Comment and Opinion

Homeopathy Plus!
and
Homeopathy for Autism [This site disappeared in early 2014]

These sites and their owner, Fran Sheffield, took out the prestigious Anus Maximus Award for 2010 in the 2010 Millenium Awards. The award citation read:

Fran Sheffield and Homeopathy Plus! backed up to win an Encouragement Award in the 2014 Millenium Awards. The award citation read:

Although the award went to someone else, Fran Sheffield and Homeopathy Plus! were responsible for the Quote of the Year in the 2015 Millenium Awards.

A homeopath speaks, and drivel comes out (12/12/2009)
I make sacrifices for you. This week I sat though a web presentation about the use of homeopathy to treat autism. Sorry, it doesn't treat autism, it treats the autistic child. Except when it's treating autism. The presentation was a webinar organised by the Australian Vaccination Network and featured a homeopath named Fran Sheffield. All the usual buttons were pressed – homeopathy works (it really, really does!), anecdotes and testimonials are evidence, chelation can be used to get the heavy metals out so that the homeopathy can get in there and do its curing, autism is related to vaccination, … . I think that web sites promoting sessions like this should be required by law to display a sign like that at the right so that viewers can be warned that they might suffer damage from the intensely hot sparks of burning stupid.

The AVN has promised to make the entire webinar, with sound and all slides, available on their web site for free download, but I can't see if it is available yet. Some previous webinars are supposed to be available but they don't have links either. The AVN's web site is in a state of reconstruction at the moment and could politely be described as a dog's breakfast, with broken links, unreachable pages, conflicting styles and general messitude. As a professional websmith I could offer to help them to fix it up. Only joking, no I couldn't.

I will have the full awfulness of the webinar up here as soon as someone at the AVN gets around to providing a link. In the meantime, here is a sequence of screen shots of the slide show. Even without the sound the idiocy shines through. Don't forget your welding mask.

More homeopathic nonsense (6/2/2010)
In December I mentioned that I had forced myself to sit through a presentation by a homeopath who was opposed to vaccinations. Could that be because she wants parents to buy stuff from her rather than go to a real doctor? You can go here to see a brochure promoting homeopathic immunisation, as if there really is such a thing. It's one thing to sell useless water and sugar pill "cures" to the worried well, but when you start pretending that your snake oil can prevent children catching disabling and deadly diseases you have crossed the line from just a scam to become a risk to public health. Like cholera, which is also caused by the consumption of fecal matter.

More homeopathy (10/4/2010)
As the coming week is World Homeopathy Awareness Week I could hardly let it pass without making people aware of how ridiculous homeopathy is, but before I do that I would like to show how despicable some homeopaths can be and how they act with total disregard for regulators and public health. We already know how they disregard the laws of science and the legal concept of fraud.

A homeopath appeared on the ABC television show Lateline during the week. She was featured because the regulatory authority, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, had ordered her to take some action over claims she had been making. She simply refused, on the basis that as she didn't think she had done anything wrong there was no need for her to do anything. This is someone who claims that homeopathy can cure breast cancer. This is someone who claims that there is scientific proof that homeopathy is just as good at preventing disease as vaccination but much safer. I first came across Fran Sheffield when she was shilling her anti-vaccination lies on behalf of the Australian Vaccination Network, and this latest episode just reinforces my opinion of her. Watch the video below and then answer this question: If there are people in prison for non-payment of traffic fines, how is it that this woman is wandering the streets free?

I sent this message to the television program:

Referring to the item about homeopathy on April 8, I am puzzled by the fact that someone so obviously out of touch with reality as Fran Sheffield is given any credence at all. I realise that using her is a subtle journalistic ploy to illustrate the idiocy and venality of homeopaths and a nice way to point out the quackery without risking a lawsuit for defamation, but members of the public might still see her as possessing some integrity.

Having said that, thank you for at least running a story suggesting that there should be better regulatory control of this nonsense. Unfortunately, the TGA's approach seems to be to add credibility to quackery by issuing AUST L registration codes for things that do nothing and then running away when egregious abuses of the system are exposed.

And I still can't understand why Fran Sheffield isn't in prison. Must it wait until the first woman dies from breast cancer after following her ludicrous advice?

Fraud, or just outright theft? (8/5/2010)
Here is one of the products offered for sale on the web site Homeopathy Plus!, run by noted Australian quack Fran Sheffield.

