The Dilution Of Homeopathy Has Begun

"The campaign against the [NewAge] remedies has had a particular impact on homeopathic medicines, which have been available through the NHS since the health system started in 1948. Prescriptions dropped almost in half to 49,300 in 2007 from 2004, and costs declined to 321,300 pounds from 661,400 pounds, according to NHS Business Services Authority statistics.

'It’s the easiest target -- the medicine that contains no medicine,' said David Colquhoun, a University College London pharmacology professor who writes a blog on what he calls 'dubious and dishonest science.'

Colquhoun said a favorite homeopathic dilution level is so thin that you would need a pill the size of the distance from the earth to the sun to get even a single molecule of the original substance.

...The criticism also has hurt the funding of the country’s five homeopathic hospitals, which had a combined budget of about 6 million pounds a year,...

Royal London Homeopathic’s income from local health authorities dropped 28 percent to 3.5 million pounds in the fiscal year ended in April,...One north London health authority, Brent Teaching Primary Care Trust, ended a contract with the hospital in 2006, saying 'there is insufficient evidence' for the care.

The NHS homeopathic hospital in Tunbridge Wells, south of London, lost its biggest sponsor in July and may close when funding runs out in March."

-- David Altaner and Andrea Gerlin, showing skepticism "works" more effectively than alternative medicine, on Bloomberg.com.