Slashdot Mirror
UK Labour Party's Support For Homeopathy Grows
An anonymous reader writes: The UK's Labour Party is currently led by Jeremy Corbyn, who has shown support for homeopathy in the past. So has Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell. (So-called 'shadow' posts in the UK government essentially comprise an alternative Cabinet with positions held by party members in opposition to the party in power.) Now, homeopathy seems to have additional support from the newly-appointed shadow health minister, Heidi Alexander. "I know lots of people who know about benefits of homeopathy. Whether it's the right use of public money is another thing altogether. I'm open to hearing the argument as to why people may think it appropriate."
I was reading the Metro (a 'free' paper that's given away at a lot of UK train stations), and it was filled with wall-to-wall criticisms of Corbyn's shadow cabinet choices. In the run up to the leadership campaign, there was nothing but smoke blown in Jeremy's direction. And now this post on Slashdot of all places.
Makes you wonder what the establishment is afraid of.
Is that the official position of the party or of individual members? What the "anonymous reader" forgets to point out is that the letter signed by members of the labour party was also signed by conservative party members as well as liberal democrats and a bunch of others.
As for Heidi Alexander, here's a quote from the linked buzfeed article
“I must admit I’m not totally convinced at the moment but I’ll have to look at it. I know my own parents are great believers in homeopathy. It’s not something that I would immediately support but I’m going to have to look at a whole range of issues. It’s not something that I have given hours of consideration to.”
Oh yeah, definitely a *huge* backer.
How nice of slashdot to become a place for anonymous political shills. In this case I guess it's a Tory sympathizer.
This smacks a lot of the continuing media smear against the new labour leadership - which is getting tiresome for pretty much everyone (whatever their political views).
From the second paragraph of TFA : ... It’s not something that I have given hours of consideration to.”
She added: “I must admit I’m not totally convinced at the moment but I’ll have to look at it.
Windows in 6 Bytes (IA-32) : 90 90 90 90 CD 19
So now even Slashdot lazily swallows and unquestioningly regurgitates a smear against Labour? Whoever you are, Samzenpus, you've just lost Slashdot a reader.
The Ukraine crisis IS as much a fault of the west as that of Russia. NATO is also an organization that was created to oppose an enemy that no longer exists, and provides very good ammo for Putin to point out how the west would like to corner them..
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
The ridiculousness is not limited to the Labour party; the Conservatives actually put a deluded believer into an *actual*, not shadow, ministerial position and to top it all it was minister for health.
The UK press has been full of negative comments about Corbyn, more so since he became leader this weekend, so why is Slashdot joining in? Why don't you run articles on the front pages of the Daily Mail, The Sun, etc. for today and yesterday? During the leadership campaign it wasn't just the right-wing press either since many Labourites didn't want him since they think that they can only regain government by being more like the Conservatives to the point that they are now frequently referred to as the "Red Tories".
Personally, I didn't care about the Labour leadership election because I think that the sooner Scotland can get away from the rest of the UK the better.
To be fair, if you get your "placebo ~20% effect" from [treatment that does nothing other than convince you that it does something], that's great for health.
I completely agree with her statement that supporting it with public money is completely different from acknowledging that placebo effect can indeed provide help to some people.
He is one of those rare creatures, an honest man with no motivation other than to make the world a better place. I would venture that he has very little dirt to leak, and is probably the most selfless politician in a generation.
This all makes him incredibly dangerous.
Because they are selling for money stuff that doesn't work, and persuading people to not trust medicine that does work. Thus they are profiting off harming vulnerable people. This is obscene.
Yes Jeremy Hunt (the UK health secretary) seems to believe in homeopathy. It really shows the quality of your government when someone so unsuited to this job (or any position requiring the application of rational thought) is able to set health policy.
As opposed to the US system where she wouldn't have been able to afford to pay and the insurance company would've found an excuse to void the policy she'd been paying into for a decade and so she couldn't even get on a list in the first place?
Great. That's much better.
Sacrificing an individual to keep costs down is exactly how the US healthcare system works, that's exactly what happens when you throw capitalism and profit into the mix - you have to grow profits by maximising the amount of people who pay and how much they pay and minimising the amount of people you actually treat in practice.
The Republicans have never believed that prosperity for the rich would lead to prosperity for the poor. They never claimed that anything would trickle down to the peons. They hate the poor and want them to die. To die. That is the way of their kind.