The correct way of going about addressing this issue is that which was adopted by the group of eminent doctors recently i.e. to prevent NHS funds being spent on this quackery. Companies selling these treatments should be subject to the same checking procedures as the big drug companies and to be sued for compensation when their treatments don’t work.

In many ways, the energetic attacks by the orthodox medical establish only serve to strengthen the resolve of homeopathy adherents. When asked by patients about “alternative treatment”, Doctors should respond by saying that “while it won’t do any harm, it won’t do any good either. If you want to clutch at straws then be my guest.”

In the long run, the early demise of these people will strengthen the gene pool. It should be remembered that there is not exactly a shortage of Homo Sapiens on this planet and the concept of free choice must always include freedom to make the wrong choice. Sadly, the best argument for real medicine is more publicity on the failure of the alternative variety (see Comment 11).

I’m not sure what the remedy was supposed to be for. It seemed as though the idea was that you should be taking some kind of homeopathy remedy whether there was anything wrong with you or not – to balance your psyche, or something such twaddle.

It reminds me of “social phobia” (otherwise known as shyness or introversion) and other such personality traits needing pharmaceutical treatment, when there is nothing actually wrong with you. Snake Oil Salesmen will always find a way to sell you something.

Chemo’s not great, but its the best we’ve got. As far as I’ve been able to tell, it works mainly on the basis of poisoning you, and hoping that the cancer is more likely to die than the rest of you.
This is the reason that a truly mind boggling number of different ways have and are being researched, by scientists, to find a better way of treating cancer. Most of them have not yet been succesful which is why cancer is still so nasty and you’re left with chemo.
If you can find a better way, then be my guest – but don’t think that scientists aren’t giving it their very best shot in as many different ways as they can think of. Maybe they’ll eventually crack it.

Patricia Kane, what exactly is there to research with regard to homeopathy? It’s a bit of a problem when there isn’t anything to research. It’s rather like researching the Emperor’s new suit of clothes. It might be of some value if there were any evidence that homeopathy actually cures anything. But there isn’t, because it doesn’t. There are only “claims” for made homeopathy, none of which stand up when prodded – just like the Emperor’s new clothes. Coincidentally, the material used to make the Emperor’s suit of clothes is the same as that used by homeopathists to treat their patients.
The Emperor has been told he is wearing the finest suit of clothes, and he believes it. Homeopathists dispense “medicine” that has no side effects (no effect, therefore) and tell their patients that their ailments (real or fictitious) will be cured. They believe that. Each appeals to credulity, vanity and, sometimes, desperation.
Homeopathists know there is no scientific explanation, because there is nothing to explain (apart from the deception) – which is why, for the benefit of the credulous, they keep playing on the notion that science can’t disprove it, or they produce their own bogus “scientific” results. It’s all part of the deception. Science has no part to play in homeopathy because it is neither scientific nor medicine.
What has this to do with the cholera epidemic of 150 years ago? Or bubonic plague, even? The sum of human knowledge has moved on somewhat in the last century and continues to do so.

To answer your final question, it sounds to me like your doctors were being honest with you rather than make promises they might not be able to fulfil

EVERYBODY

Did you see Emma Mitchell’s column in Guardian Weekend? She told someone who wrote in that her body was suffering from a ‘memory’ of having had chickenpox and that this could be cured by homeopathy. So your body has a ‘memory’ of infections which can be cured by a sugar pill with the ‘memory’ of a drug!

God that is such a good scam!

I had trouble posting replies but one of them eventually stayed up. The secret is to sound like you’re one of them but sneak in some doubt in a seemingly innocent comment.

you can’t… thats the beauty of it!