Homeopathy as a profession is under attack from groups such as Sense about Science and groups such as the Nightingale Collaboration.Why not go tell 'em¿
This Research will gauge public opinion as to the amount of information that the public and prospective patients wish to be able to access from professionally Qualified Practitioners only.
Just went to shops to buy last-minute supplies for barbecue. All major supermarkets shut. Fucking fuck Easter and the donkey it rode in on.
Fucking van drove by "NHS: Please Give Blood"This on its own wouldn't have prompted a blog post, I can appreciate the frustration that must be felt by someone who wants to perform what they perceive to be civic duty but are denied the opportunity for what seems, to them, like unfair reasons. I may disagree that they are unfair reasons, but can understand the frustration.
If you'd fucking take it, maybe I would, you bigoted, closed-minded twatheads!
To be honest, for 'men who have sex with men' it's more risky, that's just a fact unfortunately, not a matter of prejudice.I see people write things like:
So that explains why the fastest growing HIV infection rates are amongst the straight community who are freely allowed to give blood?or in response to :
Is it not more likely down to risk assessment than bigotry?Statements like this:
No - the questionnaire doesn't address risk behaviours; have you had sex with a man since 197something? Banned - shagged a female whore without condom last night? No one asks ...And slightly less annoying but quite interesting is:
It's a homophobic policy based on homophobic assumptions. Rigorous tests are carried out on donated blood. A ban when someone who's heterosexual could just as well be carrying the HIV virus reinforces prejudice.I think we have a number of closely related questions here:
Unprotected anal intercourse does carry a higher risk than most other forms of sexual activity. The lining of the rectum has fewer cells than that of the vagina, and therefore can be damaged more easily, causing bleeding during intercourse. This can then be a route into the bloodstream for infected sexual fluids or blood. There is also a risk to the insertive partner during anal intercourse, though this is lower than the risk to the receptive partner.
for example allowing MSM to donate if they haven’t had sex in the past year, this would still lead to the vast majority of gay men being excluded from giving blood. The last review of the policy found that the risk to the blood supply would rise by 60% if men were allowed to self assess based on these criteria. For this reason it was decided that a blanket ban was safer.
Hi Georgia,Thank you very much for your response. Unfortunately it largely fails to address the points of concern in my email. While I applaud your commitment to animal welfare and all the measures you require regarding conditions the animals are kept and transported in and the prevention of habitual, unnecessary use of growth-hormones and antibiotics, homeopathy cannot be seen to be a valid part of such a practice. You speak of using alternative medicines "where these can be shown to be effective", but the standards of evidence you use to determine this must be set very low indeed in order for homeopathy to be included in any treatment regime. The opinion of any number of organic farmers or even veterinarians, based on their personal experience is not the same as data from genuine trials, it is just a collection of anecdotes, which proves nothing. The only way to genuinely prove the effectiveness of an intervention is through a properly controlled trial including subject and experimenter blinding, and a control group, the allocation to which is randomised. Such tests repeatedly demonstrate that Homeopathy is not effective for anything. If you (or Yeo Valley and their vets) have references to papers describing such studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of homeopathy for, using two examples from Yeo Valley blog, the control of flies or reducing stress in livestock, I would be very interested to read them.You say that the "philosophy" of homeopathy would encourage empathy or observance in stockmen; I have read fairly widely on this practice and have not come across anything that would indicate this to be the case. Perhaps you could direct me to some reference?The bottom line is that, as has been demonstrated by the available scientific literature, homeopathy is not an effective intervention for anything it has so far been tested for, and that enough work has been done to indicate that further testing would be a waste of time and money. If an intervention is required then an effective one should be given or this is neglect. If no intervention is required then one should not be given otherwise the price - a significant barrier to adoption by many consumers - of organic produce is needlessly driven up. The worst possible situation is where an intervention is required and an ineffective one is given, thus both neglecting the animal and driving up the price of produce. Vets who practice or encourage homeopathy may be well-meaning but have been fooled by the unscientific nonsense that surrounds the practice of so-called "complementary" and "alternative" medicines.I feel that adherence to the recommendation of this practice tarnishes the reputation of your organisation and would again recommend that you strongly reconsider it and raise the bar of evidence for medical interventions you recommend significantly.Please do not think I am against your organisation in principle, I just think that adherence to complementary medicines, and particularly obvious bunk like homeopathy, does you a disservice that hampers the adoption of organic produce by consumers; it will cause some who support your cause to abandon it as it both gives a poor impression of your ability to correctly judge scientific evidence, and constitutes unintentional neglect of the animals.Regards,T.McG.
