Friends,
Anyone who has been in touch with me during the past 2 months may
have heard me express concern that 20/20 and their reporter John Stossel
might do a hit piece of homeopathy. It looks like they will air it on
Friday January 30th.
Please know that Stossel has had serious credibility issues in the
past. He previously did a hit piece on the organics industry and was forced
to do an on-air apology because he interviewed a "representative" of the
organics industry who was really a rep for the chemical industry (whooops).
Later today I will be hiring a
pr person to help us respond to this
report. If you can help in any way financially, please send your
tax-deductible contributions to:
The Foundation for Homeopathic Education and Research (FHER)
2124 Kittredge St.
Berkeley, CA. 94704
And please give 20/20 and ABC News the feedback that they deserve
(links to do this are below!).
For further information about homeopathy and this media drama, see
my website (
www.homeopathic.com).
And yes, you are encouraged to spread this email around.
--Dana Ullman
ABC News' 20/20, Junk Science, and Homeopathy
In these days of reality television, bringing science to TV sounds
like a great idea. However, if TV lowers the standards that are commonly
used in scientific inquiry, such reality television becomes junk science and
junk television.
ABC News' 20/20 program with their reporter John Stossel is presently
scheduled to air a segment on homeopathy on Friday January 30th. This
report will include a seemingly legitimate laboratory experiment that seeks
to prove or disprove the effects of homeopathic medicines. However, it was
recently discovered that the experiment that was conducted had no chance of
being successful.
Dana Ullman, MPH, author of 8 books on homeopathy, was interviewed for this
segment and asserts, "John Stossel has previously popularized the term 'junk
science' in his reporting on 20/20. It is therefore more than a tad ironic
that this journalist will now stand behind a study that ABC News has
sponsored that itself is a classic example of real junk science."
The experiment that 20/20 produced was supposed to be a replication
of an experiment that had been conducted numerous times in the past and had
been published in scientific journals. This study used extremely small
doses of histamine to reduce the number of basophils, a type of white blood
cell that increases in numbers during allergy symptoms. This study was even
conducted successfully several times by Dr. Madeleine Ennis who is a
professor of biochemistry and a former skeptic of homeopathy. The last time
this study was published was in 1999 when it was replicated in FOUR
laboratories, including the Department of Clinical Biochemistry at Queen's
University in Belfast and the Department of Molecular Biology at the
University of Utrecht (The Netherlands).
Dana Ullman, MPH agreed to be interviewed by 20/20 as long as they
agreed to use Professor Ennis as a consultant to make certain that the study
was properly conducted. Wayne Turnbull, the experimenter at Guys Hospital
in London who 20/20 hired, agreed to consult with Professor Ennis, but when
she alerted him that his protocol was completely different than hers or any
other study ever performed in homeopathy, he refused to change the
experiment. Shockingly, Turnbull used a chemical, Ammonium chloride, in
this experiment which is widely known to kill basophils, making the study
impossible to any homeopathic medicine or any drug to have any effects.
Ironically, Wayne Turnbull has gone on record asserting that "consensus
between all parties is essential when performing this experiment," and yet,
when he sought to get Ennis' support for this protocol, he was flatly turned
down. Turnbull has further asserted, the "protocol that we use was never
portrayed as a replication of Dr Ennis's methodology."
It should be noted that the 20/20 producer for this segment, Mark Golden,
did not initially know that there was a difference in the TV experiment and
the real one until the experiment had already begun. But before the
experiment was completed, he was informed that there were serious flaws in
their experiment, that it should be stopped immediately, and the results
should be ignored.
This is a story of science friction, and it is a story of ABC News using
"junk science" to discredit homeopathic medicine. Although ABC News is
trying to put homeopathy on trial, this segment may instead be an
opportunity to put ABC News on trial.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THIS 20/20 SEGMENT AND ON HOMEOPATHY, go to:
<
http://www.homeopathic.com>
OTHER HOMEOPATHIC RESOURCES:
The National Center for Homeopathy:
<
http://www.homeopathic.org>
SEND YOUR COMMENTS TO 20/20!
This link below seemingly gives viewers an opportunity to express themselves
to the staff at 20/20. Your comments are not aired online, as is true with
the above link.
<
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/2020/..._form.html>
To express your opinion about anything that is aired on 20/20, go to this
link (it is, however, unclear if any producers read this; it seems to be
mostly an opportunity for people to talk with each other about 20/20
segments)
<
http://boards.abcnews.go.com/cgi/abc...m=abcnews_2020
>
BELOW IS INFORMATION ABOUT THE BBC'S PREVIOUS BROADCAST ABOUT A SIMILAR
PROBLEMATIC EXPERIMENT ON HOMEOPATHY:
The BBC's Homeopathy Experiment:
New Information Verifies Significant Flaws in the Study
On November 26, 2002, the BBC aired a program on Horizon (a TV
program on issues in science) that focused on homeopathic medicine. New
evidence has just been uncovered that has verified that the BBC unwittingly
provided misinformation in the scientific study that prepared for the
program. (The producer from 20/20 got his idea for this experiment on
homeopathy from this TV program, though at the time, he had no idea that
there was any problem with the experiment or the experimenter.)
Horizon attempted to portray a scientific study of homeopathy to satisfy
the proof required by a stage magician, James Randi. The producer of the BBC
program, Nathan Williams, sought to repeat a previous study conducted by
Professor Madeleine Ennis (Professor of Clinical Biochemistry at Queens
University in Belfast) and several other scientists who had successfully
shown significant effects from attenuated doses of histamine.
From some investigative work conducted by Dana Ullman, MPH (author of
numerous homeopathy books and owner of Homeopathic Educational Services of
Berkeley CA), it has just been discovered that the experimenter who
conducted the research, Wayne Turnbull of Guys Hospital, London, made
several significant changes in the experiment without communicating this
information to anyone else, including Dr. John Enderby, Vice President of
the Royal Society, who supervised this study. The suspicions arose during an
experiment carried out at Guys for an American TV program for the ABC
network.
Shockingly, Turnbull now asserts that his experiment was never
portrayed as a replication of Dr. Ennis methodology. And yet, the BBC
program made reference to this experiment as a repeat of Professor Ennis
work on two separate occasions.
Turnbull also asserted that a consensus between all parties is
essential when performing this experiment, and yet, he never received
consensus. In fact, when he sought it from Professor Ennis, she was quite
adamant in stating that his experiment was significantly different than
hers.
In efforts to defend the BBC program, its producer, Nathan Williams,
asserted the experiments were perfectly in keeping with standard scientific
practice. However, it was curious to note that Williams is a journalist, not
a scientist, and at the time of writing he has not quoted any scientists to
stand behind this statement.
Dana Ullman asserts, "Bringing science to the public is a new frontier
in this day and age of reality television. However, it is important that
television science not become junk science or cowboy research. And it is
important that television science be honest and upfront so that the results
are authentic and not create science friction as what has occurred in this
BBC so called 'study of homeopathic medicine."
Dana Ullman, MPH
Homeopathic Educational Services
2124 Kittredge St.
Berkeley, CA. 94704
(510)649-0294
(800)359-9051 (orders in the US only)
(510)649-1955 (fax)
dullman@igc.org OR
mail@homeopathic.com
http://www.homeopathic.com