United We Stand for Homeopathy

Dear Homeopathic Colleagues, In response to the letter "And the Hammer strikes again" we received thousands of mails and comments of support to work for the betterment of Homeopathy.

The recent update is that the real culprit of the whole havoc is Voices of Yong Science and other such organizations. The Voices of Young Science, a UK based group dedicated to eliminating homeopathy, sent a letter to the World Health Organization asking WHO to condemn homoeopathy in developing countries, especially in the areas of influenza, childhood diarrhoea, malaria and AIDS. WHO's various Departmental Heads replied that, there is no indication of effectiveness of homoeopathy in any of these areas. Voices of Young Science has circulated the response of WHO to the media and have amplified the letter as if it is a public announcement from WHO, WHICH IT IS NOT . Additionally, Voices of Young Science has stated on its website that it will be contacting the Health Ministries of all countries in the world to let them know about the WHO response and press them to condemn homoeopathy in their country.

The BBC online then spread this false item, as "WHO Warns Against Homeopathy Use". They have since apologised that they were hasty and mistaken in posting the article as an official statement, without checking the facts and without balancing the article with input from official homeopathy organizations, and as a result have changed the headline . They replied against a complaint as-

" Many thanks for your e-mail. We have since updated this report and it now includes two comments putting the case for homeopathy - one  referring to treatment for diarrhoea - although we accept that it would have been desirable to have had these in the article earlier. It became clear from correspondence that some readers found the original headline - WHO warns against homeopathy use -ambiguous, and this has been altered to reflect the fact that people are being urged not to rely on homeopathy.

Best wishes,

BBC News website

http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/handle.shtml "

But the original BBC version has been picked up by newspapers worldwide and every day more and more online sites and blogs are copying the article.  If we let this go it will be too late, people will believe this dirty trick campaign.

WHO and BBC have been misinterpreted to create this potentially disastrous attack on homeopathy.

So it is our prier aim to launch a mass protest against these organisations and also to clarify the whole situation to the common public. Though BBC (which originally declared that news) has corrected its mistake but the initial report continues to run on many news portals. This affects the popularity of Homeopathy. We urge you all to write letter/ draft to-

1. WHO about its statement/ report : Our collective affert would create suitable impact and stop authorities from publishing any such derogatory statement against homeopathy in future.

2. BBC and Media for correcting their report, news and publishing a corrected version of the same.

We are giving here the addresses of WHO and BBC authorities where you can complain:

WHO Contacts :

Director General Dr. Margaret Chan  Media Officer Fadela Chaib  chaibf@who.int
 
Mr A. Etukudo, Division of AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria at the World Health Organisation's regional office in Congo, Africa regafro@afro.who.int

Dr Elisabeth Mason,  Director Department of Child & Adolescent Health Development
masone@who.int

Dr Mukund Uplekar, TB Strategy and Health Systems, uplekar@who.int
 
Dr Sergio Spinaci, Associate Director, Global Malaria Programme  spinacis@who.int.

Dr Mario Raviglione, Director, Stop TB Department Press Contact Glenn Thomas thomasg@who.int

Dr Teguest Guerma, Director Ad Interim, HIV/AIDS Department,  Press contact  Valeri Abramov  abramovv@who.int

BBC Contact:

newsonline.complaints@bbc.co.uk

http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/handle.shtml

We invite you all to write your views, comments on WHO, BBC's mistake which we would mail to WHO authorities.

Write us for your further suggesstions at info@homeorizon.com

United We Stand for Homeopathy

Dr. P Singh

Editor