Following the recent turmoil regarding Boots Pharmacies breach of ethical rules, and the successful (and official) complaints/attacks from David Colquhoun (from Improbable Science), I happened to visit Boots yesterday. Not looking for homeopathic remedies of course… By the way, David’s article on Boots/Quack is a very nice gateway with links to other related articles which just show you how embarrassingly large amounts of ignorance and quackery are promoted by Boots!

As I was wandering inside the shop my eyes eventually locked on a sign that read “Alternative Therapies”. Inevitably I approached to see the remedies on offer -all of them Boots branded.

My first surprise was that all remedies had exactly the same label, apart of course from the substance name and the dilution. None of them specified the kind of symptoms or diseases it helped treat. All of them concluded with the sentence: “Homeopathic Remedy without approved therapeutic indications“. What? This is like saying: you know, we just have no idea whether this works or not. But hey, take a chance!

So I approached the pharmacist to ask him what exactly does this sentence mean. He was straightforward and surprisingly honest to say that Boots is not allowed to make any specific claims because there is no evidence for their efficacy! So my obvious next question was “why then do you sell them?” in which he replied that “some people say it works. Many people have requested them. We only sell them as natural therapies not as conventional drugs. If you have a relatively serious condition you should visit a doctor.”

Many people have requested them?!? Apparently public health has now turned into a popularity contest! Screw the conspiring scientists and their lying research and publications. Besides, they all work for the Big Pharma. All of them want people to keep dying and stay ill so that they can make more money from commissions. What we should do instead is what the lay public wants. And as long as many people want something we can sell it as medicine! Despite of how stupid it may be -hey, there are many gullible people willing to buy anything you sell them!

Anyway, he then showed me a thick black book with a title “Nelson’s Book” which contained symptoms and the corresponding remedies. It goes without saying that this book contains absolutely no evidence whatsoever to back up its claims. Interestingly enough, while in the remedy labels they are not allowed to make any statements, they’re still able to tell you exactly what you need depending on your symptoms -you only have to ask. Is this hypocrisy and unethical misinformation or what?

I left Boots and visited Holland and Barret, another high street hub for natural and alternative therapies, also filthed with all sorts of dubious natural supplements and pills. Guess what? The H&B branded homeopathic remedies have exactly the same label! With exactly the same final sentence: “Homeopathic Remedy without approved therapeutic indications!”

So once again I ask the shop manager, who apparently is also a homeopathic expert, what did that sentence mean. Well, he wasn’t as honest as the Boots guy. First he started mumbling that he was not really aware of this label and he didn’t “know why they put it there. I don’t know who put it there because I study homeopathy and we never had this statement there.”

After I pushed a little more, he started mentioning how mainstream doctors do not accept or prescribe them because there are no clinical trials done with natural remedies! Of course, this is a blatant lie. He couldn’t even look me in the eyes when he was spewing out this crap. You cannot be an “expert” in homeopathy without knowing at least a bit about the scientific literature, which conclusively says that homeopathy is no better than placebo!

I followed up with “but do you think this really works?” where he replied that it may work for some people but not for everybody. Of course. Because some people have different physiology, different nervous systems, different mechanics in their organs, and the Germ Theory of Disease is not applicable to them.

As a bonus, here’s what I found in H&B: a reflexology sock -see photo! The label says: “Apply pressure to the clearly marked areas on each sock and feel the benefits.” And all that for only £6.95! You have to be really careful though: you don’t want to push the colon area too much when all you wanted was to “detoxify” your kidneys

It seems that this particular H&B shop manager is truly a Woo-Meister!