Homeopathy officially bunk

In answer to Dickie's question, there is no great significance in the different coloured chopsticks seen for lunch and dinner in yesterday's entry. The orange chopsticks I keep in my drawer, but lunch arrived with disposable wooden chopsticks and I used those rather than make my orange pair dirty. Dinner arrived with no such convientient utensils, so there you have it.

I was reading a few comments from readers of the BBC website yesterday on the subject of obesity in America. One American wrote with a comment that suggested the government had no business trying to force people to lose weight. This got me thinking. In principle I agree with that sentiment. I hold the view that people should be permitted to destroy their own lives in any way that makes them happy, as long as they don't cause a problem for anyone else. Obesity is however such a widespread problem now that it has gone rather beyond the issue of individuals simply being overweight. It's become a social problem because it is a drain on health service resources and it costs money.

It's like the smoking argument. I used to stand up for smokers rights. I always felt they had a right to smoke if they want. But you could just as easily say that everyone else has the right to live without smoke. The argument is just as strong. Now I'm leaning more on the side of banning smoking in public. From my point of view, it would make the world a nicer place. The real isssue with the fat argument however is politics. Governments want votes, and they want to spend as little as possible. They've done the maths and they're begining to think that making the population thinner might be in their interest now.

It's good to see homeopathy getting a mauling in The Lancet this week. Homeopathy is one of those things that has been proven so many times to be utterly useless, but just refuses to go away. The Lancet is however just about the most respected medical journal in the world and has this week finally denounced homeopathy as garbage after a big Swedish trial. About time too. The Lancet even goes as far as critising the World Health Organisation which still supports, or at least won't be neagtive about, homeopathy. The phrase "overtly biased" was used, which I thought rather agressive actually. Click for the BBC report.

I'm interested in the comments I got from Abby and Andy Cat6 about climate change being affected by all the overweight people being on one side of the world. I think Andy has a point, use the CO2 to make ice-cream and the problem is solved. I'll get on to the president about this right away. I'll keep you posted.