To ask whether or not people here believe in homeopathy?

[DaisyLovesMetronidazole]

I don't at all.

However, I'm not out for a bunfight!

Just curious, as was surprised by the response of a certain group to this question today.

Drug companies, private hospitals, GP's, surgeons all make money too. Homeopaths, however, do not generally make alot of money and unlike drugs under licence, the remedies cost little to buy over the counter.

Also, many homeopathy users find their ailments stop altogether on successful treatment whereas many conventional medical treatment requires continued and often escallating medication fueling the, to use your words, gravy train.

There is an excellent study here which compares the cost of provision of effective homeopathic care and the reduction in referrals to NHS specialists and reduction in subsequent visits to the GP.

Thanks Gooseberry. Could I convince you with an anecdote? Or get you to try it?

Yes- homeopathic medicines don't cost much because they

• require no testing beyond basic "make sure it's not toxic" work. Water tends not to be so usually not an issue
• require no research
• dont work except as a placebo.

I also note the research you cite is a self-evaluation by a complementary medicine provider looking to justify their funding, not a proper study.

//the remedies cost little to buy over the counter. //

BECAUSE THEY'RE WATER LOL.

Seriously I am 1/2 PMSL and 1/2 "awwwwwww bless" at people who acutally pay money for this fuckery. Mainly PMSL though.

And the insults return :(

misty are you saying no one is making money from the big racks of wee vials of fuck all, in health food shops and pharmacies?

Homeopathy isn't all wee local practitioners, it's a big industry too.

any Homeopathy believers got any science qualifications? i don't get why you believe it.

also stop saying the placebo effect is being dismissed, i even posted a link about it's amazingness on the previous page.

ps were you joking about an anecdote? it'll have been said before but anecdotes do not equal data. :)

"If homeopaths said "here is a pill with its active ingredients diluted to ten gazillion times so there is no active ingredient, which it's been shown can work on your condition. Here are the side effects (nil)", I would have no problem with that at all. So why don't they?"

In effect, they do. They don't pretend there's anything left of the original ingredient. Everybody knows it. I would say the deception of the "memory" is certainly no greater than the deception practised on conventional drug users with regards to side effects, alternative drugs available, drug post code lottery, alternative non-drug treatments available, prognosis with or without drugs, disease incidence and so on. And to complain about financial intererest -- in the same way, you've got your targets very mixed up.

MistyB has some great points, really she is very cogent on this. No, to be honest Misty I don't think you could convince me with an anecdote, it would probably astonish me but not convince me. But I think homeopathy is incredibly valuable and the people who say "I wish I was thick enough to believe in this fuckwittery lol" really haven't much of a clue. Or any manners, for all their imagined superiority.

In addition, most of you, I have to assume, would be like AyeRobot have no problem with homeopaths offering services along the lines of the above. It would be interesting to hear if anyone could object to it.

This ought to make you re-examine your objections. If you can agree to homeopathy being offered under those conditions, it's so close to what they do at the moment that the insults, abuse, claims of stupidity, dishonesty, rip off and so on simply dessicate and drift off.

Holland and Barrett and Nelsons are both charitable, not for profit organizations, obviously.

If homeopaths know that the placebo effect is the only real function of their therapy, why do they bother with full-one training courses and the pantomime of mixing mercury, crude oil and sulfur for human consumption?

You can;t have it both ways. If homeopaths accept that their treatment is simply skilled application of the placebo effect, they they must also accept that all the training, qualificationmalarky is smoke and mirrors too.

Sorry, onlion-there seems to be a funny echo in here!

seeker jeezo I thought you were serious there for a second.

gooseberry everyone doesn't know it - loads of people on this thread alone got herbal and homeopathic mixed up and quite a few (including me when i first read about it in Bad Science) were then about the dilutions to the point of fuck all left. It is more like a big secret - why label the products with Arnica, Sulphur etc if there's none in it
??

