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Author Topic: Britain in uproar: Hompeopaths dilute themselves  (Read 5056 times)

Thymian

  • Jr. Member
  • *
  • Posts: 2135
Britain in uproar: Hompeopaths dilute themselves
« on: March 21, 2012, 02:10:23 AM »

Part 1: The Article

The article is short. It is hamless. It is by no means in any way really debunking the homeopaths and their craze homeopathy.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/alternativemedicine/9151606/Homeopathy-biologically-implausible.html#dsq-comments

[*quote*]
Health»
Alternative Medicine

Homeopathy 'biologically implausible'

Homeopathic treatments funded by the NHS are "biologically implausible" and risk damaging patients' health by discouraging them from getting proper treatment, a leading researcher has claimed.

By  Nick Collins, Science Correspondent

7:30AM GMT 19 Mar 2012

191 Comments

Edzard Ernst, Professor of Complementary Medicine at Exeter University, said homeopathic remedies had not been proven to work in clinical trials.

People who still maintain the treatments are effective are "ignoring or misrepresenting the best evidence available", he added.

Homeopathy could even be dangerous because it is sometimes used instead of scientifically proven medical procedures such as immunisations, he added.

Prof Ernst, a former homeopathist, is an outspoken critic of unproven treatments provided on the NHS. He once labelled the Prince of Wales a "snake-oil salesman" because of his support for “unproven and disproved” medicine.

The NHS spends about £4 million a year on homeopathy, which is based on the theory that patients can be cured through exposure to a diluted form of the substance that caused their symptoms.

Related Articles
NHS spending on homeopathy prescriptions falls to £122,000 30 Aug 2011
Who we gonna call? Quackbuster! 22 Aug 2011

Writing in The Biologist magazine Prof Ernst, now a professor of complementary medicine, said this belief "Is in contrast with the laws of physics, chemistry and pharmacology. Homeopathy is thus biologically implausible.”

He said: “Homeopathy could be (and often is) used as an alternative to effective interventions. For example, the advice from homeopaths not to immunise has become a major cause of low vaccination rates."

The strategy of using homeopathy as a placebo can only work if doctors hide the truth from their patients, he added.

Homeopathists insist that the form of treatment is not suited to the design of conventional clinical trials because they do not take into account the benefit that many patients have been shown to experience in observational studies.

They say that the method of administering extremely diluted substances works by triggering the body's natural healing systems, which can lessen symptoms and lead to eventual cures.

Dr Mark Downs, Chief Executive of the Society of Biology, said: “The UK spends billions of pounds every year ensuring that the new and existing conventional medicines we take are effective, safe and fit for purpose.

"It makes no sense to allow other treatments available through public expenditure to be made available without application of the same rigorous standards. That is what is happening with homeopathic treatments. It needs to stop.”

Síle Lane of the Sense About Science campaign group added: “When a treatment like homeopathy is offered by the NHS, people will think the evidence for it has undergone the same level of scrutiny as conventional medicine.

"It misleads people into thinking there is something in it when there isn’t.”

[*/quote*]


Let's go into details. First, we have two statements concerning an important key method of esoteric crime: imposture.

[*quote*]
“When a treatment like homeopathy is offered by the NHS, people will think the evidence for it has undergone the same level of scrutiny as conventional medicine.
"It misleads people into thinking there is something in it when there isn’t.”

[*/quote*]

[*quote*]
The NHS spends about £4 million a year on homeopathy, which is based on the theory that patients can be cured through exposure to a diluted form of the substance that caused their symptoms.
[*/quote*]

£4 million pounds is not a breathtaking sum. It is a minute affair. It is negligible. People might think that, compared with billions spent in the healthcare system, these few pennies we could spend; even more if so many people and studies say it works.

The risk is, being misled by the low figure, people might let the homeopaths get away: "Let's give them a chance. That little sum does not hurt us."

The homeopaths are very tricky. They even complain about the sum being so low because of the bad "mainstream" medicine, and, of course, the conspiracy and lobby work of "big pharma".

The low sum is used threefold: to spread conspiracy craze, and to reduce the pressure of those who look at the money, and to make people believe homeopathy is a low-cost medicine .

Homeopathy really is cheap: it only costs the lives.


Síle Lane, saying "It misleads people into thinking there is something in it when there isn’t.” , leaves out the major trick: to use the image of ministries, universities, famous persons, scientists and scientific expressions for their imposture. In Germany universities were donated paid professorships. If, in their greed and stupidity, the universities accepted these professorships (dedicated to some bullshit "science" like cow-horns and elves" ), the homeopaths always could and can thumb that, "as the university studies it, it must be science. As it is science, it must be good."

The paid professorships are a very cheap, but incredibly powerful PR. They are one of the greatest stunts the homeopaths ever used. One must not forget the studies papers, which these paid professors and their ilk produce. These papers make the way to pubmed, etc. These papers  are strong pillars of the Potemkin "Science". The more of them there are, the more they mislead the people. And, very important, these studies papers are  not in some outlandish, strange, voodoo farms, they are in the core of the academic science.


The article makes THE typical mistake concerning homeopathic potentisation: "method of administering extremely diluted substances".

Homeopathy is NOT "diluting to less than 1:billions of universes". That is only ONE END of the range. The other end is to use even raw substances. Yes, homeopaths claims 1:10, and even undiluted substances, as being homeopathic. Highly dangerous poisons like mercury compounds are given in dilutions even like D4 (= 1:10.000). That is a high dosage. And it can kill. And it not only CAN kill. It does kill. Homeopaths do know that.

Homeopathy is a deadly fraud.
« Last Edit: March 21, 2012, 03:45:06 AM by Thymian »
Logged
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--------------------------------------- * --------------------------------------- * ---------------------------------------

Thymian

  • Jr. Member
  • *
  • Posts: 2135
Re: Britain in uproar: Hompeopaths dilute themselves
« Reply #1 on: March 21, 2012, 03:56:49 AM »

Part 2: The Comments

Meet some of the brilliant minds of UK, standing against the lunatics and the PR conmen of the esoteric mafia.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/alternativemedicine/9151606/Homeopathy-biologically-implausible.html#dsq-comments


[*quote*]
92 comments

Showing 1-25 of 192 comments

zlop

Yesterday 08:32 PM

DisGusting !! -- Blog is heavily censored
I was making the connection,
Homeopathy and Heavy Metal Chem-trail Geo-engineering
Affecting the the soil and People

(Edited by author 9 hours ago)
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Guy Chapman

Yesterday 11:49 PM

You forgot Elvis. And alien abductions, those too.
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Skadhi_the_Raverner

Yesterday 06:07 PM

Of course homeopathy cannot work, th concept of making an agent stronger by *diluting* it is contrary to both scientific fact and common sense. How did this get NHS funding in the first place?
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Guy Chapman

Yesterday 11:53 PM

It got funding through special pleading. It has powerful fans (including the Royal Family, though  note they are smart enough to use conventional medicine when they are actually  ill). Homeopathy is allowed to be sold only because special rules have been written for it, which ironically would almost certainly not have happened were it not for the fact that the preparations themselves are inert. It is extremely unlikely that any product based on arsenic, belladonna or dog excrement could be legally sold if it actually contained any of these toxic materials.
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zlop

Yesterday 08:02 PM

Is there a Logical Disconnect,
Perhaps a slight amount (spice in food)  has a Positive effect ?
Vaccines can trigger Immune reactions, some Good Some Bad
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zlop

Yesterday 03:28 PM

To identify the dilute chemical treatment needed,
How do you know that a concentrated solution caused the problem ?
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Dr.Nancy Malik

Yesterday 01:34 PM

Electromagnetic Signatures to distinguish medicines
Electromagnetic properties of highly-diluted biological samples (2009)
http://www.homeopathyeurope.or...

(Edited by author 16 hours ago)
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Guy Chapman

Yesterday 04:39 PM

Montagnier's effect has a duration measured in picoseconds. Do you understand what a picosecond is? "Use by... oh, too late".

Montagnier also says his study results cannot be extended to cover the products used in homeopathy.

The only remaining question is why you are still quoting this study even though the two problems above have been pointed out to you on several occasions.
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steelclaws

Yesterday 01:49 PM

 This Montagnier study has been debunked, and I'm not about to copy/paste an entire debunk, so please read:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicin...
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lauriej1

Yesterday 10:47 AM

Studies in Hormesis prove that homeopathic remedies have biological effects (just for starters). Materials Science repeatedly proves that homeopathic remedies are not just "water". Ditto for recent experiments at the Indian Institute of Technology.
These propagandist attacks on Homeopathy use the same tired, distorted and false notions every time they're dragged out by Ernst, et al.
Read the last independent UK health technology report for a real eye-opener on how effective conventional medical therapies are -- only 11% have been verified as actually being effective. The concept of evidence-based medicine is still on the "wish list". It does not exist. Most medical associations aren't bold or arrogant enough to make the types of claims media mouthpieces are for exactly how effective these drug treatments really are.
Patients who use Homeopathy demographically are people with higher education and income levels. They tend to turn to Homeopathy when conventional medical treatments have failed them. This tempest in a teapot about poor patients being misled or delaying mainstream treatment is a far cry from reality.
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zlop

Yesterday 03:35 PM

Just the tip of the Ice Berg ??
"Iatrogenic Disease: The 3rd Most Fatal Disease in the USA"
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steelclaws

Yesterday 03:44 PM

 Ah, the Lazarou study again.

