or pronouncements and I can only think of one example (if you know of others please let me know). Peter Fisher (a doctor and homeopath who sadly died last year in a cycling accident in London) strongly criticised those homeopaths who were claiming that homeoprophylaxis (the preventive wing of homeopathy) could stop people from getting malaria if they took homeopathic vaccinations or pills. It can't. He was pretty cross about them having said this (as part of a BBC undercover operation⁽¹⁾) because it was a harmful thing to say (people could become very ill) - and of course it did the reputation of homeopathy no favours at all.

"I'm very angry about it because people are going to get malaria - there is absolutely no reason to think that homeopathy works to prevent malaria and you won't find that in any textbook or journal of homeopathy so people will get malaria, people may even die of malaria if they follow this advice." - note, a senior homeopath said that homeopathy could not prevent malaria - it's not just skeptics who said that.

Since 2006 several homeopaths (who would probably consider themselves Moderate) have been sanctioned by the Advertising Standards Authority for making claims that homeopathy can help people with asthma, fertility problems, fibromyalgia, high blood pressure, menopause and so on. Unfortunately this is veering into Extremist Homeopathy territory as homeopathy cannot help with any of these. The quality of evidence is not in homeopathy's favour though no-one should deny that people might feel better after talking with a kindly homeopath who is able (thanks to charging for it) to spend time listening to the person and make them feel supported.

The most-obviously Extremist Homeopaths are now offering homeopathy to treat or prevent autism. The mistaken notion that vaccination can lead to autism has led to a three-pronged approach to try and prevent or reverse this - in short a money-making scam which can leave children unvaccinated or harmed by ridiculous protocols.

1. Tell the parent not to vaccinate the child (or, more accurate, create a culture of fear in which parents become reluctant to vaccinate and provide a 'safe haven' for them to come to you) and offer them homeoprophylaxis - a non-existent homeopathic alternative to vaccination.
2. For parents who have vaccinated and are now worried about future autism, offer them a Homeopathic Detox Therapy package where the imagined bad effects of vaccination can be undone with homeopathy.
3. Where a child has autism, imply that it was caused by vaccination or other 'toxins' and that homeopathy and high-dose supplements ('CEASE therapy') can now detox the child and reverse autism⁽²⁾. There is no requirement (and no-one even to require it) for these homeopaths to be DBS (formerly CRB) checked and no safeguarding of children.

These types of claims, several made by members of the Society of Homeopaths, have made critics of homeopathy sit up and take particular notice and act on their concerns.

Homeopaths seem to believe that they should be in charge of their own regulation (which is a privilege not a right) but until they collectively stop putting people's health at risk their claims are always going to be closely scrutinised by the same people who've gradually helped to cause the public mood to shift away from seeing homeopathy as being harmless or benign.

Homeopaths will not listen to advice from skeptics but in case this can reach any of them here's my attempt nonetheless at telling homeopaths why they now find themselves in defensive-mode and what I think they need to do:

Homeopathy is its own worst enemy. It has massively overreached in its claims. Doing so means skeptics* have taken notice and acted coherently to try address it. Success has been slow going but is very definitely heading in that direction. The evidence is not in favour of homeopathy so when doctors and pressure groups ask the NHS to defund it they are knocking at an open door. Claiming to cure or prevent diseases while being unable to do so is harmful (directly and indirectly) and until homeopaths have the courage to call out other homeopaths over this you can probably expect greater scrutiny, tighter regulation and more unfavourable news articles.  Any annoyance you feel at skeptics for curtailing your claims and activities is because you've failed to regulate yourselves and you put people at potential risk from active or passive harms.

There was probably a case to be made for homeopathy on the NHS, but homepaths blew it by exploiting its presence on the NHS as a cover for more harmful notions. It is true that doctors are not always able to help patients and some doctors had said they found it useful to be able to refer those patients to what could have been just a harmless distraction (the patient would still be under proper medical care and in little danger from having no real treatment if monitored). Losing them to private homeopaths risks losing that oversight and puts patients at risk from dangerous ideas and bad advice.

If homeopaths had stuck to offering people support without making wild claims I probably wouldn't have written a single blog post or tweet, or written to regulators (I've been in touch with the Advertising Standards Authority, three different Trading Standards branches, Professional Standards Authority in the UK as well as regulators in Ireland and the US). I'd not have signed or shared petitions or lent my voice to calls for homeopathy to be defunded by the NHS (successful) by insurance companies (partially successful) or removed as a first line treatment for vets (successful), and I'd not have welcomed the attitudinal change among newspaper editors and TV producers in several countries which means articles and programmes now actively criticise the dangerous claims made, instead of advertising homeopathy clinics as they used to (still do, but to a lesser extent).

*Not just bloggers like me but doctors, nurses, vets, scientists, angry patients, health activists and skeptic bloggers.

References
(1) Malaria advice 'risks lives' (BBC News) 13 July 2006
(2) Homeopaths ‘treat’ autistic children with rabid dog saliva (The Times) 14 April 2019

See also
How homeopaths push useless alternatives to crucial vaccines (The Times) 4 May 2019

The Times view on homeopathic treatments: Dangerous Quackery (The Times) 4 May 2019
Homeopathic alternatives to the measles vaccine pose a risk to public health