You will notice that the kit contains 84 grams of sucrose pills, and they must be very small pills because there are about 1,470 of them. They are in fact very small pills, being "hundreds and thousands" or "nonpareils" like the ones you see on your kids' birthday cakes. You will also notice that they are all 30C remedies, which means that (if anything was done beside packaging the sweets, which is highly unlikely) water with no active ingredients has been dripped on the tiny sugar balls and the sweets have then been allowed to dry out. Apparently the memory of water can be transferred to the memory of sugar.

But what do these potent pillules do?

You might think that paying 9 cents each for cake decoration sweets is a bit expensive, but remember that you get all those little bottles, the plastic carry case and a 114 (or maybe 72) page instruction sheet. Also consider that if you buy the pills as individual remedies you might get more per bottle (100 instead of 35) but the cost per pill is 15 cents.

Based on the figures given for the Home Kit there are about 17,500 pillules per kilogram, but it would be unfair to compare the selling price of these pills ($2,625 per kilogram) with the price of sugar at the local supermarket (90 cents/kilogram at Coles today) because after all these are manufactured pillules.

I decided to do a better comparison, so I have ordered some white hundreds and thousands. The place I got them from is an organic supplier (which increases the price) and I paid retail price (unlike your average homeopath who can get them wholesale). A 350 gram packet cost $8.95, or $25.60 per kilogram.

Let's look at those figures again.

• 90 cents per kilogram for sugar from the supermarket (claims made – will sweeten your coffee or breakfast cereal),
• $25.60 per kilogram for "organic" hundreds and thousands in very nice retail packages (claims made – will make cakes look pretty and keep the kids happy), and
• $2,650.00 per kilogram for hundreds and thousands in little bottles with labels (claims made – treat almost all known diseases or physical afflictions of humans).

Homeopathy is more than just medical fraud, it is financial fraud as well. It is theft, and the people selling it know exactly what they are doing. How they must laugh as they put those teaspoonsful of sweets into little bottles and post them out at a markup of about 10,000% over raw material costs. And these crooks have the gall to whine about the profits of pharmaceutical companies.

Can it get more vile than this? (12/3/2011)
Anybody in the world with a television must have been appalled at the scenes from Japan following the earthquake and tsunami. What is also appalling is the reaction from people who exploit tragedies like this. We have come to expect lunatics like Fred Phelps at the Westboro Baptist Church to come out with insane rants. In this case there have been the mildly mad who have suggested that the earthquake might in some way be related to the fact that the moon will be at its closest point to the Earth next week. I'm firmly in the "climate change is happening" camp, but I cringe at statements attempting to link earthquakes to global warming. People calling this an "act of God" and calling for prayer (the fastest-trending item on Twitter following the earthquake was #prayforjapan) miss the point that if God did this he is very evil and praying to the source of the trouble for assistance and relief seems incoherent. The idiots who have been besieging Facebook with claims that the tsunami is payback for Pearl Harbor are mad but probably harmless. The anti-nuclear contingent are out in force with scaremongering about possible damage to Japan's nuclear power reactors. (At the time of writing one of the stations seems to be in serious trouble, but the neither the nature not the extent of the problem is yet known.) I liked the comment that Japan was foolish to build nuclear reactors in seismically-active areas, although the commenter failed to go on to say where else there is in Japan.

The prize for blatant self-promotion and cynicism, however, goes to Australian homeopath Fran Sheffield, for this email sent to her subscribers.

Here's a fact. There are no "protective steps that can be taken with homeopathy". To say otherwise is not to be mistaken, not to be deluded, it is to lie. And as for treating radiation exposure with 30C x-rays, the only kind of person who would suggest that is either insane or admitting to being a complete fraud. (If you want an example of the insane sort, see how homeopathic Saturn can help with overcoming disasters. I am surprised that Ms Sheffield didn't suggest that for Japanese residents who aren't close to reactors.)

Homeopathy is rubbish, but while it is being used to treat only the walking suggestible it is relatively harmless. When homeopaths start talking about treating serious things like radiation exposure it is time to get out the pitchforks and flaming torches and tell these charlatans to shut up. It has gone beyond a joke and is now deliberately endangering people's lives.

