The paper concludes that the lack of evidence on efficacy and cost-effectiveness of homeopathic therapies means that it should not be a high priority for the PCT at this time. It is recommended that NHS Wirral does not commission homeopathictherapies.

The key risk is that NHS Wirral fails to maintain its reputation as an evidence-based commissioning PCT.

Excellent stuff. Still, it seems we weren’t the only ones made aware of the open meeting – also invited were patients currently or formerly using homeopathy, and the ‘North West Friends of Homeopathy‘. This latter group are most interesting, and I’ll come back to them a little later in more detail, but first it’s worth pointing out that I appeared on local radio with a member of the group on Monday morning, in an exchange that might amuse, and will certainly give a far better impression of who John Cook is than I could ever do justice with words. UK-based readers can listen here, it starts around the 2hour 13minute mark and lasts about 10 minutes. I’ll wait.

For those not able, willing or interested in listening, what we have from John is a charming ability to hog a conversation, and the maniacal insistence that the date of the meeting was aired. Clearly, John wanted his supporters to arrive mob-handed. Fair enough, he probably feels he has a strong case. As it was, when I arrived with a couple of other MSS members there were maybe 40 or so people present, a number which I presume to be in excess of the general norm for these meetings.

John, having lobbied for inclusion, was amongst the speakers, joined by Dr. Hugh Neilsen BA MA BM BCh MRCP FFHom (it’s worth pointing out that his name is actually Hugh Nielsen, and the NWFoH’s own website, while painstaking in it’s detail of Hugh’s many qualifications, mispells the name of their own president), and the panel was completed by two local GPs who were involved in making the recommendation, and who spent the evening ranging between bemused, compassionate and at times startled. Startled, not least, by the quite spectacular opening by John, the homeopath’s friend (which I imagine is rather like a Fisherman’s Friend, but lacking in clout), in which he directed a quite flattering string of insults at me directly, and at the Merseyside Skeptics Society. A typo on our website (proclaiming the meeting to be on the 6th not the 9th) drew from John the hilarious gag:

Perhaps you’re the Merseyside Dyslexics Society, although you’ve somehow managed to make it here on the right night so perhaps you can get by. (*from memory, not verbatim*)

Clearly the friends of homeopathy are no friends of dyslexics, I suppose. Either that or he had a range of tinctures in his impressively boxy briefcase, and was merely touting for business. Who knows. Still, it was a harmless enough jape (unless you are actually dyslexic, in which case I’m sure it was infuriatingly insulting), but I assume not the standard practice for such meetings as the Chair looked quite surprised. John’s epic 10-minute rant (he moved to stand behind the Chair so everybody could see him in full), whilst including a few more rib-ticklers at my expense (I was merely an audience member at this point, bear in mind), also included a number of utterly wonderful assertions, which he’d taken the time to print for us (with such adherence to spelling and grammar as to paint his dyslexic wisecrack in immensely ironic light) and which I can reproduce here verbatim from the copy I took away with me.

North West Friends – Small Registered Charity supporting Patients.

This is interesting to me, given that the Charities Comission has NWFoH listed as being for:

THE RELIEF OF SICKNESS BY HOMOEOPATHIC MEDICINE. THE EDUCATION OF THE GENERAL PUBLIC IN THE BRANCH OF MEDICINE KNOWN AS HOMOEOPATHIC MEDICINE AND TO ASSIST IN RESEARCH OF HOMOEOPATHIC MEDICINE, THE RESULTS OF SUCH RESEARCH BEING DISSEMINATED TO THE PUBLIC AT LARGE.

Am I splitting hairs there? I think not – the NWFoH are very much designed to support homeopathy as a system, to further its usage and to promote homeopathy wherever possible. Clearly this is not the same thing as supporting patients – it’s supporting homeopathy. They’re not the North West Friends of Patients, after all, and were the interests of homeopathy to be in conflict with those of patients (like, say, when over 200 trials show homeopathy to be ineffective for patient use and a local PCT recommend, for increased patient care, the cessation of homeopathy funding), it’s easy to see where John and the rest of the NWFoH’s chips would fall.

10% each year of the UK population use homeopathy

This struck me as grossly exaggerated, but as one of John’s ill-judged and smug barbs pointed out ‘this includes the many skeptics who were seen debauchedly gulping entire bottles of homeopathy outside of Boots’. On this point, I agreed with him (we did), although the 10% still looks over-inflated to me. Small point, though, there’s better to come.

