Homeopaths getting ahead of themselves again ...

[exarch]

This morning as I turn on the radio in the car, what do I hear?

A group of European scientists says they have proof that homeopathy works.
The newscaster then went on to clarify what homeopathy is (i.e. "they use the same substances as normal medicine, only extremely dilute". A definition that doesn't even sound correct IMO).

I was about to fire off an angry e-mail to them when I noticed on their site that our local skeptics society had already made it known that they have serious doubts about this. Their responses were also included in the article on the website which is a little more in depth.
according to that article, those "scientists" made the results of their study public at "a conference of the European comittee of homeopaths (ECH)" in Brussels.

So nothing but hot air there.

By the way, their proof? Something about studies concerning asthma, pain relief. It sounds like yet another meta-study that found something on the fringes of statistical significance.

The homeo's also complained that there was no funding for their research. Well, if after all this time you can't show there's actually something there, tough, pay for it yourself.

It seems like they went straight to the press again, knowing that by now, hundreds of thousands of people have heard the radio news say "homeopathy works", even though it's probably going to turn out to be untrue, or gravely exagerrated, as it always does ...

*sigh*

[exarch]

A translation of the e-mail I sent the news service just a few minutes ago:

I am sending you this message to point out a few errors in your article about homeopathy.
For starters, you write that "homeopathy works with the same substances as classic medicine, only in very diluted concentrations."
To clarify, the substances used in homeopathy are water, alcohol and sugar tablets. As is mentioned in the article, the active ingredients, from which they originally started, have long been "diluted out". But on top of that, they aren't just diluting substances from classic medicine, they are diluting every conceivable thing, from snake venom to ground up Berlin wall !!

The news item I heard on the radio this morning didn't even mention this research was made public at "a conference of the European Comittee of Homeopaths (ECH)", in other words: they took a controversial claim straight to the press, instead of following the usual channels for publishing scientific findings, which is publication in one or more scientific journals. Understandable perhaps, since many previous studies that did follow that route turned out to be of questionable quality and were dismissed.
Unfortunately, by now the public has heard on the radio that "homeopathy works". Even more so because it's unlikely this same public will never hear anything about this ever again, even if/when [the word I used could mean both] this study has been completely discredited in a few months.
Frankly, I'm a bit surprised that a reputable news service like [name of news service] let itself be fooled by such sensational claims that easily.

A disappointed listener,

[My name].