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?

CarpeVinum, as saintlyjimjams said, it hasn't cost her much money - about £40 I think she said - and it has been beneficial in her opinion.

crumbledwalnuts bodies are really really crap at healing themselves from things like neuroblastoma, ovarian cancer etc. In fact, aren't most cancers a result of the body sabotaging itself??

What would you do if you, or one of your children, got one of these diseases?

I am very sceptical of conventional medicine for all the usual reasons, but that doesn't mean I don't think overall modern medicine is a good thing. I am sceptical of alternative treatments as well, as there are plenty of similarly powerful interests behind many of those. Nutritionists selling super-expensive capsules, and health food companies pedalling the latest miracle food, for example.

I am also very sceptical of black and white thinking - e.g., conventional medicine has side effects ergo conventional medicine is bad. It's not a good thing to see in black and white - there are so many shades of grey, too.

I'm pretty sure Nelson's make money from homeopathy. And Neal's Yard. And Holland and Barrett. And Helios. And so on and so on. Are their motivations totally pure and untainted by financial considerations, unlike all these money-grabbing researchers ( how much does the average lab worker earn?) with scientific training who work for large companies, universities etc trying to figure out how science can improve living standards? Sure, they sometimes get it wrong, but at least they learn from the evidence.

CarpeVinum, as saintlyjimjams said, it hasn't cost her much money - about £40 I think she said - and it has been beneficial in her opinion

So cui bono only applies if a product is relatively cheap for some individuals ? Is that the logic ?

Big Alt Med is a global multi billion dollar industry.

The difference is that I don't think that Nelson, Neal's Yard and holland and Barrett lobby politicians and try to use their ingredients in food or products without labelling it, like some of teh GMO giants do.

Yes, lab workers don't earn much, but they aren't at the top of the GMO food chain and are not the ones who have the funds to lobby the politicians.

Yes, but the homeopathic and supplements industries did vigorously protest about their products being regulated and licensed by the EU, didn't they? Or do I remember incorrectly?

"Big Alt Med is a global multi billion dollar industry."

Does anyone know what the world's biggest Alt Med company is and what its turnover and profit is?

The difference is that I don't think that Nelson, Neal's Yard and holland and Barrett lobby politicians and try to use their ingredients in food or products without labelling it, like some of teh GMO giants do.

I can't speak for those specific examples, but you are entirely mistaken if you believe there isn't a profit reslted highly motivated and persistsnt lobby from Big Alt Med and their high profile patrons who occasionally go over the line and need the att. general to protect them from the freedom of information act lest their future postion be rendered untenable.

This "cuddly caring" image is just that. Image.

It is a multi billion dollar global industry

Holland and Barratt are petitioning against having herbal medicine regulated by the EU! They bloody lobby!

The last time I checked one of the heavier hitters was Bioron.

Haven't heard of Bioron. I just know that the bloody petitions (and signage upon the wall) are inescapable in H&B.

Big Pharma also saw the available profit margins in the Alt Med leanings towards supplements with dubious claims, and bought up big chunks of that.

Supplements don't have the R&D overhead or restictions of the drug market so you can see how it made sense to invest and expand in that direction given the profit margins offered.

There's a refreshing rejection of quack remedies such as homeopathy here! I wonder if it would be the same if it was grand-mumsnet? Has anyone else noticed an inclination in older people to believe in something illogcal? Is it about being older, or about having come through a less questioning type of education?

"Yes, but the homeopathic and supplements industries did vigorously protest about their products being regulated and licensed by the EU, didn't they? Or do I remember incorrectly?"

There was a worry about Codex Alimentarius and certain EU directives about vitamin supplements etc.

Some conspiracy theorists felt that Big Pharma and their friends might be trying to stop the public having as easy access to these ways of looking after their health.

I don't know what happened. I didn't keep up with what was going on there.

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2002/sep/14/medicineandhealth.lifeandhealth

According to the Pharmaceutical Business Review Boiron had a turnover of $702M last financial year.

"Is it about being older, or about having come through a less questioning type of education?"

Not sure, but Gove tells us that pupils have been dumbed down in our education system and that standards have fallen, rigour was removed by New Labour and some people think that A* grades were handed out like confetti.

I think Gove is more of a fan of the good old days when rigour reigned.

I love how that article specifically namedrops black cohosh, claig. Black cohosh is the poster-child for regulation.

If you google black cohosh, you can find people recommending it for inducing miscarriage (traditional usage, apparently) people recommending it to prevent miscarriage (traditional usage apparently), a study trialling it to see if it can be used to prevent miscarriage/improve fertility (sites.google.com/site/miscarriageresearch/supplements-and-miscarriage/black-cohosh(, and details of how it's caused liver-failure.

sites.google.com/site/miscarriageresearch/supplements-and-miscarriage/black-cohosh

So, you DO use conventional medicine then - you just pick and choose how you use it. Exactly the same as all of us.

And, really...."I use paracetamol for pain, just not for fever reduction"!!!! What's that got to do with anything? You use it...full stop.

This all makes a complete mockery of your previous:

Modern medicine rarely cures anything
The harm it does is much greater than any possible benefit

......both of which you said quite clearly.

It's all very well for you to rant on and on about "big pharma" and all the rest of it, but the crux of this is who you would be calling if you had a heart attack. Would it be 999 or the local homeopathic clinic?

