Don’t deny the science

Published: 15 July, 2010

• I AM sorry, but there is no evidence that homeopathy works, despite the handful of assertions in your letters pages (Medicine, not witchcraft! July 8).

This is not surprising.

In its strict sense, homeopathy takes a solution of a natural substance and dilutes it with massive amounts of water.

So much that, in fact, not a single molecule of the existing substance remains in the final solution.

This is probably just as well, since most of the substances are chosen because they supposedly have effects similar to the disease being cured.

So coffee, sold by homeopaths as caffea, is said to cure insomnia!

How can this massively diluted material cause any reaction in a person whatsoever? The answer is that it can’t! Your various correspondents are sadly deluded.

Although I don’t want to ban homeopathy, I certainly don’t want the NHS to waste money on water! When homeopaths start attacking evidence-based medicine (you give people a substance and monitor whether disease involved is cured or not) or, as a group of your correspondents did, start suggesting that modern medicines kill people, I draw the line.

Millions of us are alive today as a result of our increased knowledge of, and major successes of, modern medicine.

To dismiss this evidence is plain stupid.

DAVID REED
Eton Avenue, NW3