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".

Out of MistyB and Winter/SGB, who would you accuse of mindless drivel? The person who can intelligently critique a 200+ page Select Committee report, or the people who can merely vomit insult and swear words onto a keyboard?

Well of course I knew. But they're hardly listening or reading themselves are they?

It would be hard to disagree with if there were any scientific evidence of it actually being true rather than make-believe and wishful thinking. The crux of the matter is whether science informs your thinking or not. It is on this point that we differ.

I honestly don't know but our ds (who is now 16) after 5 hospital admissions for bronchiolits, pneumonia, asthma, 11 ear infections and courses of antibiotics after antibiotics, followed by grommets on top of, pulmicort, ventolin, beconate, something beginning with A in a white inhaler, spacers, nebulisers, etc., etc., saw at the suggestion on my GP when he was on the 3rd centile at about 16 months (and post grommets which seemed to work on the ears) a doctor who worked at the Royal Homeopathic Hospital in Great Ormond Street. He prescribed pulsatilla, mercuris, dulcis and kali mur. I was sceptical but never would I have imagined a small boy turning the corner so fast. Oh yes he had eczema too! I don't know if it was the homeopathy but I certainly wouldn't dismiss it. I would say, though, that I think we benefitted hugely from a medical referral to a qualified homeopathic consultant working in a well known hospital. I do recall that PPP didn't cover it and cost a two to three hundred pounds but was I think worth every penny.

This child by the way was in such a state that he was tested for cystic fibrosis at our local hospital and at one stage was under the Royal Brompton Hospital.

Happy to say he is now 5' 10'', and an accomplished sportsman who has rarely looked back and has not needed an inhaler since he was 8.

I suppose to be honest it does but up to a point. There are many things that "science" does not understand and cannot explain, and the placebo effect is one of them. I'm happy to accept that we do not understand and cannot explain them, but that comprehension may come at some point. Drugs that are understood now were once used (as herbs) without any understanding or "science" merely anecdote and experience.

So, no, science informs my thinking, it's rather insulting of you to assume it doesn't at all. Perhaps you are trying to be insulting, who cares. It's just I recognise as you must, surely that science does not explain everything. It never has. And if we, as a race, had waited for it to do so, we'd never have progressed into what we are today.

That's a lovely experience onceamai. Stata would say he "just got better" and I have to say, I would call it "placebo", but really it's quite astonishing and very hard to put down to placebo.

Can I ask you something -- did he come off all the medication when he started on the homeopathic?

I only ask just because I think sometimes people end up in a cycle of medication when the best thing could be just to stop taking everything. But I suppose with your son you couldn't just stop if he was so ill.

No, he didn't, the ears had cleared up because of the grommets, but there were no more hospital admissions (this was part of a two pronged approach though and by that time we had got hold of something called a turbo haler via a private referral that was not available on the NHS) and very quickly he was off the permanent inhaled steroids having them only during bad colds, etc., needed no further courses of oral steroids, the occasional burst of ventolin. What did stop almost overnight though was the eczema. I shall never know the full effect - but it was helpful. I am not discounting the helpfulness of the turbohaler but cannot overstate my disgust that this was not available on the NHS and was recommended only after a private referral to a consultant at the Royal Brompton. What is without question is that we went through hell and I shudder to think what state the lad would have ended up in if he had not had the advantages he was born with, probably he would have limped along for far longer but would have picked up eventually.

There were a few triggers for the asthma until he was about 8 - dry ice at the theatre, fireworks, fog.

Thank you. This is the sort of experience which is very difficult to explain. If this is "simply getting better" it really is a most extraordinary coincidence, and one that is repeated with homeopathic treatment. Sadly not with the conventional treatment. Did you have as much faith in the conventional treatment as the homeopathic? I mean, you expected it to "work"?

Gooseberry, you've demonstrated countless times your disregard for scientific inquiry and also that you don't quite understand the principles behind it. Of course science doesn't inform your thinking - you just dip into it occasionally when it agrees with you.

There are very plausible explanations for the placebo effect as well as, of course, regression to the mean. You seem to think the placebo effect is mystical in some way. It's not.

There are many things not explained by science but as we increase our knowledge, we understand more about the world around us. Our increasing scientific knowledge of homeopathy over the last 150 years has shown that it doesn't work and also that it CAN'T work. It's not just that no effect is empirically observed but also that the causal mechanism is theoretically implausible. Thinking it could work 150 years ago could have been rational and totally different to thinking it works today with such overwhelming evidence showing that it doesn't.

