The Good News: The Quackery Of Homeopathy Is Dying. The Bad News: We Haven't Killed It Yet.

"One of the medical newspapers, Pulse, has a news article saying that there has been a drop in the number of homeopathic prescriptions by GPs in the UK. In 2005, there were 83,000 written, and in 2007, it had fallen to 49,300.

This is good news. It could be that GPs are becoming more critical about the evidence for their prescriptions, or patients are being more critical of the evidence for what works. One UK NHS homeopathic hospital has had funding withdrawn. The National Institute for Clinical Excellence evaluates interventions and recommends that treatments of marginal or no cost effective benefit are not funded. However it is most unfair that homeopathy, which the evidence says doesn’t work beyond that of placebo, has yet to undergo a similar evaluation."

-- Margaret McCartney, giving us the lay of the land, for the Financial Times