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 have, over the years, lost whatever psychological filter I used to have which allowed me to accept that people derive comfort from paying money to calm people with time to listen to them and the ability to tilt their heads just so.

It saddens me that so many people have lost the critical faculties they need to sort the wheat from the guff.

One of the problems that leads to so many mistakes is the complacency and self-righteousness of doctors and the industry of conventional care, which isn't hard to find. Perhaps if there was a little less of it, and a little less sneering, some of those problems might not be with us.

"But claims beyond giving time, care, listening and support are immoral and wrong."

There's more than these: there's the placebo effect, which has just as much impact with pharmaceutical medication but without the side effects. Without the claims you might not have the placebo.

"Homeopathy is always useless."

I can't believe you said that. It obviously isn't.

Good doctors are good. Bad doctors are bad. Neither of those facts really has anything whatsoever to say about the morality of selling a known placebo to unhappy people.

the placebo effect, which has just as much impact with pharmaceutical medication

No. No it doesn't.

Yes, the attention and listening combined with the placebo effect definitely mean that homeopathic, or whatever you name it, can be beneficial.

As long as they do not make false claims I have no problem with it.

Poor od GP's are allowed to spend only 7 minutes per patient, that incldes calling them in, sitting down an writing prescription.

I once went to a "natureopath", as part f a promotional scheme for an alternative yoga club, and he sat down with me as if he had all the time in the world, asked lots of questions and really seemed to listen to me going on about my back problems. It was lovely and soothing and a nice experience.

Agree with Trills....placebo effect is not the same, or as good, as real medicine.

Obviously!

I agree. I was moaning to a mum at the school gate last month about my allergies. I'm very allergic to tree pollen and have a month every summer when I'm a mess - eyes swollen shut in the mornings, can barely breathe, itching and sneezing, etc. She recommended I go and see a woman who had 'cured' her DH of his allergies, so I said 'Great, please send me her number'.

I made an appt with the woman and was, naively, expecting standard allergy testing (needle with allergen on poked in my arm to see which ones I reacted to). But no, I had, unwittingly wandered into the office of a NAET practitioner. The crystals hanging from the ceiling when I walked in should've been enough to make me say 'Sorry, I've made a mistake' and walked out again.

One and a half hours of the most unbelievable mumbo-jumbo then ensued, after which this crazy woman identitied that I had 15 separate allergies, most of them to things I've never had a problem with in my life and, incredibly, included my own husband and younger son!!!! Not surprisingly, I told her where to stick her follow-up appointments at £45 a time to clear all of these 'allergies', all of them requiring separate appointments, of course. Lesson learned. I felt very stupid afterwards for not doing my research. I'm now getting a referral via my doctor to a real allergy clinic.

Crumbled

Exactly what are you saying? Do you even know?

We should abandon all modern medicine should we, because sometimes it goes wrong?

Shut all the hospitals, close the dental surgeries, cease all research into cancer & heart disease? Because things sometimes go wrong, we should completely ignore the far, far, far more times it goes right?

Your attitude is quite astonishingly ignorant. And the fact that you need me to tell you about illnesses & diseases that have been eradicted by science suggests that you have no fecking idea what you're talking about.

People routinely died of dental abscesses until antibiotics - never mind things like pneumonia & scepticemia. Small pox is gone thanks to science - polio is close to eradication, and would be gone by now if it wasn't for woo-mongering idiots.

Without modern medicine, there's a 50% chance you, personally, would not have survived your childhood. This is basic history - clue yourself in, for crying out loud.

But fine - you hate medicine so much, stop using it. We both know you won't, though....nowt so hypocritical as a scientific ignoramus.

As snorbes pointed out, some homeopaths claim their pills can cure/prevent malaria. Homeopathy is not only bollocks, it's dangerous bollocks. People who believe in this nonsense need to be told why homeopathy does not and cannot work before they risk their lives/ their children's lives.

I object to vulnerable people spending money on an unproven 'scientific' treatment. And the ill and vulnerable are the most likely to be exploited like this.

Fine is you call homeopathy 'placebo, time and counselling', not so good to propound it as a 'science' or a cure.

From drugs.com
www.drugs.com/article/placebo-effect.html

"It is ethical to use a placebo in medical treatment?

