Debunking Homeopathy

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AdmiralJim
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Debunking Homeopathy

Post by AdmiralJim »

It is my plan along with the Humanist Society in Aberdeen city, to hold a stall advocating removing funding for Homeopathic remedies at the cost of the National Health Service. currently the uk government supports despite hard financial times funding for 4 homeopathic hospitals. Medical studies have shown no effect of homepathy besides the placebo effect. It is my plan this Sunday to have a mass overdose of homeopathic remedies - anyone with a elementary knowledge of chemistry should understand that there is no active ingredient in these remedies.
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Malcolm
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Re: Debunking Homeopathy

Post by Malcolm »

AdmiralJim wrote:It is my plan along with the Humanist Society in Aberdeen city, to hold a stall advocating removing funding for Homeopathic remedies at the cost of the National Health Service. currently the uk government supports despite hard financial times funding for 4 homeopathic hospitals. Medical studies have shown no effect of homepathy besides the placebo effect. It is my plan this Sunday to have a mass overdose of homeopathic remedies - anyone with a elementary knowledge of chemistry should understand that there is no active ingredient in these remedies.

You're just jealous that you didn't think of the $20 million duck first.

N
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AdmiralJim
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Re: Debunking Homeopathy

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You're just jealous that you didn't think of the $20 million duck first.
Oh absolutely! Plus the NHS doesn't have money to waste on this crap, if people are gullible enough to buy it over the counter them I have no sympathy.
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Epistemes
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Re: Debunking Homeopathy

Post by Epistemes »

My girlfriend's mother is a big advocate of homeopathic medicine. I don't know even know what it is. :shrug:
All I've gathered is that it is supposedly better than allopathic medicine for the sole reason that it isn't allopathic medicine and a stranger to Big Pharma.
It seems like a pretty generic term for anti-allopathic medicine.
I think my girlfriend is actually currently seeing a homeopathic doctor for her angioedema. Or maybe it's an Oriental medicine doctor? All I know is that she's taking some Chinese herbs and getting acupuncture done. It's hard to keep track since she's been to so many doctors with this thing.
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Malcolm
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Re: Debunking Homeopathy

Post by Malcolm »

Epistemes wrote:My girlfriend's mother is a big advocate of homeopathic medicine. I don't know even know what it is. :shrug:
All I've gathered is that it is supposedly better than allopathic medicine for the sole reason that it isn't allopathic medicine and a stranger to Big Pharma.
It seems like a pretty generic term for anti-allopathic medicine.
I think my girlfriend is actually currently seeing a homeopathic doctor for her angioedema. Or maybe it's an Oriental medicine doctor? All I know is that she's taking some Chinese herbs and getting acupuncture done. It's hard to keep track since she's been to so many doctors with this thing.
CHinese medicine and not homeopathy.
Jinzang
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Re: Debunking Homeopathy

Post by Jinzang »

Medical studies have shown no effect of homepathy besides the placebo effect.
The National Center for Homeopathy website has a page of links to research showing positive results from homeopathy. The same skeptics who attack homeopathy were attacking meditation twenty years ago. Why should I pay attention to their uninformed opinions? And this idea of proving that homeopathy doesn't work by trying to overdose is pretty silly. You can't overdose on marijuana either. Does that prove that getting high is a placebo effect?
"It's as plain as the nose on your face!" Dottie Primrose
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AdmiralJim
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Re: Debunking Homeopathy

