A woman down the street from me doeos homeopathy. She studied four years for a degree in it. It is her passion. Her house is lined with expensive books on the subject. I thought as I looked at her books -- what if this is all bogus? All that study -- for nothing?
Here's an explanation of what homeopathy is:
The subject of homeopathy is so far removed from medicine that works, from reason and rationality, that we must stand in awe of the fact that a billion-dollar industry still thrives by peddling something that a good friend of mine defined as, “An infinitely thin slice of nothing, with the crust trimmed off and the center removed.”
A single sentence should be enough to further define homeopathy by stating the bare facts about one of the most common concentrations of remedy that homeopaths use, mentioned above: A 30X dilution means that the original substance has been diluted 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times. Assuming that a cubic centimeter of water contains 15 drops, this number is greater than the number of drops of water that would fill a container more than 50 times the size of the Earth.
No, that’s not an exaggeration at all, it’s a simple fact, and homeopaths are not at all embarrassed to use the term “dilution” when explaining their firm delusion that their “art” – it’s certainly not a science – is a legitimate branch of the healing arts. The concept is simply ridiculous. I won’t trouble you with writing out the other dilution, which would require 60 zeros…
Homeopathy claims to be a form of medical practice that's based on the "like cures like" notion. Given any set of symptoms, a homeopath will decide upon an herb or chemical that causes similar symptoms when ingested by a well person, or will look it up in a homeopathic pharmacopeia. A predefined ritual will follow, the homeopath performing a series of dilutions of that substance that continue well beyond the point where there should be even a molecule of it left. The final solution that is administered to the unfortunate patient is supposed to have “remembered” what was once present, though it’s nothing more than well-shaken water.
Years ago, to illustrate a point about homeopathy during my public lecture, I developed an on-stage visual metaphor. A popular homeopathic sleep-aid lists as its main ingredient, “caffeine.” Caffeine to induce slumber? Don’t be too surprised at this, because we’re deep into nonsense territory here, and logic is scarce. The dilution of this ingredient is so astronomical, that if I wanted to consume enough of these tablets to ensure that I’d taken in at least one molecule of caffeine, I would have to down sixteen average swimming-pools full of them!
from Scientific Indians website
Have you ever tried homeopathy? Did it help?
MPs want homeopathy banned from receiving public money
I hadn't realized that our tax dollars support homeopathy, but ministers are asking for that to be banned:
Homeopathy should no longer be funded by the NHS because there is no evidence that it works, a committee of MPs said today.
They said that continuing to back homeopathic remedies could be dangerous for patients if they shun conventional treatments.
The Commons science and technology committee agreed with the Government that evidence showed that homeopathy did not work beyond the placebo effect, and that explanations for why it would work were scientifically implausible.
The MPs also called for the Medicines and Healthcare products regulatory agency to ban medical claims on homeopathic remedies.
The latest figures show 54,000 patients are treated each year at four NHS homoeopathic centres in London, Glasgow, Bristol and Liverpool, at a cost of £4 million.
The Department of Health said that decisions on the use of homeopathy were left to the NHS, and that Primary Care Trusts were responsible for commissioning services and were free to fund homeopathy.
Homoeopathy is based on a theory that substances which cause symptoms in a healthy person can, when vastly diluted, cure the same problems in a sick person. The report came as Prince Charles was today accused of secretly lobbying ministers in support of using homeopathic medicines on the NHS.
6 comments:
I have studied it as an amateur, used professional doctors who are also qualified in homoeopathy, and had mixed results. But I have also had mixed results with allopathic medicine.
One major difference with homoeopathy is the consultation. The regular medical consultation at your GP is a five minute rushed list of symptoms and the prescription of a cure. By contrast the homoeopathic physician (and I would not visit one who is not medically qualified) takes 30 or more minutes to discuss and listen. They get under the ailment to find the "not been well since" point and start from there.
Assuming that all that is available is the placebo effect (a reasonable assumption), how much better will that effect be with a physician who actually listens and discusses than with one who shoves the latest remedy down your throat?
But the roots of the success of homoeopathy go back to a large outbreak of cholera in the UK where a homoeopathic route had substantially fewer deaths than the best the allopathic doctors could produce. That's unlikely to be placebo effect, and is a matter of public record.
