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AIBU?

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

999 replies

WidowWadman · 08/06/2013 20:59

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?

OP posts:
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Binkybix · 10/06/2013 10:47

Sorry am a slow typer. Also agree with those saying that you can think about more than one problem at once and it's nonsensical to shut discussion down on one thing by pointing attention to another problem elsewhere.

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Crumbledwalnuts · 10/06/2013 10:47

Ellie - I think your post is utterly misguided and deeply complacent. You can't deny anything I've said in my posts - nothing at all. Instead you are using straw men to fuel that complacent, self-righteous and may I say deeply intolerant argument. If you were to use such campaigning intolerance against the harm and death caused by conventional care it could probably do a lot of good.

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DystopianReality · 10/06/2013 10:48

'Cure, treatment, irradication' whatever, ir works...

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EllieArroway · 10/06/2013 10:50

There is no cure for smallpox, polio or diptheria DystopianReality

There doesn't need to be a cure when the diseases have been eradicated with vaccination programmes - quite obviously Hmm

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Crumbledwalnuts · 10/06/2013 10:51

Oh yes you can think about more than one problem at once - but once I leave this thread you'll probably stop and just go back to thinking about how clever it is to know that homeopathy doesn't have a pharmaceutical basis. I'm off now to a normal day but first I'll repeat myself - it's hypocrisy to fulminate about homeopathy and dismiss death and serious illness caused in many hundreds and probably thousands of people by conventional care as "not perfect" or even "useless". It should make people much, much more angry than homeopathy - and the reason it doesn't, is because it's not an easy target. It's complicated, and difficult, and offers less opportunity to sneer. But it should make you much angrier, all the same.

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Crumbledwalnuts · 10/06/2013 10:53

Polio has not been eradicated: indeed, Acute Flaccid Paralysis is on a rise matched almost exactly by the decline of polio in some areas.

I'm off Ellie, but if you do have a list of diseases which have been cured, I'll look later.

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TheCraicDealer · 10/06/2013 10:54

You're making it out that we can't get annoyed on behalf of vulnerable people being taken advantage of by homeopaths while at the same time being aghast at the treatment of other vulnerable people in hospital by bone fide doctors. Eh, yes we can. Start a thread and we can discuss it there in more detail if you like.

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Crumbledwalnuts · 10/06/2013 10:57

You can do what you like Craic: I'm just pointing out that you're kidding yourselves when you do it:) now I really am off.

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EllieArroway · 10/06/2013 10:58

Ellie - I think your post is utterly misguided and deeply complacent.You can't deny anything I've said in my posts - nothing at all

No. And I don't need to. I agree with you - we all do. Sometimes modern medicine goes wrong. Are you happy now?

But quite how you've taken this bloody obvious observation and used it to imply that, therefore, no one should complain about homeopathy is beyond me. The two things are not connected at all.

And you've determinedly ignored the several times that I've pointed out that YOU, almost certainly, make full use of modern medicine when it suits you. Would YOU PERSONALLY ignore the advice of an oncologist if either you or one of your family was diagnosed with cancer? Would you head straight to the homeopathy clinic?

No, you wouldn't. You'd be desperately grateful to modern medicine then, wouldn't you?

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Binkybix · 10/06/2013 10:59

Crumbled - the latter does make me angry and I agree it's very serious. I just think it's a strange thing to try to shut discussion down on a specific topic because you'd rather discuss something else. As craic says, you're free to start a thread too.

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BackOnlyBriefly · 10/06/2013 11:06

Crumble, You claimed to be a scientist. You don't happen to be employed in homeopathy do you?

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AmberSocks · 10/06/2013 11:07

I just typed a big long post but i deleted it,i am just going to say,eat some raw garlic!It cures everything!

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AmberSocks · 10/06/2013 11:09

Ellie-dont assume,i know 2 people personally who were diognosed with cancer who went no where near a hospital,both are now back to full health!(not sure if homeopathy was involved but there was no modern medicine at all)

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EllieArroway · 10/06/2013 11:12

Ellie-dont assume,i know 2 people personally who were diognosed with cancer who went no where near a hospital,both are now back to full health!(not sure if homeopathy was involved but there was no modern medicine at all)

Who diagnosed their cancer & who confirmed it was gone if they went nowhere near a hospital?

I don't believe it. Sorry.

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TheCraicDealer · 10/06/2013 11:17

eat some raw garlic!It cures everything! - yeah, but the girl who sits beside me in work will hate me. Will stick to AB's.

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squoosh · 10/06/2013 11:19

Didn't Steve Jobs attempt to cure his cancer by eschewing mainstream medicine and embracing homeopathic 'remedies' instead?