John also went on to claim that the Government rejected the Science and Technology Comittee’s recommendation to cease funding for homeopathy (implying that for a PCT to do so, citing the Evidence Check, would be out of line). This, as I pointed out to John when given the chance to retort from my seat in the audience, was highly disingenuous and misleading – the Government actually said that any decision should be made not by them but by local PCTs after local consulation. And we were sat in that local consultation at that very minute. Bewildering.

In perhaps John’s coup de grace, he stated defiantly:

Despite the Department of Health’s rejection of the conclusion of the Evidence Check Report, Wirral PEC’s recommendation says ‘there is no evidence that homeopathy works beyond the placebo effect; which is another way of saying there is no evidence of efficacy (RTCs) – which is wrong, because there is.

Brilliant. Let’s take this point by point:

• The Department of Health did not reject the conclusion of the Evidence Check Report, as covered above. Furthermore they agreed that the evidence was in fact lacking, they merely disagreed that there should be top-down cessation of funding.
• I’ve no idea what an RTC is – a typo is a petty thing to pick up on, admittedly, but given John’s smug gloating over the supposed date error on our own website, I couldn’t resist. An RCT is a Random Controlled Trial – that John can’t get those words in the right order speaks volumes about the NWFoH’s understanding of evidence standards.
• Finally, the best bit – ‘which is wrong, because there is’. Now, you doubtlessly expect the next paragraph to explain this bold assertion. Who am I kidding, no you don’t – you rightly suspect John threw it out there nakedly and expected us to buy it without anything at all to actually back it up, as if merely saying something is enough to make it sound so. Which is right, because he did.

That summed up the thrust of John’s ‘arguments’, aside from another couple of swipes at the very fact that skeptics exist and personal digs at me and the MSS in general, and it was at this point that the Chair, out of keeping with the planned structure of the evening but slightly perplexed by John’s use of his time in attacking a hitherto-silent audience member, allowed me a moment to rebut. Fortunately, I had my rebuttal somewhat planned, and it ran along the lines of these very simple, demonstrable facts:

1. The Merseyside Skeptics Society is a volunteer organisation with no commercial vested interests clouding our objectivity.
2. The North West Friends of Homeopathy are headed up by John Cook (who appears to have been at one point the Chairman of the British Homeopathic Association, although I’m lacking citation for that and may be mistaken by an identically-named homeopath) and President Hugh Nielsen, who is also Clinical Lead of Old Swan Homeopathic Clinic, Liverpool
3. The North West Friends of Homeopathy state on their website that their homeopathy supplier is Weleda Ltd
4. Weleda Ltd is a large multi-national corporation operating in 53 countries with an annual turnover of around $300m
5. Weleda Ltd produce homeopathic products, and also the non-homeopathic Iscador (made from mistletoe, and often lumped in with homeopathy for reasons too complicated to go into here).
6. Welada Ltd currently supply Iscador and homeopathic products to… Old Swan Homeopathic Clinic, where Hugh Nielsen – President of NWFoH is Clinical Lead.

These facts, which I’ve seen nothing to suggest are incorrect, do not of course show any solid financial incentive behind the supposedly-grassroots, ‘supporting the patients’ activities of the NWFoH, however they do make it hard not to wonder that objectivity may be compromised – homeopaths spontaneously campaigning to have preserved a contract that their supplier benefits from financially.

The rest of the evening was genuinely fascinating – clearly many of the people who had turned up (those not part of John’s own group, of which there seemed to be several)  had done so out of genuine belief that homeopathy was an effective treatment. Each shared their own tale – terminal cancers held back by homeopathic products, ADHD abated without the need for drugs, breast cancer completely cured by homeopathy. Interestingly, there was an overwhelming preponderance of cancer patients present, and I think this reflects the intentional muddying of the lines between homeopathy, Iscador, and homeopathic Iscador. As the Chair was quick to point out, any case relating to Iscador was fundamentally not one the session was set up to consult on, and still the entirely-sincere and doubtlessly-genuine cancer cases came in. This made me wonder, especially as Monday’s radio phone in seemed curiously skewed towards Iscador stories too, whether there wasn’t an intentional drive to get such patients to come along, with their deeply-emotive – though irrelevant to the subject at hand – cases. If I were an astroturf organisation shilling for an Iscador manufacturer, I’d imagine that’s the kind of situation I’d try and promote.

