Talk about being duped.- this organization is the pinnacle of a public relations campaign started many years ago by the likes of Tracy Brown a drug company public relations consultant. She is now leading the call for the destruction of homeopathy and homeopaths and prevent the general public’s ability to choose alternative health methods.
This organization will also make sure that the corrupt method of evaluating effectiveness and safety of pharmaceutical product is maintained. In the Public Relations biz its called ‘reputation risk management’, Tracy Brown’s specialty.
Similar to how the Scion was marketed by Toyota, an underground network was set up and continues to do guerilla marketing- getting individuals to market pharmaceutical company ideas and product for them without even knowing they are doing it. A pharmaceutical company dream.
Considering the public relations disaster for Pharmaceutical companies and their representatives in high places that just occurred with the non-epidemic and the swine flu vaccine and its pork barrel full of costs to governments world wide it is important to blame the homeopaths!
A secret meeting in London, by invitation only and closed to the public, in 2009 discussed how PR consultants, bloggers and media representatives could join together and also avoid legal issues and still attack homeopathy and homeopaths. Thus this campaign. They are now going after anyone who sells homeopathic remedies and also homeopaths themselves.
Talk about how to deal with your competition- a pharmaceutical company dream. Enlisting a lot of patsies who in their artificially induced angst, (by journalists and others who are actually on the payroll) feel railing against homeopathy and denying the scientific evidence for homeopathy is a fine way to spend much of your abundant spare time.
This time the marketing costs are cheap as in a few journalist awards here and there and sponsoring organizations such as Sense about Science headed by none other than a pharmaceutical company PR consultant.
And 1023 means avogrado’s number and they claim anything diluted more than avogradro’s number is not active.
Oh my- they are going to have to ban electricity! And forget the medical use of lasers- too much in the realm of energy!
Dear ThoughtFreeScience – but homeopathy does not use ‘lasers’ or electricity, does it? It claims to use poisons that induce similar symptoms in well people, yet delivers none of the poison.
“Oh my- they are going to have to ban electricity!”
Can you explain to me what you think Avogadro’s number has to do with electricity?
I didn’t know electricity was made out of atoms! Look at that, I’ve learnt something today. (*looks at GCSE physics text book*) Hang on a minute…
@FreeScience I’m fairly sure that electricity and lasers have been proven to be effective interventions – pace-makers and corrective eye surgery are two well tested applications that come to mind. If you can demonstrate that a homeopathic preparation has more “energy” than a non-homeopathic one then you’re on the road to fame and fortune and I look forward to reading about it when you publish your results.
Wow. Way to miss the point.
Great blog! Brilliant article. Wish I could have been a fly on the wall at that PR meeting!!
See our Homeopathy Heals Campaign started recently and blazing!
http://www.homeopathyheals.me.uk
Talk about your paranoid delusion – “anyone from any quarter who is against us is part of one big concerted effort funded by a homogeneous, coordinated Pharmaceutical Industry! If they seem to be unrelated to Pharma, it’s because Pharma is very cunning and devious.”
Yes, there are some people out there who don’t like you and don’t like what you do, but they aren’t necessarily therefore part of one big organised effort, driven by the same motives.
@FreeScience, why do you think Avogadro’s number relates to electricity and lasers?
Sorry- should have been more clear-was referring to the use of “energy” forms in medicine….but what is Tracy Brown’s background is more the point- but of course, you choose to focus on this – as usual you all completely miss the point of drug companies and their reach as ElephantsandMice points out.
All anyone really wants to know is Boots 30c Sulphur, What’s in those pillules?
I’ll repeat a post:
Folks, many of you [who attack homeopathy] are passionate and intelligent. But this obsession and hatred you have with homeopathy is very misplaced. If you put half as much energy into something that has PROVEN to be dangerous like the pharmaceutical industry and not theoretically like you think homeopathy is, then we would live in a much safer and better world. If you spent as much time on just one drug and its killing field as you do with obsessing about homeopathy, you would prevent many deaths and morbidity.
Fraud In Science: How Prevalent Is It And What Can Be Done?
ScienceDaily (Dec. 15, 2008) — Public confidence in the honesty of scientists is being harmed by a small minority of researchers who behave badly, a conference recently heard. European research organisations agreed to work more closely to tackle the problem of fraud and other misconduct in science.
