You seem to have misunderstood. No one is talking about “outlawing” homeopathy, if people want to spend their own money on it.

What people object to is pouring millions of pounds of public money down the drain on such quackery, when the NHS is so short of money and treatments with proven curative effects are having to be rationed.

The position we take on homeopathy is precisely the opposite of being ideological – it’s about rationally assessing the available evidence and coming to a position based on data not anecdote, science not conjecture. So whilst I am sorry that your Bristolian partner feels that a evidence-based approach to deciding what to spend public money on is not for her, I urge you and her both to think carefully about just what your position implies – that you wish to waste (I use that word advisedly) taxpayer funds on remedies simply do not work.

And this is the point. You wrote about a materialist philosophy and the interests of the pharmaceutical industry and about evangelicals attempting to homogenise the world around them as though we’re calling for homeopathy to be banned in some authoritarian conspiracy. Just to be clear, we are Liberals (the clue’s in the name my friend) and as such we have no intention to ban the use of homeopathy whatsoever. What we do object to, and rightly so given the overwhelming evidence that the select committee considered, is the use of public money on such treatments, and the official endorsement that comes with such funding.

This phrase of yours – you might just find your irresistable force running up against the immoveable object of her belief – is revealing. Your partner has a belief in homeopathy, we on the other hand have evidence that it ought not to be funded by the taxpayer – believe all you want, but don’t expect public policy to be built around anything as flimsy as belief.

HoC Science and Technology Sub-Committee

HoC Science and Technology Sub-Committee 2

Perhaps showing these videos to your girlfriend may help you convince her the LibDems are worth reconsidering.

Here’s a snippet of what I wrote about the show:

Woodward stated he’d been “impressed by alternative medicine and homeopathic treatments” and believes they have their place in medical treatment. He thinks we should ensure “money is available for trials for actually people being able to choose, if they want to, versions of medicine…” Woodward appeared unclear as to whether we should fund trials or fund treatment for people who wished to choose a version of medicine that has not been shown to be effective.

Teresa May is “quite sympathetic to alternative medicines”, and thinks people should be able to “have a choice”. She believes that some people find that “alternative medicines actually do have a value for them” and that “what’s important is that we don’t simply dismiss them.” I don’t think that any alternative medicine treatments have been “simply dismissed” – many have been tested, shown not to work, and then dismissed. This is a rather different matter.

I think it is that journalists want to contribute something to the discussion, but find that they can easily be ignored by the detailed, evidence-based arguments of scientists and academics in general; they want to kick back, and do what they do best: use ad hominems and irrlevence.

It is a shame. I saw recently that the Economist wants a new science correspondent, and explicitly stated that they would prefer someone with a background in science who can write, than a journalist with an interest in science. To be applauded: but perhaps there arn’t enough of the latter covering Westminster, where it counts?

Your right about how tempting it would be to stuff Parliament with PhDs; though I doubt many would want to.
I’d prefer to see plumbers sitting beside the chemists, a hotel receptionist sitting beside the lawyer, a whole range of people with all sorts of backgrounds. So long as they are honest to me and to themselves and work hard for the salary, a salary which most people can only dream of, while taking responsibility for themselves when representing the people who voted for them, then that is fine.

I’d really like to see your suggestions of ‘Making policy makers more democratically accountable and having select committee have more power to hold government to account would help more‘.

I want my MP, any MP sitting on a select committee to have enough gumption to admit he is out of his depth on a particular subject, then get up off his backside and either find out or excuse himself honestly. I’ve no idea about the rest of the world, but if my new MP, and it will be a new MP, wants my respect and a repeat vote, then he is going to have to be honest. Why so many MPs find it so easy to disregard such an excellent committee is beyond me. Why bother having them!!

On the issue of scientific literacy, I’m certain that far too many MPs simply do not understand what constitutes valid evidence. It’s tempting to suggest that having more scientists in Parliament (it’s fair to say that some of us, *ahem*, are trying…!) would solve this problem – trouble is, from what I’ve seen of Westminster, electoral pressure will always trump one’s professional background. Dogma and partisan considerations almost always drown out objective, evidence-based thought – which helps explain why so much government policy goes against the grain of trustworthy evidence.

