#434: Julianne Adams & Pierre Fontaine

Julianne Adams is an antivaccinationist and homeopath, and a dear guest at the annual quackfest AutismOne, where autism quacks, frauds and crackpots gather to have an energizing injection of illusion, insanity and Big Pharma-related paranoia. Her contribution at the 2011 meeting concerned something termed HHM: “As an unlayering process that is a quantum leap beyond the more common forms of homeopathy, the HHM is totally unique application. Based upon the vaccine-injury/biomedical/gut-brain model of autism, HHM offers a comprehensive approach to healing focused on each child's unique history, challenges and needs. Presented are homeopathy basics, details regarding the HHM, and case studies demonstrating healing and recovery.” In short, Julianne Adams is the bringer of friendly magic wrapped in sciencey gobbledygook, but without anything that could remotely be called evidence. She even cites William Tiller.

“Case studies” in this situation means anecdotes, and “case studies demonstrating” reveals a pretty severe lack of understanding of what a case study is and how evidence works.

Pierre Fontaine is related to Adams by being another homeopath at the AutismOne 2011 edition, where he gave a presentation titled “Reversing Autism with Classical Homeopathy: A Real Possibility.” What “real possibility” is supposed to mean is open, but at least it doesn’t mean “likely to happen”. Fontaine appears to be a figure of some prominence among homeopaths, in particular for his miserable efforts to cure children of autism through homeopathy.

Diagnosis: Best illustrated by Dara O’Briain’s discussion of homeopathy here.