Still, I felt nothing but empathy for the majority of the cases in the room (by which I mean the ones who weren’t nakedly hostile to the very notion of a skeptic, which formed a minority I imagine). Most of the people there were genuine in their concerns, and really wanted clarity and answers – they were just missing the objectivity that comes with not being in the centre of the storm. It is incredibly hard to accept such counter-intuitive notions as regression to the mean, confirmation bias and spontaneous recovery when you’re the one involved – as human beings we’re built to fit our lives into some kind of understandable narrative and see pattern and structure where there is, sometimes, chaos and randomness, and we’re all susceptible to this. It really did reinforce to me the need to be compassionate and considerate when dealing with people who have been convinced by a particular pseudoscience – even the most vociferous of proponents can themselves be victims, and frequently this is the case.

Amongst the stories told, the recurring theme which became apparent to me was of people who, when desperate, had been convinced to try homeopathy – perhaps by reputation, perhaps by recommendation from a well-meaning or otherwise practitioner. Also recurring, too, were stories of dismissal of the treatments by medical practitioners, and it did make me wonder just how many people would put their faith in homeopathy if explained clearly and gently why those little pills have no clinical effect, and how the placebo effect really works, rather than simply dismissed out of hand (admittedly by doubtlessly busy doctors who have real and pressing issues to deal with – a situation which will only increase now GPs are left holding the purse strings). I wonder if a moment’s pause and patience at the point of first experience might keep many more patients from falling for the weasel-wording of Dr Nielsen (who visibly squirmed when fellow skeptic Tom Williamson pressed him on Nielsen’s own explanation of how homeopathic substances get more effective once the initial substance has been diluted out of them) and the sneering and bullish hyperbole of John Cook.

Ultimately, however, I don’t really believe the discussions this evening will have affected the decision to be made over homeopathic funding, partly because I don’t think it really was – or was even pretending to be – a discussion. ‘Have your say’ invited the website – and plenty of people did. However, there is a significant difference between having your say, and having a vote, and I strongly think in this instance the evidence will outweigh the few passionate-but-sincerely-misguided opinions of the homeopathy users, and the smug point-scoring of the North West Friends of Homeopathy (Manufacturers). I, for one, eagerly await the outcome on March 22nd.

Placebo bands - the skeptical alternative to Power Balance

Not for the first time, we at the MSS would like to offer our congratulations and our genuine awe at the work done by the Australian Skeptics. Not for their tireless work in fighting anti-vaccination in Australia, although this is indeed laudable. Not even for hosting TAM Australia, though the event sounded an overwhelming success, with precisely the kind of ethos and feel we’re trying to achieve with QED (tickets are still available, of course). No, this time our hearty congratulations are for their fight against the ludicrous nonsense that is Power Balance – the little bands of rubber, embedded with a neat little hologram and vibrating with a supposedly-ever-present-yet-oddly-undetectable energy which claims to help this, boost that and increase the other.

Or at least, they used to claim that. As of today the manufacturers will no longer be making those claims, after a ruling proved them to be unsubstantiated. What follows is a press release from the ACCC explaining further, but it’s worth pointing out that without the work of the Australian Skeptics in demonstrating the falsehood of Power Balance’s claims this ruling would never have happened. So, once again – excellent work, guys!

Power Balance Admits No Reasonable Basis For Wristband Claims, Consumers Offered Refunds

Misleading advertising claims about the alleged benefits of Power Balance wristbands and pendants have been withdrawn by the manufacturer after Australian Competition and Consumer Commission intervention.

As a result consumers will be offered a refund if they feel they have been misled and Power Balance has agreed not to supply any more products that are misleadingly labelled.

Power Balance Australia Pty Ltd claimed the wristbands improve balance, strength and flexibility and worked positively with the body’s natural energy field. It also marketed its products with the slogan “Performance Technology”. The ACCC raised concerns that these claims were likely to mislead consumers into believing that Power Balance products have benefits that they do not have.

“Suppliers of these types of products must ensure that they are not claiming supposed benefits when there is no supportive scientific evidence,” ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel said today.

“Consumers should be wary of other similar products on the market that make unsubstantiated claims, when they may be no more beneficial than a rubber band,” Mr Samuel said.

