Boots and homeopathy

rjh01 said:
I am going to defend homeopathy. The above quote means that for information to be misleading a person must make a different purchase because of this information. Well if a person came into the shop to buy a homeopathy product (or even a "natural product") and walked out with a homeopathy product then he cannot have been mislead. I do not think any shop has any obligation to tell a customer that they are wrong.


Now I need to wash my hands for typing this.
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The product label says the pills contain something which they do not. How is that not misleading?

Or is your argument that any manufacturer can claim their products contains XXX 30c because it's a superfluous measure of quantity, for all intents and purposes equal to zero?

The label should read:

"Contains: sucrose, lactose and a 1 in 1000<insert zeros here>000 chance of a single molecule of Bryonia dioica"

or

"Contains: sucrose, lactose and almost certainly not even a single molecule of Bryonia dioica"

ETA: or even more honestly:

"Contains: sucrose, lactose and more dirt than Bryonia dioica."
 
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Ivor the Engineer said:
The product label says the pills contain something which they do not. How is that not misleading?
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No, if it says it contains "30c Bryonia dioica", you would expect it not to contain any Bryonia dioica (other than as a random contaminant). As long as it has been properly prepared, with all the magic banging and everything, before being sprayed on the sugar pills then the description is not misleading. The mere fact that a significant proportion of its target market may be sufficiently ignorant not to realise that it won't contain any doesn't make it misleading.
 
Mojo said:
No, if it says it contains "30c Bryonia dioica", you would expect it not to contain any Bryonia dioica (other than as a random contaminant). As long as it has been properly prepared, with all the magic banging and everything, before being sprayed on the sugar pills then the description is not misleading. The mere fact that a significant proportion of its target market may be sufficiently ignorant not to realise that it won't contain any doesn't make it misleading.
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What is the conventional name for 30c Bryonia dioica?
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
Exactly.

The labelling is misleading because it gives a misleading name to what is a common solvent.
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Good point, and the name is not just invented, it's specifically the name of a physiologically active herb, which suggests it is deliberately misleading, which, of course, it is - it's homeopathic - that's how homeopathic remedies 'work'. They deceive people into believing they are efficacious, and that the substance on the label has some part to play in that.
 
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Remember it must not just be misleading it must also "must cause, or be likely to cause, the average consumer to ... make a purchase which he would not otherwise have made" (as per your quote above). That is my point. Until you have shown that then you have not made a case.

A consumer going into Boots and asking for something that works and being sold a homeopathy product, that would be misleading.
 
Information Analyst said:
There was someone from the Telegraph - i.e. not the writer of this particular piece - on BBC Breakfast this morning, up against a GP who claimed she was happy to prescribe homepathic "remedies." It wasn't particualry balanced, because the GP was allowed to get away with dusbious claims like, "more studies show homeopathy works than don't," while neither the journalist nor the BBC anchors were knowledgable to counter her. Someone mention the dilution of homepathic products, then started talking about it in terms of, "if it's only 1 percentage, can it have an effect," with that exact figure.
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edd said:
It was a terrible report. As I tweeted when I saw it, I'd have sooner seen Guy Goma back as a better qualified interviewee than the 'skeptic' on our side.
The 'GP' is also president of the 'Faculty of Homeopathy' and works in one of our homeopathic hospitals.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8382265.stm to see it (UK only probably)
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In response to many complaints, the BBC, to give them a bit of credit, did sort of rerun the item this morning. Dr Sarah Jarvis up against some nutjob Prof from the University of Southampton. Win for Jarvis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFtJgCzPgL0

The damage was done on Friday though. With no one competent to speak against the homeopath, the item should have been pulled.
 
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