Bad Science

Well, everybody who is anybody is quite down on Homoeopathy these days aren't they? But who can trust a "peer reviewed" medical journal when this kind of shit goes on?

As far as I am concerned, all medicine is "magic" anyway, whether Western "science" based or otherwise. Bodies and minds get better, often to the surprise of all concerned. Sometimes drugs seem to help. Sometimes they seem to make things worse. Sometimes they kill people. Sometimes they have no discernible effect. Drug therapies are terribly variable in their outcomes, and often cause more problems than they mitigate, tolerances are quickly developed and patients are uninformed. It seems their doctors are too. I doubt Dr Scott Reuben is the only one to behave like this. Ben Goldacre has nothing to say on the subject.

Surgery is amazing, obviously insulin is marvellous, but drug therapies are often so crude and dangerous that I find it astonishing that people could freak out about more non invasive treatments that, for many, work without causing so much damage.

After being told that her blood pressure was dangerously high, my mother, who had no symptoms, tried several hypertensive drugs. These ALL gave her nasty side effects, many of which look like symptoms of heart disease/hypertension to me (breathlessness, swollen ankles, headaches, angina) and eventually she asked the Doctor if she could stop experimenting with them. None of them brought her blood pressure down anyway. The Doc was horrified, asked her what her friends were on, and said that the drugs gave Mum a 25% protection against heart attacks and strokes. Mum thought "25%? Is that all?" (Sounds less than placebo to me) and stopped. Her blood pressure IS higher than a 35 year old's, but does she need her quality of life screwed by medication? Would she not be better going out with a bang in her 80's like her mother and grandfather, but living a full and comfortable life until her time is up? It's a scam I tell you! I am off to take an arnica pill.

Update: Elby pointed me to this in which Madeleine Ennis discovers that homoeopathy does have an effect that she can't explain but has replicated.

Teehee

Fashion Champion Sarah

Hatfield Girl has brought this important story to my attention

According to the Telegraph....

"London Fashion Week, for autumn/winter 2010/2011, was officially opened by the prime minister’s wife, Sarah Brown, who wore a printed dress by Erdem, one of London’s brightest rising stars, accessorised with a belt made from a recycled fire-hose.

Mrs Brown said she was full of admiration and awe for the young designers who were securing British fashion’s future. “I am uplifted by their passion and fearless determination.”


Johnny Depp


Sarah Brown

Hollie Greig

Videos from investigating journalist Robert Green here

For more on this hideous story see here and here.

This stopped me sleeping. Why would the journalist investigating Hollie's case, arrested for breach of the peace, be incarcerated for 3 days before getting bail? See here. What can we do?

Poppy

Here she is. She is fast. She is soft. She doesn't stand any nonsense from Pig.
They play and play and play....

They are coming to take us away, ha ha

I thought I would link to this post as I wonder why this stuff is not national headlines. Huntsman on the EU Masterplan

L is for Labour

Tip of hat to Hemulen

New family member

It is happy chaos in the Berserk household as Elby and I become the Brad and Angelina of the canine world. Pig is ecstatic because he now has a live-in friend! More soon when I have pics :-) She came yesterday, a sort of surprise; trained, adorable and she and Pig get on like a house on fire.