Brave homeopath (19/3/2011)
I've had a bit to say in the past about homeopath Fran Sheffield and her business for extracting money from the gullible, Homeopathy Plus!. She ticks all the boxes – anti-vaccination, homeopath, overcharging for nothing worthwhile, ignoring regulatory authorities, ludicrous claims, ... Apparently she is now so ashamed of what she says and does that she has blocked me from following her on Twitter. (I think I was the first person to be blocked from her Facebook page, and all I did was post a link to the page about her here.)

I have sent the following Kind and Gentle email to Ms Sheffield:

Dear Ms Sheffield,

I notice that I have been blocked from following you on Twitter, and I also appear to be banned from posting anything to your Facebook page. I can understand why someone doing what you do would be a little sensitive about criticism, but surely if you are right and homeopathy can do all the things you say it can do then any criticism from me would make no difference.

You are free to read my web site at any time you like and if you send me comments I will publish them. You are free to join any public mailing list that I manage and post whatever you like to the list and you will not be moderated in any way (unless your messages expose me or anyone else to legal action). You have my permission to follow me on Twitter. You can be a fan or member of any Facebook page or group (or any other online forum) of which I am an administrator and any comments you post there will be left untouched (again unless they expose me or anyone else to legal action).

I have nothing to hide and I am not ashamed of what I say or do. It appears that you can say neither. Prove me wrong.

That stupid woman again (26/3/2011)
It seems that a weeks can't go by without more idiocy from Fran Sheffield, the homeopath who won the 2010 Anus Maximus Award. Her latest is some advice she gave to someone asking for help with inflamed tonsils. Here it is as presented in her email answers system.

As I don't suffer from lack of confidence and under-developed genitals this probably won't be prescribed for me if I go to a homeopath because I have a sore throat. That's probably just as well, because I have read some MSDS sheets for barium carbonate and I don't think I want to ingest any. Of course, at a 6C concentration, or 1:1,000,000,000,000, I probably wouldn't be getting any anyway but I would be paying for it. An interesting aside is that alternuts are always telling us that aspartame is rat poison, but guess what one of the uses of "Bar-c" is? It's also used in the glazing of bricks, but it's not recommended for glazing food utensils because a homeopathic dose might leach out into food and harm someone.

Here's a longer answer to the question, from the Homeopathy Plus! web site. Obviously the person asking the question above didn't deserve all the "facts":

I wouldn't care if this ridiculous nonsense was confined to consenting adults in private and prohibited from being taken anywhere near anybody who might be sick, but this stuff is given credibility by being taught in universities, sold in pharmacies and treated with respect as if it has something to offer the world. Not only is homeopathy scientifically ridiculous but it is logically incoherent. The rubbish above simply doesn't make any sense to anybody who can think clearly. As homeopaths are not stupid people one must assume that they can recognise the vapidity of what is said and therefore only continue to practice because they value money over common sense. And over the health concerns of the people they deceive by selling this stuff.

Here are some facts:

• Ceramic glaze is not a useful treatment for throat infections, no matter how far it is diluted
• If you dilute it more it will not be a more powerful agent
• It will not make children develop faster
• It will not reduce anxiety
• It will not affect infection of tonsils or any other part of the body
• As it is supplied in a form where no barium carbonate is present, only water, the patient is not getting what they pay for
• Homeopaths know all these things and are therefore committing fraud
• Continual throat infections can be a sign of serious illnesses, some of them life-threatening. As an example rheumatic fever from strep throat is not a trivial matter and can cause permanent damage if not treated.
• Homeopaths know this as well, so they either don't care that what they do can be dangerous or they are themselves so deluded that they can't distinguish reality from fantasy.

I am sick of seeing homeopaths treated with any respect at all. They have nothing to offer the world and should be exposed and ridiculed at every opportunity.

Look who's in trouble again (30/6/2012)
I don't know how I missed this back in May, but our old friend Fran Sheffield from Homeopathy Plus! attracted the attention of the authorities again. The real pity is that nobody can shut this quack down completely. You can read the media release from the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission here.

Congratulations (1/12/2012)
I thought it would be nice to send Fran Sheffield a Kind and Gentle email informing her of the great honour that has been bestowed on her.

Dear Fran,

I don't know if you've heard yet, but you have been awarded the 2012 Bent Spoon Award from Australian Skeptics. The announcement was made at a gala dinner held as part of the Skeptics' National Convention in Melbourne.