"CONCLUSION:
 Meta-analysis was invalid because of heterogeneity of the
studies. Most of these studies did not report the data needed for
incidence calculations. The methodology used was seriously flawed, and
no conclusions regarding ADR incidence rates in the hospitalized
population in the United States should be made on the basis of the
original meta-analysis."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/...
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zlop

Yesterday 04:09 PM

Good listen here 
Effects of Dormant Virus, fragmented DNA 
http://holyhormones.com/global...
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Dr.Nancy Malik

Yesterday 11:55 AM

Arndt and Schulz also experimented on yeast with Merc, cor., Iodine, Bromium and Salicylic acid and showed that in the weak doses these substances increase the multiplication of yeasts, yet strong doses kill them.Ref: A.C.Dutta, Homoeopathy in the Light of Modern Science, 4th ed., B. Jain Publishers
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zlop

Today 01:02 AM

People were experimented upon
  tumors and cancers resulted
"Merck Vaccination Dangers - YouTube"
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lauriej1

Yesterday 12:13 PM

Thanks, Nancy. This quite recent study reported in the Chinese Journal of Integrative Medicine is quite impressive:
http://www.jcimjournal.com/en/...
It's paradoxical that just as these insane attacks on Homeopathy are occurring that some of the most significant research is surfacing.
Aude Sapere!
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Guy Chapman

Yesterday 04:50 PM

It is interesting that you dismiss as "insane" views which are clearly expressed in entirely rational terms.

We have good evidence that the placebo effect exists, good evidence that observer bias exists, and good evidence that in tests where bias is eliminated, homeopathy performs as the placebo effect would predict.

Given those facts, repeatably documented in multiple independent data sets, it is absolutely sane to question why one would instead hypothesise a whole series of effects none of which have ever been objectively proven to exist, in order to support a theory of disease and cure which has never been proven to be correct. In fact it might be fair to question the sanity of those who insist on attacking as insane those who point out these simple and well established facts.
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lauriej1

Yesterday 05:54 PM

You don't have "good evidence" you have opinion and conjecture that has a bias towards the negative. Homeopathic theory has been proven over its 200 year history to be superior to allopathic theory. And in all those 200 years the principles of Homeopathy have never changed. Allopathic theories come and go and still tend to do more harm than good -- with the exception of emergency trauma care by specially trained emergency teams with specialized technology (not to be found in your GPs office).
Perhaps we should implement the system that's in place in China -- no cure, no payment. Then let's see what happens to mainstream medical industry income...  Right now the mainstream medical industry puts itself first, not patients.

(Edited by author 11 hours ago)
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Guy Chapman

Today 12:13 AM

No, I have good evidence, some of it even compiled by homeopaths.

But do tell me: what have you got that even approaches the degree of certainty that surrounds quantum physics, just one of the fields that refutes homeopathy? I looked up the Nobel prizes given for quantum physics but lost count because it seems to be most of the physics prizes in the last century.

I couldn't find any Nobel prizes for validating any element of homeopathy, perhaps you could clear that up too, starting with similia which was identified as lacking proof during Hahnemann's lifetime and as far as I can tell that has never been fixed.
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steelclaws

Yesterday 11:15 PM

 Homeopathic theory has not been proven with it's 200 years history, since anecdotes are not data. I've already dealt with the quality of homeopathic research, and it is not convincing the least. The fact remains that the more rigorously conducted the studies are, the less efficacy they show for homeopathy.

And since you believe in homeopathy, would you kindly point me to a properly documented - not anecdotal - case of a non-self-limiting condition being cured by homeopathy alone?

As for medical theories, the germ theory is as close to truth as anything in science can be.

There is also the little problem that in order for homeopathy to work, everything we know about physics, biology and chemistry would need to be wrong - and that obviously is not the case. Or you would not be using your computer.
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zlop

Yesterday 10:25 PM

"Homeopathic theory has been proven over its 200 year history" ""

"Meaning of the first incompleteness theorem ...  there are true statements expressible in its language that are unprovable"
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Guy Chapman

Today 12:14 AM

There are indeed. There are also true statements that are provable, such as: homeopathy is claptrap.
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zlop

Today 01:10 AM

What is there to it ?
Negative ions, Coffey, Beer,  Aromatherapy can cheer you up
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Dr.Nancy Malik

Yesterday 12:49 PM

thank you lauriej for reporting the chinese journal.
Hahneman's father used to call tell him 'Aude Sapare' which means 'Dare to be wise' for those not knowing

(Edited by author 17 hours ago)
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Guy Chapman

Yesterday 03:21 PM

Three things Hanhemann said:

1. A disease can be cured by the application of a substance that causes symptoms similar tot hose of the disease.

2. A remedy becomes more potent the more it is diluted.

3. 7/8 of all disease is caused by psora (itch).

Not one of these has any basis in fact. There has never been, at any time, any credible generalised proof of any one of these three founding principles of homeopathy, and the third is so self-evidently wrong that even most homeopaths now quietly ignore it.

Here's another interesting fact. The well documented claims that "homeopathy works for me" can be explained in one of two ways:

1. Disease can be cured by something that causes similar symptoms; the cure becomes stronger the more it is diluted; that  substances possess a new form of energy not observed by science; that the diluted substance leaves an energy imprint on the water or alcohol because of the special way it's shaken; that this special way of shaking uniquely causes this effect, whereas the normal agitation of water in rivers and so on does not; that this applies to all the various different versions of the special way of shaking, but not to rivers or any other form of agitation; that this energy imprint can then be transferred ot an intermediate such as a sugar pill; that it can then be transferred to the body; that it there interacts with the vital energy of the body, although this vital energy has never been observed by science and no anatomical structures exist to support its existence; that this interaction will then cure the individual, with different remedy pictures for the same illness in different individuals, and with different remedies for (say) left knee versus right knee pain, although there is no objective anatomical difference between the two.

2. All observed facts are consistent with the null hypothesis of placebo effect plus observer bias.

Obviously "Dr" Malik (who is not a medical doctor) prefers the former interpretation, despite the fact that not one single part of it can be verified by any objective test, however sensitive.

Scientists are more likely to accept the latter explanation as (a) both placebo effect and observer bias are well known and objectively verifiable phenomena and (b) this interpretation, unlike the former, is also consistent with all other knowledge. For example, if homeopathy is right then the science that underpins lasers, GPS and mobile telephony is not just wrong but spectacularly wrong.

It should be noted that if one single experiment existed which unambiguously refuted the null hypothesis, the debate would be over. In 200 years no such experiment has been proposed, and in fact no experimental validation of the fundamental "laws" of homeopathy exists.

Homeopaths say this is because their field is not amenable to scientific testing, although they willingly adopt the trappings of science in publishing studies which unfortunately uniformly show serious methodological flaws; once the flaws are controlled out we find that even homeopaths prove that the "medicines" are inert.

Meanwhile science is quite content with the more prosaic explanation which is consistent with what we know about human biology, physiology, chemistry and of course all that tiresome physics which proves that effective dilutions at homeopathic levels are impossible.

(Edited by author 14 hours ago)
[*/quote*]



[*quote*]
Showing 26-50 of 192 comments

lauriej1

Yesterday 06:21 PM

You are not going to precis the scope of Homeopathy with that kind of interpretation.
Maybe because there's no anatomical difference between either side of the body surgeons commit errors by operating on the wrong side (happens more than you think)...
Here's the deal, Guy... as convenient and profitable as it is to assume that named disease states like arthritis are exactly the same in every individual (which is the theory of conventional medicine which has never been conclusively established) Homeopathy takes the approach that individuals express symptoms in varying ways. Holistic systems of medicine, like Homeopathy and TCM, look at the symptomatology of the whole patient.
Now, if conventional medicine were so scientifically knowledgeable, precise and correct they would not only be able to cure arthritis, by knowing what caused it they would be able to prevent it. Well they can't do either. Homeopathy and TCM can not only cure arthritis but head it off at the pass. Obviously holistic medicine "knows" something the mainstream doesn't.
Any physicist will tell you that we are more energy than matter. Energy informs matter, not the other way around. The strictly anatomical/chemical interpretation of biological organisms is obviously wrong. You can measure the number and quantity of chemical elements in the simplest of organisms, let's say a worm. I defy you to mix them all in a bucket and produce one, let alone one that's alive.
If you have no life force, perhaps you're a zombie... And if Frankenscience has its way, now with genetically modified animals, maybe those apocalyptic movies are looking more prophetic by the minute.
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Guy Chapman

Today 12:17 AM

You have (as usual for homeopathy proponents) entirely missed the point.

Homeopathy requires a long chain of suppositions every single one of which is either unproven or refuted by empirical science.

The alternative, placebo effect, can easily be verified by empirical science.

Occam's Razor is an extremely reliable tool for separating truth from bullshit. Do not multiply hypotheses. So I won't, I will go with the explanation that is prosaic, consistent with all other branches of knowledge, and borne out by the few experiments carried out by homeopaths that are actually honest.
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steelclaws

Yesterday 11:09 AM

 Hormesis is low-dose, not no-dose, so it's not homeopathy. I know Dana Ullman likes to confuse the two, but he's simply wrong about it.

Yes, I read Nancy Malik's claims how homeopathic remedies can be differentiated from each other, but she did not offer any evidence, nor did she say which dilution levels were involved.

The faults present in conventional medicine simply do not make homeopathy work, it's an unrelated issue.

What demographic uses homeopathic remedies is also irrelevant to its efficacy, since anecdotes still do not equal data.
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lauriej1

Yesterday 12:06 PM

Homeopathy is not "no-dose", that's simply your incorrect assumption. Dana Ullman is not the one who's confused. Perhaps if you obtain a Master's degree in Public Health you'll have the educational tools to make the distinction.
No one has suggested that faults in mainstream medicine make homepathy work -- that's another misconception you seem to have. Issues like mechanism of action and proof of efficacy are related, since attacks on Homeopathy almost always rely on false claims that conventional medicine is 100% backed by irrefutable evidence of both. Hardly. Nor does it come with iron-clad money-back guarantees.
The demographics show that Homeopathic patients are not poor, misled, ignorant peons who are being conned out of their money, which is another false claim made by pseudoskeptics claiming to have public protection as their motive (even though they haven't been endorsed or appointed by anyone we'd take seriously).
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Guy Chapman

Yesterday 04:34 PM

The majority of homeopathy is indeed no dose. A 4C dilution has already passed the level of impurities permissible in laboratory water used for highly sensitive electrochemistry experiments, and this water cannot be kept in glass because the glass leaches impurities into the water.

I am not aware of any homeopaths who use ISO3696 grade water. I am not aware of any objective test that can unequivocally demonstrate the difference between any two homeopathic preparations at dilutions beyond 4C.

