Dear Gimpy,

I was, I must admit, taken somewhat aback by the passion of your most
recent post--the one in which you listed for us all your two-fold
(three-fold really, but who's counting?) objection to homeopathy.
Because of your posts, I also took some time to read your blog.

I have, in recent weeks, become interested in what is being written
about homeopathy, both pro and con, in the UK. Even though I live in
far-away Connecticut where your writings have had no impact, I am
interested because I have a rather passionate response to homeopathy
myself, excepting, of course, the fact that I am in favor of it with
a fervor that matches your indignation.

I have also been reading Ben Goldacre's writings, both in the press
(I can never remember the names of your newspapers, so I won't risk
getting it wrong--but The Guardian, is it?) and in his own excellent
blog, "Bad Science." I find Goldacre to be an excellent writer and
wit, with a keen eye for observation. Further, I find that I often
agree with much of what he writes on many different subjects, most
especially his firm belief that less medicine often equals good
medicine.

When it comes to your writing, I can't help but find it inferior to
his. First in that you seek to hide behind your "Gimpy" persona--
perhaps the term means something different in the UK than it does
here. Goldacre does not. Nor do I in my books. I can't help but
always take with a rather huge grain of salt anything that is written
by anyone who will not or can not stand behind his/her words by using
his or her own name. Second in that you make such sweeping
statements as " I believe homeopaths are dangerously arrogant in
their beliefs and utterly incapable of proper regulation." This,
along with much else that you have written along the same lines, is
akin to racist or other highly charged, bigoted comments. In using
them, you seem more interested in eliciting an emotion rather than an
intellectual response. You might likely respond that you are, in
making these comments, speaking to the homeopathic community in
general. But consider this: when you say that you do not agree with
homeopathy, that you think it quackery of foolishness, I say all well
and good. Believe what you think best, what you have concluded in
your own life. But when, based upon the simple fact that you
disagree with my/our beliefs, you feel you have a special insight
that allows you to conclude that we are arrogant or that we are
"playing at science and medicine" you move from a position of debate
into a place in which you set yourself up as a person capable of
judging not only the quality of our methods but also the motivations
of our hearts and minds. The homeopathic community is made up of
many individuals of may sorts and types, in many parts of the world.
To lump us into one arrogant mold is to reveal your own nature more
than our own.

I do not think myself arrogant, nor do I think myself stupid, foolish
or easily manipulated or led. I have taken the last three decades of
my life and dedicated them to a study of the healing process, how it
takes place and how it can best be stimulated and encouraged. This
study has lead me to believe that homeopathy is a tool for healing.
It is something that I have experienced too often in my own life to
have much interest in what the Lancet has to say on the subject.
Indeed, in that, with each new generation, one supposedly scientific
study comes along to disprove another that was held for years as
established fact, it think it high time that we faced the simple fact
that the word science itself refers to a mode of exploration and not
to the fact that everything that needed exploration has been fully
mapped.

For all that has been brought into the light of understanding in this
world, much still remains in darkness. And for all that the
scientific method can guide us toward, there are still many aspects
of life that stand outside the scientific.

Wrangling such as ours is nothing new. It certainly dates back to
Moleschott's phosphor and reflects the struggle between those who
remained Vitalists and those who broke ranks to grab hold of
Materialism back around 1850. No doubt it dates back further still,
perhaps to Hippocrates and this "twin streams" of medical treatment.
All through medical history, each side of this debate has claimed the
scientific high ground, and each has insisted that the other has been
responsible for the untimely deaths of millions of innocents.

So in our present debate, there is nothing new. Each side is still
claiming the Newtonian high ground, although that "equal and opposite
reaction" certainly seems to give homeopathy the edge, at least in my
opinion.

Nor is there, unfortunately, anything new in either of the opposing
sides--homeopathic and allopathic--trying to remove the other from
the conversation. As each side has any number of zealots, who are
quite convinced of the dangers that the other presents to the sweaty
and suffering masses, there are always those who want to drive the
others into the sea. And so it goes in the UK today. Those who
would drive homeopathy into the sea unite around the battle cry that
homeopathy is dangerous because it does nothing, has no medicinal
impact. Because of this, of course, it is not toxic and cannot cause
harm, so they add the addendum that, because of their foolish belief
in homeopathy, the sweaty and suffering delay real (read: allopathic)
treatment and therefore die horribly. Those who would drive
allopathy into the sea counter with the fact that allopathic medicine
is in no way harmless, and is, instead, toxic in its nature and that
it directly kills those same sweaty and suffering. And yet, somehow,
in spite of it all, humanity continues to reproduce to the point that
it now threatens the planet itself.

Isn't it about time that we simply offer those sweaty and suffering
masses information on the two basic methods of treatment, those that
work against the symptoms associated with illness and those that work
with them and the reasons behind each approach and then allowed the
patients to decide for themselves? Sweaty and suffering as they may
be, they not only have the right to have all forms of medical
treatment available to them--whether you yourself want them to or
not--and the right to choose the method that works best for them,
individual by individual, family by family. Such is the structure of
a healthy, mature society.

As I have taken the time to read and think about your arguments,
Gimpy, I hope that you will do the same for mine. Read any of my
books on the subject of homeopathy--perhaps the most recent, "The
Healing Engima." You can get it at Amazon.

Yours in Similarity,

--Vinton McCabe