Help us save Homeopathy

The lobby of Parliament will be from 4 p.m. on 4th July 2012. We have set the time for 4 p.m. because there will be another group lobbying earlier in the afternoon, and we want to give them some time to see their MPs before we start. Please write to your MP to say that you are coming, and make sure that you give your name, address and postcode to show that you are one of their constituents. You can find your MP's contact details here. We expect that it will take some time for all of us to see our MPs, so if you really cannot make it until later, you do not have to be there on the dot of 4 p.m. Please let us know at lobby@hmc21.org if you are coming and how many are coming with you so that we can build up an idea of numbers. We will be providing more information over the next couple of weeks, including details of how to get there, and a mobile number on which you can contact us on the day. More information for MPs Earl Howe’s letter Some people have received a letter from their MPs forwarding a standard response from Earl Howe. The key points which we think need to made in reply are: Homeopathic organisations took part in the MHRA’s process of public consultation, but the issues they raised do not appear to have been addressed. Our concern is that the simplification and consolidation has revealed that the normal practice as regards the supply of homeopathic medicines has at some point become a contravention of the law. At the same time the simplification and consolidation has revealed that the law prevents homeopaths from practising correctly by restricting access to remedies their patients may need. As a result some changes in the regulatory framework are required if it is to be “fit for purpose”. House of Commons Library Some of you may have come across the briefing notes prepared for MPs by the House of Commons Library. We consider these to be very biased, and so we have produced a brief critique of them which you can send to your MP. You can download it from the website here. It is not permitted to take the matter up with the library directly. In an accompanying letter, it is worth making the point that this is an example of how MPs are being supplied with inadequate information even from their own library, and how you hope to meet your MP in order to correct the false impression generated by propaganda against homeopathy. You may not know who and what Quackometer and the Nightingale Collaboration, so here are some brief notes on them. Quackometer is a blog which particularly attacks homeopathy and other complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). It is essentially the opinion of an individual who appears to understand neither homeopathy nor conventional medicine.   The Nightingale Collaboration was established in 2011 for the purpose of “challenging misleading claims in healthcare advertising”. It was seed-funded by Simon Singh, who is a trustee of Sense About Science and one of the authors of the Trick or Treatment: Alternative Medicine on Trial, which was exposed as scientifically unreliable in H:MC21’s Halloween Science. The Nightingale Collaboration has focussed only on homeopathy and other CAM therapies, despite the mounting evidence of misleading information coming out of pharmaceutical companies. Its initial policy of using software tools to bombard the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) with complaints backfired, since it led to the ASA discounting complaints from the organisation. One could be forgiven for considering both Quackometer and the Nightingale Collaboration to be “rabid” opponents of homeopathy and CAM rather than representatives of reasoned concern.