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.

edam you're putting your slant on what you think I think onto my post read it again without your preconceived opinion!

Agree with edam sometimes feeling better is all there is. Getting better is not an option.

Paliative care is about people feeling better.

I think I may have been a bit more about 'alternative' therapies 5 years ago. Having nursed my girl through cancer I strongly believe that anything that improves how someone feels is worthwhile.

Of course we must protect vunerable people from quacks and those who seek to exploit them. But that is a different issue.

I take DS to osteopath. I dont understand it, I am not sure what they do BUT I have definately seen a huge improvement. I could not prove it is down to the osteopath. But the way I see it, its doesnt hurt, its cheap and it appears to work. So who loses?

Here, this will cheer you all up!

Don't understand, 1dilemma - could you explain? I was pointing out feeling better is important. You put 'feel' into quotes which suggested a level of scepticism. Maybe we just aren't reading each other's tone of voice right.

you want to know how the NHS are wasting money. how about arthritic drugs that cost £10-15,000, dont work with a particular patient, who is then told to dispose of them to be given another different course of £15000-thats one person, multiply that by the amount of people with arthiritis in the uk.......madness, there must be some way drugs can be repackaged and redistibuted.

homeopathy on the NHS is a joke in all honesty. when pregnant and suffering terribly with SPD I had to pay £40 to see a chiropractor, it was not offerred free on the NHS, they however alleviated 80% of my crippling syptoms. its madness.

ah sorry hazards of the internet I'm always doing it on here
I'm also crying because of all the crying threads!!!

I put 'feel' in quotes to differentiate it from actually being better not trying to undermine the importance of feeling better at all it's just very hard to decide where to draw the line. What makes one person feel better might not be anothers cup of tea one persons feelings might cost 10 times as much as anothers but both are equally important to them.

(I assumed you were assuming that I was anti-everything IYSWIM)

how much should the NHS spend for self-induced illnesses? how much should it spend on people who wont (stress wont not cant) help themselves?

There again drugs like herceptin and glivac actually make people better yet are rationed where do you draw the line?

I also intended to post that I think that most hospitals use fundraising for alternative therapies on cancer wards and the like ie if you are having cancer treatment and you get some massage it's cake sales and the like that produce the money not taxes (does that make sense?)

and thanks for being so nice with my crotchety post I really was crying over the crying threads and am now off to make that tea

Homeopathy is complete and utter bollocks. Unfortunately some of the people defending it on this thread don't seem to know what it actually is.

It's not rocket science that it is bollocks, the first couple of paragraphs at the Wikipedia entry should make it pretty obvious:

"Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine, first expounded by German physician Samuel Hahnemann in 1796, that treats patients with heavily diluted preparations which are thought to cause effects similar to the symptoms presented. Homeopathic remedies are prepared by serial dilution with shaking by forceful striking, which homeopaths term "succussion," after each dilution under the assumption that this increases the effect of the treatment. This process is referred to as "potentization". Dilution often continues until none of the original substance remains

Homeopathic remedies generally contain few or no pharmacologically active ingredients, and for such remedies to have pharmacological effect would violate fundamental principles of science.Modern homeopaths have proposed that water has a memory that allows homeopathic preparations to work without any of the original substance; however, the physics of water are well understood, and no known mechanism permits such a memory."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy

You might as well prescribe trips to Lourdes to drink the holy water.

Total bollocks and shameful that the Health Service pretends it is anything else.

aw, 1dilemma, sorry you are feeling rough.

Can't remember how the Christie funds its complementary therapies, tbh. Wasn't cake sales as far as I recall. But often the NHS either doesn't pay therapists or pays them a pittance.

Some of the medicines are brilliant:

"Oscillococcinum is a homeopathic alternative medicine marketed to relieve influenza-like symptoms.

The preparation is derived from duck livers, which then are diluted to the extent that to obtain one molecule of the original substance would require consuming a dose larger than the known universe."

Someguy, have you bothered to read the thread?

yes thanks

I've had my tea and a large piece of birthday cake I found

I think Macmillian and some of the cancer charities fund some, the hospitals we have had contact with have funded via selling things (arts/crafts/necklaces/etc) general fundraising cycle rides etc sort of 'soft money' IYSWIM rather than tax derived NHS cash

I'm staying off the crying threads

I think hard earned taxes are spent in much worse ways imho.

mp's expenses....?

Homeopathy sorted out my ds's excema as well - much in the same way as Riven's - it just changed too fast for it to be anything else.
His cat allergy also disappeared within weeks.
I find it arrogant to think that just because we don't know why something works - yet - that it must be bollocks. We (the collective "we") don't know everything.

I notice brightonlad was unable to respond to my earlier question. Maybe I 'll ask it one more time:

there are many people who claim their illnesses have been alleviated or even cured by homeopathy. Some on this thread even. Are you calling them liars?

Well - are you?

"Homeopathy is complete and utter bollocks"

gosh....there's nothing like a bit of narrow minded bigotry to kickstart the morning! a really helpful and intelligent contribution from you there someguy.

I'm with someguy.

The fact that some people who take homeopathic rememdies happen to recover says nothing for them at all. Even cancer can spontaneously go into remission.

Water doesn't have a memory. Diluted duck liver isn't going to cure anything. Utter quackery (literally).

There is plenty to be said for other alternative remedies, such as acupuncture, chiropactors and even, say, physiotherapy which we now think of as main stream but is an "alternative" to drugs or surgery. Homeopathy is just bunkum.

Seen this story?

one for the alternative camp

So, some stupid americans don't know what is in a flu vaccine. Clearly hard empirical evidence that no one should use modern medicine, ever.

Good come back.

oh cheer up ffs.

Can you provide any specific examples of Ben Goldacre being sexist - by which I mean direct quotes? Because I've read Bad Science, and I read his blog, and I've never encountered anything of the sort

ben goldacre is searingly funny and incisive about homeopathic quacks and their sugar pill placebo

water has "memory" pah

Indeed, Scottishmummy - the thing that really killed
me was the necessity of hitting the homeopathic remedy with a leather strap 10 times or something.

Water has a memory apparently - but only if you give it a good slap...