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Hi Jinzang but sorry to burst your bubble,
I have read all those studies that you provided and I am sorry they are incredibly flawed, in fact one study was just advertising its own brand of particular product! I am not just saying this because I am against homeopathy ( which I am ), if these were medical studies of conventional pharmaceuticals I would be equally as scathing. I also note with interest one study that advocated homeopathic remedies for breast cancer, how horrifying! The study was conducted in vitro ( in a test tube ) and was ultra-diluted ( the study never mentions what that means ), so there is no reliable way of saying it is beneficial for human patients. I myself have a medical degree and have conducted medical studies in cancer genetics to say that it could be beneficial when something is just at the in vitro stage is highly irresponsible, a not to distant reminder of this is the birth defects caused by thalidomide in the 1960s ( a treatment for hyperemesis gravidarum - very severe morning sickness in pregnancy.)
And this idea of proving that homeopathy doesn't work by trying to overdose is pretty silly. You can't overdose on marijuana either. Does that prove that getting high is a placebo effect?
I think that is a completely irresponsible thing to say, one of my interests is psychiatry and specifically substance abuse and oh boy you sure can overdose on marijuana. This is why psychiatric clinics I have attended are full of people with psychotic behaviour caused by smoking too much of this crap. This alternative therapy notion that it is harmless if it is a herbal or plant preparation is absolute bull crap. St Johns wort a herbal preparation ( used to treat depression ) causes mania in those with Bipolar disorder, so by no means am I saying all alternative therapies do not work, in fact St Johns wort is the first line treatment of depression in Germany - although interestingly I need a prescription for conventional antidepressants yet I can buy this product over the counter.
Interestingly one paper was going on about the death of conventional medicine, yet how can you attack on the one side the scientific community about its immorality etc....yet hope to prove your treatments work by using those very same methods it just doesn't make sense! It just comes across as having an axe to grind. This anti-modern medicine paper just made me laugh I quote 'homeopathy is effective because it treats the individual and modern medicine should focus less on 'curing the disease' I place my faith in 'modern medicine' because precisley it does aim to cure the disease, because at the end of the day empirical scientific data is the only way we can eliminate ego from the equation. This ego is also a problem with modern medical researchers too - I once worked with a famous researcher in the field of cystic fibrosis as a student - we were looking for a specific molecule in patients who were sick with this disease. According to him I was doing all my experiments incorrectly - the thought that he could be wrong about it didnt even seem to enter his head.
Do you not think if homeopathic treatments worked that we wouldnt give them to cancer patients!? I for one will love the day when cancer patients no longer have to put up with punishing chemotherapy and barbaric surgery. I am reminded very much of a story of 'ancient' psychiatry, people who were mad were said to have a 'stone' on the brain - quacks out to make a fast buck would cut out the 'stone' using drilling techniques leaving painful open wounds in the unfortunate souls skull. No doubt some people felt better for a little while, especially at the end of the procedure when the 'doctor' reassuringly rattled the stone in his surgical waste bucket.
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Grigoris
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Re: Debunking Homeopathy

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My brother use homeopathic medicine on his pet dog in order to cure an auto-immune blood related problem that conventional medicines couldn't deal with. The dog is now in fantastic shape (all the tests are coming back normal) and the dog suffers none of the negative side effects associated with the conventional medicines. How does the placebo effect work with dogs then?
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catmoon
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Re: Debunking Homeopathy

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My brother use homeopathic medicine on his pet dog in order to cure an auto-immune blood related problem that conventional medicines couldn't deal with. The dog is now in fantastic shape (all the tests are coming back normal) and the dog suffers none of the negative side effects associated with the conventional medicines. How does the placebo effect work with dogs then?
:namaste:
It doesn't. The dog would have gotten better without the treatment. My doctor once pointed out that 80% of the people that come to him for treatment would be all better in 10 days or less without treatment. Spontaneous healing is the norm. You've been suckered by snake oil salesmen. They have been making fortunes off this scam since the dawn of time.

I could hang a shingle outside my door, and no matter what I practice - foot reflexology, chiropractic, homeopathic nostrums, Barley Green therapy, iridology or psychic healing, or Tibetan medicine for that matter - ANYTHING will have that 80% success rate. And my "patients" will of course only know that they came, were treated, and they got better, (well most of them) and they invariably fall for the idea that the treatment caused the cure. Almost nobody examines that assumption carefully. Certainly the "healers" won't. They get an income and status from their work, they all have an 80% minimum success rate, why would they question? Why would they throw away years of worthless training and get a McJob?

But the real barbed wire snag is that the same reasoning applies to standard medicine as well. Whether one is legit or not, there is still a LOT of money floating around the health field. This has caused enormous financial pressure on the processes that determine efficacy, so that even formal, double blinded, university conducted tests and trials can no longer be trusted. The result is that the drug market is flooded with poorly tested medicines that have marginal benefits and many serious harmful effects.

