The "portmanteau" - combining two words to make a new one - was not invented by Lewis Carroll in 1871, it had been used half a century earlier when Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry created a serpentine political district and gave rise to the term "gerrymandering", but it certainly took off after being used to such good effect in "Through The Looking Glass" and we soon came to have Eurasia, Microsoft and even Brangelina.
But the most important portmanteau of all - brunch - may have been surpassed by Dr. Josh Bloom, Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the American Council on Science and Health, who has combined "homeopath" and "psychopath" to become "homeopsychopath", all for the benefit of Heather Boon, who has somehow become Dean of University of Toronto Leslie Dan School of Pharmacy despite the fact that she seems to hate science and medicine and instead wants to embrace the complex intervention of homeopathic practice" - essentially magic water - for kids with ADHD.
You may argue that some instances of ADHD are misdiagnosed and so drinking water is better than giving them an unnecessary drug, but if we can assume Boom is wrong and all ADHD diagnoses are not a Big Pharma Conspiracy then handing them a placebo will not really be an evidence-based solution to the problem.
Boon is not only unwilling to commit to science, she is unwilling to commit to being anti-science, noting that participants "are not required to stop taking their conventional medications", which means that homeopathy is not harming or hurting anyone - because it does nothing.
So why spend money on it, much less spend taxpayer money on studies to prove that water is not medicine? If you can answer that, please apply to become a dean at the University of Toronto