Power Balance has admitted that there is no credible scientific basis for the claims and therefore no reasonable grounds for making representations about the benefits of the product. Power Balance has acknowledged that its conduct may have contravened the misleading and deceptive conduct section of the Trade Practices Act 1974.

The Power Balance wristbands were widely promoted in the media by various sporting celebrities. The wristbands were sold around Australia in sporting stores and also on the Power Balance website www.powerbalance.com.au

“When a product is heavily promoted, sold at major sporting stores, and worn by celebrities, consumers tend to give a certain legitimacy to the product and the representations being made,” Mr Samuel said.

“Retailers that continue to sell the product with misleading representations on the packaging are warned that they may be open to action from the ACCC,” Mr Samuel said.

To address the ACCC’s concerns Power Balance has provided the ACCC with court- enforceable undertakings that it will:

• only make claims about its products if they are supported by a written report from an independent testing body that meets certain standards
• publish corrective advertising to prevent consumers from being misled in the future
• amend the Australian website to remove any misleading representations
• change the packaging to remove any misleading representations
• offer a refund to any consumers that feel they have been misled, and
• remove the words “performance technology” from the band itself.

Consumers with refund enquiries can call Power Balance directly.

The ACCC has previously taken court action against a number of alternative health providers, including Advanced Allergy Elimination and NuEra, for misleading and deceptive conduct.

What you might not have seen is the full sales pitch, as (for reasons of time) we had to trim a lot of it down. Still, I had a lot of fun coming up with it, crafting a fine line of bullshit-benefits while never straying from what could be tenuoulsy claimed about a) water and b) the placebo effect. Because if you’re going to do something, why do it by halves?

So, to preserve the sheer bullshit I forced myself to come up with, I thought I’d post it all here (as well as giving you it as a PDF so you can see what was on the other side of that clipboard I’m clutching in the footage).

Enjoy! And get your QED ticket now to sample some QED vodka with us in person in February!

QED Vodka

Nothing is as strong as QED Vodka

QED Vodka is the revolutionary new lifestyle drink made from the finest Russian vodka, potentised and homeopathically-prepared with the finest distilled spring water for a clear, crisp taste. Using methods perfected in over 200 years of research in Germany, QED Vodka’s special potentisation process ensures it provides:

• All of the benefits of full-strength vodka – Relaxation, More confidence, Mood boost, Less inhibition, Less worries, Help with sleep, Calming of nervousness, Relief from stress.
• None of the downsides of full-strength vodka – Alcohol taste/smell, Impaired balance, Loss of coordination, Slurred speech, Lowered self-control, Failure of breathalyser, Hangover, Dehydration.

Given QED Vodka’s benefits, it will fit into the market alongside ‘energy drinks’ as Red Bull and Monster, offering a new way for people to boost their mental and physical condition in a natural and perfectly healthy way. In fact, the ingredients of QED Vodka are so safe many Doctors will recommend them for their patients.

Prior to launch, we’re looking to gauge the public’s potential reactions, so along with a free sample we’d appreciate if you’d answer the following questions:

1. What do you think of the product?
2. Would you buy it?
3. How much would you pay for a bottle?
4. Would you recommend it to a friend?
5. Would you recommend it be available on the NHS?

The 10:23 Campaign

Consumer rights activists worldwide are being challenged to participate in a global ‘overdose’ on homeopathic pills, in order to raise public awareness that the remedies are in fact worthless.

The ’10:23 Challenge’, scheduled to culminate worldwide in February 2011, is a follow-up to the protest staged by the 10:23 Campaign in the UK, which saw almost 400 demonstrators take to the streets across UK to voice their concern at the sales of the pills in leading pharmacy ‘Boots’, and the support for such ‘remedies’ on the NHS.

Michael Marshall of the 10:23 Campaign explained the plans for 2011: “This year has been a great year in the UK for raising awareness of homeopathy – with doctors, pharmacists, politicians and – above all – members of the public speaking out against this discredit ‘treatment’.

“However, the case against homeopathy extends far beyond the UK – all around the world, people are being told that homeopathy is a valid form of treatment, and often with tragic consequences. It’s a global problem, and it requires global action.

