To ask whether or not people here believe in homeopathy - at the risk of floggin a dead horse...

[MistyB]

Winter: Homeopaths are not unqualified - they follow 3 or 4 year degree courses including anatomy and physiology.

Alistron1: The principle of Homeopathy has been known since the time of Hippocrates from Greece, the founder of medicine, around 450 BC.

I am tempted to answer the bottles falling on the floor question but feel that you would ridicule the answer in the way that the Spanish Inquisition determined that the theory that "the sun was imobile and at the centre of the universe" was "foolish and absurd".

Gooseberry, there's nothing wrong or incoherent with acknowledging the benefits of the placebo effect but deciding that the negatives outweigh those benefits.

You also have the problem of the double standards regarding homeopathy and conventional treatments.

"We regret that advocates of homeopathy, including in their submissions to our inquiry, choose to rely on, and promulgate, selective approaches to the treatment of the evidence base as this risks confusing or misleading the public, the media and policymaker"

For example this could certainly obtain when it comes to delivery of conventional treatment and medication.

"There is a risk that a patient whose symptoms improve following homeopathic treatment (because of a placebo effect or because the symptom would have diminished unaided) may delay seeking proper medical diagnosis for future symptoms that may or may not be for a serious underlying condition."

And when you look at cases of medical error and delays in diagnosism, they match, overtake and overwhelm the problems here.

There's much more to "sort out" with conventional medical treatment than homeopathy.

Unfortunately, Gooseberry, that's not what the report finds.

And just because there are issues to address in evidence-based medicine (which I don't deny), doesn't make homeopathy any more plausible, effective or efficacious.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

No, not if you are consistent stata. The problem is that the naysayers divide on this. If one person is consistent saying, I don't like the deception, and it wouldn't do to transfer that to the public sector, that's fine.

But you would have to show that the negatives do indeed outweigh the benefits, which you haven't shown and which I don't believe has been shown.

In my opinion that would not be with regard to the intangible "ethical" field, but with regard to real health and well being.

The quote: homeopathy is not efficacious, is misleading. There is a deliberate ambiguity.

Efficacious as regards active ingredients perhaps. But showing no benefits other than placebo does not mean it is not efficacious at all. Plainly there are benefits, and if you believe those benefits are by placebo or by magic, there are still benefits, and therefore it is actually efficacious.

The problems with the placebo effect are all well outlined in the report I linked to under the section 'Placebos and the placebo effect'.

I certainly would not appreciate having my right to informed choice by being deceived and prescribed a placebo and would regard it as a violation.

And I agree that the placebo effect is a very important factor in medicine and has been sidelined in modern practice.

However whether it is ethical to give someone a drug proven not work, in the conscious knowledge that this is a form of deception, is a hard question. In a time of cutbacks, when drugs proven to work are not being funded, it's also difficult to justify NHS money being used to fund drugs proven NOT to work, to the benefit of private companies selling the most expensive forms of sugar in the world. Perhaps we should just cut to the chase and give patients honestly packaged and marketed sugar pills, which would at least be cheap and ethically transparent.

The other issue is that conscious use of placebos went hand in hand with practices like not telling patients the truth about their prognosis because it was thought they would relapse if they knew the truth, or carrying out operations without full consent because people were "only" patients who couldn't expect to understand and might make the "wrong" decision. It's quite possible that not telling people the truth about their terminal cancer DID prolong their life and make their final days more pleasurable - but we've more or less decided this is unacceptable these days, and that honesty is worth the price.

That's a good argument against the use of placebo in the state sector, Stata, but not against homeopathy.

No, gooseberry. For something to be efficacious, benefits need to be proven beyond placebo. That's true for any medicine and it's true for homeopathy and it's true for spiritual healing. It's kind of basic science.

Do you think spiritual healing works by that token?

Homeopathy = placebo. No difference.

I can't open the link -- is it the one you quoted from?

Can you summarise. From what you've c and p'd, and from your line into it, it seems to be saying the problem is the ethical one of deception rather than a risk-benefit analysis of health and wellbeing.

Stata: are you denying that there is any benefit in placebo?

Gooseberry - she's saying there is benefit in placebo but at the cost of deceiving the patient and paying vastly inflated prices for said placebo.

If (and it's a big if) we accept that it's ok to deceive patients with sugar pills, and we accept we are going to give patients placebos, then why not give them NHS manufactured sugar pills instead of cynically enriching big businesses when we KNOW their "cures" are nothing of the kind?

A response to this 275 page report and these questions will take more than a few minutes and best not done at 10 on a Sunday after a glass of wine - I will respond when I have more time.

The cost of deceving the patient is irrelevant, discounted by the health benefit.

The vastly inflated prices -- well, it depends on the health benefit. Vastly inflated prices could be paid for conventional drugs with the same benefit or less benefit.

So there's no argument there against use of placebo.

Visiter: you disagree with stata who would not like to see state use of placebo. You would be happy to see the deception simply change hands.

I don't have a lot of truth with the complaints about cynically enriching big business. Much, much more to worry about in the pharmaceutical industry there.

Actually visiter you do encompass all the problems of the naysayers in your post. You like the placebo, but don't like the deception that comes with it. Well, that's just what placebo is. It's part and parcel.

But you only dislike the deception up to a point: you'd actually like to see it in the hands of the state.

I do believe misty linked to some studies showing benefit beyond placebo.

Actually I have to say I have no problem with private practice homeopathy - though I do think they should be obliged to have a big sign on their wall saying "It has been proven that homeopathic remedies are no better at curing disease than sugar pills"

I've actually used homepathy for eczema with good results - I remain completely convinced it was a placebo cure, but I was happy to pay for the placebo.

What I find difficult is state-funded homeopathy. I wish there was an ethical way of recognising the placebo effect and incorporating it into NHS treatment - but I don't know how you square this circle.

The placebo effect may be enhanced by its NHS "oversight", you never know.

Gooseberry - no you are misquoting me. I don't think there is a place for homeopathy or cynical use of the placebo effect in the NHS.

My example of the NHS sugar pills was simply to illustrate this as the next logical step - if we accept that the value of homeopathy lies in its placebo effect, then why not cut to the chase and eliminate the homeopathic remedies full stop.

Recognising the value of the placebo effect does not mean that I am happy to see state money channelled into deceiving people.

Visiter: the placebo effect might not work with the big sign. Maybe you need a bit a technical fancy foot work to enhance the effect.

The one study I've seen involving sugar pills, which claimed that it works just as well without deception, actually and actively told the patients that while it was a placebo, the pills worked. So, your big sign doesn't really fit in with that.

Load of shite.

Please dilute this very wonderful ingredient to make it more powerful.

Eh ok so.

Come on!

"Recognising the value of the placebo effect does not mean that I am happy to see state money channelled into deceiving people."

Not even when it makes them better?

Also, you know there is quite a lot of that going on outside homeopathy. These are very selective targets people are attacking.

And actually to counter your last point, it's perfectly possible to have a placebo effect without deception.

People in medical trials are not deceived, for example. They know there is a good chance they will be in a control group of one kind or another.