There is nothing "pseudoskeptic" about insisting on empirically verifiable fact rather than belief. You are quite welcome to say that you  *believe* hoemopathy works, in the same way that reiki masters and faith healers *believe* their interventions work, but you are not entitled to claim that it *does* work because the simple fact is that there is not one single experiment that unambiguously refutes the null hypothesis of placebo effect plus observer bias - if such an experiment existed we would not even have this debate.

The debate exists only because there is no reason to believe homeopathy should work, no known way it could work, and no objective evidence it does work beyond placebo.
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lauriej1

Yesterday 06:44 PM

Your argument frankly doesn't hold water... Materials Science proved your line of thinking wrong a long time ago.
I have not said I "believe" Homeopathy works, I have empirical and clinical knowledge/proof that it does based on solid investigation and personal experience.  Homeopathy is a system of medicine, however pseudoskeptics misleadingly try to equate it with subjects that are not systems of medicine. Nice try, no cigar.
Nice that more patients can research the evidence for conventional medical treatments to determine whether they want to take the risk or not, and evaluate the evidence for Homeopathy for themselves.
Hint: they're not reading scepticblogs for medical advice.
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steelclaws

Yesterday 12:22 PM

 Beyond 12C dilution homeopathy is no-dose, since there are no active ingredients left, as per Avogardo's number.

Excuse me, it was not I who wrote about faults in conventional medicine in their defense of homeopathy. Let me quote: "Read the last independent UK health technology report for a real
eye-opener on how effective conventional medical therapies are -- only
11% have been verified as actually being effective." What would the relevancy be here? Just because A is not verified, it does not follow that B would be. Moreover, it's not a claim I have made - even though 11% verified is better than 0% verified.

I've stated before in these comments that the mechanism is less important than actual efficacy. After all, it took a long time before the mechanism how aspirin works was discovered, but its effects could be shown in RCT. This is not the case with homeopathy.

The demographics are still totally irrelevant to clinical efficacy of homeopathy, and could not interest me less. I do not recall making the claim that homeopathic patients are poor mislead peons, so kindly address that comment to someone who actually made the claim.
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lauriej1

Yesterday 01:29 PM

Materials Science and nano-particle studies verify that over 12C it's not "just water".  Serial dilution and succussion are necessary to create the effect, not just plain dilution. We are not merely going to rely on Avogadro's number as if that's the be-all. Homeopathy is more than just simplified basic chemistry -- trying to reduce it to that is just being facile.
There are a plethora of studies that show in vivo and in vitro biological effects of homeopathic remedies -- that people wish to express opinions about various aspects of them is beside the point. We can do this all day about pharmaceutical trials and anything else in research as well. Claiming that there are "no studies" is complete nonsense, yet pseudoskeptics do it every time the subject comes up. For the record, until recently nobody published negative outcomes from research. The trials for Homeopathy have either been mostly positive or occasionally inconclusive.
The issue is that detractors of Homeopathy are guilty of using deceptive logic in employing double standards, moving the goal posts etc.
The Arndt-Schultz law indicates that microdoses stimulate, medium doses suppress and large doses kill. Conventional drugs use medium doses to suppress symptoms. Homeopathy uses microdoses of substances to stimulate the body to heal itself. Conventional drugs are incapable of curing chronic illness, yet Homeopathy has been curing chronic illness for 2 centuries. 
So far no one has disproved that Homeopathy works, there is just a group of media mouthpieces who consistently express pathological doubt.
 
 
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steelclaws

Yesterday 01:47 PM

 I've presented critique about the material sciences paper and the nanoparticle paper Nancy Malik linked to. Please read those. I know about succussion - it should be obvious by now that I'm very familiar with homeopathy, including provings.

Ad hominems will get you nowhere. That plethora of studies are far too often - I''ve read a lot of them - done with very small sample, often no control group and no placebo arm, which renders them practically useless. What I would like to see is a study done to gold standard, triple-blinded and with a 2000+ sample, comparable control group and proper placebo in place. This is most definitely not beside the point, since low-quality studies provide poor or nonexistent evidence.

The first ever randomized double-blinded study was conducted in 1835 in Nuremberg on homeopathy. It failed.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...

I see, the old hoary chestnut about conventional medicine just suppressing symptoms. Unfortunately for that claim, penicillin will cure pneumonia even if the patient is in coma, but homeopathy appears to work only when they're conscious.

Would you kindly point out which goalposts I have moved?

There's nothing pathological about being doubtful about a modality that has only low quality studies and/or studies with serious methodological flaws to back its claims.
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Dr.Nancy Malik

Yesterday 11:58 AM

Here's the paper for Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu... (2008)
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steelclaws

Yesterday 12:12 PM

 Of course 3C and 4C would differ from each other, and they're well below the 12C limit, so that means that they are detectable since both have active ingredients left. What is this paper supposed therefore to prove?
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Dr.Nancy Malik

Yesterday 12:47 PM

what you have to say now for this where disnguish is made for a 30c potency which is higher than 12c
study uses Ultra-Violet–Visible (UV–VIS) spectroscopy
The defining role of structure including epitaxy in the plausability of homeopathy (2007)
https://docs.google.com/file/d...
// distinguishes Nux vomica and Natrum muriaticum from one another and within a given medicine, the 6c, 12c, and 30c potencies
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steelclaws

Yesterday 01:13 PM

 From the article: "We note that at very low signal levels, instrument noise coupled with
artificial computer generated sensitivity can produce data that are not
reliable. Hence we operate the instruments in the sensitivity ranges in
which we sacrifice some precision for reproducibility."

Raman spectra, because they're very sensitive to contamination, absolutely have to be interpreted with great care, and are normally run through a computer treatment for it. The authors do not use this computer treatment, and clearly use the instrument outside of its known range of sensitivity. This is just fiddling with the instrument until they can find noise - not actual spectra - which supports their hypothesis. How this got past peer review is beyond me.

If they are trying to present a new analytical technique, then they must show a validation for it - and there is nothing about that in the paper.
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Dr.Nancy Malik

Yesterday 10:38 AM

To distinguish one homeopathy medicine from another  (3 techniques)
A. Spectroscopy: It is the study of interaction between matter and radiated energy i.e. how a substance absorbs, emits or scatters electromagnetic radiation
1. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy
2. Electromagnetic Signatures
3. Ultra-Violet–Visible (UV–VIS) spectroscopy
4. Raman Laser Spectroscopy
B. Thermo-luminescence: The amount of light produced by a sample when it is heated (due to the release of stored energy) can be measured.
C. Physiological variability in human body
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ROFLCOPTERY

Yesterday 04:26 PM

Are you suggesting that the techniques are successful in distinguishing different medicines?

It looks like in that study they've gone beyond the sensitivity of the techniques that they've employed.
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zlop

Yesterday 09:22 AM

Chemicals can cause profound effects
One that comes to mind is the ancient Chinese practice of
giving heavy metals to a sick patient  -- Patient felt well, then died
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henriette

Yesterday 01:52 AM

The link below is to a report by the Swiss Government - HTA/ Health Technology Assessment: Homeopathy in Healthcare - Effectiveness, Appropriateness, Safety, Cost. 

Let's hope the NHS doesn't throw the baby out with the bath water!!

See: http://www.springer.com/medici...
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Dr.Nancy Malik

Yesterday 08:29 AM

Switzerland
2006: The Swiss Federal Office for Public Health issued a report to the government of Switzerland which concluded that “the effectiveness of homeopathy can be supported by clinical evidence, and professional and adequate application be regarded as safe”
Ref: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...
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steelclaws

Yesterday 08:47 AM

 I'll need the full text paper, since this abstract does not name the papers used in the analysis.
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zlop

03/19/2012 10:31 PM

"cured through exposure to a diluted form of the
substance that caused their symptoms"

The symptoms are an indication that the exposure has
already caused a misdirection of biological activity.
Why would more of the same cause a lessening ?
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Dr.Nancy Malik

Yesterday 08:33 AM

Law of minimum dose: Less is More

According to H. A. Roberts, the law of minimum dosage could be summarised from the fundamentalLaw of Least Action, formulated byMoreau de Maupertius, the French mathematician in 1744, which states.
"The quantity of action necessary to affect any change in nature is the least possible; the decisive amount is always a minimum, an infinitesimal"
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zlop

Yesterday 09:09 AM

System will try to use an extra variable to minimize internal energy
Such as a stream flowing downhill -- or the Atmosphere moving CO2 to Warmth, to Maximize Cooling

The minimal dose theory is to elicit an over reaction
and reverse the caused fault ?

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steelclaws

Yesterday 08:45 AM

 There's the little problem of Avogardo's number, which makes sure that no homeopathic remedy beyond 12C can have a single molecule left. Even a dosage of 1 molecule per bottle is not "minimum" dosage, it's nonexistent dosage.

Hahnemann himself was aware of this problem, as he wrote in September 13th 1829 to Dr Schreiber: "Es muss ein Ende geben, es kann nicht bis ins Unendliche weitergehen." (Translated: There must be a limit to it, it cannot go on to infinity.) He was talking about homeopathic dilutions.
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Dr.Nancy Malik

Yesterday 08:54 AM

Medicines beyond 12C retains nano-grams of fine nano-particles of original starting material (2010)
http://bit.ly/edUwqd
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steelclaws

Yesterday 09:02 AM

 From the Chikramane paper: "The residues of Cuprum met, Stannum met, and Zincum met were acidified
to solubilize the particles of their respective starting metals by
addition of concentrated nitric acid. Similarly, aqua regia
(concentrated nitric acid and concentrated hydrochloric acid in the
ratio 1:3) was added to residues of Aurum met, Argentum met, and
Platinum met."

Any chemistry major can tell you that concentrated nitric acid is notorious for heavy metal impurities, it can have 10ppm heavy metal impurities.

