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?

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NOT KNOWING (or not believing)

Bof thanks. I think homeopathy is worth offering because it helps people (by whatever effect), it harms no one, and offering it under the NHS ensures that the possibility of harm by going without conventional medication is probably removed completely. One of its positive benefits will almost certainly be the fact that it keeps people away from unnecessary and harmful medication.

If you have a blind faith in pharmaceutical products, you simply won't get this at all. If you think pharmaceutical products are always better than homeopathy because anti-biotics are great, or because there's no more smallpox, or because homeopathy can't cure a broken pelvis, you simply won't begin to get it.

As for the harm done by pharmaceutical products and by conventional care: I've posted links to try to help people see how the extent of harm is probably greater than they think, and the extent of benefit quite probably less. It goes beyond Vioxx, or thalidomide, or Stafford. For example, polio vaccination: I posted some great information there and it was completely ignored. You've got big problems with mass prescription of anti-depressants and over-medication of "normal conditions" - cholesterol, blood pressure and so on. More problems with breast screening reported this week, for example. Overuse of anti-biotics and Calpol, the obsession with suppression of fever, for example. All sorts of normal states - nervousness, bereavement, reclassified as disorders meriting drug prescription. Apparently it's much easier to control asthma or diabetes - but death rates have soared - why? These and other auto-immune conditions and allergies have soared - why? New and frightening auto-immune conditions seem to pop up in the news all the time. Do we muck around too much with the development of a chid's immune system, with the over-use of medication? Are we looking hard enough for the reasons why this increase is happened? Are we (in order words) being sold a pup? (obviously I think we are, and I think it's quite gullible not to see it - that's my very strong opinion). We get hooked on the idea of reaching for medication when barely out of the womb. We forget how good our bodies are at healing themselves.

The response, on net harm on this thread, has been more or less to indicate that these problems don't matter because - why? because homeopathy can't cure a broken leg? Because people don't catch smallpox any more? There's a complete disconnect with reality - ironically, when that's what they accuse homeopathy users of suffering from. I say irony now - I said hypocrisy before. I'll be kinder this time and assume it's out of not knowing, rather than knowing and dismissing.

I can't explain why homeopathy worked (in the early days he had no understanding of what a medicine was and we weren't using a practitioner

It was you who had the placebo effect, not him.

It's really well documented, the person responsbile for the patient, be they child, animal or impaired adult, sees improvement/worsening based on their belief/expectations.

As a Olympic Gold Standard getting the nocebo effect type, I was responsible for adminsitering meds for MIL. But DH was responsible for reading the side effects and monitoring for them. Cos if I did it we were in and out of the hospital like yoyos.

I would see side effects appear in her becuase I anticipated, and feared them. Becuase I gave her the med, and I lean strongly towards nocebo, the weight of the responsibility (in my head, cos I didn't perscribe them, but there were so many, and so often that I lived in fear of fucking up dosage, and getting it wrong could kill her given the range of seripus psyche and phycial ailments she had) pushed me into what I think was a state of hypervigelance.

My emotional investemnt wasn't so much in her getting better, (in the way it would be if my son were suffering and I had an emotional need to help him and relieve my baby's distress) my emotional investement was in not being respnsible for harm or death to a person that I was often quite emotionally ambivilant about living for much longer.

It is perfectly possible to believe that conventional medicine is far from perfect and also believe that homeopathy is rubbish- it's not either/or.

Nobody, as far as I am aware has demonstrated "blind faith" in pharmaceuticals. Everybody knows that there are side effects, screw ups, misdiagnoses, vested interests and sheer criminal incompetence. But why does this have any significance when looking at the clinical trials which show time and time again that homeopathy has absolutely no effect at all on any condition it has been tested on?

Crumbled

You are ignoring the fact that many, many tests have been done on homeopathy and it's been found, conclusively, not to work. At all.

The placebo effect is well known, although not well understood. I am quite sure that there is value in "harnessing" this effect - but I don't believe the best way of going about this is to allow liars & idiots to sell products that we KNOW do not work.

I am still genuinely astonished at the ignorance you display when talking about modern medicine. Whether you like it or you don't it has changed our lives. Yes, it goes wrong - but it far more often goes right. How you can possibly compare it with utter claptrap about water retaining a "memory" is beyond me.

I'm sorry if you are offended by the way the conversation went, but reason clearly wasn't working on you, as indeed it never does when talking to people like you. If you want your point of view respected, get a respectable point of view.

And, it has not escaped my notice that FOUR TIMES you refused to answer my question about your own personal use of the conventional medicine you claim is harming the world.

On this basis, I have no option but to assume that you are a hypocrite.....just like all of the other anti-science eejits there are around.

Oh - and no, none of us disagreed with your "points". There's nothing to disagree with. You said medicine is not perfect...this is true. But this does not, in fact, mean that therefore all the crazy rubbish spouted about healing crystals, flower remedies & shaken up tap water should suddenly be given credence.

I looked to the link - and it was to the Hindu Times. I couldn't find any supporting data at all. Polio has largely been eradicated from the world thanks to science. Grow up and get over it.