For that reason, I don’t believe that stuffing the House of Commons with PhDs and white coats is the solution. Making policy makers more democratically accountable and having select committee have more power to hold government to account would help more. What’s vital is that campaigns such as that to remove NHS sponsorship of homeopathy are repeated for all those areas in which a scientific approach would be welcome – be that policies to fight crime, to combat climate change or any other.

Indeed, the party actually seemed to be advocating increasing NHS spending on homeopathy (and other “alternative medicine”) by having GPs prescribe these quack remedies:
“the measured introduction of treatment with CAMs therapies at primary care level has the potential to reduce expensive secondary referrals and/or long term expensive drug therapy in a range of conditions”

That kind of thing makes the party sound almost as loopy as the Green Party on this issue.

(In other words, Evan Harris is something special!)

Too many MPs seem to reject scientific evidence; something I find bizarre for a country where the sciences are promoted as being essential to the UK economy.

Can MPs really continue to ask the public to pay for an education, an education and expertise they seem to undervalue so readily by dismissing the report?

How many votes will this group of MPs risk losing, not only of the science graduates themselves but of their friends and family as a result? Is it fear of upsetting a scientifically illiterate group of voters? Should I ask how scientifically literate are our MPs in general? Could a group of MPs be so afraid of science that a refresher course in the basics would do them, the public, and journalists a great deal of good?

Are they simply afraid to challenge scientifically illiterate journalists in the press and cheap magazines who may try to create a fuss in order to steal headlines? Why can’t our politicians stand on top of a mountain and proclaim the wonder of science and take great pride in the efforts of scientists and the committee for shining a light on wasteful use of money within the NHS, and have a press event while they hand over the rescued cost to university researchers seeking to find effective treatments for any number of afflictions?

Do I want MPs who show so little regard for evidence to sit in a jury let alone make decisions regarding the running of this country, preferring instead to court incompetent journalists rather skilfully deal tabloid headlines the contempt they so obviously deserve? I do genuinely ask myself that question. There would be outrage if a conviction failed due to a jury disregarding solid scientific evidence on the basis of not wanting to upset a particular group of society, wouldn’t there?

MPs can not have it both ways. Do they value evidence in their decision making, decisions that can and do affect our laws and freedoms, the health of the UK population, our standing as a world force in science and many, many other arenas, our security and even decisions that may send our armed forces to war?

These days, we come with both a vote and an education, something MPs would do well to remember as they fight for the political lives. The politicians of the UK must understand that they must demonstrate their ability to be professional, fair and just to the electorate. We need smart and strong politicians to lead us into the coming years and MPs must demonstrate that they have the necessary ingredients to lead us into a future where we will rely more heavily on science and technology.

Is it wise to face up to the evidence now, educate politicians and the public where necessary and stop funding the supply of treatments that are no more than water or sugar pills on the NHS up and down the length of the UK. After all, it has been 300 years or thereabouts since the Enlightenment. In future years, we may well find ourselves facing more challenging technological and scientific questions and out politicians are required to demonstrate they are capable of making sound decisions from now on, particularly after the recent political scandals. We need an informed group of people to represent us, people who will agree with the electorate when our views are similar, but equally have the spine to stand up and fight for right over wrong, even if a proportion of the electorate do not like what they hear.

Can out politicians demonstrate to the electorate that they understand and will do what is required to govern effectively and honestly?

This small country gave us so many scientific greats including Joseph Black (carbon dioxide), James Watt (steam engine), Alexander Fleming (penicillin), Robert Watson-Watt (radar), Joseph Lister (antiseptic surgery), James Clerk Maxwell (thermodynamics and electromagnetic theorist), Watson & Crick (DNA), the recent Nobel Laureates Paul Nurse, John Sulston and Tim Hunt among so many other scientific giants. Surely the politicians of this small country can demonstrate a concise scientific understanding that illuminates the best British science has and can offer just as deftly as Evan Harris.

a) Studies have shown that injecting a placebo – ideally by someone wearing a white coat – is more effective than taking a placebo in pill form. If we want to maximise the effectiveness of a placebo we ought to be considering how to get as much bang for our buck;
b) Studies also point to a price placebo effect. Specifically, the more you pay for a placebo the more effective it is liable to be. So by not spending NHS money on homeopathy we might actually be making the treatment of people who insist on homeopathy more effective.

