At 10:23am on Saturday 30th January, over 300 individuals from branches of Skeptics in the Pub will simultaneously consume an overdose of commercially available homeopathic medicines. The nationwide protest, organised by the 10:23 campaign from Merseyside Skeptics, will either unfold as one of the largest mass suicides since Jonestown, or will yet again confirm that science, evidence and rational thought actually do work.
The confirmed locations of the overdoses are as follows:
The protest, comes after a Boots representative, Paul Bennett, attracted ridicule from the national press after admitting to a parliamentary select committee last month that Boots knowingly sells homeopathic remedies to the public for which it has no evidence of effectiveness. The Science and Technology Select Committee are due to release their report on homeopathy around the time of the protest, at the end of January.
While dispensing sugar pills may seem harmless, in reality the endorsement of homeopathic potions by leading health providers can have grave consequences. As well as potentially undermining trust in medicine and medical advice, customers may be misled into believing that they are treating their illness – for example a Panorama investigation famously revealed that homeopaths were advising customers to take ineffective pills in place of Malaria prophylactics on holiday. In extreme cases, such as the ‘healing therapist’ Russell Jenkins, deaths may occur.
The 10:23 Campaign, so named in recognition of Avogadro’s Constant (the limit of dilution which is exceeded by homeopathic preparations) aims to raise awareness of homeopathy and its basis within long-discredited 18th century pseudoscience, selling remedies to the public which have no scientific basis and no credible evidence for its efficacy beyond the placebo effect.
As ever, this is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate JREF’s Law (namely “there is no topic of parapsychological discussion upon which James Randi has failed to comment”) by directing attention to Randi’s lecture at Princeton in 2001, which contained the following segment on homeopathy. Randi’s commentary in 2002 for the BBC is worth reading also.
Dr Stephen Law, CFI provost and Editorial Advisory Board (EAB) member for The Skeptic Magazine (UK) has announced the first two London events for CFI UK’s New Year programme.
Scheduled for January 30th 2010, the first event will involve fellow EAB members Dr Simon Singh and Andy Lewis, joining Prof. John Garrow in a critical discussion of alternative medicine. The second event, scheduled for 6th March 2010 returns to the theme of the unexplained, with former Ministry of Defence project head Nick Pope speaking about UFOs, Adrian Shine speaking about the Loch Ness monster, and Paul Vella speaking about his work as Britain’s leading expert on Sasquatch.
CFI UK has also kindly extended free invitations for both events to Skeptic Magazine (UK) and New Humanist subscribers, Friends of CFI UK, GHLA, SPES, and BHA members. Booking in advance is recommended, however.
Mark | Sunday, 31 January, 2010
