...did they have little pitchfork and burning torch smilies you could insert in the messages?

Putting the fear of FSM into those snakeoil salespeople*.

*Alleged.

(please feel free to moderate me away libel lawyers come a-calling)

I met someone recently that came back with powdered raven - as in the bird - from her homeopathist. I had a good laugh at that, particularly when she was asked what condition it was for. The answer? "Ummm, I'm not really sure".

And yes, it really was powdered corvus corvax: http://www.wholehealthnow.com/books/birds.html

I wasn't even sure that kind of thing was legal.

I wonder who at neals yard decided to go along with this... they must have known what was going to happen.

Anyway, it was very funny watching it unfold.

http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/List_of_Scientifically_Controlled_Double_Blind_Studies_which_have_Conclusively_Demonstrated_the_Efficacy_of_Homeopathy

After all it takes a long time to gather and organise all the scientifically-validated tests and trials that have been done around the world to show the effectiveness of homeopathy.

oh wait....

mines the one which appears to be a piece of thread, but is actually as effective as a real coat, cos I say so and you believe me.

It's always a good idea to be correctly hydrated....

Ben Goldacre does a fantastic job of debunking snake oil salesmen, including the MMR debacle.

Thousands of kids have died or become very ill because parents believed false accusations that MMR vaccine was dangerous. The herd immunity has now dropped to a level where we could have epidemics of Measles, Mumps or Rubella, each of which can be very serious (especially in adults) - Death, infertility, deformed foetuses, etc.

Then we get the blogmeister giving a platform to these awful scaremongers. What sort of reaction did they expect from Grauniad readers?

Yes, I am one, before anyone asks, and both my kids had MMR jabs. The view is great from up here on the moral high ground ;-)

"So there you are, harnessing the power of community and innovative new editorial formats, spreading enlightenment by putting the customers together with the vendors, and what happens?"

Well, the 2.0 aspects actually played out in favour of the honest people out there, didn't they? If this were traditional media, the fairy story would be sold, there'd be a coupon at the bottom of the page for a "reader offer", and a bunch of people would be suckered into parting with their cash.

We need more of the same at every level. Many MPs seem to think that public money should be spent on vague "healing" techniques on a par with "crystals and shit" (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/nov/20/comment.politics1). Commons 2.0 is on its way, and the sooner it's all there, the better.

The recent rise of measles cases, following decades of decline, might suggest the latter.

This is the first time a comment of mine has triggered so many responses, and I must say I am impressed by the intelligence and thought that has gone into them. Makes you proud to be a Reg (and Guardian) reader.

@Mike Richards: I couldn't agree with you more; I hated that column, it made my blood boil. Not what you want over breakfast on a lazy Sunday. But what you said reinforces what AC at 11:59 said - these people can get away with it in traditional media if the correct editorial checks and balances aren't in place, but make them face their readers on-line and the weakness of their case(s) is soon exposed, and the Barefoot Doctor was dropped due to public demand - eventually.

There is also a definite difference between Guardian and Observer editorial slant. You rarely hear "Observer reader" used in the same way as "Guardian reader" - positively or negatively.

For me, Ben Goldacre's regular Guardian column more than makes up for past indiscretions in the Fashion supplement, I mean, Observer.

The only advantage the one-eyed man would have is the concept of colours. And his language would have no way of covering it (if everyone was blind, why would they have a name for "mauve"?). So how would the rest of the world know he was actually one-eyed rather than blind? He'd have to go about proving it methodically. Colission avoidance, determining the difference between whisky and vodka with absolutely no physical contact, all that sort of thing until he'd definately beaten random chance.

And unproven accusations should be shouted down as hard as possible. Once the evidence becomes irrefutable it should be accepted as fact. Things like Gravity. Okay, so we're not there yet with exactly how or why it works. But we know there IS gravity and we can predict certain aspects of it

Not shouting someone down because you might be proven wrong with his next sentence, in 20 years or never- but you might still be wrong- is the route to a ridiculous state of affairs.

Finally, I'd like to reiterate what's been said above- extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. That's why normal patents seem to take the equivalent of a sketch on a hanky (yes, I know it's not really like this) where as perpetual motion machines (nowadays) have to be seen and checked before having the patent granted. They might work- but it's so mind-bogglingly improbable that you need irrefutable proof to have it accepted as fact.

If anyone actually thinks the Grauniad was right to publish this sort of thing, may I suggest you give it even more influence over your life?

You're obviously reading it too much. It will have much more effect if you take it in homeopathic doses, and read it as little as you possibly can.

Oh please. Are you seriously trying to suggest that homeopathy is a wonderful new theory people are just closed to because they don't know better?

Homeopathy was first pulled out of a German physician's arse in 1796. It has been repeatedly demonstrated to not be any better than placebo when subjected to anything like a rigourous testing. The same kind of testing which _demonstrated_ round-world, the heliocentric solar system, the expanding universe etc.

Homeopathy and the rest of the hippy bullshit proliferated by these quacks is a desperately sad movement which melts away to nothing when properly evaluated. They're the flat-earthers, the creationists, the "pyramids were built by aliens" loonies. Wishful thinking and nothing more. You've got your analogy absolutely 180% the wrong way round.

