It's fair to say that 2010 hasn't been a vintage year for homeopathy so far. At the end of January, a mass public 'overdose' by critics aiming to demonstrate the fact that homeopathic remedies contain no active ingredients received widespread coverage. Weeks later, the Science & Technology Select Committee released a report that damned not just homeopathy, but the homeopaths themselves, ultimately concluding that homeopathy works no better than placebo, and that NHS funding for the alternative medicine should be scrapped.

As the British Chiropractic Association's battle with Simon Singh continues to work its way through the legal system, chiropractors are counting the fincancial costs of a major backlash resulting from a libel action that has left the Lord Chief Justice "baffled". What was originally a dispute between the BCA and one science writer over free speech has become a brutally effective campaign to reform an entire industry.

A staggering one in four chiropractors in Britain are now under investigation for allegedly making misleading claims in advertisements, according to figures revealed by the General Chiropractic Council.

Continue reading at The Guardian!

Welcome to the first edition of Election Watch, an irregular evidence-based look at the coming General Election.

I'll be working on a major new project relating to the election in the next few weeks, details of which to come soon. But in the meantime, I thought it would be fun to do a regular blog of evidence-based tidbits about the elections, looking at the latest data and reflecting on possible outcomes generally, and for science.

Polls are like snow-flakes
The papers have excitedly reported that a Yougov poll this weekend shows the Conservatives sitting just 2 points ahead of Labour, a result which if repeated would leave Labour still the largest party, though without a majority.

I'll be filing a piece for The Guardian tomorrow (Edit: now appearing Monday) on the latest developments surrounding Simon Singh's judge-baffling libel case. In the meantime, I've been approaching various people for comment, and I've managed to get a statement from the BCA. Here it is in it's full, informative glory, followed by my own in-depth analysis.

"Thanks for your email and request for interview and comment. The BCA is currently not providing any comment but as matters progress this might change and if it does we'll contact you. Sorry we can't help at this time."

In the words of one blogger, “the Select Committee was biased - biased by the evidence.” Today the Science and Technology Select Committee delivered their verdict on homeopathy, and it was devastating. The committee have called for the complete withdrawal of NHS funding and MHRA licensing of homeopathy.

Welcome, stranger, to the 130th edition of the Skeptics Circle, the blog carnival that is to blog carnivals what the Morris Minor is to Japan.

As a bit of a change, and to make things nice and concise so that you can get straight to the lovely juicy meat of the articles without having to read lots of tedious waffle by me first, I'm going to do a special "quotes" edition. Each quote links to an article containing that quote. For extra fun, you can try guessing what the article is about from the quote!

Over the weekend I received a rare honour, a press release directed at me with the full intellectual might of the British Homeopathic Association behind it.

The statement came after I wrote a piece for the Guardian which was published under the title "Homeopathic association misrepresented evidence to MPs". Since they've taken such a personal interest in my work, I feel obliged to respond.

Saturday was a surreal day. First thing in the morning, I was wired up by a fly-on-the-wall documentary team before greeting the press and swallowing an entire bottle of (homeopathic) arsenic. At lunch, still alive but barely awake, I was giving phone interviews to the Press Association and a Russian magazine, then I spent a frantic evening on the phone to a producer at BBC News 24 arranging to get a either Simon Singh or Evan Harris MP to the studio. This blogging nonsense really has changed my life.

Tomorrow, I plan to travel to the centre of London where I will take a huge overdose – in public – consuming an entire bottle of pills.

I will not be alone. I'll be joined by several hundred others in London and around the world who will also be overdosing. No harm will come to us because the pills will be homeopathic, and therefore contain no active ingredient – just sugar.

Continue reading at The Guardian!

AT 10.23 am on 30 January, more than 300 activists in the UK, Canada, Australia and the US will take part in a mass homeopathic "overdose". Sceptics will publicly swallow an entire bottle of homeopathic pills to demonstrate to the public that homeopathic remedies, the product of a scientifically unfounded 18th-century ritual, are simply sugar pills.

Read on at New Scientist!