The Bent Spoon was inspired by James Randi's debunking of people who perform stage magic while pretending to have real magic powers, and it seems so appropriate that it should go to someone who makes a living doing magic tricks while pretending that there is some real, tangible power there. The description of the award says that it is presented to "the perpetrator of the most preposterous piece of paranormal or pseudoscientific piffle" and it difficult to imagine anything more preposterous or pseudoscientific than homeopathy.

There was strong competition, but you came out on top. Or maybe on the bottom.

Congratulations.

Fran's day in court (20/12/2014)
One of the things I had hoped to report on this week was the outcome of a court case between the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and Homeopathy Plus!, the quack outfit run by homeopath Fran Sheffield, but all the courts in Sydney were closed for 2 days during the week because someone was holding hostages in a cafe in Martin Place so the judgment has been delayed until Monday, December 22nd. I intend to attend court to hear the judgment handed down so there might be a celebratory but short update to the site during the coming week. Watch this space.

Homeopathy Plus! bucketed in court (24/12/2014)
On Monday, December 22nd, Justice Perry of the Federal Court of Australia handed down her decision in the matter of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission vs Homeopathy Plus! and Fran Sheffield. I was there to hear and cheer at the result, and I hope to be there on February 4th when the penalties are announced. As the Court has the power to apply penalties of more than a million dollars to corporations I imagine Fran Sheffield will be very busy selling hundreds and thousands sweets for 15 cents each over the next month to pay the fine and her legal bills. And the ACCC's costs too, of course. Here is the shortened form of the judgment.

The full judgment is more than 100 pages long, so I'll just say that you can read it here.

Here is the ACCC's media release:

Now let's get the ACCC going after the rest of the quackery industry.

But that's not all (14/3/2015)
One thing that did happen during February was an appearance in court for Fran Sheffield and Homeopathy Plus!. I was there on February 4 to hear the good news about how much the loss was going to cost the homeopath (a fine plus the other side's court costs) but in the normal manner of these things it was all put off until later. Both sides have to submit more information to the Court and the next scheduled appearance is April 22. You can see the order by clicking on the image.

I mentioned that the losers (Sheffield and Homeopathy Plus!) might be ordered to pay the costs of the other side. At the February 4 hearing the solicitors acting for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission turned up with about six trolley loads of documents. Leaving aside the hourly gouge by lawyers, just the photocopying bill at some dollars per page could break most people. I hope to be there on April 22, wearing my "Mr Schadenfreude" t-shirt for the denouement. (And a note for trivia collectors – the previous sentence contains two words borrowed by English from foreign languages to express things that would take much more than one word if expressed in English.)

And the good news just keeps on coming (17/10/2015)
On Tuesday, October 13, I had the great pleasure of sitting in Courtroom 22A and hearing Federal Court Judge Perry hand down judgment on homeopath Fran Sheffield and her Homeopathy Plus business. Ms Sheffield had attracted the ire of the authorities by claiming that homeopathy could be used as an effective substitute for pertussis vaccination.

Ms Sheffield was told that she can't make any claims about homeopathy and pertussis for five years, but here are the best parts of the judgment (the First Respondent is Homeopathy Plus as a corporation, the Second Respondent is Ms Sheffield personally, the Applicant is the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission):

$138,000 in penalties, plus the ACCC's costs. The ACCC were employing one of the country's most expensive law firms and at one of the hearings they turned up with six of those wheelbarrows that lawyers use, each packed to the top with full three-ring binders. The photocopying charges by themselves could exceed the two court-ordered penalties. Ms Sheffield will have to sell a lot of bottles of water and very many hundreds-and-thousands cake decorations (at 15 cents each!) to pay these bills. You can read the full judgment here.

The ACCC issued a media release which summed up the matter quite well.

And was Ms Sheffield daunted by all this? Did hefty financial penalties for lying about homeopathy cause her to change her ways? Don't be silly. Stop asking such meaningless questions. Here is her newsletter, two days after the court stamped all over her and her business:

Fran finds the final fix (9/5/2020)
Another of our old friends here, Fran Sheffield, has the answer to all our coronavirus questions. It is homeopathy, of course.

You will notice the advertisements for very expensive water and lactose pills. One of the first things taught in homeopathy school is to never let a chance to steal make money go by. You can read the full horror story here.

I wonder if Fran has paid the money she was ordered to pay when she lost a court case a few years ago. I suspect not, but I don't want to be too defamatory.