This week is Homeopathy Awareness week, so what better opportunity than for the great man himself James Randi to talk about Homeopathy!

Australian Skeptics act against homeopathic meningococcal vaccine

Report on Homeopathy featuring opinion from a homeopath and also New Zealand Skeptic Vicki Hyde.

Also featuring NZ Skeptics and Christchurch Skeptics in the Pub

On January 30th 2010 over 300 skeptics around the world took part in a mass homeopathy overdose. The point of this was to raise awareness and create debate on the subject of homeopathy.

The event was a huge success gaining much publicity.

The campaign also had skeptics in America, Australia and New Zealand taking part.

Well done to everyone involved.

Will also broadcast on cable TV in America, in certain cities, listings to come.

A public mass overdose of homeopathic remedies has forced the New Zealand Council of Homeopaths to admit openly that their products do not contain any "material substances". Council spokeswoman Mary Glaisyer admitted publicly that "there´s not one molecule of the original substance remaining" in the diluted remedies that form the basis of this multi-million-dollar industry.

The NZ Skeptics, in conjunction with 10:23, Skeptics in the Pub and other groups nationally and around the world, held the mass overdose in Christchurch on Saturday to highlight the fact that homeopathic products are simply very expensive water drops or sugar/lactose pills. A further aim was to question the ethical issues of pharmacies, in particular, stocking and promoting sham products and services.

I have just purchased a packet of Boots-brand 84 arnica homeopathic 30C Pills for £5.09, which Boots proudly claim is only 6.1p per pill. Their in-store advice tells me that arnica is good for treating “bruising and injuries”, which gives the impression that this is a very cost-effective health-care option.

Unlike most medication, it didn’t list the actual dose of the active ingredient that each pill contains, so I checked the British Homeopathic Association website. On their website it nonchalantly states that to make a homeopathic remedy, they start with the active ingredient and then proceed to dilute it to 1 per cent concentration. Then they dilute that new solution again, so there is now only 0.01 per cent of the original ingredients. For my 30C pills this diluting is repeated thirty times, which means that the arnica is one part in a million billion billion billion billion billion billion.

On January 30th, 2010, at exactly 10:23am, large groups of skeptics will gather in the town centres of around a dozen cities in the UK and consume a full bottle of homeopathic pills, in order to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of homeopathy. Marsh explains why…

Homeopathy in the UK is alarmingly pervasive – setting aside the fact that the industry is worth an estimated £40million per year, the National Health Service actually plows £4million per year of taxpayers’ money into providing sugar pills as a Complementary Alternative Medicine – much of which goes into the upkeep of the four government-run homeopathic hospitals.

For more articles on Alternative Therapy, Homeopathy and other health related nonsense check out www.badhomeopathy.co.uk

The ability to use reason, weigh evidence and make rational decisions is an essential skill.

Strongly held beliefs unsupported by evidence can cause significant damage to the deluded individual and those who surround them.

An individual approaching a homeopath for a cold remedy will probably do no more self harm than to waste their money and feed their own delusion, but the homeopath who convinces their client that they're safe to go to West Africa with nothing more than a sugar pill for malaria protection may well kill them.

But mumbo-jumbo becomes most dangerous when it is believed by those with power.

Ben Goldacre, Guardian columnist and author of Bad Science, explores homeopathy and the placebo effect. Not all alternative therapies are equal, you know

The Boots brand is synonymous with health care in the United Kingdom. Your website speaks proudly about your role as a health care provider and your commitment to deliver exceptional patient care. For many people, you are their first resource for medical advice; and their chosen dispensary for prescription and non-prescription medicines. The British public trusts Boots.

However, in evidence given recently to the Commons Science and Technology Committee, you admitted that you do not believe homeopathy to be efficacious. Despite this, homeopathic products are offered for sale in Boots pharmacies – many of them bearing the trusted Boots brand.

Loretta Marron also known as 'The Jelly Bean Lady' goes undercover to investigate alternative medicine.