This has been a tough week for proponents of alternative medicine.

First, the Science and Technology Select Committee announced its verdict on homeopathy. After interviewing scientists, doctors and homeopaths, the Select Committee concluded that homeopathy is "unethical" and performs "no better than placebos". It also called for the NHS to stop funding homeopathy and criticised the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, which in their own words is "the government agency which is responsible for ensuring that medicines and medical devices work, and are acceptably safe.") for allowing homeopathic remedies to make health claims despite the fact there is no reliable evidence to back up the claims.

Next, science writer Simon Singh had a good day in court, defending himself in a libel case brought about by the British Chiropractic Association. If you've not heard of this case, Simon Singh wrote an article for the Guardian's Comment is Free section about how there is no reliable evidence to back up the claims of chiropractors who say they can cure children of conditions such as colic, ear infection and asthma. (For a lawyer's take on the day in court, please read Jack of Kent's blog post. Of course, there is a chance that Simon will lose his case on technicalities, but the case has shone a bright light on the claims of some chiropractors and, hopefully, made people more aware that chiropractic is not a conventional medical treatment.

There are a lot of snake oil salesmen who pray on the very natural worries and fears of parents who only want the best for their children. Though I've tried a homeopathic remedy myself in the past (Loratadine was no longer working for me, so I tried Superdrug's own brand homeopathic hayfever treatment, which was on the shelf next to my normal medicine. Didn't work. I now use Acrivastine. It works.), I have never been tempted to eschew conventional medical advice for my children. I wish more people would trust conventional medicine.

When getting my son his first round of vaccinations, I asked my GP what percentage of her patients refuse to get their children vaccinated. She told me around 30%. I live in Wandsworth, which, not co-incidentally, has the highest rates of measles in the UK. The reason for this is because of the discredited paper by Andrew Wakefield that claimed the MMR vaccine causes autism. Though there were many studies done after Wakefield's that showed there was absolutely no link between the MMR and autism, some parents, worried about the health and safety of their children, chose to ignore conventional medical advice and not have their children vaccinated "just in case". Many of those parents turn to alternative "medicine" instead.

Some people may claim that as homeopathy is merely sugar water and works purely as a placebo, there is nothing wrong in people using it. They say that some people will get better and the rest, at least, won't be harmed. Those people clearly never heard of baby Gloria.

Gloria's father, Thomas Sam, is a lecturer in homeopathy in Sydney. Gloria was diagnosed with severe eczema at four months old. Thomas Sam and his wife Manju, never went to a conventional doctor nor did they contact a skin specialist. Instead, they stuck to homeopaths and natural medicine practitioners.

Gloria's skin became broken and weeped fluids. Her skin sometimes tore when her parents changed her nappy. Still they stuck to homeopathy. Having such a weak immune system, she was overwhelmed with infections. She became malnourished, though her parents fed her properly, because her body was using every available nutrient to fight the infections. At one point her black hair turned white.

When she was nine months old, her parents finally admitted her to a hospital. Doctors told Gloria's parents she was severely ill. They gave her morphine for the unbearable pain she was suffering from and started to treat an eye infection that had got so bad her corneas had started to melt.

Gloria died three days later.

Homeopathy is not harmless.