“This is why we’re announcing the 10:23 Challenge for 2011 – we want to show global unity by gathering protesters from more than 10 countries, and more than 23 cities. Our aim is to have more than 1023 people publicly gathering over the weekend of 5th-6th February, to make a statement: Homeopathy – There’s Nothing In It.

“Of course, safety is our number one concern – not all homeopathy is prepared as honestly and cleanly as the manufacturers state, and can include real ingredients which could be potentially dangerous. With this in mind we urge anyone wishing to get involved to prepare their own homeopathic remedies, or contact the 10:23 Campaign for more information”.

Get your QED ticket now!

While International participation is yet to be announced, the challenge will culminate in a demonstration in Manchester on February 6th, at the ‘QED: Question. Explore. Discover.’ event, with over 300 protesters participating the largest ever single demonstration against homeopathy.

The 10:23 Campaign is an international movement headed by the Merseyside Skeptics Society, which aims to raise awareness of homeopathy, a multi-million pound industry based on a long-discredited 18th century ritual, selling remedies to the public which have no scientific basis and no credible evidence for their efficacy beyond the placebo effect.

While dispensing sugar pills may seem harmless, in reality the endorsement of homeopathic potions by leading health providers can have grave consequences. In September 2010, a BBC investigation discovered registered homeopaths administering ineffective ‘alternatives’ to the MMR vaccine, and in 2002 9-month old infant Gloria Sam died from serious infections after her eczema – a condition commonly treated by homeopaths – was treated with homeopathic remedies.

Mr Marshall concluded: “Homeopathy has had more than two centuries to prove itself a useful remedy, but the results consistently come back negative. In the meantime, people are being fooled into believing these pills work, often causing genuine harm. This is unacceptable, and on February 5th, we’re going to demonstrate how strongly people feel about this issue.”

For more information about the 10:23 Challenge, visit www.1023.org.uk or contact contact@1023.org.uk.

Get your QED ticket now!

It’s been a little while since the furore over the pro-homeopathy EDMs and David ‘hand in the till’ Tredinnick‘s one-quack crusade to have homeopathy recognised as the greatest thing since succussed bread, but one name that stood out to me on the roll-call of signatories and seconders was that of Luciana Berger MP, and it was a name I couldn’t let lie.

You see, Luciana is MP for Wavertree, Liverpool – not more than a couple of miles from my home, and the constituency in which I’ve spent much of my 9 years in Liverpool. What’s more, Luciana seems to be a pretty reasonable MP – she’s in favour of equal rights for women, equality for those of all sexualities, against all forms of racial discrimination and generally appears to be a fairly-well-informed MP, certainly when compared to Mr Tredinnick, whose EDMs she’s signed.

It struck me that rather than based on ideology, Luciana’s support for Tredinnick’s pet pills might well be a simple case of her not knowing what homeopathy is really about – which is relatively understandable, given the high percentage of the public who think ‘homeopathy’ is just another term for ‘herbal medicine’ and aren’t acquainted with the scientific literature.

Clearly, then, the best approach would be to politely offer to engage over the issues and present the science, rather than berate Luciana with the intensity and single-mindedness we ought to save for those whose belief in homeopathy is blindly ideological (Tredinnick, yes, we mean you). To this end, on the 11th of August I took it upon myself as representative of the 10:23 Campaign and the Merseyside Skeptics Society – a pro-science group with significant numbers in her very constituency – to contact Luciana and offer her our side of the story.

She hasn’t yet responded, which is what has prompted me to share this letter with the MSS readers, to not only convey what I believe to be the best way to engage with those who may not fully understand what homeopathy is, and also to prompt Luciana into the response I sincerely hope she is willing to provide. To reiterate – I don’t believe she deserves abuse, or indeed anger, but wish to simply open the lines of dialogue to put forward the science on homeopathy. Perhaps when given the chance to hear what homeopathy is, and why it’s implausible, the evident common-sense Luciana displays in other policies will win out on the subject of the sugar pills. The full letter is provided below.

Dear Luciana

May I first of all offer my congratulations on much of the work you have taken part in whilst an MP. I’m glad to see a local MP supporting gay rights, fighting child abuse and child abusers, campaigning for the equal rights of women and supporting the value of the arts. All of these policies I find to be excellent, and supported by both good reason and good conscience.

