FYI-Homeopathic Advances (Politics DO Make Strange Bedfellows)

[Howard A Asinoff]

Albuquerque, NM: Bonds for remedies firm draw ire
By Dan Mayfield
Tribune Reporter
It's all about jobs - but should it be?
Harry Murphy wants to know.
Now that the Bernalillo County Commission has approved industrial revenue
bonds for Heel Inc., an Albuquerque homeopathic medicine producer, he's
asking the question.
"Homeopathy is one of the craziest alternative medicines in existence,
and I was floored when the commission decided to support this," said
Murphy, a 72-year-old retired physicist.
"They could've supported a brothel and had a more honest product."
The Bernalillo County commissioners who approved the bond issue disagree,
arguing Heel is a clean, long-established Albuquerque company that
employs 78 people and produces several products that sell well.
. . . Heel has sponsored many studies - and others exist - that it says
prove homeopathy works. Even the orthodox medical community has
supporters of some homeopathic compounds.
"I don't understand homeopathy, but I feel it works," said Dr. Steve
Komadina, a medical doctor and New Mexico state senator from the
Corrales.
Komadina said he has prescribed Heel's anti-nausea medicine for women who
are nauseous early in pregnancy "with great results."
"If somebody was doing something that was illegal, or contrary to the
law, it wouldn't be operating," Cummins said. "That next step is saying,
`Are we going to pass judgment on their product?'"
"They're all legitimate. They're all licensed," Cummins said. "What right
do we have to judge their product?"
full story at
http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/news03/ ... heel.shtml

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