(Procedural Stuff – Probably Boring)
The way this works is the whole section is submitted to conference under a separate section in the agenda and amendments are taken to alter, subtract from or add to it. Each amendment is debated separately, normally, before the whole section, as amended is voted on at the end. If the final vote falls, or isn’t reached due to time constraints, the whole section falls and we remain with what we had before.

This might not seem like an issue but with only 80 minutes originally scheduled to debate the motion and 29 amendments I was really worried at the start of conference that we might succeed in amending the necessary parts of policy only to see our efforts wasted at the last minute. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case, debate was extended into an extra session on Sunday and we got through all 29. To digress for a second, however, I think this is a serious issue, in a conference that lasted over 3 full days we had only around six and a half hours of debate on the health policy paper, organisational and policy motions, emergency motions and reports. We ended conference having failed to even discuss 10 out of the 20 policy motions.

(Back to Policy – Hopefully Less Boring)
To get back to the health paper though, what did we actually pass then? Well, a lot of good policy I think. We now have a much more rational and scientifically defensible section. One I would no longer be embarrassed to show to my non-green party friends (actually most of my green friends thought it was pretty awful too to be honest).

Number one on my list of priorities was amendment 28, which removed our opposition to embryonic stem cell research. I can’t begin to describe how pleased I am that passed and how ridiculous it was that we ever opposed it in the first place. As fellow Bright Greener Adam said as he proposed the policy (Stuart, who had been proposer couldn’t make the last session on Sunday) it was a cruel and inhumane position that put us in alignment with the Bush administration in postponing developments that could lead to huge advances in medical research and treatments. I don’t know the circumstances under which we first adopted the original policy but I was pleased to see that the new policy was easily carried in the end.

Number two was homoeopathy and the numerous references to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) the old section contained. I think I’m right in saying that what we passed this weekend no longer mentions homoeopathy once. One might suggest we should have gone further to actively oppose it (and I might agree with you) but two other new sections of policy probably make that unnecessary. Firstly, all medicines, real or CAM, would have to clearly state their ingredients and side effects and, secondly, all treatments would have to prove their efficacy under independent clinical tests to be provided by the NHS.

I think the proposers were clever here, rather than explicitly attacking CAM and risking a fight that could have jeopardised passing the motion, or having the time to finish it at all, they removed all specific details from the policy and set up a framework which anyone who believes in homoeopathy should support but which, in reality, would prevent most CAM from receiving any funding. Unless, of course, they can show their treatments work, in which case we’ll have no problem with them.

Animals
One problem I do still have with Green Party policy, and one I’m sad to say I don’t have high hopes of sorting soon, is on animal testing. I wrote a bit about this the other day but it reappeared on Sunday. In the health section, we made some progress. Amendment 11 removed the line “vivisection is of questionable value and incompatible with ecological philosophy”, whatever ecological philosophy means. Amendment 14 added a new paragraph proposing a review would be carried out to compare animal testing with “human biology-based tests” to “determine the best means to predict the safety and effectiveness of medicines and treatments for patients”. That sounds fine to me, and indeed, was accepted by most of the animal rights enthusiasts, convinced as most of them are that animal testing is scientifically inferior to other methods. I wonder though what would happen if that review said animal testing was best given our policy elsewhere?

Speaking of which, C09 and C10, having not been referred back for further work, came back immediately after we passed health. Unfortunately, Jim’s proposal that the animal rights section would be the appropriate place to list an ethical objection but that scientific concerns were already covered in the health section fell, mostly, on deaf ears and his motion fell. Commiserations Jim. Under party rules I believe that means we can’t try that approach again for two years. Removing our opposition entirely, however, that’s another matter.

On Saturday at 10.23am hundreds of people across the country opened a small vial of pills and swallow them all. There was a group of 42 of these people in Edinburgh (video), but no emergency services were called and no deaths or complications were reported. This was because it was a mass overdose of homeopathic remedies.

The ‘Swallowers’, as they are delicately calling themselves, are conducting this stunt as part of the 10:23 campaign (hence the timing) which seeks to raise awareness about the case against homeopathy and those who supply it.

As one of the organisers of the London event, Carmen D’Cruz put it:

“The public have the right to know what we put into our bodies. “Freedom of choice” is not possible without the ability to make an informed decision. A large part of this campaign is to raise public awareness of what homeopathy actually is. Once people understand both sides of an argument, they are better able to make a real choice.”

Homeopathy was invented by Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician, in the late 18th century. It is based on the principle that “like cures like”, but significantly, that a substance taken in small amounts will cure the same symptoms it would cause if taken in large amounts. And when I say small amounts …

Homeopathic remedies are usually diluted to a factor of 30c, that is:

1:1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000.

Or to give you some idea of what that represents; imagine a sphere of water with a diameter from the Earth to the Sun (a distance that takes light, yes light, about 8 minutes to travel), then imagine one single molecule of that sphere is an active ingredient of the substance that is supposed to cure you. Remember, it isn’t a drop; it’s a single molecule. THAT is what 30c looks like.

Homeopaths claim that this works because water “has a memory” which preserves the active ingredient through the dilutions due to a special shaking. After each dilution the mixture is vigorously agitated in a machine that delivers a calibrated amount of shaking (That last sentence was a direct quote from the Society of Homeopaths website, just in case anyone thinks I’m trying to make them sound stupid. I mean actively trying to make them sound stupid).

Many scientists say that the only possible impact of such remedies is as a placebo.

Therefore, there was no need to perform mouth-to-mouth on any Swallowers. But what are the implications? Raise awareness yes, but should these remedies be provided on the NHS? Should commercial businesses be able to sell them?

This is the second aim of the 10:23 campaign, targeting outlets such as Boots. As D’Cruz explains: “It’s a bit unethical for Boots to sell these pills in their medicine section whilst admitting they don’t work. They’re a trusted company. Why are they lying to their customers (or at least being ambiguous with the truth)?”

Many who wouldn’t go so far as to defend the “science” of homeopathy will at least espouse the positive effects of placebo. And indeed the effects of placebo are amazing and well documented. But should we market a product that we know is a placebo with a mythology of how it works? I would argue that this kind of marketing has a corrosive effect on the public’s understanding of science and medicine. Rather than empowering the patient, it dupes them in the time-honoured tradition of the snake-oils salesmen.

But this stunt has got some people’s backs up. “My inbox is full to the brim with people from all over telling me how much they enjoyed taking part,” says D’Cruz, “with only two people contacting me who were against what we were trying to do.”

“One of them was actually really lovely, and seemed glad that I’d replied in a sensible way (I suggested a couple of books she might find interesting to see things from my point of view if I wasn’t being articulate enough: Trick or Treatment and Bad Science). The other said I was an attention seeker and that I should be arrested. I’m pretty sure that was my mum. She’s got a really good sense of humour.”

To those who have taken homeopathic remedies and believe that they cured them, it is scientifically more likely that you experienced the placebo effect (you got better because you thought you were going to get better) or regression to the mean (you were going to get better anyway, like with a cold).

Now let’s not talk down the placebo effect, it is a truly amazing phenomenon. People have even got better with placebo surgery. It doesn’t mean that you were previously faking it; believing an intervention will make you better can really can make you better (listen to Dr Ben Goldacre’s two part radio programme on the placebo effect).

We can and should harness the power of the placebo effect without misleading people. And we should be just as uneasy with the aggressive marketing of the billion dollar homeopathy industry as we are of the (albeit bigger) billion pharmaceutical industry.

Links:
More on the overdose in Edinburgh
Follow 10:23 tweets: #1023