Hmmm. That's a puzzler, isn't it?

If you can't/won't live by the principles of your own argument, then what kind of argument is it? A baseless one, clearly.

Yes, I don't know a lot about these ingredients, because I do not use vitamin pills. I don't believe they are good. I used to, but I prefer to eat natural foods (not GM ones) which contain the vitamins alongside other nutrients that help them to be absorbed.

But there are millions of people in Europe and elsewhere who do not have faith in Big Pharma and their genetically modified food etc and they want to self-heal by using vitamins and supplements and many believed that Big Pharma was aware of the trend of intelligent people spending more on these treatments, and wanted to prevent people from having as easy access to these ways of self-healing.

i don't think it is an age thing or an intelligence thing..

I think it is a "blind spot" thing.

When I was spending half my life in Neal's Yardeswue type places, and waxing lyrical about the power of aromatherapy, it was a time in my life when my identity was reeling from a massive life blow. I needed something that was within my exisiting skill set and didn't require huge amounts of effort (not lazy, just ...very low ebb) to aquire.

I liked the "free thinker" lable very much on a semi sub concsious level. It made me feel good in a sea of feeling really really bad about myself.

And it garnered me a inst "tribe" that praised me for my uptake, and that cycled into the more I bought in, the more good stuff about me was relfected back at me by the "clan". A sort of unintensional love bombing I suppose.

The problem was that the replacement identity I was creating wasn't actually me, it was just the most accessable to me at a time when I was vulnerable to a "self rebuild and reboot" with more haste than was good for me. And when I let go of the new build synthetic self image becuase I was more ready to be who I actuslly was (boringly average and not "special" ) the Big Alt blind spot went with it.

I had a massive blind spot. The size of a bungalow. I am not thick. Well not most days. And I am not all that old!

It happens, different people will have one for different reasons in different directions, not just Alt Med.

This is what is going on. People are educating themselves and looking for answers. Many of them are highly educated (e.g. Cherie Blair etc)

"Though there may still be the odd simple soul who believes that eating a clove of garlic can cure cancer, all sorts of perfectly sensible people who want to take greater personal responsibility for their health are finding solutions, or partial ones, at least, in natural remedies.

Arthritis sufferers tired of conventional anti-inflammatory drugs that upset the stomach are looking to alternatives such as glucosamine sulphate and chondroitin. People prone to anxiety are choosing kava kava over Valium.

Those who feel depressed are going for St John's wort in preference to conventional anti-depressants such as Prozac. Menopausal women are seeing black cohosh as an attractive alternative to hormone replacement therapy. The hungover take high doses of vitamins B and C (eg, in the popular Berocca tablets).

This surge is reflected in the media. Conventional "doctor knows best" columns have been eclipsed by alternative practitioners with a proactive attitude to health and a range of natural, nonpharmaceutical suggestions for the treatment of everything from cold sores to migraine."

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2002/sep/14/medicineandhealth.lifeandhealth

"But there are millions of people in Europe and elsewhere who do not have faith in Big Pharma and their genetically modified food etc and they want to self-heal by using vitamins and supplements and many believed that Big Pharma was aware of the trend of intelligent people spending more on these treatments, and wanted to prevent people from having as easy access to these ways of self-healing."

But who do they think make the vitamins and supplements?

Spero - I make no claims for homeopathy nor do I ask people to use it. I do rather prefer alternative definitions of health & I prefer a holistic approach to medicine over what i would call an organ approach. I'm not really fussed whether the NHS funds homeopathy or not (I've had a homeopathic GP before and her approach to homeopathy was quite odd IMO). I think there are arguments for and against (largely dependent on how the NHS decides to define health - I would love an NHS that funded homeopathy, chiropractors, cpunselling, acupuncture etc - I recognise that may well not be the role of the NHS any more - in which case of course they shouldn't fund homeopathy. In other words I don't think homeopathy deserves special treatment over any other non- medical intervention. I think being funded by the NHS is doing homeopathy damage).

I've been doing some work with Macmillan recently & the biggest surprise to me has been actually in how many cases there isn't an accepted treatment plan & patients are in the situation where no treatment is offered as an alternative (i'm not saying this happens often - i was just surprised it happened at all). So for something like cancer I think each case is very individual. I can certainly see that if you are told there is nothing that can be done for you any alternative therapy might offer you support.

In our case I started using alternative therapies when there was nothing on offer from medicine. They have helped. There's still nothing in offer from medicine (although there may be in 10-20 years) but I have noticed over the last decade or so more doctors have suggested considering trying alternatives. And there has been a change in that 12 years ago my son's condition was seen as not treatable (and if you thought it was you were seen as being in denial). Now it's seen by medicine as probably treatable - but the methods for doing this are not yet understood.

If you are in a position where medicine can offer you nothing at all (and a lot of people are) alternatives can offer you support and improvement in health even if they're never going to cure you or make any difference to your specific condition.

But yes NHS should either fund complementary medicine or not, & if not shouldn't fund homeopathy. I'd be annoyed by any interference in me trying to use it away from the NHS though. That's my choice to make.

Haven't much time, but am enjoying reading: Claig I'm so glad to see I'm not the only person given the heebies by the Codex.