However, I must admit to being a little disappointed at what appears to be the only real blip on your recent record – your support for NHS funding of homeopathy, and support for evidence put forward by those who sell it. It’s this point, unfortunately, that I’m writing to contest – amongst the sensible and reasonable policies you support, this one stands out. As a health campaigner in your city (I am a founding member of the Merseyside Skeptics Society, and our ’10:23 Campaign’ earlier in the year set out to raise awareness of homeopathy, the science, the evidence and the dangers), I thought it best to engage with you directly, rather than criticise you unhelpfully from afar.

I can understand where you might be coming from: many people see appeals by doctors, pharmacists, scientists and pharmacologists to remove something from the NHS as the ordinary patient ‘losing’ something. I know patient choice was recently cited by the Government as the most important factor in what gets funded on the NHS, placed ahead of effectiveness even. This I find to be a baffling position – for the Government to promote a pill based specifically on the fact that it doesn’t work (a fact accepted without contention in the recent response to the Science and Technology Committee report) but that it should be available for choice alone seems to be a remarkably strange position to take, and one open to all manner of extrapolations. If effectiveness is no longer a concern, then the argument used to justify the funding of homeopathy can be applied to all manner of other disproven therapies – Reiki, voodoo, blood-letting and the casting out of demons, for example.

While the above may seem a glib extrapolation, it is in fact sound: by promoting choice ahead of usefulness, the very foundations of modern medicine are upturned, with potentially disastrous results. While homeopathic pills – being chemically and literally identical to unprepared blank sugar pills – are not intrinsically dangerous in themselves, the implicit reliance upon them to the abandonment of real medicine is incredibly dangerous. Examples are not hard to find – the death at 4 months old of Gloria Thomas from treatable eczema, the recent colon cancer death of Penelope Dingle, the studies conducted in Kenya by members of the UK-based Society of Homeopaths into using homeopathic pills to attempt to treat AIDS and malaria. People die when directed at placebo pills over real, proven medicine.

To clarify, I contact you with this not to berate you, but to understand your position and open dialogue. My suspicion is that you may not entirely acquainted with the literature and history of homeopathy – indeed, this is far from a crime, as we discovered in researching prior to starting the 10:23 Campaign that more than 80% of people questioned are not able to define homeopathy, and are inclined to believe it is an alternative modality akin to herbalism. This lack of clarity in the population is almost certainly behind the continuing support the treatments receive, and I suspect it’s also behind the support this system receives in parliament.

I urge you to engage with the literature on homeopathy, to acquaint yourself with what is involved in making the pills, and the ludicrous nature of this practice. A ‘layman’s terms’ explanation can be found at (http://www.1023.org.uk/what-is-homeopathy.php) with an explanation of the objections to homeopathy here (http://www.1023.org.uk/why-you-cant-trust-homeopathy.php).

In a time of economic belt-tightening, and where science-literacy is falling in the face of assaults from many different pressure groups, I feel this is one particular area where common sense can prevail. To this end, I would be more than willing to spend some time face-to-face discussing these issues with you, in order to best put forward the scientific side of the debate.

Yours sincerely
Michael Marshall
Merseyside Skeptics Society / QED
http://www.qedcon.org
http://www.merseysideskeptics.org.uk

I will update you all should I receive a reply.

The reason this protest was so successful was because of the backstory, the unheard voice of the British skeptical community, the private outrage expressed through blogs and web sites and individual efforts feeling completely unheard by the general population.

The idea belongs to the community. Inspired by the likes of Randi and his famous serial overdosing, egged on by the success of the Belgian skeptics and their overdose a couple of years ago. The Belgians were about 25 in number. And they achieved big headlines.

MSS decided some while back that it would be more than a talking shop. Like so many scousers before us we wanted action and we wanted it now. We also knew that the traditional skeptical battles were already continually being fought out in the blog trenches. Any slight bit of mainstream media coverage for one of the traditional skeptical targets such as psychics or bad medicine or even the dowsing rods being sold to the Iraqis for £40k each showed that the skeptical community had plenty of fight and ability in it. We all felt that focussing this energy was what would bring the best results. Homeopathy was a good target for our effort and we resolved to make this the focus for MSS in the medium term and started thinking about what we might do.

Then we heard about the Belgians. Then some of our number went to TAM London and met others who felt it was a good idea to do a big “overdose” protest. The MSS got to work.