The authors seem not to be aware - and certainly there is no indication that they tested for it - that also the water used in the dilutions can have contaminants. Unless that kind of testing is done to both the water and concentrated nitric acid used in the experiment, I'm more likely to think the particles were contaminants.
[*/quote*]
« Last Edit: March 21, 2012, 04:04:34 AM by Thymian »
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Thymian

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Re: Britain in uproar: Hompeopaths dilute themselves
« Reply #2 on: March 21, 2012, 04:00:06 AM »

[*quote*]
Showing 51-75 of 192 comments

laserbeam1001

03/19/2012 08:05 PM

Do people not realise that we are no longer in the middle ages and witch hunts are supposed to be finished. We are in a so called civilised society with free choices.
Isn't it rather arrogant of those people to say that homeopathy doesn't work whilst they've never tried it (applied by a professional homeopath though! - not taken a remedy off the Boots shelf, so applied through the homeopathic philosophy).
Can we not accept that people can make intelligent choices in their lives and have an ability to rate the results for themselves?
Why are these so called 'anti' people dismissive and ignorant of others' experiences?
There are those that are accepting that there are things we've not yet discovered yet, and those who want power over others.
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Adam Jacobs

03/19/2012 09:18 PM

I think you're missing the point. No-one is trying to say that people should not be allowed to use homeopathy if they wish to.

All we are saying is that since it's ineffective (and there's a huge body of research into homeopathy, so we *know* that it's ineffective), it's not right to spend taxpayer's money on it, and that it's also not right for those selling it to be allowed to make claims that it works.

If you want to spend your own money on homeopathy, then no-one is going to stop you. I'm sure the homeopathy industry would be grateful for your dosh.

If you want to understand why it's important that those selling homeopathy shouldn't be allowed to pretend that it works, then just Google for "Penelope Dingle" & "Francine Scrayen".
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Dr.Nancy Malik

03/19/2012 07:10 PM

Research Books
1. The Trials of Homeopathy. Michael Emmans Dean. KVC Verlag. 2004. ISBN 3-933351-40-5
2. The Emerging Science of Homeopathy.Complexity, Biodynamics and Nanopharmacology. Paolo Bellavite, Andread  Signorini. North Atlantic Books. Berkeley, California. 1995. ISBN 1-55643-384- 0. http://bit.ly/d30Tll
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bobbydionysos

03/19/2012 06:27 PM

steele claws 
of course it should be an informed choice and as far as i am aware (you will no doubt correct me if i am wrong) full information about homeopathy is freely available on the internet and elsewhere.
medicine is not an exact science and there are numerous  treatments conventional and alternative which are known to work but for which the mechanisms are poorly understood.
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 06:32 PM

Yes, you can find information on homeopathy on the internet - but you can find lots of unproved claims about it as well. I've seen claims that homeopathy can successfully treat cancer, and there is not a shred of evidence for that claim.

The mechanism is less important than a statistically significant result in a properly conducted RCT with a large sample, and this is something where homeopathy fails. Most research articles that appear to back homeopathy are with small sample - something like 50-200 patients - and quite often control group has been missing. This is not how you do good science.

(Edited by author 1 day ago)
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bobbydionysos

03/19/2012 06:52 PM

we are going round in circles. it is not a question of good science - the question is does it work and as many comments here have attested it does.
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 06:54 PM

 From the best evidence available: large meta-analyses of research articles of homeopathy have not found evidence that it works. In other words, it does not work better than placebo.
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Dr.Nancy Malik

03/19/2012 06:36 PM

British Homoeopathic Journal
Belladonna 7C and X-Ray 15C for treatment of radio-therapy induced dermatitis in breast cancer (2000)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...

Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine (Liebert)
Homeopathy for menopausal symptoms in breast cancer patients (2005)
http://homeoinst.org/node/375
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 06:39 PM

 "...clinical trial involving 66 patients..."  Thanks for proving my comment about small samples correct.
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Dr.Nancy Malik

03/19/2012 05:36 PM

The legal status of homeopathy medicine in India is on an equal footing with conventional [Bachelor of Medical and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS)], Ayurveda (recognised since 1969), Unani, and Siddha medicine. It is recognised by Central Council of Homeopathy, Deptt. of AYUSH , Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Govt. of India since 1973.
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george

03/19/2012 05:51 PM

 And your doctorate is from...?

Dr Malik - either you tell us or I will go and check for myself.

Also can you give us those complete citations now please? Before you post anything else?
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lauriej1

Yesterday 10:31 AM

And your medical degree is from...? Your experience level in comparative medicine is...?
It's very common that anyone licensed to practise medicine or law or a variety of other disciplines must meet the requirements of other jurisdictions. A British MD cannot practise in Canada, so I guess that means their education was a waste of time.
This is a familiar game you're playing, George -- ask for links to studies so you can immediately post your opinions about why you think they're flawed in some way... This is getting tedious and tiresome and very transparent. 
Dr. Malik is quite clearly an expert in the field of Homeopathy. Please provide details of your qualifications on the subject before posting anything else for our consideration. Please do not post links to skepticblogs.
 
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Dr.Nancy Malik

Yesterday 10:42 AM

Currently there are around 186 homeopathy medical colleges in India, some 35 of which are government colleges, and an estimated quarter of a million Homeopath Physicians. These colleges offer BHMS. Out of these around 40 offers M.D.
I did my medical degree from Chandigarh Homeopathic Medical COllege and Hospital http://www.hmcchd26.com/
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Dr.Nancy Malik

03/19/2012 05:53 PM

Regular full time 5.5 years graduate medical degree [Bachelors in Homoeopathic Medicine and Surgery (BHMS)] that includes one year compulsory internship, is absolutely necessary for becoming qualified & to get license to practice homeopathy medicine in India. And to do regular full time M.D. in any one of the 7 specialisations (Medicine, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, Pharmacy, Organon, Materia Medica, Repertory) of homeopathy medicine, you have to spend three more years after BHMS.
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george

03/19/2012 06:06 PM

 "Regular full time 5.5 years graduate medical degree"

From which institution?! Why are you obfuscating?

Either your doctorate is from an accredited institution or it is not. 
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Dr.Nancy Malik

03/19/2012 04:49 PM

Studies in support of homeopathy are published in following journals
1. Aktuelle Rheumatologie
2. Allergologie3. Allgemeine Anzeiger
4. Alternative Medicine Review
5. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine
6. American Journal of Homoeopathic Journal
7. American Journal of Pain Management
8. Annals of Pharmacotherapy
9. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
10. Applied Health Economics & Health Policy11. Archives for the Homoeopathic Medicine
12. Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery
13. Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics
14. Archives of Otolaryngology- head & Neck Surgery
15. Arzneimittel-Forschung

(Edited by author 1 day ago)
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george

03/19/2012 05:15 PM

Citations should include Journal, Year, issue number, page numbers and title. Short citations without title are acceptable.

When you update this post with verifiable citations, I'm sure we'd all appreciate it if you would also say which accreditied university or medical school your doctorate is from, and which year it was awarded so that this too can be verified.

Thanks.
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 05:04 PM

I see, you removed the reply I was commenting on. No matter, here it is anyway:  From the Linde abstract: "However, we found insufficient evidence from these studies that homeopathy is clearly efficacious for any single clinical condition." Not very supportive for homeopathy.

I'm also curious why you left out the Linde update from 1999, which
concludes: "Our analyses provide clear evidence that in the study set
investigated more rigorous trials tended to yield smaller effect sizes."
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Dr.Nancy Malik

03/19/2012 05:31 PM

there are also studies which do not support homeopathy
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 05:36 PM

 From my reading on research papers and meta-analyses of homeopathy, the more rigorously conducted the study is, especially with a large sample and control group, the less likely it is to find statistically significant effect for homeopathy.
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overseer

03/19/2012 04:43 PM

Miracles do happen,,....Placeboes do work,.... The mind can heal itself,,.....And last of all, Prayer can heal..... So the problem with homeopathy is ????  Exactly. All things are possible
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Dr.Nancy Malik

03/19/2012 04:14 PM

stellclaws
List of Meta Analysis
http://www.homeopathyeurope.or...
http://www.facultyofhomeopathy...
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 04:26 PM

 The full articles do not appear to be available, and the abstracts are not good enough for evaluation. However, the inclusion of some of the abstractsis quite puzzling, since they do not appear to support homeopathy, the most blatant example being the one that ends with: "Patients with rheumatic syndromes often seek alternative therapies, with homeopathy being one of the most frequent. Homeopathy is one of the most frequently used complementary therapies worldwide." This is not giving evidence about the efficacy of homeopathy in any way, it is simply a comment.
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Dr.Nancy Malik

03/19/2012 04:04 PM

There have been 17 SYSTEMATIC POSITIVE REVIEWS & META ANALYSIS in support of homeopathy between 1991 and 2010
[6 Comprehensive (2 on placebo effect + 2 on high dilutions) + 11 specific medical condition)
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 04:10 PM

 Links, please, preferably to the full articles.
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[*/quote*]



[*quote*]
Showing 76-100 of 192 comments

geofffrey

03/19/2012 03:55 PM

Dr Nancy Malik

I won't be using you wherever you are in the world.  Following up one of your own links in the Lancet, I get this final abstract:

"...Biases are present in placebo-controlled trials of both homoeopathy and conventional medicine. When account was taken for these biases in the analysis, there was weak evidence for a specific effect of homoeopathic remedies, but strong evidence for specific effects of conventional interventions. This finding is compatible with the notion that the clinical effects of homoeopathy are placebo effects.
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geofffrey

03/19/2012 03:43 PM

Homeopathy is "biologically implausible" just like believing in God and the whole Jesus "thing" is implausible.  In fact, how these "sales gimmicks" get away with not contravening the Trade Descriptions Acts, I'm damned if I know.
 
Both are impossible beliefs, used by unscrupulous people, "homeopathists" (aka quacks) in one case, and priests, bishops, and others of that ilk (aka witch doctors), in the other, to prey on the vulnerable, gullible, weak, and confused.  A bloody disgrace in both cases.
 
I generally admire Prince Charles, but apparently he believes in homeopathy.  Try curing rectal cancer with homeopathic medicines, sir.

