The anti woo thread.

[LetThereBeRock]

Can all those who don't believe in homeopathy,ghosts,talking to the dead,reading minds etc,please check in here?

There must be a few of us.

I feel as though I've logged onto allthingswoo.com rather than Mumsnet.com at the moment,and I'm not referring to this particuarly forum,but chat and AIBU?.

And if anyone says anything about how we should be openminded,I'm afraid I'll have to beat you to death with a a stick,one cut from an ash tree by the light of the first Summer moon of course.

Do you remember when everyone went Avada (I think) mad? It was based on some Indian thing and the body shop did a whole range of products.

I have been to mediums in the past. I wanted to see what it was like and its very popular round here (east london)

You could see how the professionals worked. It was bloody blatent. I look quite young for my age (this is relevant I promise) and every single one would guess I had lost a child but then go on to talk about a baby. One woman chose a slightly older child but said 'im not a poorly girl anymore mummy' to me in a squeaky voice.

My DD was 14.

They look at you, suss you out. How old you are, have you come to talk to your parents, child, grandparents etc. A lot of people dont even have someone that close they have lost and they are the easiest to manipulate. Do you know someone with the name Albert/Enid/Lil who has died. Bloody hell in east london the graveyards are chocka with Alberts and Lils!

Appletrees - re "it's a good argument but you just can't bear to say so, so you're pretending to shrug"

What is a "good argument"? I have no idea about what you are trying to say. I have asked over and over. You have not answered.

Now I'm giving up and you are acting like I'm running away from your "argument"?

Again: What is it you are trying to say here? Short and simple answer, please.

What did you think of the homeopathy overdose?

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8489019.stm

sorry, try link again

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8489019.stm

"buying a particular brand of painkiller is a placebo in itself"

Which painkiller is this that has no active ingredients and whose benefit is due only to placebo effect?

and presumably, MrsDeV, if someone had lost a baby but the medium had erroneously plumped for an older child the medium could explain that the child was older in the spirit world even though they had been young on earth.

re beauty products, the latest thing seems to be products that contain genes or some such

isn't the point with the painkillers the fact that the placebo works alongside the active ingredients; the design of the packets in the more expensive brands doesn't just cause them to sell more, it makes people think that the product worked better than a cheaper product, even if they had exactly the same amount of the active ingredient.

Cote: I can't work out if you are feigning perplexity or really are finding it that hard.

Tone and attitude of the thread: alternative or complementary therapies are laughable and worthless, for the stupid, demented and brainless.

My point: no, they have value, and you don't have to believe they have substantive cause-effect to accept this

How hard is that, exactly? You don't even hae to read between the lines.

Thread: it's all based on deception and this is deplorable and wicked

Me: it's all based on deception and this can have benefit

It's honestly not that hard Cote.

Have just realised - you haven't read the thread have you?

Or you would know this.

Trillian: "What we need is licensed practitioners to give out pills saying: "These pills have no active ingredients, but they will probably make you feel better. We don't know how it works, but we know that it often does."
This is all true."

Exactly, this is the conversation. I'm not sure I agree with the above -- for example, does it work better with the "expensive packet" ie the homeopathy facade? But this is the conversation.

Unfortunately the comments about conventional medicine I find less engaging, just because the adverse effects can be so profound and unknown. So while ADs may be marvellous for depression, there are difficulties associated with their prescription. On the other hand, a sugar pill may manage mild anxiety/depression without the risks of AD dependency -- but won't stop someone killing themselves.

I think it's a very interesting conversation.

Appletrees - "Thread" and "You" are not saying very different things.

Thread is right - Woo "therapies" are laughable and for the dim because they are being frauded out of their money, gobbling up crackpot explanations of how and why it should work.

You are also right - Some people might get a little benefit out of sugar pills.

However, many others don't. Becausewoo is still woo, there is no "value" there. The first group might also get benefit from prayer. That does not mean that there is a God up there who promptly takes away their pain. It only means these individuals are are easily swayed by suggestion, or their ailments are rather subjective ("Is the pain less now" "Yes a bit less" "OK then" )

Thread is right re your second point: Woo therapies are based on deception, and this is deplorable because (1) charlatans are making money off suffering people, and (2) it makes fools of suffering people.

Let us remember at this point that these "benefits" are very small. Woo therapies don't cure anyone. A few of them make a few people think they are temporarily slightly better.

That is not worth fooling an entire population about the effectiveness of the medicine on offer, imho.

Sure, but there's a lot of conventional medicine which is pretty rock solid.

