Lies, damn lies and Sir David King’s socks

So now we have another prominent ‘scientist’ joining the chorus. Sir David King, the government’s chief scientific advisor, speaking to MPs on the innovation, universities and skills select committee about his role, laid into sections of the media (for their “campaigns” against GM foods and the MMR vaccine) and the Department of Health over its decision to allow homeopathic remedies to be licensed by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, the public body that licenses drugs.

“How can you have homeopathic medicines labelled by a department which is driven by science?” said King. “There is not one jot of evidence supporting the notion that homeopathic medicines are of any assistance whatsoever.”

(Reports in the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail)

Make no mistake, this “not one jot of evidence” is nothing more than a mantra which those continually repeating it seem to hope will eventually become accepted as some sort of “truth” merely through repetition. In no sense does it bear any relation to the actual state of the evidence base for homeopathy. It is, quite simply, a lie.