Reference
The meeting in Madrid on 17-18 November was organised by the newly formed Research Integrity Forum of the European Science Foundation (ESF) in collaboration with the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). It continued work set in motion by the first world conference on research integrity held in Lisbon in September 2007.
Fraud in science includes inventing data (fabrication), manipulating data to produce an unjustified result (falsification) or presenting the work of other researchers as one’s own (plagiarism).
There is little hard evidence of the extent of the problem but various estimates suggest that between 0.1% and 1% of researchers commit fraud and perhaps as many as 10% to 50% engage in questionable practices. Most of these are relatively minor, said Dr John Marks, Director of Science and Strategy at ESF, “but if people get away with it and if no-one says anything about it, it might invite bigger issues of misconduct.” He said that opinion polls showed that trust in scientists is still high “but that trust is easily lost by high profile cases of misconduct and that is why we are so concerned.”
A survey by ESF earlier this identified 18 European countries that had put in place codes of conduct for good practice in research but they varied greatly in how they dealt with suspected cases. Many have set up research integrity offices to promote good practice and discourage misconduct.
No European country has yet followed the lead of the US National Science Foundation which, along with other federal agencies, has statutory powers to investigate allegations of fraud including power to subpoena evidence. Dr Peggy Fischer, of the NSF’s Office of Inspector General, described how offenders can be required to take a course in scientific ethics or, in the most serious cases, banned from receiving any federal research funding for up to five years.
Systems in Europe tend to be more consensual and rely more on the self-governance of the scientific community. Professor Eero Vuorio, chair of the National Advisory Board on Research Ethics, said that all of Finland’s universities and polytechnics and most research funding bodies had signed up to a national code of good scientific practice. Allegations of misconduct are investigated by individual institutions to an agreed procedure with the help of outside experts. Sanctions are in the hands of employers.
Although most countries agree on the core definition of what constitutes misconduct, they differ in how they regard other unethical behaviour and how they deal with it. The meeting heard reports on the situation in the United Kingdom, Portugal, the Czech Republic and France.
With much research now being done in international collaborations, problems can arise when fraud is committed within a cross-border partnership and there are no agreed rules on how cases are to be investigated and how sanctions can be imposed.
A move towards a common approach has been proposed by the Global Science Forum of the OECD, which would require potential collaborators to agree on what to do in cases of suspected misconduct. “When you’re doing your collaborative planning you need to recognise that things can go wrong,” said co-chair of the forum, Christine Boesz of NSF. She acknowledged that such an idea was new and was meeting resistance from some researchers.
The meeting also discussed the role of universities, national academies, international scientific bodies and scientific journals in promoting research integrity and heard of a project to compile a database of research papers known to be tainted by fraud. A proposal for a global clearinghouse to promote research integrity was also presented.
Members of the forum agreed to exchange information and good practice, to develop a code of conduct that could be used as a template for national codes, to develop a checklist to assist ESF members in setting up national and institutional structures to promote good practice and deal with misconduct, and to promote further research on the extent of misconduct.
Co-organiser Professor Juan José de Damborenea of CSIC told the meeting: “Society requires science and researchers to solve the problems that concern all of us. In general, public opinion has a good image of the honesty of scientists. We cannot allow it to be lost.”
Grand Inquisitor Colquhoun,
I have some points to make & pose some questions to you:
Point one: Quackbuster is the wrong name for you to use. Campaign10:23 is equally a joke, as we shall explain below.
There is nothing else to bust about you and your minions and pawns than the pompous loudness of the lager-lout.
You and those who follow you – that terribly abusive lot – are simply deniers and flat-earthers.
So far the points.
1. Witch-Hunts and Inquisitions
These are of course the epitome of intolerant Medieval times and involve nobody but you; Grand Inquisitor Colquhoun, whose horde of gullible yay-sayers shall expose all the witches through inane falsehoods and made-up claims, and as the coup the grace, simple denial.
As we shall extensively expose in these points, the deniers are equally ambivalent in their condemnation and presentation of arguments.
2. 10:24+, “We don’t stop at Avogadro!”
