The first panel was made up of Prof Jayne Lawrence (Royal Pharmaceutical Society), Robert Wilson (British Association of Homeopathic Manufacturers), Paul Bennett (Boots the chemist), Tracey Brown (Sense About Science) and Dr Ben Goldacre (Bad Science blogger/columnist).
The second panel was made up of Dr Peter Fisher (London Homeopathic Hospital), Prof Edzard Ernst (Peninsula Medical School), Dr James Thallon (NHS West Kent), and Dr Robert Mathie (British Homeopathic Association).
The whole session can be watched here, and the Guardian's Ian Sample live blogged the whole thing here.
This is a good session chaired by a committee who are clearly adequately sceptical of homeopathy's evidence of efficacy. There are a few interesting points where the pro-homeopathy panel members are held against the ropes and forced to give rather telling, squirmy non-answers to the committee's questions.
Phil Willis, who chaired the meeting, was responsible for some particularly excellent moments, such as answering Robert Wilson's point that homeopathy is an old tradition and popular in France with the point that so is prostitution but that doesn't make it right. Even better was his incredulous response to Wilson's argument that if they didn't work people wouldn't keep buying them with, "that wasn't a serious comment was it?"
It's well worth watching the video and it's heartening to know that at least there are people in the Commons who value evidence and take a sceptical view of alternative medicine and that they don't all lobby the government to have lunar effects taken into account.
However, the important question, I'm sure, will soon be whether the probable future Conservative government shares this committee's interest in evidence.
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Update: Read Ben Goldacre's review of events here.
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thank you
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