Homeopathy

[OuiOui]

My MIL is French and works in a pharmacy and she's given me drops of camomile and also a special formula for teething. We occasionally use the camomile and the teething ones but am worried that we are using them "irresponsibly" - What's the general rule with homeopathy?

I would be very interested to read the relevant data on deaths from ibuprofen. When I worked in the drug safety department for boots ( who manufactured ibuprofen in the 1960s) I was amazed at how few serious side effects were reported for it. And we were looking at world wide data.

It is true that drugs are not tested on the pregnant, young or elderly in the earley stages. However in the first 1-2 years that a drug is on the market all side effects ( and they do meen all) have to be reported to the CSM in the UK. You can tell that this is being done to a drug that you are taking, because it has a black triangle printed on the box.

It is an irony that most of us want the top of the range, newest, best treatments. But at the same time we want the drug to have been tested for decades and taken by millions before we take it Sadly, the two things are mutually exclusive. And drugs do have to be tested in patients with the disease (who must volenteer, and give full informed consent), it is not just fit and heatlty medics, honest! 60 % of drugs are dropped before they even get into humans, and even more are dropped in the testing phase. Not perfect I agree but it is very stringent, especially since the 1968 law change following the thalidomide disaster.

hmb I know someone (directly- this isn'st someone's cousin's aunt iykwim) who had a very serious allergic reaction to ibuprofen. Her GP said it was common- OK she didn't die but she was seriously ill with it.

The next thing is NOT about homeopathy but about conventional medicine and the fact that it isn't always tested with chidren in mind or pregnant mums or breastfeeding mums for that matter... I chose to post this only because some of you seem to feel conventional pharmacology is safer....

WHAT DOCTORS DON‚T TELL YOU - E-NEWS
BROADCAST No.13 - 28 Nov 02
SUFFER THE CHILDREN: Drugs that kill and harm
the very young

Prescription and over-the-counter drugs have killed 769 children
aged under two years between 1997 and 2000 in the USA. In
addition, another 6,000 have suffered from serious side effects.

Some of these children were affected indirectly, because the
mother had taken the drug when she was pregnant or while
breastfeeding.

Nonetheless, it hardly needs stating that these figures are
extraordinarily conservative, as statistics always seem to be
when it comes to reporting drug side effects and reactions.

Although 2,000 drugs, including vaccinations, were implicated,
just 17 were responsible for more than half the serious side
effects, and four were suspected in up to one-third of the deaths.

Some of the main culprits included antibiotics, over-the-counter
medications such as ibuprofen, and treatments for respiratory
syncytial virus (RSV), a common childhood infection that can
lead to pneumonia.

These figures are at the heart of one of the fundamental problems
about drug testing and licensing. Although the licensing process
can cost a pharmaceutical company around £150m, the drug is never,
if rarely, tested on the people who may eventually take it, such
as pregnant women, the very young and the elderly. Instead,
it‚s a useful way for young medical students to supplement their
income, and, because they are strapping, healthy young things,
they don‚t suffer too many side effects.

Give the same drug to an elderly person, already on a cocktail
of other drugs, and the result may well be very different. But
then, of course, if the drug company recruited the pensioner to
the initial trials, the drug would probably never get a licence
in the first place.

Apologies for the accidental refresh

Jimjams - yeah!!!!!!!
Love your posts, I'm with you. (I'm also a scientist).