This indicates to me that those who manage to get treatment in a homeopathic hospital may be something of a self-selecting sample and not comparable to the ones that make up the 50-60% mortality rate, as many of them will be dead by the time they get to the hospital.

My, but we’re clutching at straws here …

The London Homeopathic Hospital was at Golden Square at the time, approximately 300 yards away from the Broad Street (now Broadwick St) pump at the centre of the outbreak. The nearest conventional hospital was the Middlesex at Mortimer Street, the other side of Oxford Street, more than twice the distance. (see map and compare it to Dr John Snow’s original map of the pump locations and distribution of cholera cases in the area)

At the time of the outbreak, the LHH was inspected by Dr Macloughlin, one of the medical inspectors appointed by the General Board of Health, who was a sceptic. His report said:

“You are aware that I went to your hospital prepossessed against the homœopathic system, that you had in me in your camp an enemy rather than a friend… and I need not tell you that I have taken some pains to make myself acquainted with the rise, progress and medical treatment of cholera, and that I claim for myself some right to be able to recognise the disease, and to know something of what the medical treatment ought to be, and that there may, therefore, be no misapprehension about the cases saw in your hospital, I will add that, all I saw were true cases of cholera, in the various stages of the disease, and that I saw several cases which did well under your treatment which I have no hesitation in saying would have sunk under other. In conclusion I must repeat to you what I have already told you, and what I have told everyone whom I have conversed, that although an allopath by principle, education and practice yet were it the will of Providence to afflict me with cholera, and deprive me of the power of prescribing for myself, I would rather be in the hands of a homœopathic than an allopathic adviser.”

The results at the LHH were repeated with consistency across Europe.

If this were some new drug we were talking about, rather than homeopathy, I’d be willing to bet you’d find these accounts pretty convincing.

And note that the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons are opposed to mandatory vaccination in this way. Read their press release from November 16 on this. This is one of the few US national medical organisations that refuse corporate funding. They mince no words when they say “This power play obliterates informed consent and parental rights.”

It also relates to this:

http://homeopathy4health.wordpress.com/2007/12/03/forced-vaccinations-because-conventional-medicine-is-not-effective-in-treating-infectious-disease/

Goldacre is always saying that he wants people to respond critically to his articles. Have you sent this link to him?