Hats off to them for bothering to respond. Needless to say I still disagree and will be responding in the not too distant future.Dear Tim,Thank you for your letter regarding the use of homeopathy in organic standards.The trust and support you have given the Soil Association is much appreciated and I am sorry you feel this issue may make you re-consider buying organic produce given our ongoing commitment to, and highest level of engagement with, animal health and welfare.The welfare of animals is central to Soil Association organic principles - No system of farming has higher levels of animal welfare standards than organic farms working to Soil Association standards and Compassion in World Farming believes the “Soil Association's welfare standards are leaders in the field.” (Joyce d'Silva).Under organic rules, all aspects of animal health and welfare are tightly controlled, including rearing, shelter, feeding, transportation and slaughter. We do however believe that ensuring good health is better than relying on drugs to treat disease, which is why we put so much emphasis on practices that encourage healthy farm animals. Organic farmers do this in many practical ways, such as keeping numbers down to reduce stress, providing appropriate nutritious feed and ensuring easy access to the outdoors. Organic animals cannot be given growth promoting hormones, regular doses of antibiotics or genetically modified (GM) feed.Encouraging healthy farm animals also means using complementary therapies where appropriate. Under our standards, sick animals are treated using complementary remedies- of which homeopathy is one part of- where these can be shown to be effective, unless a vet says an animal needs antibiotics or other medicines; in which case they must be given. When this happens organic standards require a set period of time has to pass before the animal can produce products for sale as organic. These are generally three times as long as those required by law for non-organic food.For all complementary therapies our standards specify that they are used 'with professional veterinary guidance and provided that their healing effect works for the species and condition you are treating'. This affords farmers and their professional advisors the freedom to make choices for the animals under their responsibility, in full knowledge that they will lose organic status if we find that they have not met their overriding duty to ensure good animal welfare.The underlying philosophy of homeopathy will support the farmer to be more observant and empathetic stockman, which has to be a good thing. For more serious problems, conventional treatments, such as antibiotics, may also be needed to help return an animal to good health. The important thing is that we actively encourage each and every organic farm to create a model for optimum health and vitality, that sees disease as a reflection of something deeper in the system that needs correcting, and that uses conventional drugs when genuinely needed, rather than as substitute for poor husbandry.We have much collective experience that for many routine problems homoeopathic and herbal treatments will be do the job very well, without any compromise to animal welfare, and put simply, many farmers and vets find that the homoeopathic approach works - which is why they continue to use it. The choice of treatment is ultimately down to the livestock keeper. This blog from Yeo Valley talks about use of homeopathy on their farms if you're interested in reading more -http://blog.yeovalleyorganic.co.uk/alternative-treatments- for-our-cows/ We do not shy away from the debate that surrounds this therapy with both sides of the argument receiving regular airings in our own membership publications. I would encourage you look at some more sources of information on this large and in-depth field – I have included these below.I hope this explains our position sufficiently and that you feel able to continue to support our work.Best wishes,Georgia CattTo see our standard on complementary veterinary medicines, including homeopathic treatments see section 10.9 of our organic standards onlinehttp://www.soilassociation.org/Certification/Standards/ tabid/353/Default.aspx A wide range of treatments and debate about their use can be found in the proceedings of the SAFO workshopshttp://www.safonetwork.org/index.html These present a balanced perspective from across Europe and show that veterinary professionals are on both side of the debate.
Georgia CattPress & e-Communications Officer
To all my good atheist/Dawkins following/SitP friends out there, please indulge me, I am curious, if you were invited to go to a local school and do a talk on the subject would you accept?and then after a number of responses from atheist/skeptics in the affirmative, the actual thrust of the argument:
"very interesting. I didn't really set a context but the question came up in a conversation the other day. Most people who share Dawkins view would be up in arms going bonkers if a priest came to give a talk at there local school, explaining and encouraging his religion.. yet most dedicated Athiests etc don't see any reason why they should not do so themselves. Is this not a touch... hypocritical?"With the follow up, which I'm assuming was at least half in jest :
P.s. What do Athiests call a Devil's advocate?In the interests of any easy win, I'll hit the postscript first; most of us call it a "Devil's advocate". By and large we're not so prissy as to reject accepted metaphorical language constructs, even when they originate from a now defunct role within the Catholic church. I don't hate the term, but I do hate how it's often used these days. I may elaborate on why in a later post, but for now let's get back to the meat.