When the parliamentary Science and Technology Committee met to hear the evidence about homeopathy, wheels of dissent began rolling that could not be stopped. A story emerged and Boots was implicated. There was outrage, and it hit the headlines too. Boots took a small amount of fire, which they undoubtedly felt. Perhaps not in their profits but certainly they felt it. The plans changed. We had already written an excellent open letter that we had intended to send to Boots around March time. We brought it forward and published it immediately, in November. The letter got some attention and we were heartened by that. The plan for the mass overdose really got going. We created roles and started getting people to fill them. Campaign project manager, International liaison, website design, website development, PR, research. All these roles were created. Some were filled quickly from within the Society and some took more time.

We recognised early on how importantly the marketing and PR side would feature in the campaign. While we were waiting to find the right person for the PR job, we set about it. Marsh came up with an inspired idea, later characterised as “Curiosity Driven Marketing”. The idea was to take the name of the campaign, by now we had settled on 10:23, and reveal its meaning in a controlled way. So we knew we were going to announce a mass “overdose”, we knew roughly when it would happen and also how it would happen and we had planned roughly the number of swallowers we needed to make it work, PR-wise. But the curiosity driven marketing angle meant we started with just the simple message “10:23″ which began appearing at the end of blogs and podcasts. Most people knew it was a homeopathy campaign but very few knew about the swallow. The information was gradually increased. First a website, then twitter and then the big media push in the last couple of weeks before H day. The campaign slogan was also crucial. It had to reflect the entire message in a simple fashion that could be understood by the general, non-skeptic, public. It worked. The focus of many media interviews was in addressing the premise “there’s nothing in it”. Indeed this was the title of a number of articles.

This would be an exciting day for the skeptics but it was all about getting the message out there to the general public. We were shooting for a reduction in demand for homeopathy and so we had to get headlines.

The record needs to show that we approached this as a professional project. We set our objectives, wrote them down, invoked them whenever decisions needed to be made, communicated with the hub leaders and modified the plan as we went along to suit the ever changing circumstances. The record should also show that, alongside the incredible support lent to the campaign from all over the British Isles, Australia, New Zealand, US, Spain, and many others, we weren’t able to get the most prominent skeptical podcast in the world, the Skeptics Guide to the Universe, to join in.  We can only assume they felt it was UK-only – a bit of a shame, as Steve Novella has often said he thinks that skeptics often fail at the marketing side of things.  I think had we been able to overcome that sense of Britain-centricity, we could have had enough time for the rogues to give it a push and take the international effort ballistic. They didn’t, and nor did the JREF. Perhaps there will be an article to follow up.

Still, we kept up the pace and got Martin Robbins on board. As well as proving himself as an outstanding journalist, he advised on the timing and release of news. He also took the trouble to demolish my own writing style. My point being that he took things seriously and made his voice heard.

With two weeks to go, tshirts ordered, the press campaign began in earnest with all the hubs sending out local press releases, and national news being primed with details of what was to happen.

Fairly late in the day we decided it was better to ask permission and advised the hubs accordingly. Which caused problems in Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh. These problems were overcome and the thing went off without a hitch really.

Unprecedented publicity both for the truth about homeopathy and for the skeptical community of Britain were two objectives for the campaign. We managed both, and the story is continuing too with further articles and activism planned in the next fortnight. The international effort gained some momentum despite the failure of SGU to show up and full credit to them for capturing the Zeitgeist.

The skeptical community of Britain had a great day on Saturday 30th January 2010. This success had been waiting to happen. All we did was give that powerful body of effort a single point of focus. And everyone who participated did so in an entirely personal way.

Although we all know that trying to have a rational discussion with a homeopath apologist is akin to trying to stop John Prescott talking, we met with them in the battlefield and fought it out on twitter. The writing bloggers created an accelerated amount of content that would be found by the general public when seeking out information. The creating bloggers did cartoons, songs, crazy videos (I even got a mention in Jago’s), and even a book (Ladybird actually, darling).

And then, of course there was the Hub leaders who suffered an almost intolerable amount of paranoid over-controlling emails from yours truly on the event logistics and safety. They did much more than could have been expected, and achieved more than could be hoped for. The swallowers and followers, the journalists, TV and Radio presenters, Evan Harris MP, Dave Gorman, Simon Singh, Chris French all getting beghind this single point of focus…and making themselves heard. It’s not the first time skeptics have worked together in support of an objective. We’ve all been supporting and contributing to the Simon Singh story. The difference this time I think is that people know who we are, and that we speak with one voice.

