Letter sent to Mr Winterton on 16 March 2010

Sadly  Mr Winterton has signed David Tredinnick's silly motion on homeopathy and the report of the Science and Technology Committee's report, EDM 908, and has thus joined what is being referred to as the "Stupid List".
This is the email I sent to him today. I'll update with any responses.





Dear Mr Winterton,

 Recently we were very lucky that the Science & Technology Committee investigated the use of Homeopathy in the UK. It was a balanced and well deliberated investigation. 

The MP David Tredinnick has asked MPs to sign EDM 908.
This is an attempt to subvert a remarkably well researched piece of evidence.
The fact that it was raised by an advocate of astrology should raise sufficient doubts about the motives behind a blatant attempt to undermine a parliamentary investigation into mumbo-jumbo and quackery.
You may be interested to know that many bloggers and famous commentators are keeping an eye on what they call the Stupid List (EDM 908). Frankly, having our paid representatives championing quackery does us no good service.
To suggest that public money should be spent on quack treatments that  do not work and  have been proved to be no more effective than placebo (in other words giving no real medicine at all!) when we  see that the health service is having to restrict the use of real drugs with proven benefits for, say, cancer patients is appalling.
If we allow uninformed or misguided opinion or just sheer ignorance or prejudice to rule the health service in this country then we will be in trouble. It is science that is needed not non science.

I note that you have signed this motion and hope that you will reconsider this and remove your name; I am sure that, now you have been alerted to the real facts, you will reconsider your position.

A full and balanced commentary on this misguided motion can be found here:
http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2010/03/mp-david-tredinnick-is-wrong-about-the-homeopathy-report.html

I f you would like more information on this subject to help you represent your constituents better, then I will be happy to help.

Yours sincerely




Update. 20.15 on 16 March. No acknowledgement yet.


Update: 19.20 on the 17th of March. No acknowledgement yet. 


24th March. Still no reply,not even the courtesy of an acknowledgement.  


Well, here we are. 31 March and still no reply. One really has to start to doubt the  commitment of Mr Winterton to serving his constituents; you know, the ones who pay for his rail fares.
And the Macclesfield Conservative  Association don't seem much better. An email (via their site's "contact us" thing) about this matter still has had no  reply.

However, interesting news: the "Stupid List", of which Mr Winterton is a member, seems to be getting more publicity.

The esteemed Mr Colquhoun has commented here 

And SpiderComment makes it to Wikipedia  here


The sooner this man goes, the better, although the Macclesfield Conservatives seem to want to uphold his less than proud  tradition.