If homoeopathy contains no active ingredients as you claim with your 10:23 Campaign, then how come you say the exact opposite when you declare that our remedy Malaria officinalis is dangerous, because it is made of “African swamp water” and is “outrageous quackery”?
On the one hand it contains nothing, until it suits you, when we stick a different label on our “nothing than water” and suddenly it is dangerous.
Make up your minds!
3. Avogadro’s Limit
Another good point is to show that 10:23 is but Avogadro’s number and not a place where you fall off the edge of the earth, when you go there and beyond.
Metaphorically speaking, the deniers are the flat-earther Venetian blinds, in true 1490 fashion – Medieval and crude – and we are their Columbus.
So the Venetian blinds won’t help us prove it, they are simply in denial – to which we shall return.
Make up your minds!
F. Previous Meds – Direct Cause
Don’t you know that previous medicine intake by the sufferer is of prime importance when taking the history of the patient?
Did you know that this investigation would have given you the only clue to its real cause – iatrogenesis?
Make up your minds!
6. Surrogate Markers
How come surrogates are science when YOU use the word to describe something that belongs to something else, as belonging to the first instance?
You know as well as everyone else that the viral load belongs to those 2 viral or bacterial diseases you are supposed to have had, in the 2 years prior to your quasi-diagnosis.
They do not point to HIV, as has been extensively proven by the Perth Group and others.
Make up your minds!
6 A. Surrogate Medicine
If homoeopathy is surrogate medicine as you claim, then how come when YOU use the word, its meaning is changed to meaning a surrogate IS something as belonging to something else?
You think you can have your cake an eat it too.
Make up your minds!
7. RCT’s are the Gold Standard of drug testing.
If you test a drug and 15% reacts positively, what does it teach you? You claim it teaches that the drug is “useless”.
No drug is useless.
Only a fool and a knave come up with the useless.
What these statistics tell you, is that you must investigate why those 15% were helped and what they have in common, so you can finally discover the patterns in disease. Each person with the same characteristics will always have a positive reaction from that drug.
Yet you will vehemently deny, without the courage to test it.
Make up your minds!
9. The Law of Similars
You claim the law of similars is bunk, but vaccination is along the law of similars, and so is Ritalin for ADD, histamine in allergies and the antivenom against snakebite and spiderbites.
So what is it going to be?
Make up your minds!
If it is bunk as you say that all the therapies i just mentioned from your own quasi-system are equally bunk.
If it is not bunk, then your objections do not hold any water and you undermine your own system!
You want to call yourself rational and skeptic?
Answer my skeptic’s questions if you can!
Make up your minds!
10. Homoeopathy does not work.
Then explain to me how we are such great magicians we can fool people all the time with placebo.
Explain to me why we are such great magicians we can also fool all the animals with placebo.
Finally, explain to us your superstitious belief that we are such great magicians we can even fool plants with placebo.
Since you have already failed on all fronts by the facts of 400 RCT double-blind peer-reviewed trials with humans and countless more with animals, plus 180 peer-reviewed trials with plants, we suggest to creep back under the rock from which you came. And, while you are at it:
Make up your minds!
Oh but you can’t answer them, because with each and every one you try, you will be making a fool of yourselves through self-contradiction.
11. Worldwide Acceptance
A. Half the World Rejects Big Pharma
In the developed European world, 46% of the population uses homoeopathy or other CAM. That is a massive amount of people. It is funded through the NHS and uses a fraction of the costs for better results. In the US it is approaching that number also. South America has many homoeopaths and University research into homoeopathic medicine.
The WHO estimates it worldwide at 500 million customers, which is on the low side. We only need to consider India, where it is mainstream in the sense that all poor people use it and most of the affluent as well. That makes for at least a billion people in India alone. If we add that to the rest of the world as WHO tells us, we come to 1.5 billion who use it.
Count also the fact that most Chinese still use TCM and soon you will find that half the world population uses something different from what Big Pharma and orthodox medicine have to offer – namely CAM and Homoeopathy.
And why would they, if it was all bogus and not supported by science?
You gullibly believe that half the world is out of their minds.
The other half looks at you from a mirror.
B. Who Are The Real Gullible Fools?
Is half the world population consistently composed of gullible fools, because they do not use pharmaceutical drugs? Are fools not found on the other side? He who falls for Big Pharma does not realise that they cure absolutely nothing, because that cuts in the profits.
