The debate among UK parliamentarians regarding the merits and limitations of homeopathy

Someone I know draws my attention to a blog post on the debate among UK parliamentarians regarding the merits and limitations of homeopathy: http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2010/feb/22/mps-verdict-homeopathy-useless-unethical item saying that

My response

"I am well aware of such arguments on the part of the Western medical establishment which, among other things, wishes to push the interests of the Western pharmaceutical industries.

"The facts are that:

" (a) Western "evidence-based" medicine keeps changing its mind on whether even ordinary food (such as coconuts) are healthy or unhealthy (there is an interesting debate on what constitutes "evidence" and in relation to what - e.g. the Japanese claim that Western medicine affects the Japanese differently (because of their different genetics and diet) - so if your test sample includes Japanese-origin people, how valid is that sample and for whom? In any case, Western medicine focuses only on symptoms not on the whole person and the idea that you need to establish exactly how vigorously to shake homeopathic medicine is simply idiotic - at those levels of dilution a vigorous shake is just a vigorous shake - one could no doubt establish the degree and duration of shake that is most effective, but one always has to ask how much time and energy to invest in establishing something - if homeopathic medicine was extremely expensive it might be worth doing, but homeopathic medicine is extremely cheap

"and

" (b) there is a huge amount of subjective evidence such as that my allergy is helped by NO Western medicine but responds to homeopathic treatment (it could be argued, of course, that I am so deeply suggestible or brainwashed that my system does not respond to Western medicine but does respond to homeopathy - but such an argument would be tantamount to saying that neither Western medicine nor homeopathic medicine "really works" while suggestibility and brainwashing does - in which case of course we should not be spending so much money on Western medicine (and the little that is required for homeopathic medicine), we should instead be focusing on suggestibility and brainwashing as by far cheaper routes to health).

"I have maintained for a very long time that Western medicine is unbeatable when it comes to infection or to situations needing surgical intervention, but Western medicine has no clue at all when it comes to age-related or genetics-related or disposition-related or chronic or mild illnesses, and that is where other medical systems (e.g. Ayurveda or Homeopathy) help.

"There are then further facts, which no one talks about:

" 1. the side-effects of the very powerful Western medicines (sometimes "the cure is worse than the disease")

"and

" 2. the effects of mis-diagnosis and, moreover, of mis-prescription.... I don't know of any research that has been sponsored by these folk who are so interested in "evidence" regarding how often mis-diagnosis happens and what is the impact of the wrong prescriptions.

"Conclusion: let us continue taking Western medicine for clear, identifiable diseases for which Western medicine has effective cures; and, where Western medicine has no clear diagnosis and treatment, it is ALWAYS common sense to at least try complementary medicines.

"For example, if X's indigestion were to be shown to be due to some specific disease in the Western lexicon, then it would certainly be silly to avoid using Western medicine; but where Western medicine has no clear diagnosis and treatment, we would be stupid to not try alternative medicines. Of course nothing has worked over the last decade or whatever, but that is simply the reality of the fallen world in which we all grow older and sicken and must die some day regardless of all the illusions as well as all the undoubted wonders of Western medicine (such as fixing Y's ankle-ligaments problem).