(serious about the charitable organisations)

I think it must feel very exciting. its a little bit like something out of merlin. Do they actually mix now or is it just premixed though? That would be disappointing.

Seriously, if it were marketing under those conditions, would you complain?

I don't know if this is karma for me grumping on the thread, but i am working in a lab right now and have just dropped my nice diluted solution on the floor and smashed it. Argh.

Need to make more now. Don't worry, the contents are accurately quantifiable by GC it's def not homeopathic

That would be a lot easier actually... i could just fill my flask up with the diluent and hope it remembers the stuff I want it to be.

What I don't understand is the virulence of feeling. There is so much worse going on in conventional medicine, so much more corruption, and damage. All this energy spent on homeopathy it really does feel like an easy target. It's as if it's something to make people feel clever, when in fact the more difficult thing is to separate the good from the bad with the conventional pharmaceutical, the convential medical industry. It's more complicated and demanding, but as the damage caused is so much greater, it is so much more important. Homeopathy in the UK why are people so enraged? There is so much more to be angry about on the other side of the coin. Perhaps there is an element of not wanting to even start to think about it because as someone said earlier up, ignorance is bliss.

I notice no one has been able to agree with MistyB about this, even if continuing to disagree about homeopathy, which is and extraordinary self-blindfolding by many posters.

Nice little flash of the white coat there jaggy.

Gooseberry, no I don't suppose so.

It's not though and it's unlikely that the whole industry will turn round and confes that they are selling sugar pills is it? Most people genuinely don't know that they contain no active ingredient, they seem to think they are herbal.

I don't think the pharmaceutical industry is perfect in any way, but I think you are havering about the 'deception' comparison. How is the 'post-code lottery' deception? The leaflet with your drugs tells you every possible side effect reported and asks you to report any that you have - if you don't read it it's up to you, not a deception.

Drugs have to be better than placebo/existing treatment too. I used to work for a company that did contract research for pharmaceutical companies and saw projects cancelled, having spent lots of money because the active ingredient being studied simply wan't better than the existing treatments.

Doctors do use non drug treatments and are there for advice, not just prescriptions. My father has been referred to counselling for help with depression for example, but resources can be limited.

As above - how can you spend 3 years learning how homeopathic preparations have fuck all in them - would you not be better off just doing a counselling/psychotherapy qualification if you accept the pills are for show?

I am not wearing a white coat thanks, i was trying to be amusing...

Gooseberry The same could be said of "anti modern medicine" people who I think are rabid, paranoid and full of conspiracy theory and display a complete lack of understanding of the benefits that modern medicine has given to the human race, processes around evidence and regulation. That virulence of feeling is equally bizarre imo.

I don't have anything to do with pharmaceuticals these days but saw how the testing works.

Even if there is 'so much worse going on in conventional medicine (aka medicine that actually contains stuff)' , how does that make it ok to have the entire homeopathy industry built on bullplop?

But this is about what your practitioner tells you.

How often are you told to read the leaflet? How often has your health visitor sat patiently while you read the vaccine contraindications before being jabbed? How often has this information ever been actively offered? I can say - never. Not for my children, not for me.

How honest are the leaflets? For example, as research into MMR pre-roll out is acknowledged as "inadequate" -- not very. Was this an isolated example? Well it's hard to tell. It's known that companies underreport, ie fail to publish, unsupportive studies.

How seriously are reports taken of post roll-out adverse events? Not very. There is a presumption of coincidence. Complainants who dare to take legal action are smeared, threatened with ruin. If there is a settlement it is usually out of court, to prevent a court ruling.

Compared to this, the homeopathic set up is a little girl skipping in the park with a balloon. How can you say "not perfect" and "havering"? Do you just not know about this? Or do you think it's ok?

Bollocks.

Reporting of adverse effects is considered a phase of clinical trials after the drug is released. There is a special 'yellow card' system for reporting through GPs.