This one's a right shocker. A homeopathic doctor in Arizona has been suspended after a patient died during a botched liposuction operation.

Certain questions arise. Firstly, why is a homeopath performing cosmetic surgery? I would have thought they would have treated obesity by taking a fat solution, diluting it to the n'th degree and then putting it in a tincture. Secondly, and rather more significantly, why is a homeopath being allowed to perform cosmetic surgery?

It gets weirder. The aforementioned homeopath, a Doctor Greg Page (Doctor? Of what? Dilution?), was assisted by his colleague Dr. Peter J. Normann. Normann's right to perform operations had been 'restricted by the state' in May after two other liposuction patients died of cardiac arrest on his operating table. To quote from the article, when Page was asked about this in the inquiry, he "told the board he believed Normann had been banned from performing liposuction using conscious sedation, but not all liposuctions."

Conscious sedation? He kept patients awake during liposuction? He loses one to a heart attack, then decides to carry on and kills another one?

To summarise, then, this guy loses two patients due to his quack theories, then he's told he can't do them any more, then he gets in a homeopath to help him with surgery, and loses another one. Neither of them face any criminal charges, they are just suspended.

And who carried out this inquiry? The Arizona Board of Homeopathic Medical Examiners. Let's quote again.

Under state law, homeopaths may do "minor surgery," and Dr. Bruce Shelton, president of the Arizona Homeopathic and Integrative Medical Association and former president of the Homeopathic Board, said whether liposuction can be considered minor surgery "is a huge gray area".

A gray area? Perhaps after this it might be seen as a little more black and white.

And what do the real doctors say?

Roger Downey, spokesman for the Arizona Medical Board, said one of the issues with the third fatality is that Normann allowed an unlicensed medical doctor to perform a procedure that only a licensed doctor may perform.

Well, duh-uh.

And while we're at it, phone mast allergies are in your mind. So go and do something about global warming or something, and leave the rest of us to text each other in peace.

For more evidence of why proper grown up science is better than Bozo the homepathic clown, here is a video with pretty pictures in. See what I mean?