Joking aside, of course they were right to publish. Have you read the rest of the "You ask, they answer" series? There are some pretty snarky questions, which, for the most part, the companies involved take with good grace and answer to the best of their abilities. Neal's Yard appear to have misunderstood that some people feel claiming to be an "ethical" company and selling water as a cure for malaria/flu/whatever doesn't really match. They could have defended themselves, or at least tried to. Why wouldn't they if they believe in what they're selling?

To my mind it's a Good Thing to have this exposed.

And have you ever jumped off a cliff? You can't knock it 'till you've tried it ....

It must be true - Wikipedia says so!

Touche!

My point is that, I wonder how many people dismiss alternative medicine such as homeopathy, without having tried it for themselves.

If you put your faith in current scientific knowledge, without question, then there would be no reason to try something like homeopathy, because there has been no concrete proof that it works, so far as I'm aware.

However, what about the millions of people who use homeopathy and other alternative therapies in the UK? Are they all deluded, naive, stupid or gullible? I would propose that is mostly not the case. I would say, rather, that they are flexible, open to change and willing to take a risk.

Of course having blind faith in alternative medicine is potentially self-defeating, but I credit most people with enough self-possession to have a feel for whether something it working for them or not.

It seems to me very limiting to dismiss something that Science had not provided evidence for. You can't really know alternative medicine/therapies don't work, until you've given them a go. Can you?

There is a difference between what is sometimes today termed "homeopathic medicine" ("Joe Crystal") and what your common apothocary ("Good Edward") did in the 1750's which is today termed "herbological medicine"...

Headache?

Edward knew that Black Walnut bark helped (natural analgesic that became Asprin); chew on that or make a strong tea out of it and relax for a few minutes.

Joe believes that the problem is with your aura; take this crystal pyramid and place it over your forehead while sitting serenely on the floor so the sunlight shines into it.

Nasty scrap on the rocks?

Ol' Ed says some witchhazel (Hamamelis) leaves from the colonies rubbed on it after washing will keep it from getting infected; wrap with a clean cloth and you were on your way.

Guru Crystal has consulting the universal consciousness and determined you need to wear a Hematite necklace (admittedly, after washing), to keep any infections from your blood.

There is much from what was common knowlege from grandmothers and Edinburgh apothocaries that have been "lost", misplaced or downright lied about from our modern medical profession. The idea that it won't work unless it has had millions spent in processing it into a little gel cap or plastic packaged cream is sheer arrogance.

But then again, I am one of those few that was allowed to get in the mud and guck and develop an immunity to things, instead of being a sterilized child that is allergic to everything and catches a cold at the faintest breeze...

Mine's the one with the leach chest (not the little slimy buggers, tinctures, 'natch) in the pocket.

And has a water-tight arse, what is the noise that it is most likely to make???

You joking, right? I've never seen any broadsheet less fact-based than that sorry heap. They do absolutely zero factchecking. If you know a topic or region, you see glaring misexplanation or self-serving reversals of facts or chronologies.

Looked at it last saturday. It claimed Berlusconi gave 4 houses to the teenage girl all the hubbub is about. No other paper wrote this (a 4000quid necklace, yes), none in the UK, none in the US and none in Italy. So where did they come up with that? Why??

re: 4 houses - if it's in the Grauniad it must have been on wikipedia somewhere - check their revision history.

A. Medical students are taught that something like 90% or 95% of ailments will resolve without intervention. Hence, if you take a harmless pseudo-medication, for example a homeopathic remedy that is so highly dilute that it is unlikely to contain a single atom of the active principle, most of the time you will get better. Not because, but in spite of.

B. There's a strange meme that's gotten loose. Ignorant people come to believe that they have special knowledge that is being suppressed by Big Pharma or some equivalent shadowy conspiracy. One variant of this meme is what I call "the silver bullet syndrome", wherein the victims are persuaded that if they just (do, take, consume, refrain from) some particular medicine or deed or food, all their troubles will be resolved. An example is someone persuaded that their sad life is due to a misshapen face, so they undergo plastic surgery and discover (alas!) that post-recovery they are no more successful in getting laid than before. In the most advanced cases, not only do they have the same old personality defects that repel others, but now they can't stop talking about their plastic surgery.

And they still have to put out the garbage on collection day and clean the cat's litter box.

C. As for herbal remedies, it appears that *some* herbal remedies help *some* disorders in *some* people, but the effects are so inconsistent and the failures so predominant that it's not possible to make a case for marketing the stuff as a safe and effective medication. Marijuana presents an interesting example in that the synthetic stuff, Marinol, just doesn't work as well as the real thing. Marijuana's efficacy in relieving many distressing symptoms (without touching their causes) seems to depend in a very delicate way on the exact combination of cannabinoids it contains. Hence the Compassion Club in Vancouver BC offers its clients a range of different strains of marijuana that have each been found reasonably effective for one or another of those symptoms: pain, nausea, muscle spasm, general malaise, etc.