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AmberSocks · 10/06/2013 11:45

Ellie im guessing they were diognosed at a hospital?but they didnt have chemotherapy or anything they would offer.Im not knowledgable on cancer but i do think there should be more focus on what causes it instead of just how to cure it.

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AmberSocks · 10/06/2013 11:47

people who have antibiotics always seem to get ill again really soon!one mum from the school and her son have constantly had skin/chest/ear infections since september last year,they are constantly on antibiotics,if that was me i would wonder why i kept getting ill not just swallowing down pill after pill and hoping it goes away.

i know its anecdotal but my kids have never had any antibiotics or painkillers or vaccines and they never been ill,the odd runny nose yes,but never actually poorly.

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BoreOfWhabylon · 10/06/2013 11:53

Amber, spontaneous remission of many different types of cancer is well known and well-documented. We don't yet know how or why it happens but it is being actively researched.

In the meantime, if I was to be diagnosed with cancer (and I have been in the past), I wouldn't just be crossing my fingers and hoping it would go away. It might, but the odds against that happening are far, far greater than I am prepared to accept.

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BoreOfWhabylon · 10/06/2013 12:00

Anyway, back to 'harmless' homeopathy:
The average life expectancy in Sub-Saharan Africa is 30 years less than that of the developed world.  This represents a humanitarian problem of immense proportion that will take much wealth, effort and ingenuity to solve.  It requires the production and dispersal of life saving medicines and the cooperation of the United Nations health agencies and often unstable governments.  What it does not need is are homeopaths from Europe and America whose persistent delusions, and idiotic confidence, can and will kill.
gimpyblog.wordpress.com/category/jeremy-sherr/ 

Homeopaths like this one
Whose acolytes promote him and fundraise on the BBC

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eccentrica · 10/06/2013 12:03

Amber i know 2 people personally who were diognosed with cancer who went no where near a hospital,both are now back to full health!(not sure if homeopathy was involved but there was no modern medicine at all)

So you don't know if, how, where or by whom they were diagnosed. Did they have biopsies, for example?

You don't know if they took homeopathic 'remedies' or not.

You don't really seem to know very much about this considering you're posting about it in a public forum which might be read by someone with cancer, or their relatives.

What types of cancer does each of them have? What stage was it at when it was diagnosed? Where, how and by whom were they diagnosed as "back to full health"?

Incidentally what is your theory about what causes cancer?

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AmberSocks · 10/06/2013 12:04

do really need that though?or do they just need better standards of food water and basic healthcare?

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EllieArroway · 10/06/2013 12:04

Crumble

I can't really be bothered to do your research for you, but:

Small pox has been eradicated worldwide (do not underestimate how important this has been to our species).

Large parts of the world are now free of polio - we are very close to eradicating this entirely.

This is also the case with measles, diphtheria, malaria, hookworm, rubella, and BSE. Like anything in science, it's a progression & if anything is holding up complete eradication of these, it is superstition & woo, and the ignorant, anti-science rubbish spouted by people like you.

You also have to take into account the treatments & medicines that prevent deaths that used to be common - bacteria killed millions and millions of people. Fighting them with antibiotics has saved more lives than can be counted.

Diabetes & asthma - once major, major killers - are mostly controllable now.

Fairly routine surgeries now save people from situations that would almost certainly have killed them a few centuries ago - caesarian sections, appendectomies, tonsillectomies and so on.

Understanding of germ theory has made surgery infinitely safer. Modern anaesthetics has allowed highly invasive procedures to take place that would have killed people previously - heart surgery, transplants etc.

As every year passes, the cure rate for cancer is steadily rising. Early diagnosis is getting better & treatments are becoming more effective.

My mother had cervical cancer. She was cured.
I was saved from a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy when I was 21.
My son had asthma attacks severe enough to require hospitalisation more than once in his childhood.

If either three of us had relied on a bottle of water that might, perhaps, contain a single molecule of onion juice, we'd be dead. And you know we would.

It saddens me that I have to explain all of this to a supposedly educated person.

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EllieArroway · 10/06/2013 12:06

Ellie im guessing they were diognosed at a hospital?but they didnt have chemotherapy or anything they would offer.Im not knowledgable on cancer but i do think there should be more focus on what causes it instead of just how to cure it

Cancer research looks at both, Amber.

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BoreOfWhabylon · 10/06/2013 12:13

Amber, was yourlast response to my 'Africa' post? Have you read the links? Homeopaths are promoting their quackery as treatment for HIV/AIDS and malaria INSTEAD OF EFFECTIVE TREATMENT. Look at the video in my second link. They are nothing more than a cult, spreading their tentacles throughout the impoverished of Africa.

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