to think homeopaths really just make money out of the gullible?

[WidowWadman]

A remedy made from diluted bits of the Berlin Wall - seriously, that's surely just a test to find out how far they can push it, isn't?

I'm back.
What were you taking, Katy?
When you say up and about, and major surgery....can you give us more details?

How can you be allergic to all painkillers? Like, all opiates, all anti-inflammatories, paracetamol, etc?

Have you tried all analgesic compounds known to man?

Are you also allergic to dissociatives like ketamine?

Surely, your doctor can't have just left you after the operation with a few sugar pills.

Re: the memory of water. If such a thing existed (which it doesn't) that still would not explain the fact that the 'homeopathic' sugar pills don't have any of the magic water in them! It has evaporated!

The water has obviously passed the memory to the sugar.

Yes Cote, so it is magic sugar

No not magic. That is just condescending to stuff you don't understand. Shame on you.

It is the vigorous tapping that releases the quantum energy of the sugar.

You forgot about the saddle, Cote.

You are right, Cote. I am chastened.

SADDLE??!!

Steady on there

You know about the saddle?

Right, deffo off to bed now.
I'm going to have a medicinal solution of magic cocoa powder, mixed vigorously with sugar and water, then subjected to non-ionising radiation......

Can I interest you in a jam jar of magic water, minou?

Shit off.

Actually....that can be the name of your best-selling remedy for diarrhoea.
Diluted toilet water, placed in a bottle and banged repeatedly against your head until relief (or a coma) is obtained.

I think I shall have a nice glass of water with the memory of gin and lemons.

Here's an article that addresses, inter alia Claig's query about homeopathy principles being similar to vaccination.

I'm not going to pay you cash royalties for your ideas you know minou, but I am willing to let you have a lifetime's unlimited supply of my remedies.

I must admit, I find it hard to see how it could work and how Hahnemann managed to find out which compound worked for what illness etc. It doesn't seem to make sense.

Here are some articles that seem to see some role in it

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/15/homeopathy-works-scientific-evidence

www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4040/Homeopathy-works.html

www.guardian.co.uk/science/2001/mar/15/technology2

We definitely need a Skeptics' Corner and a Woo Merchants' Chakra.

"A woman I'd known my entire life told me that a homeopath had successfully treated her when many months of conventional treatment had failed. As a sceptic, I scoffed, but was nonetheless a little intrigued.

She confessed that despite thinking homeopathy was a load of rubbish, she'd finally agreed to an appointment, to stop her daughter nagging. But she was genuinely shocked to find that, after one little pill, within days she felt significantly better. A second tablet, she said, "saw it off completely".

...

So, I started reading about homeopathy, and what I discovered shifted my world for ever."

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/15/homeopathy-works-scientific-evidence

I think this may merit further investigation
I shall read on and see what happens

Claig, the first article was written by a homeopath. The second refers to a study conducted at a homeopathic hospital and the third is from 2001.

I liked this comment on the first article:
^Rachel is to be commended for her correct insight that properly conducted scientific trials are the only way to establish the efficacy of homoeopathy.
In this she is in agreement with Dr Goldacre.
Yet she says the result of such trials support homoeopathy, he says the results in question destroy its credibility.
Unfortunately then, having not got the time to read the studies, I have to make my judgement based on what I know about the authors.
Dr Goldacre: A prolific writer (and author of a bestseller about the interpretation of evidence), well-respected (by almost everyone except homoeopaths it seems), a skeptic on ALL matters of evidence, whether they concern homoeopathy or 'mainstream' medicine.
Rachel Roberts: I know nothing about her except that she is a homoeopath.
It's always regrettable to have to judge the person rather than the research itself, but in this case I am going to trust that Dr Goldacre is more likely to have correctly interpreted the research.^

Claig in your first link (to the guardian article) the author sounds like she had a mental breakdown. I think her family should have intervened at thd point she wanted to give up her phd to study magic potions.

The ''hospital' in the second article has since been closed on account of it providing magical potions instead of medicine.

BOF I've been wondering about a MN Sceptics' corner too!

BinkyBix: if you're still reading: you were actually rather nice and quite interesting earlier and I mixed you up with some of the ruder posters. Sorry about that :)

Interesting 50 minute documentary on does water have memory. Also discusses homeopathy.

Wooers will love it. I'm not so sure about septics!