Caer Abred

No, not Dr Who! It's the World Health Organisation. Again, a slightly misleading headline, WHO are saying that homeopathy should not be used for life-threatening illnesses. And who could agrue against that?

BBC News wrote:Homeopathy not a cure, says WHO
People with conditions such as HIV, TB and malaria should not rely on homeopathic treatments, the World Health Organization has warned....There is no objective evidence that homeopathy has any effect on these infections, and I think it is irresponsible for a healthcare worker to promote the use of homeopathy in place of proven treatment for any life-threatening illness.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8211925.stm

Well done WHO!

Though this will just be taken as further evidence of the NWO conspiracy to kill us all by (Alternative "Medicine" funded) Alternative "Medicine" websites.

*shrug*

What is this with homeopathy anyway? Why the continual knee jerk reaction when anything is mentioned in the conventional press?

Let's not forget, there is NO cure for AIDS. Not homeopathy, not quackery, and not anything provided by allopathic science either. Antiretroviral treatment can suppress HIV by interfering with the replication process in CD4 cells, but can't clear it completely. The virus comes back as soon as the treatment is stopped.

There have been many claimed cures for AIDS, from industrial solvents such as Virodene; swimming pool disinfectants such as tetrasilver tetroxide; Comforter's Healing Gift (an extract of the sonneblom plant from South Africa); Dr Sebi's "electric foods"; IMOD (a drug developed by Russian scientists ......... the list goes on and on, and includes electric zappers and sex with child virgins. In fact, I doubt that homeopathy actually claims a "cure", unlike many of these unsavoury others.

However ..........

According to Dr Ben Goldacre, beloved debunker of medical myth, only a relatively low percentage of conventional medicine is actually evidence based. In fact he says:

Ben Goldacre wrote:Drug companies have repeatedly been shown to bury unflattering data.

http://www.badscience.net/2008/02/619/

Just thought I'd point that out, in the continued interest of playing the ball in any topic, not the man ..... even if the man is a collective entity.

It seems the poor homeopathists are being persecuted again by the Witch Finder General of the First Church of Scientism.....

Surely as long as people continue their other meds, homeopathy cannot remotely do any harm and may do some good. (unlike herbalism where one can definitely have bad interactions between herbs and conventional medications)

White Horse wrote:It seems the poor homeopathists are being persecuted again by the Witch Finder General of the First Church of Scientism.....

Well, they will certainly see it like that. I was recently sent an invitation by the Society Of Homeopaths to rejoin them - which I declined. I actually dislike them as an organization, and actually don't think they do homeopathy the remotest bit of good. However, as a healing discipline, I think homeopathy is now pretty much dead in the water (exqueeeeeze the pun ) in any case - especially now.

I'm not entirely sure why homeopathy, specifically, comes in for as much flak as it does. That's really what I was grumbling about, ie the fact that this particular playing field isn't level. In actual fact homeopathy has never claimed to "cure" anyone of anything. It simply isn't allowed to - and that's a legal requirement, ie any practising homeopath can only state on their literature that homeopathy "may be able to help" conditions such as asthma, duodenal ulcers, broken bones, anything.

In terms of the cost of medicine, homeopathic remedies are cheap as chips - pence per several doses. Allopathic medicine isn't, which is OK over here with the NHS but which may be a very real consideration in parts of the Third World where people literally cannot afford to buy it because it represents such a huge percentage of their meagre incomes - which is probably why people try to use homeopathy. It's not actually such a straightforward choice as is represented by that scant paragraph in the media. In India, homeopathy has actually been the main system of medicine for the past 150-odd years, with allopathy being a relative newcomer. Both systems work closely together, with each consulting the other in a very nice and open balance. If homeopathy is actually outlawed, which is beginning to look increasingly likely as an outcome in the not-too-distant future, there will be huge numbers of people in deprived areas of the world who will have virtually no access to any form of medicine - including a bit of human kindness and compassion towards an exhausted woman who has been too long in labour or a child dehydrated by sickness and diarrhoea. Out there, people actually die from things that wouldn't represent too much of a medical problem here - and surely some kind of care is better than nothing at all?

White Horse wrote:Surely as long people continue their other meds, homeopathy cannot remotely do any harm and may do some good. (unlike herbalism where one can definitely have bad interactions between herbs and conventional medications)

Exactly.

The thing is this: Homeopathy COULD be subjected to full medical trials by the use of protocols.

In other words what is tested is not a particular homeopathic treatment, rather it is the treatment advised by a homeopath (or more than one) that is tested against a given conventional medical treatment. And, of course, a placebo version of both. This addresses every objection that can be raised against subjecting it to full medical trials as it is only fair to accept the idea that homeopathic treatments have to be individually determined for each patient for a given condition.

Has any such trial been carried out and what was the result?