So who can you trust? Sadly, you can't trust anyone all the time, but the standard doctor in a white coat does have a nearly 100% success rate with some things. You can trust him to set your broken bones, suture your cuts and scrapes, lance boils and they are pretty good with infections. But the moment he hands you a pill with a name a yard long, you're on your own. It might be good, it or might wreck your kidneys, or your liver, or send you into some psychotic hell of no return in twenty years. There's just no way to know.

By the way, there is no safety in natural organic herbal type medicines. Plants cannot fight with their hands, so they fight with poisons. Most of our medicines come from poisons plants have developed to kill fungi, bacteria, insects and browsing animals. For instance, the alkaloids - codeine, morphine, heroin, cocaine, caffeine, nicotine, quinine and thousands of others- are deadly poisons that act on insect nervous systems. They also have interesting effects on mammalian nervous systems so we consider them medicines or drugs. Plants that do not contain such poisons are usually not considered medicinal. Those plants that just happen to be full of poisons that have no effect on the human animal are often referred to as "food". Many of our domestic food varieties of plants have been selectively bred for low production of noxious compounds, by the simple means of breeding out the ones that taste bad. The sense of taste is fairly good at detecting plant poisons, they usually taste bitter (if they are detected at all).
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Grigoris
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Re: Debunking Homeopathy

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catmoon wrote:It doesn't. The dog would have gotten better without the treatment. My doctor once pointed out that 80% of the people that come to him for treatment would be all better in 10 days or less without treatment. Spontaneous healing is the norm. You've been suckered by snake oil salesmen. They have been making fortunes off this scam since the dawn of time.
The dog would have died without treatment. We are not talking about a case of the common flu (which happens to kill tens of thousands of people, and cats, every year) but a life threatening auto immune disorder. You are just being snarly because they managed to save a dogs life! :tongue:
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
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The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
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catmoon
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Re: Debunking Homeopathy

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gregkavarnos wrote:
catmoon wrote:It doesn't. The dog would have gotten better without the treatment. My doctor once pointed out that 80% of the people that come to him for treatment would be all better in 10 days or less without treatment. Spontaneous healing is the norm. You've been suckered by snake oil salesmen. They have been making fortunes off this scam since the dawn of time.
The dog would have died without treatment. We are not talking about a case of the common flu (which happens to kill tens of thousands of people, and cats, every year) but a life threatening auto immune disorder. You are just being snarly because they managed to save a dogs life! :tongue:
No, you are just being snarly because you don't want to admit someone has completely pulled the wool over your eyes and you fell for it hook line and sinker. The dog got better, and the odds are 4 to 1 in favour of the treatment having nothing to do with it.
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Grigoris
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Re: Debunking Homeopathy

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catmoon wrote:No, you are just being snarly because you don't want to admit someone has completely pulled the wool over your eyes and you fell for it hook line and sinker. The dog got better, and the odds are 4 to 1 in favour of the treatment having nothing to do with it.
Not my eyes my friend, my brothers eyes, and they charged him an arm and a leg for the treatment (there is only one homeopathic vet in the whole of Athens). Actually they were referred to the homeoptahic vet by an allopathic vet who's daughter was "cured" of terminal cancer by homeopathy after allopathic medicine failed miserably.

Dude, if sticking live leeches up peoples noses has the same ratio of effectiveness as allopathic and/or homeopathic medicine then why should we stop people from being treated? Isn't it up to the indvidual to decide their course of action? Even if it's cleraly a placebo effect then why deny individuals the opportunity to fool themselves into good health?

Why not crusade against allopathic medicine, given that it to has the same ratio of effectiveness as nasally inserted live leeches?
:namaste:
PS I am not being snarly, I don't give a rodents rectum for alloptahy, homeopathy, purging, reiki, etc... To tell the truth I personally am a fan of herbalism.
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
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catmoon
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Re: Debunking Homeopathy

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gregkavarnos wrote:
catmoon wrote:No, you are just being snarly because you don't want to admit someone has completely pulled the wool over your eyes and you fell for it hook line and sinker. The dog got better, and the odds are 4 to 1 in favour of the treatment having nothing to do with it.
Not my eyes my friend, my brothers eyes, and they charged him an arm and a leg for the treatment (there is only one homeopathic vet in the whole of Athens). Actually they were referred to the homeoptahic vet by an allopathic vet who's daughter was "cured" of terminal cancer by homeopathy after allopathic medicine failed miserably.

