US has no monopoly on snake oil merchants...

[TZ]

Homeopathic 'vaccine pills' should be withdrawn, says regulator
By Sam Smith
BBC Inside Out

A homeopathic pharmacy endorsed by Prince Charles and the Queen has been told to stop advertising sugar pills labelled as childhood vaccines.

The government's medicines regulator stepped in after an investigation by BBC Inside Out South West.
Homeopathic 'vaccine pills' should be withdrawn, says regulator
It found a number of homeopathic products on sale at specialist retailer Ainsworths labelled as vaccines or bearing the name of a childhood illness.

The programme also found evidence the company's owner Anthony Pinkus was prepared to recommend homeopathic pills to parents as an alternative to the whooping cough vaccination
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-20991335

God save England FROM the Queen and that idiot Prince Charles...

[progressoid]

1. " Totnes - where three out of 10 five-year-olds are not fully immunised"

Good god, what's going on over there? Too much American TV?

[TZ]

2. Andrew Wakefield.

Unfortunately.

[progressoid]

3. Right.

It's amazing how much damage one person (and a few bobble headed celebrities) can do.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Too much New Age woo

But bubbling below the surface is a subversive hub of alternative living, a legacy of the radical goings-on from Dartington Hall, just down the road, where Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst's vision of a rural utopia gathered steam in the 1920s. Indeed, there are more new age "characters" than you can shake a rain stick at, more alternative-therapy practitioners per square inch than anywhere else in the UK and the town was once named "capital of new age chic" by Time magazine.

My family moved here when I was 10. A child of relentlessly suburban mindset, I found the town's granola outlook unsettling. I balked at the indigenous footwear worn by Totnesians – multicoloured pieces of hand-stitched leather called "conkers" – and longed for a world where it was not atypical to own a TV and talk about Dallas rather than nuclear disarmament. My fear growing up in this neck of the woods was that people would continue to get even weirder. So it was probably just as well that I had left when Rob Hopkins arrived in 2005 and let loose the Great Unleashing, aka the launch of Transition Town Totnes (TTT).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/06/totnes-transition-towns-ethical-living

It is not surprising that this is happening in Totnes. The pretty South Devon town on the River Dart with a population of about 9,000 is as trendy as an eco-carrier bag. Its reclusive, secular patron saint is the otherworldly singer Kate Bush, who has her home nearby.

It boasts a telephone directory of counsellors and therapists and a thesaurus of workshops. A stroll up its steep main street reveals a score of organic and eco-friendly food and clothes shops. There are a further half-dozen stores peddlling stones and crystals and a Friday market that smells of marijuana and incense.

The local funeral parlour is called Green Fuse and has a picture of a flower-power coffin in its window. while the long-established gents' hairdresser actually describes itself as "alternative".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/3359800/Property-in-Totnes-Wizards-of-the-wacky-West.html

I'm not criticising everything they do - actual thought about real energy, as opposed to "crystal energy" etc., is fine. But there seems to be an inevitable slide towards "all science is dangerous" woo among some who decide the age of fossil fuels is over.

[mr blur]

5. Totnes is Woo Central

Crystal City. Full of shops that no rational person would have any use for. Even worse than Glastonbury. Strangely, it's a rather nice place to wander round (plenty to chuckle at) and they're currently involved in trying to prevent Starbucks from opening there. But...full of whackjobs.

[LeftishBrit]

7. I recommend Faith Addis' 'Taking the Biscuit' for a funny account of life in Totnes in the early 80s

Takes an affectionate look at both the likeable and ridiculous sides of Totnes eccentricity. I like Addis' 'Down to Earth' books in general (the TV series was not at all faithful to the original), but this is one of the better ones.

[LeftishBrit]

6. You bet it hasn't (sigh)

That the Clown Prince supports homeopathy is one thing. What is rather more serious, is that so does our current Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt! I always say that Hunt is from the same recipe as his predecessor Lansley (who started the policy of selling as much of the NHS as possible to the highest bidders), but with nut flavour added.

[HuckleB]

8. True, but the US still has plenty of them!

[HuckleB]

9. These nutters are fun!

Community Acupuncture: A Non-Consumptive Healthcare Model
http://postgrowth.org/community-acupuncture-a-non-consumptive-healthcare-model/?fb_action_ids=101513445533

They think is "non-consumptive" to waste people's money and time.

Oh, the stupid.