Saturday 14 November 2015

Homeopathic Carcass Says it All


Overheard:

Hay: "Can you nip over to my dad's and ask him for that chicken carcass he has in the freezer as I'm making soup today?"

1 minute later.

Chairman:"Brian, I've come for your carcass."

Hay's Dad: "A bit premature, aren't you?

I was listening to an item on Today on Radio 4 yesterday morning about the use of NHS money on homeopathic treatments. The advocate for homeopathy stated that three of four research papers had concluded than homeopathy was not a placebo, including a recent paper by the prestigious Robertson Institute in Glasgow. I took the trouble to look up the Robertson Institute paper and here's the conclusion:

Conclusions 
Medicines prescribed in individualised homeopathy may have small, specific treatment effects. Findings are consistent with sub-group data available in a previous ‘global’ systematic review. The low or unclear overall quality of the evidence prompts caution in interpreting the findings. New high-quality RCT research is necessary to enable more decisive interpretation.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, although he could have been being economical with the truth by obliquely inferring that the Robertson Institute's paper was the one of the four that did not support his position. Seems you can make any old statement on radio these days, claim it as irrefutable fact and get away with it without being challenged. 

Here is the most popular story from the BBC website yesterday. Says it all, really - what a shallow nation we are:


However, the stories have changed somewhat dramatically overnight! My guess is that, in a knee-jerk (but totally understandable) reaction, all European borders will be closed forthwith to any refugees/migrants, or whatever you want to call them.

A quick peek at some of the varied skies round here over the last week:






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