(Edited by author 1 day ago)
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goldfinger

Yesterday 07:41 PM

 Where has homeopathy ever claimed to cure rectal  cancer?
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 03:21 PM

I quite agree with the freedom of choice, but it should be informed choice. Knowing what homeopathy is, how the remedies are prepared and what the dilution levels mean would be important. Quite a lot of people believe that they are some kind of herbal remedies.

What I do not agree with is funding homeopathy from the public fund, since there is no evidence that it works. People who wish to use it should pay for it themselves at unsubsidized prices.
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Penny Webster-Brown

03/19/2012 04:00 PM

I pay all my taxes and don't believe someone else should tell me which treatments are acceptable according to their belief system. I've read enough studies on statins to know that they are not all they are claimed to be but if someone wants them prescribed on the NHS that's fair enough.
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 04:32 PM

 It would be a good idea not to confuse belief systems with using actual evidence. A belief system does not require evidence, quite often the opposite.
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Penny Webster-Brown

03/19/2012 07:00 PM

Not confused at all, many people's belief in prescription drugs is nothing short of miraculous, given the evidence!
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 07:04 PM

 Would you kindly link to the evidence you have about the effectiveness of prescription drugs, please?
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bobbydionysos

03/19/2012 03:17 PM

steelclawspeople have firm beliefs in all sorts of things.  some people like jehovahs witnesses will not accept blood transfusions and some have died as a result. in a free society people are free to choose. if you choose alternative therapy that is your choice.
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Dr.Nancy Malik

03/19/2012 02:58 PM

Homeopathy superior to placebo
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu... // homeopathy is statistically significantly superior (2.45 times more effective and positive at 95% confidence interval) to placebo
http://www.thelancet.com/journ... (1994) //homeopathy does more than placebo
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu... (2009) // homeopathy differs from placebo
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Dr.Nancy Malik

03/19/2012 02:13 PM

Thank you MJHopeC for your details of the paper. I hope skeptics are not blind to see.

@bobbydionysos The proof the pudding lies in its eating. let millions of people worldwide keep on benefiting from homeopathy at economical scale
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bobbydionysos

03/19/2012 02:09 PM

as far as i know there is no evidence that homeopathy does any harm, unlike some other 'alternative' treatments which are positively dangerous. if some people derive a benefit from it then does it really matter how it works?
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 02:28 PM

 The very real problem with homeopathy is that patients with serious medical conditions have relied on it and died.
One such case was Penelope Dingle.
http://www.danbuzzard.net/jour...
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bobbydionysos

03/19/2012 02:58 PM

that is a separate issue to do with registration, competency, and as in the case you refer to medical negligence.
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 03:01 PM

 It's by no means the only such case, but it demonstrates the danger of what firm belief in homeopathy by the patient can cause.
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Dr.Nancy Malik

03/19/2012 01:44 PM

Homeopathy equals Conventional in the following studies
Placebo effect size same in conventional & homeopathy medicine (2010)
http://thewrightdoctor.com/wp-...
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1... (2007) //homeopathy Vs anti-biotics & analgesics for respiratory & ear complaints
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu... (1998) // vertigo
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Dr.Nancy Malik

03/19/2012 01:33 PM

Homeopathy cost-effective than conventional

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu... (2009) // treatment of respiratory infections by homeopathy cheaper by 50% compared to conventional medicine

Scientific framework of evidence-based homeopathy (2008) http://www.feg.unesp.br/~ojs/i... // page 6-8
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Penny Webster-Brown

03/19/2012 01:28 PM

Interesting, reading through some these posts. People would rather be 'right' than open-minded. In the West, our arrogance is exceeded only by our ignorance.  We know nothing and we think we know everything. And anyone who doesn't agree with us is 'off the planet'. Hmm.
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snookerq

03/19/2012 01:42 PM

 Wasting hundreds of millions of £s on what is no more than fancy bottles of water housed in expensive buildings around the country is my problem not alternative medicines, alternative medicines do rightly have a place but homeopathy is a con just like faith healing is a con nothing crazy there just common sense.
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Adam Jacobs

03/19/2012 01:39 PM

Interesting that you should bring up the subject of being open-minded, Penny. It is indeed important.

So, tell me, so that we can see how open your mind is: what kind of evidence would it take to convince you that homeopathy is nothing more than a placebo?
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Penny Webster-Brown

03/19/2012 03:52 PM

Adam, I am not a scientist so I take things as I find them. For me and my family homeopathic treatments appear to have been of benefit, for whatever reason, with no negative side-effects. Likewise acupuncture, which was rubbished in this country for many years even though it had been mainstream in China for thousands. Not every homeopathic remedy I have tried has worked but then not every aspirin cures a headache. I am totally open-minded about how other people choose to deal with ill-health. just don't try to make me a guinea pig for Big Pharma!
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Adam Jacobs

03/19/2012 05:32 PM

So, you're open minded about other people, but you couldn't identify any kind of evidence that would make you change your mind about homeopathy?

I guess we must understand different things by the phrase "open minded".
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 01:30 PM

 I work on evidence, and am willing to accept anything that has valid evidence for it. I'm not open-minded enough to accept something I have researched in depth and never been able to find any real evidence for.
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Dr.Nancy Malik

03/19/2012 01:25 PM

Homeopathy
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu... (2009) // homeopathy as an adjunct to usual care for fibromyalgia
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu... (2004) // improved physical condition & high satisfaction, costs less, conventional drug discontinued
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MJHopeC

03/19/2012 01:01 PM

"Dr Mark Downs, Chief Executive of the Society of Biology, said: “The UK spends
 billions of pounds every year ensuring that the new and existing
 conventional medicines we take are effective, safe and fit for purpose."

He should take a quick look at the MHRA DAP database for adverse reactions and remember to multiply all numbers by 100 as it has been found by research that docs generally do not report adverse reactions.

Two excellent examples of "safe and fit for purpose" are VIOXX (killed tens,  if not hundreds.  of thousands of patients) and AVANDIA which was known to preciptate CHD but data was withheld.  Both are now of the market.
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[*/quote*]
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.         (User TNT in the former CDU forum)
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Thymian

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Re: Britain in uproar: Hompeopaths dilute themselves
« Reply #3 on: March 21, 2012, 04:03:25 AM »

[*quote*]
Showing 101-125 of 192 comments

mrsgee

03/19/2012 12:45 PM

I have a relative who over the years has spent a vast amount of money on seeing a homeopath privately who advocates all sorts of other alternative stuff.  The patient no sooner gets rid of one thing,  then another has developed requiring more treatment and on it goes. Last time I met her she was carrying a silicone disc in her bag to ward off computer rays and was saying the Americans pump stuff into the atmosphere (her practitioner told her this).When I was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago this guy told my relative he could "rebalance" my breasts for a fee of £200 because it was obvious to him the cancer was because my breasts were full of aluminium. The one fundamental thing he doesn't address is that my relative has been a hypochondriac for about 40 years now. She even resorts to sitting under a tent in her front room practising Shamanic rituals for her health. The guy she sees does NHS work; one of the oncology nurses I had used to work for the health board where he is based and she alleged the local GPs often had to deal with the side effects of some of the stuff he has treated patients with.
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Penny Webster-Brown

03/19/2012 01:17 PM

anecdotal anyone?
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goldfinger

Yesterday 01:48 PM

 Spot  on. Any alternative medicine anecdotes are not accepted as proof of cure but  anecdotal evidence against alternative medicine is acceptable.
IMHO if Prince Charles is an advocate  for homopathy and he obviously has the best homeopathic doctors in the country treating him, I would come down on the side of Homeopathy. I have no experience of homeopathy so can not quote any anecdotal evidence.
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mrsgee

03/19/2012 07:22 PM

 Penny, this homeopathic doctor has been treating my relative for many years now. She never gets any better and when she thinks something else is affecting her he tells her she needs to have a course of something over a period of months with consultations in between. As he is charging her £200 a consultation plus the cost of whatever he prescribes this has run into many thousands of pounds, thankfully she can afford this as she has a wealthy husband. This is something that is going on in her head, but her practitioner appears to be exploiting her fears. He is constantly citing various "imbalances" in her body, telling her she has yeast and fungal infections going on etc. It just makes her all the more hysterical and all she talks about are all these ailments she is said to have.

There is a qualified medical herbalist practising close to where I live, one day I went in to buy a supplement I take. I happened to get talking to her and she suddenly started trying to interest me in an expensive consultation with her. She was also recommending I should take all sorts of stuff not advised for women like me who have had breast cancer. It did make me wonder about the qualifications a lot of these people have. I firmly believe that the conventional and the alternative can work together, but I don't like having things shoved down my throat by those who think their methods are the only methods. BTW, I do not take any medications unless they are absolutely necessary - I had enough of toxic drugs for cancer to last me a lifetime.
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jhnycmltly

03/19/2012 12:27 PM

If you look at the dilutions below , one can EASILY see the homeopathic remedy is MUCH less diluted than the allopathic chemical. Therefore PROVING homeopathic remedies fall well within the 'window' of  being ABLE to work , simply because those chemicals by the allopaths work when even MORE diluted .

Homeopathic dilution : "Get a 500ml bottle of Spring Water from the nearest supermarket" "Insert 3 drops of the remedy into the bottle"

Compared it  to allopathy : "a few drops in four swimming pools of water"
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 12:31 PM

 Say what? A 30 C dilution is 10 -60 ratio, and on average, this
would require giving two billion doses per second to six billion people
for 4 billion years to deliver a single molecule of the original
material to any patient.
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jhnycmltly

03/19/2012 01:13 PM

I pointed out that the dilutions used , many of them , fall WELL WITHIN the window , low dilution being a mere 10:1 of homeopathy , AND the allopathic finding of a few drops in millions of gallons of water.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_...
What is your reply ? You RUSH into mentioning one of the highest dilutions found in homeopathy. The argument against homeopathy is their dilutions are so high they don't work , BUT , the allopathic study showed THEIR chemical gives observable results at a MUCH higher dilution , : "a few drops in four swimming pools of water" compared to a 'few drops in a litre of water'.
 ANYONE can see the three drops in a litre of water is MUCH less diluted that the allopathic chemical at three drops in FOUR SWIMMING POOLS OF WATER.
If one wishes to use numbers. One swimming pool is 9 million litres , four swimming pools is 36 million litres compared to ONE litre used by homeopaths.
One versus 36 MILLION.
Therefore PROVING the dilution method is feasible because a allopathic doctor PROVED a dilution of a few drops in 36 million litres of water.
http://www.fasebj.org/content/...
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 01:21 PM

 Lol - highest? 30C is what Hahnemann recommended for most cases, and a very popular Oscillococcinum (and there lies a tale of pseudoscience at its worst) is 200C. Some preparations are even higher than that.
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jhnycmltly

03/19/2012 01:36 PM

Three drops of homeopathic in one litre compared to three drops of allopathy in 36,000,000 litres.

