Royal Homeopathy

If you are a devotee of fish oil, believing it will enhance your health or if you take daily glucosomine for your joints, you are in good company. Prince Charles thinks they work but science says you are wasting your money.

I took fish oil for years until my doctor told me 12 months ago I was wasting my money.  So I stopped and guess what happened? Absolutely nothing but for some reason, I still persist with the glucosamine and most people I know do too.

In 1982, Prince Charles was appointed President of the British Medical Association, even though he was a strong believer in alternative medicine.

In his inaugural speech to the medicos, he said faith healers had been using alternative medicine successfully for centuries and suggested the British health system should be overhauled.  Later he went even further and said he would like to see homeopathy introduced into the National Health Service.

We can only imagine what the doctors thought about this, but rather than laugh in his face, they organised an enquiry into the efficacy of alternative medicine and the conclusion drawn was that these remedies were "unscientific" and that "Homeopathy is witchcraft."

Next month the Prince is going to the US to speak about links between health and the natural environment.  Hopefully, he won't make the same mistake again.

Prince Charles was accused of gagging one of Britain's leading critics of alternative medicine.  Professor Edzard Ernst said he was treated "like shit" by the University of Exeter after a complaint from the office of Prince Charles.  "Prince Charles' attempt to silence me has been successful" Ernst wrote, who described the Royal's medical views as "quackery."

Ernst would ultimately take early retirement and his department closed down in 2011.

 Dutchy Originals currently available today

The Prince believed so strongly in alternative therapies that he marketed his own.  His Dutchy Originals company was criticized for making misleading claims and was forced to pull advertising in 2009 because there was no evidence the remedies had any effect.

But it's not all bad news.  Twenty one years ago, a biscuit baked from the oats of the Duchy Home Farm in Tetbury made its debut. Today that biscuit is part of a wide range of organic products from the Duchy Originals brand that has over the past two decades raised 11 million pounds for charity.


Charles and Camilla will visit Washington next month to receive an award for his conservation activism, a much more worthy pursuit in my opinion.  

The couple will also visit Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington, the first US Preident who overthrew British rule as commander of the American Army during the War of Independence.