There's some trouble brewing in Tanzania.
Homeopath, Jeremy Sherr, has travelled to deepest, darkest Africa in search of fertile grounds in which to perform clinical trials on the effectiveness of homeopathic preparations on HIV+ patients who are not taking anti-retrovirals.
It seems he wasn't able to get a test protocol through ethics boards in Europe (and rightly so), so he's taken his show on the road to places where he can get away with murder - quite literally.
New readers might not be aware that homeopathy is a supersitious belief that water can be magically imbued with healing properties, in defiance of too many laws of physics to mention. I've already done a pretty telling demonstration on the complete lack of eficacy of homeopathic products (although not exactly a double-blind controlled study - others have done those).
What makes it even worse is that Sherr has been documenting his efforts on his blog. And when his statements came under scrutiny, he resorted to some historical revisionism to try and cover his tracks.
This guy needs to be watched closely. Keep an eye on his blog here, and watch The Lay Scientist for a breakdown of the events so far, and undoubtedly a continuing commentary on how this will unfold in future.
I went to the clown's blog and also read the earlier post by his wife/sister/daughter and I have to ask: Am I on glue or did she admit homeopathy is a placebo????
ReplyDeleteCase in point that the best defence against woo-woo is education. These people may be genuinely deluded (or, variously and more probably, charlatans) invariably succeed only where scientific literacy is at a minimum.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it is time that those authorities who have already rejected Sherr’s proposals speak more boldly, more firmly and with greater stridency.