Tuesday, 10 May 2011

Blatant Discrimination Against Homeopaths

.
The
Society of Homeopaths and Nelsons Pharmacy have teamed up to launch a new website, letpeoplechoose.com , in time for next month's Homeopathy Awareness Week.


It's very generous of them to reveal their publicity materials so far in advance - gives us sceptics plenty of time in which to weed out the misleading claims.

The biggest whopper on the site is this one:

"If you’d like to find your nearest homeopath, use our useful search tool which lists every homeopath in the UK by area..."

This is a new and special usage of the term "every homeopath in the UK" which means something like "some homeopaths in the UK, but not all of them, actually. Not by a long shot, in fact..."

You won't find Karin Mont, Sue Berry, June Sayer, Nigel Bird or Veja Gorania on the list. They've all homeopaths who've made guest appearances in this blog, but because they belong to the wrong professional body, they're not on the list and they're not coming in.

I wonder what the Alliance of Registered Homeopaths think of this blatant discrimination? Also - ASA complaint follows!

"The website promotes the services of professional homeopaths by means of a claim which I think is misleading.

1. ( http://www.letpeoplechoose.com/ )

"If you’d like to find your nearest homeopath, use our useful search tool which lists every homeopath in the UK by area"

I'd like to challenge whether the claim is misleading.

The "useful search tool" does not list "every homeopath in the UK". In fact, it lists only members of the Society of Homeopaths and the Faculty of Homeopaths.

Members of other bodies, such as the Alliance of Registered Homeopaths, do not appear in the list.

I think the page is misleading because it might cause a consumer to engage the professional services of a homeopath, incorrectly believing them to be the only homeopath in the local area.

I've made some screenshots of the relevant pages, which are available at:
http://leicester.skepticsinthepub.org/FishBarrel/ci.aspx?id=R0e7xxGwQz

I can confirm that I have no connections with the advertiser or with the alternative medicine industry in general."

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