One could say then the homeopathic remedy has a 36,000.000 MORE of a chance of working because simply it is 36,000,000 times less diluted than the allopathic study.

That is 36 MILLIONS TIMES MORE CHANCE OF HOMEOPATHY WORKING.

Now , have you ever played the horses ?
The first bet of one against 36 million ?
The first bet of one is 36,000,000 times better bet.
That is using logic.
Homeopathic : one VERSUS allopathy : 36 million.
Don't take a rocket scientist.
Odds are one beats 36 million by a very long , shot.
36 million to one.
I think homeopathy wins hands down.

(Edited by author 1 day ago)
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 01:43 PM

 I don't think you know enough of the homeopathic dilutions and the % of the active substance in pharmaceutical medicines. 30C - and as already shown, it's one of the most common dilutions and by no means the highest - is 10 -60, and that means one molecule of the original substance dissolved
 in a minimum of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
 molecules of water. This would require a container more than 30,000,000,000
 times the size of the Earth.

A 500mg table of paracetamol contains 5oomg of the active ingredient - and the tablets are not precisely the size of the Earth.
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jhnycmltly

03/19/2012 02:05 PM

It seems to me that you are not actually TRYING to be reasonable. It seems you are INTENT on being unreasonable.
It has been PROVEN that allopathic chemicals dissolved in water , at 36 MILLION more amount of water than homeopathic medicines are,  and it WORKS.
You continue to argue that a homeopathic medicine diluted 36 MILLON times LESS than the allopathic medicine DOESN'T work.
Either you are very stupid , or you have another reason WHY you cannot simply admit the odds are 36 millions times MORE that the homeopathic medicine will work simply because it is diluted 36 million times LESS than that methylene blue study performed by a allopathic doctor.
There is no argument left for the detractors of homeopathy simply because the dilutions have been PROVEN to work.
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 02:17 PM

Your evidence for your claim that pharmaceutical medicines are diluted at 36 million time more amount of water would be?
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jhnycmltly

03/19/2012 02:33 PM

In the first post of mine I included this statement about  the allopathic finding of a few drops in millions of gallons of water.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_...

"a few drops in four swimming pools of water"

Atamna H, Nguyen A, Schultz C, Boyle K, Newberry J, Kato H, Ames BN (2008) Methylene Blue Delays Cellular Senescence and Enhances Key Mitochondrial Biochemical Pathways Relevant to Aging. FASEB J. 22:703-12 http://www.fasebj.org/content/...
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jhnycmltly

03/19/2012 02:58 PM

The calculations are a little off.
Olympic sized swimming pools are  2,500,000 L , so it would be 10 million litres to 1 litre .
Leaving odds  homeopathy WOULD work OVER the allopathic because it is diluted 10 million times LESS than the methylene blue  study according to observers.
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 03:03 PM

 Do the maths yourself if you know how homeopathic remedies are prepared. I can tell you how that is done and what it means to the amount of the mother tincture in the end dilution.
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 02:53 PM

 I've read the articles now. Homeopathic remedies are diluted a LOT more than that: 12 C is the equivalent of a pinch of salt in both the North and South Atlantic Oceans, 13 C would be 1/3 of a drop in all the water the Earth can produce,  20C is 1 drop in 2,000,000,000 Olympic swimming pools and 200C is one drop in the entire universe.
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jhnycmltly

03/19/2012 03:49 PM

NOW we are arguing Semantics. A few minutes ago , without a medical study to PROVE dilutions , you would have argued that the dilutions found in a few drops in 10 million litres of water wouldn't have made any difference EITHER. I bet you and others would have bet good money that wouldn't have had an observable effect in a mouse ?
So since the impossible has just happened AND has shown specifically the 'dilution DOES affect the dose' then how can one say then that there ISN'T a possibility of the 'memory' of the initial dilution ISN'T still there JUST like a wort ?
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 07:00 PM

 Your claim was that "that allopathic chemicals dissolved in water , at 36 MILLION more amount of water than homeopathic medicines are,  and it WORKS." I've shown that this is not the case - and it's not about semantics. (Sorry for the delay, I hadn't noticed your reply before.)
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jhnycmltly

Yesterday 01:09 AM

Quote:  I've shown that this is not the case - and it's not about semantics.
Answer: 10 million to one.
Allopathy works at 10 million times MORE dilution than homeopathic remedy.
It means you have proven , nothing .
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Gordon Duffy

03/19/2012 12:21 PM

Having fake medicine on the NHS creates a false appearance that it is legitimate.
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antiskeptic

03/19/2012 12:00 PM

anarchic teapot
"There is worldwide standard practice. Placebo = inert substance. "Except in vaccine reseach where a placebo vaccine is used..please explain why this is ?seems a little unscientific don't you think? like comparing apples to applesif you want an example this years UK flu Vaccine  Flurix
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gopalakrishnan

03/19/2012 11:50 AM

I am an Indian who has experienced the miracle of homeopathy for my father , my mother , my grandfather and almost every member of my father's family and my mother's family.
In a country where antibiotics and medicines are so expensive , the cure to diseases costs next to nothing.

Homeopathy can address problems with your basic constitution.

You have to experience the miracle to believe in it.

Unfortunately not all homeo doctors are equal. You need an experienced doctor administering medicine. While one doc is amlost able to cure every disease under the sun , you may find nothing works with another doctor.

You also cannot go over the counter get a homeo medicine and fix yourself. You need a doctor who takes a detailed report who needs to know you and who can change the medicine should it not work.

In a drug trail statistic 35% who were given sugar pills people got cured and the effect was mentioned as placebo.
If 1 in three patients can be cured with sugar pills I would say so be it.  Its a very cheap and effective way to cure yourself without the risk of side effects.

On the other hand every allopathy medicne has side effects. Have you ever seen any pill without the fine print of risks ??

I am all for homeopathy.. but i am yet to see a homeo doc in the uk.
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laserbeam1001

03/19/2012 11:47 AM

Pharmaceuticals know homeopathy works. A British company called Angel Biotechnology are starting to invest in homeopathy.
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davedavenotdave

03/19/2012 11:47 AM

"Homeopathy is thus biologically implausible."

Implausible, yes. But to my mind the big problem for homeopathy advocates is not if homeopathy doesn't work, but if it does. If it doesn't work, it's because the conventional wisdom is correct and the pills and potions are just sugar and water. If it does work, though, it works through some mechanism of which we have _absolutely_ no understanding whatsoever - no idea what side-effects it may have, for example, no idea if it's actually poisonous, just no idea at all.

If homeopathy actually works, it should be banned pending further explanation.
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laserbeam1001

03/19/2012 11:41 AM

Out of date news: Ernst is no longer in that position and should never have been:
http://www.nationalcenterforho...
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Showing 126-150 of 192 comments

Naseweis

03/19/2012 11:38 AM

Edzard Ernst, the UK authority on CAM, was outed as an impostor in an interview made in Germany, in 2010. He has no professional formation whatsoever in CAM therapies. I find it astonishing that he can still act as a reliable authority in the UK.
The interview:  http://www.dzvhae.com/portal/p...
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snookerq

03/19/2012 11:11 AM

Question: Does the NHS fund faith healers.
Answer:   Yes they fund Homeopathy.
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Penny Webster-Brown

03/19/2012 12:03 PM

I have faith in healers - that's what they used to call  'doctors' before they became 'drug pushers'.!
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snookerq

03/19/2012 12:08 PM

 Faith healers can make the disabled walk, cure cancers, make the deaf hear all miracles yes? show me a faith healer who can cure people who have lost limbs and faithfully make them grow back then I will be convinced and converted.
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Penny Webster-Brown

03/19/2012 01:19 PM

You mean conventional medicine can restore lost limbs? Wow, I didn't realise. I know it can make people lose them...
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mrmetaxis

03/19/2012 10:57 AM

homeopathy as a placebo can only work if doctors hide the truth from their patients

That flatly contradicts an article I read recently in New Scientist. The gist of the article was that the placebo effect works even when the patient knows that he is being given a placebo.

Personally I think homeopathy is useless, but I also think that most "big pharma" medication is useless, but with dangerous side-effects. Just how expensive is bit of distilled water? If people think it helps then for goodness sake just give it to them.

(Edited by author 1 day ago)
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MJHopeC

03/19/2012 01:21 PM

 I read the article too, haave it somewhere on the computer.  Interestingly, Big Pharmaa RCTs are usually conducted using placebos and their benefits so demonstrated are often trivial.  In one study,ALLHAT, where a comparative 50 year-old drug was used it was found to be better than the nice shiny new drug.

They had to find another reason to promote it.

If it works so be it!
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Dr.Nancy Malik

03/19/2012 10:35 AM

Inflammation Research (Springer)
Histamine 15-19C modulates anti-igE stimulated human basophil (CD63) activation (2004)
 // Research at 4 different laboratories in Europe found that Potentised Histamine alters the activity of White Blood Cells. The model is different to that of Benveniste; he used the same control but not the same activator. This study was replicated in the below two studiesCytometric Protocols for analysis of human basophil activation: Biological Activity of high dilutions of histamine (2006)
http://www.springerlink.com/co...
Histamine 2C, 12C, 14-16C potency inhibits CD203c up-regulation in anti-IgE stimulated human basophils (2009)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...

(Edited by author 1 day ago)
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MJHopeC

03/19/2012 01:39 PM

 I wonder how many followed up the links.

