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.

Yes it's tedious.

THE STATE OF MIND IS THE CAUSE. THERE IS NO OTHER CAUSE. THAT IS WHAT PLACEBO IS. THAT IS WHAT PLACEBO IS.

IF THERE IS ANOTHER CAUSE IT IS COINCIDENCE. IT IS NOT PLACEBO EFFECT. DO YOU UNDERSTAND.

I linked it, no one cared except you :)

Gooseberrybushes.

I did. I also told you. twice.

You are not listening.

In everyday usage it does.

It's quite sad. Gooseberry, it's obvious from your foot-stamping dismissal of my valid examples as "rubbish and boring" that you are not interested in progressing your ideas at all, just in having an argument. I've tried to present things in different ways, but it is going nowhere.

Einstein said that when you try the same thing over and over expecting different results, this is the definition of madness. This seems to apply very well to threads on which practitioners and defenders of woo hang out, so I am going to leave (and block) this thread before you send me mad.

Bye

No that's great Himalaya -- fantastic. You've withdrawn your earlier comment that it wasn't to do with false correlation, fabulous.

UQD - Himalaya can tell you about placebo effect. She's on your side so you might listen to her.

Oh my goodness you are like just weird.

Himalaya tell him.

eh?

Oh UQD you're off. And you never got to find out what placebo effect is.

www.badscience.net/2008/03/all-bow-before-the-might-of-the-placebo-effect-it-is-the-coolest-strangest-thing-in-medicine/#more-620

here is it a gain if you missed it! didn't bother to read it

eh what? are you just doing that thing of writing long posts and not reading?

or didn't bother that should have been.

And just to wind you up a bit more.... can I add confirmation bias to the mix? Which is where the expectation that a treatment will do positive good can make people over-estimate the actual effect?

Examples include:

• Homeopathic treatment in an animal. Vet: "he's been having his treatment for 5 days now. You should expect to have seen some improvement". Owner: "Oh yes, now you come to mention it I do think he's better than yesterday." No measurable change seen by unbiased observer.

• Unblinded clinical trial: Analyst: "Hmm, this patient's blood pressure reading is very high, but he's been on the new drug. I'll just take it again to double check." New measurement is lower. "That's more like it". Of course, patients not on the new treatment are not given these extra checks.

Which is why blinding and trial design to eliminate bias as much as possible is so important.

Putting everything at the door of the placebo effect is nice, easy, clean but unfortunately far too simplistic.

This thread is really informative. I now know which posters are gullible loons. Do you not realise you're victims of marketing? Homeopathy seems to appeal to people who like to eschew chemicals, brands and materialistic marketing, but homeopathy is big business and the biggest con of all, with money spent on convincing its customers that actually, even if it is just a placebo effect and no better than sugar pills, they should still spend money on it

Bit like religion threads. Apparently the truth doesn't matter but if you just beleeeeve then you'll be miraculously saved

Gooseberrybush,

I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to have withdrawn about what. nevermind.

I am still not clear if you are clear. you agree that any value of homeopathy is as placebo. But you have also stated wrongly that it doesnt work by regression to the mean. "It only works by placebo. Regression to the mean has nothing to do with the placebo, or homeopathic treatment." etc...

Its unlikely to be 100% either way. But since homeopathic studies have not done the work to find out how much of their apparent 'effectiveness' is true placebo (the bit that is valuable) and how much is regression to the mean (taking credit for what would have happened anyway) we just can't know.

This means it is a false correlation. I am going to take the time to explain it to you.

Group A: 100 people take homeopathic remedy.25% feel better.
Group B: 100 people take a placebo 25% feel better.

The study says homepathic remedy is no more effective than placebo
You say homeopathy is an effective placebo for 1 in 4 patients.

But if you include group C: didn't take anything 15% feel better then you can see that your conclusion is a false correlation. It is not accurate. Homeopathic remedy is an effective placebo for 1 in 10 patients.

I like your group C Himalaya.

Group A: 100 people take homeopathic remedy.25% feel better.
Group B: 100 people take a placebo 25% feel better.
Group C: 100 people take nothing. 15% feel better.

Homeopathy has only done more than nothing-at-all in 10% of people, and it has done no better than the placebo.

It also says that homeopathy with all its woo about 'memory of water' and 'succussion' is no better than a tictac. Therefore it is a big fat waste of money.

I think regression to the mean is a bit of a technical term, that is going to confuse people who don't know stats etc.

I think in this context we could call it 'Sometimes People Just Get Better'.

Anecdote is not evidence but, years ago I was persuaded to see a homeopathist about my migraines. Took the remedies and had the worst case of thrush I'd ever had. Phoned up the homeopath who said 'oh, good, it means it's clearing all the XXXX out of your system'. (Can't remember what phrase she used.) I was furious as I hadn't bargained for thrush! BUT it was fascinating that homeopathy had side-effects. And very good ones - I never had thrush ever again. And it was conventional medicine (antibiotics) that gave me thrush in the first place.

Homeopathy did sod-all for my migraines but it was worth paying good money to be rid of thrush, permanently.

Of course, the sceptics would say it's coincidence. But since taking those crappy antibiotics I had been treated to regular outbreaks of thrush. They stopped, for good, immediately after taking homeopathic remedies.

Don't care whether the mechanism is understood, or whether it's an example of the placebo effect, or what - it ruddy worked. (And there's nothing with placebo if it does the job and makes you feel better. People on the placebo arm of clinical trials often improve.)

did you stop taking the antibiotics that caused the thrush too?

edam so you took antibiotics and had thrush. Then you stopped taking antibiotics and took homeopathy and din't have thrush?

Don't you think it might be the stopping the anitbiotics that had the effect?

jaggy, I wasn't taking antibiotics continually. I had one course of them which gave me thrush for the first time ever. And then I kept getting thrush again and again. Until I tried homeopathy.

What fascinated me was that homeopathy seemed to have a side-effect. That suggests there is something going on.

There is nothing in it. Anything that went on would have gone on if you had been given non-homepathic pills, and might easily have gone on if you had been given nothing at all.

You took antibiotics, you got thrush, the thrush kept happening again for a few months, perhaps a year.
At some point the thrush stops.
So of course you look around for anything you might have done to cause this.
Had you changed your diet?
Had you changed the type of underwear you wore?
Had you started taking a vitamin?
Had you had a nice haircut?
Oh wait, here's a nice plausible-sounding explanation, you'd taken some pills with no ingredients that were supposed to do something else altogether.

It's human nature to look for correlations and try to explain things. But sometimes peopel just get better. Did you really think you were going to have recurrent thrush for the rest of your life?

Edam, since getting pregnant with ds I have not had a single attack of thrush (he's now 4 so that's 5 years thrush-free, Yay!). I used to get it all the time. I have mused that pregnancy maybe somehow changed the acidity or something, but I think probably it just shows how human beings are very keen to ascribe cause to effect.

It's interesting that the homeopathy was prescribed for migraines, the homeopath didn't tell you that a side-effect might be thrush, presumably didn't tell you that the homeopathy would cure your thrush that you didn't have before taking the pills (she may have done of course, you don't say) but you have linked the ending of the thrush to the homeopathic remedy.

So if you use homeopathy to treat something and get better - homeopathy works

But if you use homeopathy to treat something and that doesn't get better, but coincidentally something else does - that's proof homeopathy works too?

suzi - given that pergnancy does have a physical effect on your fanjo, and that homeopathy doesn't have anything in it I think your explanation is much better than most on this thread for connecting cause and effect.