Dude, if sticking live leeches up peoples noses has the same ratio of effectiveness as allopathic and/or homeopathic medicine then why should we stop people from being treated? Isn't it up to the indvidual to decide their course of action? Even if it's cleraly a placebo effect then why deny individuals the opportunity to fool themselves into good health?

Why not crusade against allopathic medicine, given that it to has the same ratio of effectiveness as nasally inserted live leeches?
:namaste:

Because sometimes allopathic medicine hits that amazing 99% cure rate, because sometimes it really does get the job done. On the other hand, you could take my above post (partially) as a crusade against pill pushing, a standard allopathic practice. btw while poking around thenet for this post, I cameacross this:
http://discovermagazine.com/2007/sep/th ... :int=0&-C=" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; which is a 5-page article on spontaneous remission that contains all sort of interesting examples of the pitfalls of standard approaches, as well of examples of their successes.
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Malcolm
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Re: Debunking Homeopathy

Post by Malcolm »

catmoon wrote:
So who can you trust? Sadly, you can't trust anyone all the time, but the standard doctor in a white coat does have a nearly 100% success rate with some things. You can trust him to set your broken bones, suture your cuts and scrapes, lance boils and they are pretty good with infections. But the moment he hands you a pill with a name a yard long, you're on your own. It might be good, it or might wreck your kidneys, or your liver, or send you into some psychotic hell of no return in twenty years. There's just no way to know.

The difference between modern pharmaceuticals and Tibetan and Ayurvedic formulas (as well as Chinese formulas) is that the former have no track record and are relatively recent. The latter have been tested on human popluations for 1000 years+ and their effects, dosages, indications, and counter-indications are well known and described.

The caveat is that herbal medicines, like their allopathic counterpart, require a) a medical theory which underlies a nosology b) a clinically experienced doctor trained in that field of medicine.

I personally have no confidence in the efficacy of homeopathic formulas. But they are also not harmful. So if people want to spend their money on them, I have no problem with it.

N
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catmoon
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Re: Debunking Homeopathy

Post by catmoon »

Namdrol wrote:

The difference between modern pharmaceuticals and Tibetan and Ayurvedic formulas (as well as Chinese formulas) is that the former have no track record and are relatively recent. The latter have been tested on human popluations for 1000 years+ and their effects, dosages, indications, and counter-indications are well known and described.
I actually apply this idea in my own life. For instance, I pretty much trust aspirin. We've been making and using it a long time, we all know it can be hard on the stomach, and it's fairly effective.
I personally have no confidence in the efficacy of homeopathic formulas. But they are also not harmful. So if people want to spend their money on them, I have no problem with it.

N
Yes, one thing is for sure, due to the extreme dilution factors in homeopathic medicines, the chances of harm are about nil. Of course, by the same reasoning the chances of benefit are about the same.
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Re: Debunking Homeopathy

Post by LastLegend »

Macrobiotics...Our ancestors ate cereals and stayed stuck on earth.
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catmoon
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Re: Debunking Homeopathy

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LastLegend wrote:Macrobiotics...Our ancestors ate cereals and stayed stuck on earth.
Mmm... but before they invented agriculture, wasn't the diet like meat, nuts, berries and roots?
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Epistemes
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Re: Debunking Homeopathy

Post by Epistemes »

catmoon wrote:
LastLegend wrote:Macrobiotics...Our ancestors ate cereals and stayed stuck on earth.
Mmm... but before they invented agriculture, wasn't the diet like meat, nuts, berries and roots?
According to the trending paleolithic diet, yes.
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LastLegend
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Re: Debunking Homeopathy

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Macrobiotics such as eating only brown rice with salt and sesame and drinking less water for a certain period of time is an effective form of medicine. This medicine is spiritual and meditative in nature. Diseases come from eating, and from eating we can also cure diseases. Our attachment to eating different varieties of food causes us to suffer when we restrict ourselves to only eating brown. Brown rice is full of vitamins. That's why this is a meditative form of medicine. By eating less, we are reserving merits. When the mind is pure, the body is also pure.
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Re: Debunking Homeopathy

Post by LastLegend »

There are people who died from not following the correct instructions. As any practice can be dangerous without fully understanding the teachings before practicing.
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