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Robert Verkerk, chief executive of the Alliance of Natural Health, said: "You can't apply (to homoeopathy) the existing interpretation of evidence-based medicine, which says RCTs (randomised controlled trials) are the only evidence ... As soon as you put someone into a trial situation, you destroy many of the effects that exist between patient and practitioner" ("Homoeopaths label scientists the 'new fundamentalists'", 26 June).

What better description of the placebo effect could one wish to find?

Martin Luck

Associate professor of animal physiology, University of Nottingham.