The fundamental problem I have with funding treatments with nothing more than a placebo effect in the NHS is twofold. Firstly, once we know that something only has a placebo effect surely it is incumbant on doctors to point this out to their patients – thereby making the treatment less effective (this applies to medical treatments as well)? Where do we draw the line between “good” lying/withholding information and bad? Secondly, it encourages people to go down the line of indulging in complementary medicine for other things, even in areas where there are lifesaving treatments available, and thus reduce their life chances in other areas.

It is one thing to prescribe something you genuinely think will be of benefit to the patient – quite another to do so knowing the treatment will have minimal benefit. The placebo effect raises all sorts of dilemmas for the medical profession. The lesson should surely not be to go down the line of putting doctors in charge of arbitrating between what facts they tell or withhold from their patients.

The Committee did indeed undertake a cost-benefit analysis, or at least tried to. Allow me to quote verbatim the relevant passages from the report (emphasis original):

The Government was unable to tell us how much money the NHS spends on homeopathy as “data on spending in the area of homeopathy on the National HealthService has never been routinely collected”. When he gave oral evidence Mike O’Brien, Minister for Health Services at the DH, was, however, able to say that: “In terms of drugs it is £152,000 a year which comes from a budget of £11 billion. It is approximately 0.001 per cent, we calculated, of the drugs budget. In terms of overall funding it is very difficult to know. We have done some work to see if we can find out what it is. We have four hospitals—one in Glasgow, three in England—which provide homeopathic assistance to people and we do provide some NHS funding for those, so it would run into several million on that basis, so probably less than 12 — I think I saw that in The Guardian as a quote—so probably less than that but not too much less.”
In June 2009 the Guardian reported that the NHS had spent £12 million on homeopathy in the period 2005–08.16 According to the Society of Homeopaths, the NHS spends £4 million on homeopathy annually. It appears that these figures do not include maintenance and running costs of the homeopathic hospitals or the £20 million spent on refurbishing the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital between 2002 and 2005. When we asked Dr Mathie of the British Homeopathic Association (BHA) whether money spent by the NHS on homeopathy could be usefully redirected elsewhere, he replied that “there is a need for cost-effectiveness evaluation of homeopathy. There is almost none”. It is impossible to evaluate the overall cost-effectiveness of homeopathy provided by the NHS if the cost is unknown. We recommend that the Government determine the total amount of money spent by the NHS on homeopathy annually over the past 10 years, differentiating homeopathic products, patient referrals and maintenance and refurbishment of homeopathic hospitals, and publish the figures.

So to summarise, in terms of cost/benefit analysis, there is no way of knowing the ‘cost’ element, although it appears to be in the several millions per annum. As for the ‘benefit’ element, we’re back to the same debate. When a person claims that homeopathy was beneficial for them, how can we be sure that they aren’t experiencing regression to the mean, that they wouldn’t have gotten better without sugar pills? The point is this – homeopaths choose to ‘treat’ things that appear to improve anyway, thereby they’re able to claim benefit. No serious analysis would allow this I’m afraid.

Duncan Stott, agree entirely. The major danger is twofold – that people seeking homeopathy privately feel that ‘well, the NHS uses it so it must be OK,’ and also that when seeking therapy for (eg) a chronic condition on the NHS, a patient feels that they are choosing between h’pathy and conventional drugs – the point being that it’s a false choice as h’pathy has been artificially elevated to appear equivalent to real medicine.

If a “cost/benefit” analysis indicates that treatment based on a placebo has a better “financial outcome” than one based on a scientifically proven drug, then I’d suggest there’s probably something wrong with the analysis!

Not that I find it difficult to believe that it would. After all, sugar is pretty cheap!

If people believe homeopathy is curing minor ailments, then there’s no major harm done by taking them instead of a proven medicine. However, when people suffering from life-threatening illnesses are targeted by placebo-pushing charlatans, a reassurance that the NHS uses homeopathy could persuade someone who’s desperate and vulnerable.