Dr. Richard Hiltner is a really nice guy. He's in his 60s (but seems younger, in that way Californians often do) and has a very West Coast way of making everything sound super positive all the time, up to and including the fact that, a few weeks ago, he and three other practitioners flew to Liberia to try to treat Ebola patients using homeopathy.

Hiltner says, "We landed in Monrovia on the 17th of October, then had to spend three days training to use the PPEs—the personal protective equipment, those big suits you see everyone wearing—before heading up to the hospital in Ganta."

It was only when they got to Ganta, a province hit hard by the Ebola epidemic, that problems arose. The team suited up, broke out their homeopathic treatments, and tried to get to work on some patients. At which point the medical staff and administrators at the Ganta Hospital realized what it was they were attempting, before completely banning them from the ETU (Ebola Treatment Unit).

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While the expedition itself may come off as merely chaotic, there's also a slightly sketchier side to the story.

The mission was organized through two organizations: the Liga Medicorum Homeopathica Internationalis, a key institution for homeopathy advocacy, and the German group Freundes Liberias, an organization dedicated to promoting co-operation between Germany and Liberia. Freundes Liberias raised donations for the trip with ​this campaign. The page talks about a "team of 20 international doctors," but makes no mention of the fact that they will be operating only as homeopaths. This squares with the fact that the Liberian medical authorities backed the trip when they thought it was a "team of doctors," and were then shocked to learn about the homeopathy....(more@link)