The attempt of a group of 22 Valencian homeopaths to defend themselves against texts that they considered injurious has caused the opposite effect and a magistrate has not only taken away their reason by denying with their judgment what they considered slander, it has also dismantled the activity that They perform considering homeopathy as pseudoscience, with the warning that it can be dangerous to people's health.

This group of homeopaths appreciated that they had attempted against their honor by the president of the Valencian Society of Family and Community Medicine, Aurelio Duque, and the member of the Association to Protect the Sick from Pseudoscientific Therapies (APETP), Fernando Cervera Rodríguez. The indignation of homeopaths ended with a complaint , between individuals, against Duke and Cervera.

However, the head of the Court of Instruction No. 17 of Valencia has turned the case around and the accusers have taken the worst part - seeing their 'scientific' arguments lying down - and the defendants have been exonerated of all responsibility.

In its legal reasoning, the judge describes that the Royal Academy of Pharmacy "came to ensure that not only did it not work, but that homeopathy can put health at risk ."

Together with this resounding statement, in its arguments to dismantle this activity, the sentence is based on “the line in which the Government works, together with the joint offensive of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Science and that of Universities, where it has passed from being a healing system to a simple 'practice' ».

they are not medications

It even makes a call to the possible consequences of the use of pseudosciences, because the authorities have removed them from the catalog of officially registered drugs . In fact, the ruling warns that "homeopathic products have been" leaving the list of medicines and all this within the plan for the protection of health against pseudotherapy and that the Government presented in its day. "

The legal text also cites the concept given by the Royal Academy of Language (RAE) on homeopathy to equate it with other activities that are outside the medical and surgical field . According to the judge, "the SAR has introduced modifications in the terms of acupuncture, osteopathy and complementary medicine."

It also describes that the term homeopathy "which has been considered 'a curative system' for 167 years , at least in the Spanish language, has undergone a change and modification in its term and that the SAR collects, with the tagline being withdrawn" in man »In 2014, and eliminating curative property after a process that began in 2017 in the Scientific and Technical Vocabulary Commission», continues the magistrate.

Curiously, the group of 22 homeopaths, who initiated the legal proceedings, confirmed feeling insulted by the comments in Duque and Cervera's media.

At the time of his statement in court, Duque said he was not "against people, but against practices without scientific evidence and in the same vein as the Ministry of Health and the Medical College at the state level regarding the pseudotherapies and in order that, by the Ministry, these pseudosciences and pseudo-therapies are regulated and evaluated correctly , requiring regulatory, control and supervision actions, in order to avoid scamming vulnerable people with serious diseases and this before the growing deceptive advertising ».

For its part, Cervera commented on the same line as Duque in different interviews and news in which he warned of a dangerous nature of such practices with pseudotherapies, as stated in the aforementioned sentence.

freedom of expression

However, the judicial decision considers that the statements, data and information offered in the newspaper articles, interviews and other related documents in the complaint and whose authorship corresponds to both defendants, “ obey the exercise of freedom of expression and information that protects our Constitution , not being considered excessive or exorbitant or using expressions that can undoubtedly be classified as offensive or outrageous or that can be conceptualized as impertinent to disseminate facts and data that enjoy a public notoriety for their medical and social significance.

And it is reiterated that neither Aurelio Duque nor Fernando Cervera used in their appointments against homeopathy and their practices «insulting or oprobious expressions with the sole purpose of vilifying and outraging the honor of the complainants, but only to inform not only of the opinion public issues of medical and social nature of relevance to society because they are matters of general interest, and that affect the health of citizens and for the sake of freedom of expression and constitutionally protected information ».

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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  • Valencian Community
  • Valencia
  • Homeopathy

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