To be horrified that you can get homepathic treatments on the NHS

[brightonlad]

It seems extraordinary that with the NHS experiencing major funding problems and people being turned down for treatments on the grounds of cost that we're paying for people to have this kind of therapy.
If you read the theory behind it it's obviously bogus and the results of all the trials that have been done have consistently shown it to be no better than placebo.
The only way to justify it that I can see is as a form of faith healing and I wouldn't expect my GP to tell me to see my Priest least of all make a generous donation to the roof fund.

Leonie - can you provide a link to the study that supports that point of view as I am fairly sure that AD's are more effective than placebo's

IIRC there was a study a few years ago that showed that in mild depressive disorder SSRIs were no more effetive than placebo, but they were more effective than placebo in treating moderate-severe depression.

That's not entirely true. There are a lot of studies that show antidepressants work in certain situations. Homeopathy is only ever placebo.
I'm interested that absolutely no one has stepped forward and said that they believe homeopathy is more than placebo.

I don't know any homeopaths on mumsnet so not that surprising. We've had this discussion a few times.

It would be really interesting to talk to a) a GP and b) a homoeopath about this.

I am NO fan of homoeopathy but I know GPs have a bloody hard job getting it right. TBH I think there is room for this providing the cost isn't higher than the cost of multiple consultations plus medication within the NHS.

Where are the data on costs, brightonlad? I'd like to have a look to see what you are seeing.

Pruneurs - Still though, if you're going to give people a placebo there must be cheaper ones than a consultation with a homeopath on Great Ormond Street. Give them some smarties with "Medicine" written on the tube!

Do you have a link to the financial data?
I'm genuinely interested!

The real risk with placebos isn't the pills themselves (which, btw, are sugar pills that have had the magic water sprinkled on them). It's that people may seek out homeopathy, or Reiki, or whatever, and have something actually seriously wrong with them.

I second the recommendation of Snake Oil - Ben Goldacre's Bad Science is also a good introduction.

Edam said: "See the Northern Ireland study, commissioned by the Dept of Health & SS, that allowed GPs to refer patients suffering from chronic diseases to a range of complementary practitioners"

So it may be that I am being unreasonable.
To be honest I'd still really resent it if it was financially viable. Unregulated practitioners of a discredited therapy should have no place within our NHS. Reiki practitioners and homeopaths shouldn't be competing for funding with people who went to medical school for seven years to work with a massive body of scientifically accumulated knowledge.

I'm still curious about this study though (although someone else said it was sponsored by an organisation promoting homeopathy)

How did homeopathy cure excema? What did they use?

Antidepressants would not be licenced for use if they were generally ineffective. Like many drugs, they may be more effective in some populations than others, as tiger says. It is also sometimes down to the design of the clinical study.

That the NHS has a big budget for a homeopathy hospital in London is astonishing. Why should patients be able to access treatment that has not been proven to work, paid for by the taxpayer, and from a practitioner that is not licenced? When NHS budget constraints mean that patients are being denied some of the latest state of the art treatments that have proven efficacy, from doctors who are answerable to the GMC.

Riven - Homeopathy didn't cure your sons eczma, it either went into remission of it's own accord or some other factor changed. That or it worked as a placebo and giving him tictacs would've been as effective and a lot cheaper (the crux of my problem)

Riven - But having said that you paid for it yourself so if it worked for you it's none of my business.

Yes, but what homeopathic treatment did they give him?

Riven - Placebos have been shown to work on animals so I'm sure they'd work on a two year old. Homeopathic treatments are water! There is no doubt that they are only ever a placebo, what ever it was that made your son better (and it's brilliant he was cured, eczma is an evil condition) it wasn't an 'active ingredient' in the homeopathic treatment.

Riven - Also I'm not talking about 'orthodox' medicine whatever that loaded term is meant to mean, I'm talking about treatments that have been proven to have a statistically significant effect on a randomised group of people being given adequate funding before we pay for faith healing.

how much is the nhs spending on homeopthY?

OP- even if you believe that homeopathy has a placebo effect at best, why are you more horrified that it is being prescribed than the thousands of antibiotic prescriptions handed out unnecessarily every day just to get whingers out of the surgery as quickly as possible? At worst, homeopathy will have only a placebo effect, whereas AB overuse is actually rather dangerous. fwiw I always found that homeopathy worked on my babies, at an age when they are not susceptible to placebo effect.

You are merely airing your own prejudices about alternative medicine quite frankly and AUBvU.

Does anyone else think it's the royal family effect at work?
Prince Charles has a lot to answer for - not only is he attempting to influence the architectural style of our major city, it seems to me his outspoken views on alternative medicine have a lot more influence than anyone on high would care to admit.

YABU.

And having grown up with an epileptic mother who was unnecessarily kept on anti-psychotic drugs more usually prescribed to acute schizophrenics through her 20s and 30s by her lunatic neurologist, I can confirm the utterly untried nature of that particular branch of medicine. Always makes me laugh that people can set such store by conventional medicine when some of it is just quackery frankly.