Chris wrote:In actual fact homeopathy has never claimed to "cure" anyone of anything.

Cough, "like cures like" is I believe one of the main principles of homeopathy. Moving rapidly on and what do I find, ah! this....

BHDA wrote:There are remedies which which cure ulcers and cold sores and many more

That's from the British Homeopathic Dental Association who, apart from not being able to string a sentence together are pretty much claiming to offer a cure. There's more....

Homeopathic remedies are effective and have no unpleasant side effects. There are remedies which stop swelling and pain after injections and extractions. There are remedies which reduce the pain and swelling of dental abscesses. There are remedies which alleviate toothache.

http://www.bhda.co.uk/why.php
I could find you more.

Chris wrote:I'm not entirely sure why homeopathy, specifically, comes in for as much flak as it does.

Hmmm!....

A Homeopath wrote:The remedy was made from the focussed light of the planet Venus.

http://www.btinternet.com/~wellmother/venus.htm
Now, I'm not an expert but I'm not quite sure how you get the light from the planet venus into a homeopathic pill. This kind of thing does homeopathy no favours.

White Horse wrote:Surely as long people continue their other meds, homeopathy cannot remotely do any harm

That's the problem. After concerns regarding homeopaths claiming to be able to prevent malaria a survey of 10 homeopathic practices was carried out.

BBC wrote:They sent an undercover researcher in to say she was about to go in to a malaria infested country. They all recommended doses of homeopathic remedies - 99.99% water with an almost undetectable trace of effective remedies such as quinine. None of them directed the researcher to a GP or Travel Clinic...Dr Behrens has treated patients who fell for the homeopaths claims "We've certainly had patients admitted to our unit with the malignant form of malaria who have been taking homeopathic remedies and without a doubt the reason that they were taking them and not effective drugs was the reason they had malaria."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/5178122.stm
And if you think all this homeopathy is harmless then perhaps a few minutes scrolling through the following page may make you think again.

A physician/homeopath advised him to use homoepathic preventatives for malaria prior to a trip to Africa. After he returned with the disease she continued to treat him with homeopathy. He died.

http://whatstheharm.net/homeopathy.html

The homoeopathic pills that are given to patients are made with a small amount of the drug and the fact that homoeopathic pills are diluted with distilled water and water has a "memory" so therefore remembers what the drug is and acts accordingly to treat the ailment.
Peace & blessings.
Broom/|\
P.S. "It does work"

Phill wrote:The homoeopathic pills that are given to patients are made with a small amount of the drug

A 30X dilution means that the original substance has been diluted 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times.....The American Physical Society, has noted that since the least amount of a substance in a solution is one molecule, a 30C solution would have to have at least 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....the laws of chemistry state that there is a limit to the dilution that can be made without losing the original substance altogether. This limit, which is related to Avogadro's number, corresponds to homeopathic potencies of 12C or 24X

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/homeo.html
Therefore, a homeopathic remedy of, say Arnica, at 30x will not contain a single molecule of Arnica. Put bluntly, Arnica 30x will not contain any Arnica. The medicine contains no medicine. That's not my opinion that's actual Science. If you were to take a bunch of Arnica 30x pills and some Oscillococcinum 200x pills and mixed them together there is no way that even scientists, with all the equipment at their disposal, could identify which were the Arnica pills and which were the Oscillococcinum pills. The only way to identify what a homeopathic pill is is by looking at the label.

Phill wrote:and water has a "memory"

Could you point me to the evidence for this Phill. The evidence that rewrites the laws of physics and an abandonment of the entire molecular basis of chemistry

Modern proponents assert that even when the last molecule is gone, a "memory" of the substance is retained. This notion is unsubstantiated. Moreover, if it were true, every substance encountered by a molecule of water might imprint an "essence" that could exert powerful (and unpredictable) medicinal effects when ingested by a person....Imagine how many compounds must be present, in quantities of a molecule or more, in every dose of a homeopathic drug. Even under the most scrupulously clean conditions, airborne dust in the manufacturing facility must carry thousands of different molecules of biological origin derived from local sources (bacteria, viruses, fungi, respiratory droplets, sloughed skin cells, insect feces) as well as distant ones (pollens, soil particles, products of combustion), along with mineral particles of terrestrial and even extraterrestrial origin (meteor dust). Similarly, the "inert" diluents used in the process must have their own library of microcontaminants.

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/homeo.html
Incidentaly, proving or disproving a ‘water memory’ effect does not prove or disprove that homeopathy works. The studies that show that homeopathy works no better than placebo do that effectively enough. The alternative explanation (a placebo effect induced by ritual) requires no new physics, chemistry and biology and just an understanding of human psychology.

Phill wrote:P.S. "It does work"

I take it you didn't read all the stuff at the following link.
http://whatstheharm.net/homeopathy.html