Hi Ratinalthought. Of course.

In what way does it help people? Do you have any scientific proof of its efficacy over and above the placebo effect?

No, I've never looked at any studies and if I saw one indicating that homeopathy had real pharmaceutical power I wouldn't believe it. I think it helps people by placebo, by keeping them away from over-prescribed, useless and potentially harmful pharmaceutical products, by allowing the body to heal itself, and by the virtue of listening attention, or holistic attention (it's been called a few things on this thread).

Do you mean that it contains nothing that will have a scientifically measurable effect?

I mean it contains no chemical that will have a scientifically measurable effect.

Surely you will agree that the NHS has a duty to only provide treatments that have a scientifically proven efficacy.

If you agree with this you really do need to look at a great deal of pharmaceutical supply. For example MMR was rolled out in a massive programme with "largely inadequate safety studies". Its outcomes were unknown. Are you riled about this? Are you ridiculing this? The first principle of the NHS should be to do no harm. Homeopathy barely counts as a drop in the ocean compared to the mountain of harm it does (see my earlier links). It's hypocritical to focus on homeopathy (where any harm is highly questionable when carried out under the NHS) and ignore the huge problems caused by conventional medication. The demands for "scientific proof" in particular seem to ignore the issues which surround peer review and safety studies, the manipulation and concealment of evidence and research.

If so, where is the proof for homeopathic treatment?

This seems to be a conditional question based on your earlier statement, which I challenge. I've never looked at any studies on homeopathy, though I note people have linked to some.

Without logical, peer reviewed, repeatable, scientific proof, any claims of the efficacy of homeopathic remedies are just anecdotal. If you can direct me to such proof I would be very grateful.

Your first comment (leaving out the word logical, which doesn't really apply here) I've dealt with largely in the above answer. The second request, I've responded to by saying I think some people have linked to studies on this thread, but I would assume all benefits are down to placebo, absence of harm, "listening attention" and avoidance of harmful medication. Obviously I think these are valuable benefits: you rprobably disagree.

Only a fool would deny that many people have been adversely affected by "conventional treatment", but by the same token vaccines, surgery, antibiotics, Etc. have been scientifically proven to have saved hundreds of millions of lives. They do so in ways that can be readily understood and replicated.

See all my points above.

Do you want any more, rationalthought. Yes, you were very civil!

As for the harm done by pharmaceutical products and by conventional care

Which is underpinned, aided and abetted and allowed to flourish where "informed consent" is not at the absolute heart of a doc/patient realtionship.

You can't harness placebo without throwing informed consent under the bus.

Becuase of the era in which my late MIL was born, the particulars of the culture in Italy where a medical God Complex is better able to dig its heels in and stick around and her long standing psyche issues dating from a time when "more harm than good" was the norm in psych care....she was, tortured. By the medical profession. Informed consent not being the falvour of care back then allowed for the God Complex to rise to dizzing heights.

Over my cold dead body is informed consent going to be rolled back without a fight. Certainly not in the name of the profit margins of snake oil sellers.

Lower the standards of informed consent rather than pushing them forwards increases the potential of harm by all and anybody who proports to heal. Be they actual doctors, drug creaters and floggers or involved in Big Alt Med.

Patients have to be people first and patients last in the eyes of those who claim to heal. And people have to have the right to the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth when it come to their health and the treatments available.

I don't think some people understand the cost of a return to a paternalistic attitude nurtured in medecine. Particularly for female patients. Becuase we do end up even more relagaleted to "don't worry your pretty little head" standards than men in a medical culture where informed consent is an optioanl extra based on a healer's filter of how much a patent will understand whatmthey are saying, or even needs to know.

The strongest argument against homeopathy or other "alt" med beingmused mainstream is the harm done in the past by conventional medicine where a lack of fact, evidence and informed consent was at the heart of attitudes held by those with the responsibility to heal.

So basically, you're saying...."Let the placebo effect do all the work, modern medicine is too dangerous".

Well, you tell that to a young girl awaiting a heart/lung transplant. "Here, have a bottle of useless water and heal yourself".

Unbelievable.

Ellie: do you stand by your earlier appalling rudeness?

I'm not ignoring anything, as you will see if you read my posts.

It certainly was to the Hindu Times, citing official health data, from the Indian public health programme and the Polio Surveillance Project, if I remember rightly. There's plenty of data around, if you're interested enough to look: I think you aren't. You would rather have a laugh because homeopathy can't set a broken leg, and call people liars when they disagree with you. You can assume it's a lie if you like. As I say, the desire to have a conversation and respect for someone's opinion evaporates under certain circumstances.

For anything else, pls read my other posts. Given the continued tone of your last, I'm not interested in any more of your posts addressing me (and I'm certainly not afraid of debate).

"I think it helps people by placebo, by keeping them away from over-prescribed, useless and potentially harmful pharmaceutical products, by allowing the body to heal itself, and by the virtue of listening attention, or holistic attention (it's been called a few things on this thread)."

