Boots accused of selling quack medicines
source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/24/controversiesinscience.guardianhayfestival?gus...
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- mischabarrett
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Britain's leading scientific expert on alternative therapies has criticised Boots, the high street chemist, for becoming the country's largest seller of quack medicine.
Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine at Exeter University, is set to criticise the company for selling more than 50 homeopathic remedies, which are shown by clinical trials to be no more effective than sugar pills. 34 of the remedies are sold under the 'Boots' brand, across its 1,500 UK stores.
Ernst argues that by failing to tell customers that its homeopathic medicines are ineffective in clinical trials and contain no active ingredients, Boots is breaching ethical guidelines drawn up by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain.
Homeopathic remedies are highly diluted solutions that often contain no trace of their original ingredients. Instead, homeopaths claim the treatments work because "healing energy" is imprinted into the water when it is shaken. In 2006, Sir Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, said the possibility of a medicine working in this way would "entail some fundamentally new scientific principle with amazingly broad ramifications".
"Very few people are aware that the underlying principles of homeopathy are totally scientifically implausible, and even fewer people are aware that the trials show it doesn't do anything," said Ernst.
But with the UK market for homeopathic medicine worth around £38m last year, is this a matter of consumer choice? Should customers be able to purchase what is in effect a placebo - or are they being conned out of their money by a trusted chemists? It seems the company is going back to its 19th century roots in selling this guff to credulous customers...
Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine at Exeter University, is set to criticise the company for selling more than 50 homeopathic remedies, which are shown by clinical trials to be no more effective than sugar pills. 34 of the remedies are sold under the 'Boots' brand, across its 1,500 UK stores.
Ernst argues that by failing to tell customers that its homeopathic medicines are ineffective in clinical trials and contain no active ingredients, Boots is breaching ethical guidelines drawn up by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain.
Homeopathic remedies are highly diluted solutions that often contain no trace of their original ingredients. Instead, homeopaths claim the treatments work because "healing energy" is imprinted into the water when it is shaken. In 2006, Sir Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, said the possibility of a medicine working in this way would "entail some fundamentally new scientific principle with amazingly broad ramifications".
"Very few people are aware that the underlying principles of homeopathy are totally scientifically implausible, and even fewer people are aware that the trials show it doesn't do anything," said Ernst.
But with the UK market for homeopathic medicine worth around £38m last year, is this a matter of consumer choice? Should customers be able to purchase what is in effect a placebo - or are they being conned out of their money by a trusted chemists? It seems the company is going back to its 19th century roots in selling this guff to credulous customers...
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- tags:
- UK, Ethics, Pharmaceuticals, Homeopathy, 3 more
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CarolynGillis
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It gets me angry to see Whole Foods Market selling more and more of it every day.
I sent them several letters but got nowhere. - 3 years ago
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CarolynGillis
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subsequent
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no more effective than sugar... bet sugar tastes better than some of that rubbish.
- 4 years ago
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subsequent