As a further example, veterinary homoeopathy has a strong track record. Since herds of cows are generally not suggestible I suspect that there is no placebo effect present. Either they get better and are fit for use, or they are not. Itls rather silly to suggest that the professional farmer whose livelihood is on the line is the one who gets the placebo effect here!
Don't get me wrong, I have strong doubts about the science of homoeopathy. Yet I don't believe it is as simple as the placebo effect, nor do I see how there can be any rational explanation of why it works.
Isn't the important thing that it works (recognising that this will not always apply, but recongising that allopathic medicine doesn't always work either; people die while being treated by doctors of all sorts), and that it is far less costly when it works than a bottle of expensive pharmaceutical giant indistrial strength tablets? And equally it is essential that the prescribing homoepath is a physician first and foremost, and has a sufficiently sensible outlook to prescribe what works, allopathic or homoeopathic.
In today's climate of "A pill for everything" and "I want antibiotics because I'm too ignorant to realise that they don't work for viruses", even if homoeopathy turns out to be a placebo, what a powerful thing that can be in handling those who simply need a placebo instead of prescribing a real and costly tablet.
Best yet, it's impossible to overdose on a bottle of homoeopathic tablets. Take too many and you just reduce any effect, real or perceived.
So yes, I've tried it. For me it worked to help me through mild chronic fatigue syndrome; it failed to cure my headaches; it works for shock and sudden great pain; it failed to cure impotence, something I acquired form medicine designed to create that very thing for the duration of some nasty surgery, and which was meant to be reversible. And yes, we tried homoeopathic potencies of the drug that caused it. I am not trying it for diabetes and I will be unlikely to use it, except as an assistance regime, for cancer.
But I argue that it has value, used wisely, and used by a proper doctor. I argue strongly against the use of a person who is not medically qualified first and foremost.
Homeopathy is pure bunkum. You might as well pray to God to cure you.
But Tim, if the therapeutic effect of homeopathy is produced by the consultation, isn't that the same as saying the "medicine" itself doesn't work?
And doesn't it also mean the money would be better spent by giving patients more time with genuine medical practitioners?
I would never advise anyone not to visit a genuine medical practitioner. I reject any homoeopath that is not med ally qualified.
You've been selective in removing words form context. What I said was
"One major difference with homoeopathy is the consultation. The regular medical consultation at your GP is a five minute rushed list of symptoms and the prescription of a cure. By contrast the homoeopathic physician (and I would not visit one who is not medically qualified) takes 30 or more minutes to discuss and listen. They get under the ailment to find the "not been well since" point and start from there.
Assuming that all that is available is the placebo effect (a reasonable assumption), how much better will that effect be with a physician who actually listens and discusses than with one who shoves the latest remedy down your throat?"
Read that again. You cannot draw the conclusion you draw and the question you ask form those paragraphs.
I'd like to see a few (published) peer reviewed papers (with independently replicated results) that show homoeopathy to be more effective than placebo; as a tax payer I don't think this an unreasonable request?
I would also expect that in any public debate on this topic the pro-homoeopathy side would simply dip into their ample funds and produce such work to back up their case. Homoeopathy is supposed to be "science" after all, evidence and experimentation are the gold standards of (real) science. Of course they never do, why not?
I would hazard a guess that it's because such work doesn't exist, and cannot be done, and so all we are left with is urban myth, coincidence and anecdote. On one side desperation on the other greed, it's an age old combination. Of course people will turn to almost anything at a time of crisis, and just like religion, if people want to "believe" in crystal healing, homoeopathy, invisible demon spirits or lay lines then that should be their business (as long as they don't abuse their children with it) but such faith in the unseen is not sufficient to warrant Government funding IMO.
If you have one case that shows an odd result and 10,000 that do not then it means the first result is either a mistake or a fraud and certainly not indicative that we need to rush out and rewrite the laws of physics, chemistry and biology any time soon.
As Tim Minchin says, how come water can remember a single molecule of arnica that once passed by, but forget all the poo it's had in it?
I agree with almost all of what you say, Stephen. The "greed" element, at least within the NHS, I think cannot be present easily. The medical practitioners there are paid the same as others. The remedies themselves are dirt cheap, and, however large the profit margin percentage, one heck of a lot has to be sold to grow wealthy from it.
Certainly some private sector people seem to be on a gravy train. I've been treated by two, one who was not and one who was. Interestingly the one who was not greedy was the effective one. The other failed totally.
Let's have peer reviewed research to define IF it works even if it cannot determine how it might work.
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