In clinical practice, physicians may prescribe placebo treatments with or without the patients knowledge that they are receiving an inactive therapy. Psychologically, the patient may be encouraged that they are receiving a treatment for their ailment that they believe will have beneficial effect, and in turn the placebo may actually provide some relief. However, the effect would not be due to a pharmacological action attributed to the chemical composition of the medicine. Placebos have been used in treatment of sleep, anxiety, gastrointestinal disorders, chronic pain and other disorders. The therapeutic use of placebo or sham treatments in medicine is very controversial.

In one survey, only three percent of U.S. physicians reported using actual sugar pills as placebos, but 41 percent said they had used over-the-counter painkillers and 38 percent said they had used vitamins as placebos for their patients. Sixty-eight percent of physicians described the placebo to their patients as a potentially beneficial medicine, and roughly two-thirds of the doctors felt the practice was ethical.4

In another study, physicians used reduced doses of anti-inflammatory medications mixed in combination with a placebo to successfully treat psoriasis patients. Combining active drug with placebo may be effective in diseases that involve the mental state and immune system, including asthma, multiple sclerosis, and chronic pain. Reducing doses by combining with placebo treatment could also reduce side effects, addiction potential and cost."

"Exactly what are you saying? Do you even know?"

Of course I know what I'm saying. I'm saying it's hypocritical to fulminate and focus on homeopathy as a problem of hyper-importance when there are so many problems with conventional care which harm and klll a lot of people. Compared to those, homeopathy is a minor issue. Considering its benefits, an even more minor issue.

My side point is that it's simple self congratulation that feeds the fulmination against homeopathy. Such campaigning anger should be better directed against real, important, harmful and dangerous problems.

Is there any reason why we can't express disgust at the charlatanry and immoral money-making nature of homeopathy, and have a go at unethical modern medicine as well?

eg Ben Goldacre manages it superbly. It's just not what the OP asked about in the thread.

It's not hypocritical to address something that is a problem, even when there are other problems in the world.

If that were the case, then it would be hypocritical to spend time or effort or thought on anything except the world's biggest problem - and who gets to decide what that is?

The thread asks about the gullible: I think it's gullible to latch on to homeopathy as disgusting, bollocks, immoral, charlatanry etc etc.

It is hypocritical to make it a much bigger problem than it is, when there are huge, massive, terrible problems with a treatment you purport to support in its stead.

What are thes huge, massive, terrible problems you speak of Crumble? Cure for Polio, TB cancer, heart disease, Aids, infection, septicaemia?

You are completely missing the point - yet again.

We've ALL acknowledged the placebo effect. It's fascinating and real - and has a marked effect on self-limiting illnesses.

But can it cure cancer? Diabetes? Heart disease?

No.

But people, in desperate times, have a habit of believing precisely what they want and it's pathetically easy to convince a vulnerable person that diet & homeopathy will cure their cancer. It won't and can't.

This is what makes homeopathy dangerous - not that someone takes it for their bad back, but because others will take it to cure their (or worse, their childs) asthma.

Homeopaths must be forced, under the law, not to lie about the efficacy of their "treatments". And if they are not lying, just deluded, then they need to be educated. As does the general public.

Smallpox, Diptheria, I could go on..

I don't think anyone's arguing with the fact that the placebo effect exists. It's just that clinical trials need to show an effect above and beyond the placebo, hence double blind testing (although from my limited knowledge I understand there are some concerns re requirements to report all data from trials, not just data that shows the drug working).

The question of whether placebo effect alone should be used in conventional medicine is an interesting one. I think there's a bit of a catch 22, in that the 'scientific' theory behind things like homeopathy, and other alternative therapies is either dubious (mystical), or takes a couple of elements of actual research research and misinterprets it. But people need that dubious element to believe in something and therefore get the placebo effect.

I get what you're saying crumbled, but it does sound as though you ate arguing that medical advances in general are a bad thing because there are sometimes problems. Even if those problems are very serious, it is surely awful, but outweighed by the good that advancements have achieved.

Some examples you give - eg staffs - are not to do with medicine as such, but more human mismanagement. They're both important, but you're conflating them. Obviously these things should not be ignored, but that's a separate discussion to one on homeopathy?

Well said Ellie

There is no cure for smallpox, polio or diptheria DystopianReality.

And yes to those people highlighting the danger that claiming the powers of homeopathy can cause for serious illness.