So, rather than people being supported in making informed choices about their health care and that of their children, they should be patted on the head and given a sugar pill. How extraordinarily arrogant!

"You can't harness placebo without throwing informed consent under the bus."

Informed consent is thrown under the bus on a daily basis in a conventional clinical environment.

Carpe vinum - doesn't really work with ds1's first experience of homeopathy as there was no interpretation of results. It was a straight effect/no effect response. I'm quite happy to believe that it was coincidence but it couldn't have been placebo on me then because of what we were measuring.

On the occasions since then plenty of of occasions when it could have been placebo (in which case I'm pleased we didn't get placebo from cranial osteopathy as homeopathy is cheaper ) but not the first time.

In the meantime here we are, ds1 isn't on the drugs which have potentially life changing side effects & homeopathy has cost me a grand total of £40 in the last 3 years. Bargain.

Curlew: doctors do it now. Except they aren't doing it with sugar pills; they're doing it with conventional medication, they do it with antibiotics, they do it with anti-depressants, they undermine informed choices every time they recommend a pharmaceutical intervention without explaining the side effects, they take money to recommend pharmaceutical products without informing patients of their conflicted interest. Arrogant much?

You can't harness placebo without throwing informed consent under the bus

Well, apparently you can. Placebo still works, oddly, when you're told you're being given a placebo!

Over my cold dead body is informed consent going to be rolled back without a fight.

Sorry to trouble you with this but you lost this battle a long time ago.

" I think it helps people by placebo, by keeping them away from over-prescribed, useless and potentially harmful pharmaceutical products."

Do you have a medical and pharmaceutical background or is this just a personal opinion? If the latter, I would question where you got your facts from. For example; my medication (low dose injected chemotherapy) is potentially harmful but the progression of my condition is more harmful. Upon balance, it appeared a potentially harmful medication was better than the alternative (research shows that untreated, my condition will cause damage) and as it happens, I have not had any harmful side-effects. There are risks in medicine and "first, do no harm" has been bandied about here but many diseases/conditions are harmful, thus a potentially harmful medication may very well be the lesser of two evils.

Ellie: do you stand by your earlier appalling rudeness?

Well, you appear to be standing by your earlier ignorance, so why not?

This is a feeble and obvious attempt to get out of answering my question, isn't it? "Na ha - you being horrible to me, so shan't answer".

I KNOW you use conventional medicine as much as the next person. So you're a hypocrite who thinks everyone else should be downing snake oil, but not you.

Pathetic and, worse, dishonest.

Informed consent is thrown under the bus on a daily basis in a conventional clinical environment.

Quite. So why collude with that and encourage it ?

.... rather than keep on pushing forward towards making informed consent a universal inalienable right of the patient ?

TimeofChange: those were nice posts, don't be disheartened by the thread. For me, I'm more disconcerted by the credulity of most on the thread with regards to conventional pharmaceutical care.

Ellie: No, not feeble, I just can't bring myself to talk to you. I'm happily answering any questions from other people.

Quite? But you said it would happen without a fight over your cold dead body. It's happening every day in a conventional clinical environment. What have you done to fight that so far?

Ellie: No, not feeble, I just can't bring myself to talk to you

Don't blame you. If my argument was a piss poor as yours, I would avoid someone like me too.

Crashdoll: yes it's certainly a balance. Good luck with your chemotherapy, I'm glad it is working well for you. You are right, many people, including doctors, might make a different choice, with regard to chemotherapy. I thin I probably would, but I'm not in your position, and one would never know until one is faced with the choice. Again the choices you make for yourself may be different to the choices you make for your children (you meaning "one" here).

Sorry to trouble you with this but you lost this battle a long time ago.

Bullshit. Utter fucking bullshit.

I was involved in my mother in law's medical care for 18 years. There was a notable forward motion toward improvement in that time frame alone.

I am also privy to the history of her medical care.

The degree of informed consent being given wieght (even if only towards those who were responsible for her, and not her herslef) bewteen the 40s and today has been an upward trajectory.

Britian has a far better attitude towards informed consent than Italy, where I live. Potentially the reason why I am a tad more invested in improvement than others, given I as a pateint am more likely to be consistently on the sharp end.

Informed consent is not and has never been static. You can create motivations to increase it, and you can create motivations to leave it where it stands or roll it back.

i am in favour of a forward motion. Oddly enough.

I don't mind how other people choose to spend their money and whether it's guardian angels, fairies or little bottles of water with a long name, if it gives people comfort and hope, why not? I don't think the majority of homeopaths are charlatans though, they take themselves sooo seriously that they must believe in it. My only exception is when idiots (my mum's friends) say that conventional medicine is a cynical trick to make drug companies rich and you shouldn't take it because it will kill you. I have a relation who had massive seizures shortly after birth and the parents refused intervention. By the time they got an injunction, he was so badly affected he has never been able to function at all and is now in a home aged 35, secure because he has escaped and sexually assaulted people on several occasions. People like that (the parents) should not be allowed to make that call.

"Bullshit"? But you said "Quite" just now. I don't understand - which is it?