The protest yesterday has contributed to achieving a rational status for homeopathy in the British psyche. There is more to come and we have several next steps in mind already, some of which will work their way out over the next couple of weeks. For example it’s a little known fact that as part of this campaign we have also sent a series of complaints to the MHRA asking them to investigate some elements of the Boots marketing of Homeopathy (Thanks Dr *T).

We have proven we are capable of effective action. The 10:23 campaign objective of getting Boots to stop selling homeopathy is not yet achieved. So the effort must continue.

I don’t think we’ve even dared to think yet, what we might possibly achieve in the future as a community. Certainly more than we have in this campaign. That’s a lot to look forward to.

Thanks to everyone who played.

The 10:23 Campaign

Cross-posted from the JREF Swift blog.

Generally speaking, when homeopathy hits the headlines here in the UK skeptics have cause to wince – whether it’s B-list celebrities advocating homeopathic malaria prevention, newspaper lifestyle columns promoting the benefits of the long-discredited pseudomedical practice or simply major pharmacies out to make an easy profit, there are very seldom many good days for succussion-skeptics.

Saturday, 30th January 2010, however, was different. At precisely 10:23am that morning, over 400 protesters took to the streets of cities around the UK as part of the 10:23 campaign – aiming to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of homeopathic pills. Gathering in a dozen town centres the length and breadth of the land, activists bravely took their lives into their hands by ‘overdosing’ on entire bottles homeopathic remedies.

Unsurprisingly, no skeptics were harmed in the making of this protest – for, as we know, there’s nothing in homeopathy. Zip. Zilch. Nil. What’s more, the event didn’t go unnoticed – with prominent press coverage from the BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph and even the Huffington Post, amongst many, many other sources. Radio stations had phone-ins on the the story. It made the TV news. All in all, this wasn’t a day for skeptics to wince.

The whole event had a particularly surreal quality for me – four months earlier we at the Merseyside Skeptics Society hatched the ludicruously-ambitious plan to have hundreds of people join us in a mass ‘overdose’. The idea was simple: if we could show that it was possible for hundreds of people to take a whole tube of homeopathic pills and suffer no effects (positive or negative), then it would help get people interested in what homeopathy is, and why it can’t possibly work. We had no budget, no experience and no right to expect it to work – all we had to rely on was the energy and passion of the skeptical community, and the hard work of those involved. Fortunately, come the day of the event came, the skeptical community didn’t disappoint…

In London, over 100 people gathered in Red Lion Square in what was the most high-profile event of the day. Sporting the stylish-yet-practical-yet-obligatory 10:23 T Shirts, the crowd heard speeches from Simon Singh and Dr Evan Harris MP – the latter recounting comic highlights from the Parliamentary Science and Technology Sub-Committee’s homeopathy evidence check session in November last year. Counting down to the ‘overdose’ was comedian and author Dave Gorman, who learnt about the protest during an appearance on a TV chat show. Meanwhile, back in campaign headquarters in Liverpool 40 of us took to the steps of the iconic St George’s Hall to overdose on a variety of Boots-brand 30c remedies, before promptly heading to the pub to await reports from around the country (those wanting to see a real overdose might have wished to witness the levels of merriment in the bar).

Elsewhere around the country, events were successfully taking place outside branches of Boots pharmacy in Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds, Leicester, Manchester, Oxford and Southampton. What’s more, the UK weren’t alone in hitting the streets with their sugar pills – following suit were groups in Sydney (lead by Richard Saunders) and Perth (with Kylie Sturgess), as well as Madrid, Spain – and even a charming family affair in Tampa, Florida. Other events were planned in Ohio, US and Vancouver, Canada. In short, the level participation across the country – and indeed the world – was staggering.

Besides the level of participation and the attention of the press, what impressed me most about the day was the spirit and atmosphere of the events – this wasn’t the grumpy, nay-saying, self-righteous skeptic we see so often in the media. Instead, the protests were peaceful and jocular, the onus very much on raising awareness and having fun. Personally, I’m delighted at what we’ve managed to achieve with the 10:23 campaign so far – and with further actions planned for the coming weeks and months, I hope we’re able to build on this fantastic momentum to help reach even more people with the message – Homeopathy: There’s Nothing In It.