That may sound like a wise business plan – make and keep the people sick, by selling them drugs.
If your neighbourhood crack-head is doing the same, it is declared illegal.
Big Pharma is nothing but a dope-dealer scam. And supported by the Government through revolving doors and bribery, disguised as campaign or party donations.
Now to gullibly succumb to that, is what makes the real fool.
Want to be a fool or not?
Make up your mind!
12. Never heard any of these sayings:
“The doctor is to be feared more than the disease.”
“I rather take my chances with the disease than with the medicine.”
“If the disease won’t get you, the medicines certainly will.”
Make up your minds!
13. Wrong Way! Back Out!
A. Arbitrary Decisions
If science tomorrow would decide that air-planes can’t fly, would that mean that instantly all planes would drop out of the sky and none would be able to take off?
Of course not!
Similarly as planes fly because of natural laws, so homoeopathy and other CAM’s work, because they follow natural laws.
So if the deniers and flat-earthers have decided that it cannot work, would that mean that, simply by saying it, all these therapies suddenly become useless?
Of course not!
B. Denial Is More Than A River in Egypt
The deniers and flat-earthers accuse us of superstitions, yet they succumb to the superstition that by denying something it will go away.
Like little children who hold their hands in front of their face and think that everything has now disappeared.
Make up your minds!
Finally, I invite you to have a look at this:
And at this:
http://j.mp/8mYmhF
[this comment post has been edited]
Some thing proven dangerous you say!! Look here and tell me magic water is harmless!
Pete. We’ve already gone down that blood libel way- there are many instances of MDs charged with manslaughter and homicide but that does not mean that all or even any are murderers like you would like us to believe with homeopaths.
As well, the fact that consumers are cautious about getting conventional treatments or do not choose it should also not be blamed on homeopaths or alternative medical practitioners. AS has been said here before, many people get engaged with their health after seeing an alternative health practitioner. They actually end up seeking conventional medical diagnosis and even treatment AS A RESULT OF seeing a homeopath or alternative health practitioner, ( See Professor Iris Bell MD research studies).
Matt, If you just want to dump some toxic bilge you can do that on other deniers’ web sites and blogs or your own. If you want to give an opinion with some substance and evidence behind it please go ahead.
@freescience. What’s in it? 30c Sulphur remedy.
@Kaviraj
Many of the glaring logical fallacies in your arguments were debunked
[comment edited]
Comments that are threatening will not be published.
Comments that are based on the opinion that homeopathy is placebo and that homeopathic remedies have no effect will not be published.
I would be happy to publish any other comments especially if it was pertinent to the actual post.
I see that comments which request you to provide evidence of this alleged meeting are also deleted. Any reason why you require users to provide email addresses yet you don’t provide one of your own?
I do apologise…it seems those comments have suddenly reappeared out of synch. Conspiracy? My own high level of stupidity? Occam’s razor is always handy!
Trystan- Talk to your masters. They will give you the information you seek about this meeting.
You said
“Trystan- Talk to your masters. They will give you the information you seek about this meeting.
Comment by elephantsandmice — January 17, 2010 @ 7:18 pm”
I say “That is hilarious!”
What is that quote about “better to lete people think you are stupid than open your mouth and remove any doubt”
Yes we should lete the people decide. And Andy great denial ploy- call the messenger stupid but don’t comment on the message. I liked the smiley face- cute.
Andy is simply throwing his business card around
A secret meeting in London, by invitation only and closed to the public…
If it was a secret meeting, exactly how do you know about it? Oh, I get it. It’s a conspiracy. You probably got your info from David Icke.
And a homeopathic cure for malaria? You go ahead. I’ll pass.
Well, Patrick thank you for confirming my point about the idiot followers of drug company issued science on a number of fronts.
A. You are obviously one of the naive followers- you should check with some of your mesmerizing drug company reps and leaders before believing this meeting did not happen. It did and even the great gimpy attended.
B. It is not way out there to assume that billion dollar companies would use guerilla marketing techniques with the likes of you as a pawn.
C. You’ve obviously closed your eyes and deny homeopathy’s ability to work in epidemics but the statistics prove you otherwise.