Letter to Alliance Boots re stocking homeopathic remedies

Dear Sir,

Hopefully you are aware that the above campaign, directed at the sale of
homeopathic remedies in Boots the Chemist, is just another wheeze invented by
some self-appointed and extremely biased arbiters of the public good.

As a practising homeopath, I frequently advise people to obtain remedies from
Boots and find it admirable that they are stocked. I and my colleagues would
very much appreciate the continuance of this availability.

In a letter published in The Independent on 3 June 2006, I wrote:
"The placebo response is extremely complex, but is estimated to account for
about 30 per cent of perceived improvement, and this figure is the same for the
GPs. It is certainly not something we can rely on to do our work for us in every
case. No doubt we also see a percentage of people who were going to get better
without intervention, as do the GPs. There remains a percentage for whom we must
assume that the drug given was effective, whether homeopathic or orthodox, and
whether it took six minutes or 90 to prescribe it.

In the present climate, where iatrogenic death and injury are rife, the issue at
stake is patient choice."

I received an email from a GP who thanked me for "lighting a candle instead of
adding to the darkness". By stocking homeopathic remedies, Boots keeps patient
choice alive and is to be commended for so doing.

I would also like to bring the following to your attention. Meantime, I do
trust that common sense will prevail.

Health minister: NHS spend on homeopathy is justified
1 December 2009

The Health Minister, the Rt Hon Mike O'Brien QC MP, has told the Science and
Technology select committee that cutting the NHS spend on homeopathy is not
justified and that a body of reputable people, including doctors, believe in it.

Mr O'Brien said cutting the funding would be "illiberal" and "a denial of
personal choice". He also said there were a range of opinions amongst clinicians
and scientists which could not be ignored and he told the committee that there
was "justification for more research" in homeopathy.

He reiterated that it is up to individual clinicians to decide on the best
treatment for their patients and that it was not his job to tell GPs whether or
not to prescribe homeopathy. He also clarified that the NHS spend on homeopathic
medicines is only £152,000, from a total NHS annual drugs budget of £11 billion.

Mr O'Brien was speaking during the second session of an evidence check on
homeopathy. Both sessions (25 November and 30 November) can be viewed on the
parliament website.

Sincerely,

Linda Lloyd, MLCHom, DipHEAR