I had far more faith in the conventional medical, scientific treatment and was very sceptical. I was talked into the homeopathic referral by my GP who for some reason thought it was very helpful for blonde, blue eyed boys - don't ask why please - I don't know. I did it because I was at the end of my tether.

"Gooseberry, you've demonstrated countless times your disregard for scientific inquiry."

Not at all. You just made that up.

"You seem to think the placebo effect is mystical in some way. It's not."

Really? It's generally agreed to be little understood. You, for example, seem to imagine it consists of "happy feelings" and perception of symptoms. Which it doesn't. So it's certainly a mystery to you, the great scientist.

"There are very plausible explanations for the placebo effect as well as, of course, regression to the mean."

Do I need to point out once more how irrelevant regression to the mean is when comparing homeopathic and conventional treatment? Don't make me, please, please, I've done it SO many times, you must understand by now.

"The causal mechanism is theoretically implausible."

Well, sure, but the cost-benefit analysis is so great compared to that of conventional medication that it's worth letting it be.

Honestly, you're going for the wrong target. That's what's ironic about your stance. Your limited vision has led you up the wrong path. People are outraged about homeopathy -- but the drifts of death, harm and financial costs of conventional medication you quite happily ignore.

Homeopahy is very helpful for blonde, blue-eyed boys ??

While I'm glad your son's condition improved, that thinking (on the part of your GP) only further reinforces the fact that homeopathy isn't evidence based.

Thanks onceamai. Fascinating, sorry to ask so many questions. Glad it worked out.

Stata you aren't even interested, you just think the child got better on his own.

Ah, you see gooseberry, that's where you're wrong. I'm equally outraged by my GP prescribing antibiotics like they're candies. I just don't think that an argument for homeopathy is that there are worse things to worry about!

And you're wrong about placebo effect. It's not completely understood but a lot of it is. What IS clear is that it's unreliable and that it's hard to predict who will be affected and who won't.

There is no cost-benefit analysis to homeopathy since it's a fraud. Far better to put the money into things that work beyond the placebo effect.

Why the aggression and attitude gooseberry? I'm very glad the child got better. I doubt very much it had anything to do with homeopathy, especially homeopathy that is directed at blonde, blue eyed boys.

Unfortunately, unlike you, I have less faith in anecdote and 'human interest stories'

Well right back atcha. Conventional drugs are often violently unreliable and it's hard to predict who'll be affected and who won't. So that's not much of an argument against placebo by homeopathy.

Really? The mechanism by which a belief engineers radical physiological change is understood?

Sure it is. Sure it is.

You doubt very much?

Surely you disbelieve it completely?

Yes, I know about your lack of interest in anecdote. And about how it doesn't consitute evidence. And how you conflate evidence and proof.

Basically, you think it's just a case of getting better, no interest, end of story. There is nothing remarkable about the length of conventional treatment or the lack of placebo/nocebo faith or the exceptional coincidence. You're not interested because you know everything.

Asthma and exczema are things that kids sometimes simply grow out of. The child was receiving real medical treatment as well as woobollocks, so the usual benefits of getting better anyway, lovebombing of the woo peddler and raised expectations of the child's parents are the usual explanation.
It's not even that exceptional a coincidence - though I am of course glad for the poster's DS that he's better.

Yes just like that. Maybe the medication didn't help either and he just got better over night just like that. Maybe they all do -- just like that.

It's not in the slightest bit intriguing, is it?

Exczema can clear up pretty quickly - and in this child's case it may have been iatrogenic anyway.
There are plenty of people for whom homeopathy does fuck all even when they are gullible enough to believe in it. When I was young and silly with a few inclinations in woo directions, I tried homeopathic medicine and it did fuck all apart from cost money.
Why are you so obsessed with defending your ludicrous and incomprehensible position Gooseberry? Are you a professional crap-peddler? Or just someone who has spent a fortune on crap and can't bear the idea that you have been connned through the bag and back?

No-one's conflating proof and evidence. Perhaps you can point out where that has happened.

In fact, you did notice that I indeed said highly unlikely. There's always a tiny possibility that homeopathy has worked and all of the studies showing it doesn't - at the level of at least 95% statistical significance which is the standard usually used - all fall into the possible 5% error camp (though I'm sure that the statistical significance was far better given the size of the studies) due to chance alone. This probability is so tiny that it's negligible to all intents and purposes.

Personally, I'd go with the far far more likely option that homeopathy doesn't work, together with the Chief Scientific Adviser. But you go place your bets on whatever you prefer. After all, it's just number crunching, right? You can't beat a good old story with numbers.

The reason is SGB that people find science quite scary. If people don't understand it, they feel it is far better and safer to place their faith in things they do understand such as stories and anecdotes.