Thyroxine for hypothyroid. No side effects. it works. Not sure what state my DH would be in now without it, dead or very ill.

Blood pressure meds - lots of different ones, diagnosis and treatment less clearcut but find the right one and it makes all the difference. DHs uncle - just before such meds invented - died at 50 from uncontrolled hypertension. DH has same condition, his BP is controlled.

Anti-arhythmics work, anticoagulants work. Without them my DH might well have had a stroke by now .

Instead he's doing a 6hour roundtrip to see his mum today, a 92 year old insulin dependent diabetic with (if untreated) high BP

Conventional medicine has its flaws but without it I'd be a widow by now (and childless come to think) without a mother or MIL.

Just doesn't compare with even the best placebo, does it?

I think the ethical guidelines for experimental research on humans are very tough on use of deception - it is considered dubious but sometimes necessary. As a patient I expect to have full
Information about my treatment sorry have yo watch empire strikes back

I heart conventional medicine.

my dad wouldn't have lost his dad at 13 if dialysis had been around in the 1950s.
Conventional medicine cured MIL's breast cancer.
It allowed me to have 3 children (hyperemesis, would have had to terminate otherwise).
right now it is, I believe and passionately hope, saving the life of my friend's dh who is in hospital after their car crash last weekend.

and that's even without mentioning antibiotics....

How is your friend's DH, seth?

news has all been good so far, he spoke yesterday but not off danger list yet.

Fingers crossed (or something less superstitious?) for him.

Appletrees you seem to think we are on the same side and I'm not sure it's true.

I am very very much against any claims that homeopathy works or has value. Feeling listened to and being given some sugar pills if there is no "real" medicine that can help you does have value. But this is very different.

There is no way that anyone should ever say that diluting something millions and millions of times with special shaking produces a medicine, and they especially shouldn't take people's money and encourage them to take this special diluted water instead of medicine that has been shown to work better than placebo.

I think modern medicine is an incredible achievement. I am always when I hear claims that it hasn't really done very much. There can't be many families who haven't been helped quite profoundly by it at some time or other.

of course it is not always good - MIL for instance had a miserable time the other year when they decided out of the blue that she needed blood thinning pills, which caused all sorts of other problems for her until they changed her to a different sort; that was an absolutely classic case of iatrogenic illness. But given she would not be here in the first place without the treatment she had for breast cancer, it's quite heavily outweighed by that....

If you do agree with me then that's good, but it's hard to tell right now.

Good posts Cote and Grimma - I think you hit the nail on the head.

I wouldn't talk about 'conventional medicine' though - it is not that doctors treat people according to convention but based on evidence of what works. It's evidence based medicine.

I think the 'conventional' and 'complementary' are tags that have been promoted by the woo brigade for respectability,

I would be a widow, have lost a child and possibly be dead myself if it wasn't for evidence based medicine.

... And don't get me started on the people sending homeopathy to Africa to treat HIV/AIDS.

you're right Himalaya - 'evidence based' is a much better term.

"Appletrees you seem to think we are on the same side and I'm not sure it's true."

I am not five. If somebody hits the core of the argument I'm happy to say so whether or not we are on the "same side". If you'd read my posts you would know exactly what I think about homeopathy. What's the point in responding to something you haven't read?

Grimma I can't find the post where you talk about the diabetic however re: that I would completely agree. My point was that an enormous amount of conventional medicine below life-saving level is based on symptom relief. As this is largely what the placebo effect of alternative treatments seems to be based on, it makes the comparison more interesting. When you throw in the adverse events often associated with conventional medicine it is even more interesting.

Claiming that conventional medicine always cures while placebo effect just makes you more comfortable is a false analogy.

For example: chronic pain. If you can't get rid of the cause of chronic pain you must resort to heavy painkillers. These can have difficult side effects. If the same symptom relief can be achieved without the heavy painkiller doses and the side effects, this is valuable.

Getting upset about calling it conventional medicine now? Turns out you can be quite a sensitive crew.

I'll carry on calling it conventional thanks. So much research and "evidence" is inadequate or skewed, and the products are just rolled out anyway.

Conventional is about right.

I don't know what to call the other stuff. Woo is derogatory and implies worthlessness, so I suppose alternative is ok for me right now.

"There is no way that anyone should ever say that diluting something millions and millions of times with special shaking produces a medicine, and they especially shouldn't take people's money and encourage them to take this special diluted water instead of medicine that has been shown to work better than placebo."

Do you want them ahead of you in the queue at the GP?