badscienceblogs

Well google have released a new toy for us all to play with! Of course being a total google fanboy I can’t resist the temptation, and so, if you scroll down the page, way down, just past the technorati tool, is the Science and Progress search box. It’s got a few sites indexed to it and I’ll keep adding them as I can.

Enjoy!

The House of Lords held a debate designed to annul the disgraceful decision of the MHRA to endorse the sale of snake oil (well, to allow homeopathic “medicines” (i.e. water) to be labelled with unjustified therapeutic claims.

Interview with DC, vainly trying to counter the bunkum from the two previous speakers.

The Consumers’ Association has had a good record in distinguishing true claims from false in washing machines and dishwashers. But in CAM, they seem to be out of their depth. They have been giving some very bad advice, of the sort you might expect from the lifestyle pages of the Daily Mail.

After a long delay, the Dept of Health eventually complied with the Freedom of Information Act and supplied documents relating to the approval of magnetic bandages by the Prescription Pricing Authority (PPA). At the time the PPA denied it was their job to assess efficacy. But the documents show that isn’t true. They just did a very bad job of the assessment.

The Royal Society posts a statement that says “It is important that treatments labelled as complementary and alternative medicines are properly tested and that patients do not receive misleading information about the effectiveness of complementary medicine”. I hope the MHRA is listening.

In answer to a complaint about homeopathy on the NHS, Caroline Flint, Minister of State in the Department of Health, replied with a mind-bogglingly ill-informed letter, recommending hin to consult the Faculty of Homeopaths for more information. Read the letter here.

The two chiropodists who run the Marigold Homeopathic Podiatry clinic (no, honestly, it’s real) at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital seem to be spending much of their budget with a company that they themselves own. The UCLH Trust did not receive any notification of this until I told them about it.