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|  |  | | (This debate is closed and is a read-only archive.) | | Homoeopathic medicine is the triumph of unreason
[22-Jun-2005]
| I'm somewhat disappointed but not surprised that Peter Fisher, responding to the question I put to him, can't advise on an homeopathic contraceptive. I'm disappointed, because I half hoped that it would be the usual witchcraft of, say, a 30C dilution of the uterus of a pregnant bat. But I'm not surprised, because safe and effective contraception is far too important to be left to the homoeopathic physician.
| I'm sure that the same applies to pulmonary tuberculosis, meningococcal meningitis, cholera, insulin-dependent diabetes, renal failure, perforated duodenal ulcer, childhood leukaemia, HIV/AIDS, and malaria. I was about to add breast cancer to that list, but then I remembered that some homoeopathic physicians advocate iscador - an extract of mistletoe - on the principle that mistletoe's relation to the oak tree is similar to the relation of the breast cancer to its female 'host'.
| Meanwhile, we witness the triumph of unreason. While £14,000,000 is spent by an NHS trust on the rebuilding of the Royal Homoeopathic Hospital, our NHS breast cancer patients often wait up to three months for postoperative radiotherapy, and are denied the new drug anastrozole - an important advance on tamoxifen - because of an estimated additional annual cost across the UK of about £6,000,000. Sigh. Such is the world we live in.
| Michael Baum, UK
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