The springerlink is not useful for non-subscribers but the PubMed leads to a downloadable full report.  Many thanks.

From a quick scan of the results it does seem that very high dilutions can have an effect in vitro at least.
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Guy Chapman

03/19/2012 09:58 AM

The assertion that homeopathy is not amenable to proper testing is wrong; it is a canard used to distract attention away form the documented fact that any fair test shows homeopathy to be purely placebo.

There have been tests using precisely the "individualised" approach homeopaths claim is necessary, with the homeopathy arm provided by members of the Society of Homeopaths. The results are the same.

It is not a surprise to find homeopaths engaging in this special pleading, my experience of homeopaths is that they treat homeopathy as a religion, anything that challenges it must necessarily be wrong because it conflicts with their faith.

In the real world we find that the fundamentals of homeopathy (tle "law" of similars, the "law" of infinitesimals and the notion that 7/8 of disease is caused by "psora", or itch), have never had any credible evidential basis. Since the invention of homeopathy, two hundred years of science have refined our understanding of human physiology, biochemistry and the nature of matter - and all of that knowledge is inconsistent wiht the claims of homeopathy.

Rather than reversing the burden of proof and insisting that science disproves homeopathy - demanding proof of a negative, in fact - homeopaths need to go back and provide objectively verifiable evidence for their fundamental "laws" and an experimental design that will, unlike all tests to date, convincingly refute the null hypothesis of placebo effect plus observer bias.

As far as I can tell they appear to prefer to wave their arms and say "but it works!", the while ignoring the fact that science has shown precisely how it works, and the mechanism is placebo effect.
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Penny Webster-Brown

03/19/2012 10:42 AM

Since there is no standard 'placebo' how do we know that the 'placebo' is not working on a homeopathic basis? The contents of a placebo can be chosen by the company carrying out the trials and they don't have to disclose them.
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davedavenotdave

03/19/2012 11:43 AM

"how do we know that the 'placebo' is not working on a homeopathic basis?"

Do you genuinely not realise that's a laughable question?
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MJHopeC

03/19/2012 01:03 PM

All the daves
Did you know that the placebo effectis recognised to be up to 35-40%.  Not laughable at all.
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davedavenotdave

03/19/2012 02:19 PM

No, it's laughable because of what 'placebo' means. You could substitute a longer phrase like 'imitation medicine which has no real effects' for 'placebo' and then it's obvious why it's such a daft thing to say.
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anarchic teapot

03/19/2012 10:51 AM

 The standard placebo is an inert substance, not infrequently a sugar pill or flavoured water. Physically it resembles the drug being tested.

In the case of homeopathy, we know that it's no more effective than sugar pills or water because (a) trials have shown this and (b) that is, in fact, all homeopathy remedies *are*.
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Newsbot9

Yesterday 02:24 PM

Yes, but (and I'm not a homoeopathy supporter), the placebo effect has become measurably stronger in recent decades. This is a major problem, actually.

Moreover, on the "implausible" note, how do general anaesthetics work? We don't know. They DO work, however - proper studies and evidence is the best way to sort things out.

(Edited by author 15 hours ago)
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steelclaws

Yesterday 03:05 PM

 What do you mean, the placebo effect has become measurably stronger? Do you have a link to that?
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salamisausage

03/19/2012 10:12 PM

A placebo very rarely contains sugar.
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anarchic teapot

03/19/2012 10:24 PM

 All homeopathic pilules contain a form of sugar.
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Penny Webster-Brown

03/19/2012 11:11 AM

sorry to disagree but there is no worldwide 'standard placebo'.
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salamisausage

03/19/2012 10:27 PM

penny,

It is not possible to design a "worldwide standard placebo".  A placebo is a non-therapeutic treatment used as a control in clinical trials.  In a blind study it must match the effective therapy in form and appearance etc.  Of necessity, it is sometimes a tablet, sometimes a solution, sometimes an injection, or a dummy physical approach (fake surgery for example).


The so-called placebo effect is an apparent beneficial clinical effect resulting from the proven intervention of the brain through mental perception. Dr. Huskisson of Barts showed many years ago that, for a placebo effect, injections are better than tablets, two tablets better than one and red is the best colour.

It has been established many, many times that there is no clinical benefit resulting from the use of homeopathy, only a possible placebo effect which is usually transient in nature.
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anarchic teapot

03/19/2012 11:13 AM

There is worldwide standard practice. Placebo = inert substance.
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MJHopeC

03/19/2012 01:08 PM

anarchic
Unfortunately while there is a "standard" this does not mean that it is actually followed.  There is also a standard of "honesty" but many negative studies and negative results that are not provided to the authorization authorities.  Another trick is to used sub effective doses in comparison studies.
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anarchic teapot

03/19/2012 01:26 PM

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. If you're criticising the homeopaths' tendency to cherry-pick positive results and do ridiculous trials, then I agree with you.
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Penny Webster-Brown

03/19/2012 04:02 PM

unlike the pharmaceutical companies then? How many drugs have had to be withdrawn in the past 20 years I wonder...
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[*/quote*]
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.         Im Angesicht von Gewalt ist Höflichkeit gegenstandslos.
.         At face with violence politeness is pointless.

.         (User TNT in the former CDU forum)
--------------------------------------- * --------------------------------------- * ---------------------------------------

Thymian

  • Jr. Member
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Re: Britain in uproar: Hompeopaths dilute themselves
« Reply #4 on: March 21, 2012, 04:06:20 AM »

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Showing 151-174 of 192 comments

salamisausage

03/19/2012 10:35 PM

penny,

Not that many.  Unfortunately, no clinically-active therapy is free of adverse side-effects.  Sometimes, very serious side-effects occur only rarely and only in certain patients.  Sometimes these side-effects become apparent only after a sufficiently large cohort of patients have been treated, some time after the drug has been introduced.  The safety authorities then have to decide whether the benefits of the drug still outweigh the risks.  If not, it is pulled from the market.
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anarchic teapot

03/19/2012 04:29 PM

 Not that many, actually. There are a lot of regulatory hoops to be jumped through to put a *real* drug on the market. One of these hoops includes safety testing.

Incidentally, no homeopathic drug would survive the regulatory process imposed (and rightly) on real medicine. You see, to be accepted, a new drug also has to be proved effective...
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Penny Webster-Brown

03/19/2012 12:04 PM

define 'inert' and then prove that something is...
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guigsy

03/19/2012 09:49 AM

Homeopathy has been proven time and time again in double blind studies to work no better than the placebo.  The thing is that the placebo (and the Homeopathic solution) both have positive effects.... the human body/brain is odd.

As long as sugar pills/cheap homeopathic 'drugs' are being used to treat or manage non-life threatening illnesses, I don't have a problem, provided the costs stays down.
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Penny Webster-Brown

03/19/2012 09:27 AM

Switched to alternative medicine when I became a parent and have successfully raised a daughter who only had to go to the doctor twice in her life. She's now 24.  Cured my dog of a horrendous flea allergy using homeopathy. My mother was nearly killed by wrongly administered 'prescription drugs' in hospital. Peanut allergy is being cured by administering minute doses of peanut. No brainer IMO. Those who don't think it's any good don't have to use it but don't stop those who do. What's your problem?
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salamisausage

03/19/2012 10:50 PM

penny,

The problem is that gullible and ignorant people are having their lives put at risk and are being separated from serious sums of money.
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James Smith

03/19/2012 11:38 AM

 I've walked across the roads all my life with never looking. Not been hit by a car ever so far. Clearly everyone should give up looking before they cross..
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anarchic teapot

03/19/2012 10:59 AM

 For your claimed cures: please provide proof. Unsubstantiated anecdote is not acceptable (although if you believe it is, why, I've got this Eiffel Tower I need to sell quick, buyer collects, just the scrap value woulsd refund your initial outlay).

As for "Peanut allergy is being cured by administering minute doses of peanut." - you ARE aware that in homeopathic remedies there aren't even minute doses of the supposed active substance? IF it exists: yesterday I came across a homeopath selling a remedy based on "Sphinx milk". Not a marketing term. Milk from a genuine mythical creature.
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Penny Webster-Brown

03/19/2012 11:17 AM

You are aware of the research showing that water retains a 'memory' of anything diluted in it? Just because we don't have the instruments available to measure whether there is any active substance doesn't mean it is or isn't there. I have all the proof I need for myself, I feel no need to prove it to you as I'm not trying to make you believe or take anything. I WOULD like to see the 'true' results of many trials on the expensive drugs sold by the pharmaceutical industry that actually perform less well than placebo and damage many people.
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Guest

03/19/2012 11:09 PM
Comment removed.
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goldfinger

Yesterday 02:06 PM

 Sensible people don 't drink the tap water anyway.
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Jandora

Yesterday 01:29 AM

salamisausage

Absolutely wonderful,  a completely correct analogy!
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 11:21 AM

 Ah, the debunked Benveniste claims again.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/h...
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Nigel Humphries

03/19/2012 10:02 AM

 The problem is that nonsense should not be paid for by the public purse. Similar anecdotes to yours have been provide by crystal fans and pyramid followers. They too have stories of cures and lives free of illness.

The difference is that taxpayers do not pay for crystals and pyramids but we do pay for homoeopathy which is just another form of woo with no empirical evidence as to its efficacy.
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Penny Webster-Brown

03/19/2012 10:46 AM

Oh come on! Prescription drugs, and their side effects, cost us a screaming fortune. 'Nonsense' comes very cheaply. In fact, German research has shown that placebo can be as effective as not only drugs but also surgery. So the question we should be asking is why not treat everyone with placebo? We'd have pretty much the same results without the side effects or the costs.
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salamisausage

03/19/2012 10:55 PM

penny,

Come on. Stop reading the Daily Mail. All your statements are wrong. It is not possible, I repeat, not possible to obtain a licence to market a pharmaceutical product unless it is shown in clinical studies to be more effective than placebo.

(Edited by a moderator)
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 10:58 AM

 David Gorski has written a good article on the ethics of prescribing placebos:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicin...

