Leading sCAMmer is BNP member

[Thing]

A little while back the Guardian (UK) ran an expos\'{e} on the British National Party, an extreme right wing political organisation, successors to the infamous National Front, and mentioned some of its new members.

Then there is Peter Bradbury, a leading practitioner of complementary medicine and board member of the General Naturopathic Council, which works in partnership with a charity established by Prince Charles. He explains that he first joined the party many years ago, and was a friend of its late founder, John Tyndall.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/farright/story/0,,1976613,00.html

 

[Mojo]

Interesting (I missed the story when it was in the paper), but something of an ad hom I suppose.

 

[Zep]

Yes, an ad hom, but a nice ad hom.

 

[tkingdoll]

It's not an ad hom, politics are very important when discussing CAM because each party has a very definite policy - what we need to know is what the BNPs stance on CAM is and what their policies would be should they come to power. His CAM stuff could influence the party and therefore the country.

If he was a Tory, it would be relevant, because we know how pro-CAM the Tories are and what that would mean for the NHS and the health of the nation should they (shudder) come to power.

 

[brodski]

It's not an ad hom, politics are very important when discussing CAM because each party has a very definite policy - what we need to know is what the BNPs stance on CAM is and what their policies would be should they come to power. His CAM stuff could influence the party and therefore the country.

If he was a Tory, it would be relevant, because we know how pro-CAM the Tories are and what that would mean for the NHS and the health of the nation should they (shudder) come to power.

If the BNP ever came to power I think we would all have a hell of a lot more to worry about than theirs stance on magic crystals and homeopathy!

As a historical side note there is a long tradition of the far right pushing sCAM, homeopathy and Bach remedies where heavily promoted by the Nazi regime, partly due to these being seen as traditional German treatments, "unsullied" by any "Jewish influence" on medicine, and partly because during WWII, and particular in the latter part of WWII the Germans found it hard to get hold of real drugs, and the one thing which can be said for homeopathy is that the remedies are cheep to make and require few scarce raw materials.

 

[tkingdoll]

If the BNP ever came to power I think we would all have a hell of a lot more to worry about than theirs stance on magic crystals and homeopathy!

As a historical side note there is a long tradition of the far right pushing sCAM, homeopathy and Bach remedies where heavily promoted by the Nazi regime, partly due to these being seen as traditional German treatments, "unsullied" by any "Jewish influence" on medicine, and partly because during WWII, and particular in the latter part of WWII the Germans found it hard to get hold of real drugs, and the one thing which can be said for homeopathy is that the remedies are cheep to make and require few scarce raw materials.

I'd have a fair amount to worry about myself, being one of those eeeevil ethnic minorities wot they're so scared of. But the point stands, it's not an ad hom if it's relevant, and if you look at the influence Prince Charles and CAM bodies have on the present government, I think it's perfectly fair to expose this guy's political interests.

 

[sophia8]

It's not an ad hom, politics are very important when discussing CAM because each party has a very definite policy - what we need to know is what the BNPs stance on CAM is and what their policies would be should they come to power.

A quick perusal of the health articles on the BNP's website shows them to have fallen for the whole "mercury/floride is bad, chelation is good" sCAM rubbish.
The BNP also espouse a lot of "Green" policies - they're for organic farming, against GM crops etc. (they have a wonderfully Dickensian vision of what the countryside should be - all happy apple-cheeked peasants doffing their caps to the squire as he leads the local hunt.) So although they don't seem to have an official policy on it, there are probably a lot of sCAM fans there.

 

[TsarBomba]

Politician? Involved in (allegedly, after all I don't want to get sued under Britain's draconian libel laws): lying, cheating, stealing, telling people what they want to hear, preying on gullibility? No! Say it ain't so!

 

[brodski]

Politician? Involved in (allegedly, after all I don't want to get sued under Britain's draconian libel laws): lying, cheating, stealing, telling people what they want to hear, preying on gullibility? No! Say it ain't so!

Yes, but that's not what this thread is about, it's about an influential woo falling for Nazi politics, rather than a politician falling for woo.

 

[Thing]

Interesting (I missed the story when it was in the paper), but something of an ad hom I suppose.

Not so. If I claimed that it implied that all alternative therapists were fascists, or, indeed, that all fascists were alternative therapists then that would have been an ad hom. But I did no such thing. On the other hand, should anyone ever try claiming that all alternative therapists are progressive liberal types then this counterexample will contradict such a putative claim.