And do remember, if something has no side effects, it has no primary effects either.
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anarchic teapot

03/19/2012 10:55 AM

 "not treat everyone with placebo"

Because they could die if they don't have a minor or self-limiting ailment. The mind can do a lot of things, but it is not all-powerful. Modern medicine has saved my life (from a rather unpleasant death) and that of my children.
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bigend

03/19/2012 09:46 AM

This proves that most parents are over protective and rush to the doctor too soon. Presumably your alternative medicine was curing colds and coughs not menangitis.

The doctor prescribed the wrong prescrition drugs and your mother got ill just as herbalists will clearly state that the wrong doses of the wrong herbal medicine can kill.

Minute doses of peanuts have nothing at all to do with homeopathy.

Homeopathy is totally different to herbal medicine and other traditional medicines.

(Edited by author 1 day ago)
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Penny Webster-Brown

03/19/2012 11:25 AM

The point being that we are able to choose our 'poison'. I wouldn't dream of denying anyone their treatment of choice. And I do find it odd that just because a treatment is considered 'alternative' in the US and the UK, when it may be accepted in many other countries, we dismiss it out of hand.  We are in thrall to the drug pushers.

And, for the record, my mother wasn't misdiagnosed or given the wrong drugs - she was given drugs she didn't need in the first place just because she was elderly and it was pretty much standard practice in that hospital, sedating them to keep them quiet. When asked, they couldn't even justify their actions! At least a bit of arnica wouldn't have caused hallucinations and falls.
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grahamall

03/19/2012 09:19 AM

With the current concerns by the WHO that antibiotics risk becoming useless because of increasing resistance to them maybe it's time for the government to consider some proper research into the possible benefits of homeopathic remedies. We are after all indigenous creatures born of the natural environment; it seems logical therefore that other products born of the same natural processes should have some effect upon us.
Believers in homeopathic treatments have often been dubbed as bit 'new ageist', if the concerns over antibiotics turn out to be real then maybe we're reaching a new age in medicine where some new thinking is going to be required.
Let's not knock it until some proper, thorough research has been carried out.
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salamisausage

03/19/2012 11:13 PM

graham,

This research has been done and has shown no merit whatsoever in homeopathy.  How come you don't know this?
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guigsy

03/19/2012 10:00 AM

I have two issues with this post.  The first is that, with the amount of dilution in homeopathic remedies, there is none of the original compound left in order for it to have an effect.
 
The second is the fact that everyone believes that 'natural' is better than 'chemical' (I blame the cosmetics industry).  If you take a small piece of plant/fungus/etc, it will contain thousands of chemical compounds.  These chemical compounds are used by the organism to perform thousands of biological functions (some of which may to poison whatever it trying to eat it).  Why do we think that this chemical soup is any better than the conventional medical alternative that uses only one or two active compounds that are targeted to do a specific job?
 
Note that I'm not against homeopathy, if it works for you, fine.  I just don't like people wildly extrapolating and calling it logical science.
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 09:27 AM

 Proper and thorough research has been carried out on homeopathy. Here are the links to two meta-analyses:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...
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grahamall

03/19/2012 09:58 AM

So how do we account for the comment above (Penny Webster-Brown) whose dog was cured of an allergy using homeopathic remedies? Maybe it works for some but not for all, and that can be said for conventional treatments.
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 Showing 176-192 of 192 comments

salamisausage

03/19/2012 11:15 PM

graham,

A clinical trial of one is useless on a statistical basis.

(Edited by a moderator)
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 11:03 AM

 Her account is an anecdote, and as such, unreliable as evidence. Without doing a RCT with a proper control group there is just no way of telling whether her homeopathic treatment had anything do with the condition of her dog. The main problem with anecdotes is that they can point to idiosyncrasies, and we have no way of knowing if her dog's condition cleared on its own - allergies sometimes do that, my housedust allergy for example vanished on its own.. And yes, I know that is an anecdote as well, but there have been studies done on allergies disappearing without treatment.
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anarchic teapot

03/19/2012 11:01 AM

 Perhaps she omitted to mention the flea collar or some other treatment that removed the fleas (and hence the effects of the bites)? Homeopathy cured nothing, except maybe thirst in the case of the liquid remedies.
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Penny Webster-Brown

03/19/2012 12:16 PM

Have never used a flea collar of any kind. My dog was raw and hairless from chin to belly. The remedy I used cleared the problem within one week and it never recurred. She had suffered every summer since she was a pup until I tried this. So,  your assumption is incorrect. I'm not trying to sell any kind of remedy, just the fact that I am entitled to choose the treatments that I think are effective.
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guigsy

03/19/2012 10:07 AM

The problem is that 'it worked for me' is not evidence.  I am willing to bet that if a proper trial with flea alergic dogs was undertaken, a similar proportion would be 'cured' in the control group.

If you have a cold and you take a remedy and you get better, was it the remedy, or were you going to recover anyway?  Humans are sucessful because we are good at spotting patterns... sometimes we find patterns that aren't really there.
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grahamall

03/19/2012 10:56 AM

I do take your points. I am not a devout homeopath by any means, neither am I against it. My main point in my original post was that with the current concerns over antibiotics it is maybe time for a new approach and homeopathy should not excluded from that.
It may be that some elements of homeopathy could be useful in a new vision of medicine in general (I have no medical or scientific qualifications by the way, these are purely layman's views). If the antibiotic concerns do turn out to be real then lets keep an open mind to all possible alternatives.
Mother nature is far cleverer than we are at finding ways around the obstacles that we put in her path, or to use your metaphor, in generating new patterns. We must be constantly vigilant but also open minded in finding new 'obstacles' or treatments.
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swindled2012

03/19/2012 08:52 AM

I think the important thing is does it work. If it works use it. I don't know what this talk about 'proper' medicine is- do you mean all these pills that pharmaceutical companies are making billions from, that are being pushed down our throats needlessly?
The fact that homeopathy cant be explained by 'conventional' doctors is no reason not to use it, after very little in this universe can be explained.
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anarchic teapot

03/19/2012 11:09 AM

 "The fact that homeopathy cant be explained by 'conventional' doctors"
That's an untruth that homeopaths repeat incessantly. It can be explained. It's the placebo effect: no more; no less.

Before someone else says "well then, we should investigate the placebo effect more"
1) This has been done. Hence controlled trials to eliminate placebo effects of drugs being tested, because
2) real medicine also has a placebo effect, and
3) prescribing pure placebo entails lying to the patient (who must believe in the treatment for it to work). Do you really want to authorise doctors to systematically lie to patients just to get them out of the surgery?
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Andrew Scott

03/19/2012 10:25 AM

Swindled.... I don't even... the amount of stupid is overwhelming.
I don't want to live in this world anymore. :(
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nerdic

03/19/2012 09:05 AM

SWINDLED2012, (appropriate moniker!)

Are you serious? The important thing is that they do not work. Those 'conventional' doctors you put in quotes? They use science. Medical science uses double-blind tests (or more) to verify effectiveness. Homeopathy  does not & is utter bunk.
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NaturoCat

03/19/2012 03:21 PM

Swiss goverment has proven homeopathy to work:
http://www.kindredcommunity.co...

One professor being paid off by Big Pharma to say what they want does not stop something from being effective :)
All my family are 100% homeopathy users, we NEVER use conventional medicine and are all 100% healthy.
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Acleron

Yesterday 12:13 PM

NatureCat. The Swiss government did no such impossible thing. A group of homeopath supporters produced a report supporting the silly practice of washing away any active material and giving the patient the left overs. This was presented to the government.

But even if the Swiss accepted a report that flies in the face of all evidence (that's evidence, not anecdote) that doesn't change the fact that homeopathy doesn't work.
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salamisausage

03/19/2012 10:44 PM

cat,

If all your family members are healthy, why are they taking homeopathic medicine?  You are all exhibiting the symptoms of a condition called hypochondria.  You should visit a doctor who will be able to prescribe a drug to help you.
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MJHopeC

03/19/2012 01:11 PM

nerdic
And when the studies are negative or results are negative they get hidden/lost/binned.  Recent example VIOXX and AVANDIA; both now taken of the market. In both cases the adverse reactions were known to the makers.
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Andrew Scott

03/19/2012 10:24 AM

OK, faith in humanity restored.
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steelclaws

03/19/2012 08:49 AM

No, they're Dagenham - two stations beyond Barking. ;-)
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SeaBeeUK

03/19/2012 08:26 AM

Homeopathy 'biologically implausible

Is this a polite way of saying that its adherents are barking?
[*/quote*]
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.         Im Angesicht von Gewalt ist Höflichkeit gegenstandslos.
.         At face with violence politeness is pointless.

.         (User TNT in the former CDU forum)
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Thymian

  • Jr. Member
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Re: Britain in uproar: Hompeopaths dilute themselves
« Reply #5 on: March 21, 2012, 04:22:32 AM »

Part 3: Keeping the Archives

It might not seem important, but censorship is a constant threat to science.

In a world where saying the truth is defamed as being insulting, the public word is important. And, as we see, this public speech is not free. It is censored.


[*quote*]
03/19/2012 10:55 PM

penny,

Come on. Stop reading the Daily Mail. All your statements are wrong. It is not possible, I repeat, not possible to obtain a licence to market a pharmaceutical product unless it is shown in clinical studies to be more effective than placebo.

(Edited by a moderator)
[*/quote*]



"Edited by a moderator". Slavery is freedom and war is peace. This is the world the esoteric mafia paves the way. And we are right in the middle of the war. Land-mines everywhere. Go to a drug-shop or an apothecary and dare to say something against homeopathy. You fell into a snakepit...




http://www.pharmamafia.com/Libel_Reform_Campaign.jpg


SIGN THE NATIONAL PETITION FOR LIBEL REFORM
AN INDEX ON CENSORSHIP, ENGLISH PEN AND SENSE ABOUT SCIENCE CAMPAIGN

http://www.libelreform.org/
Logged
.         Im Angesicht von Gewalt ist Höflichkeit gegenstandslos.
.         At face with violence politeness is pointless.

.         (User TNT in the former CDU forum)
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