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Damning report on homeopathy

Discussion in 'General Issues and Discussion Forum' started by Craig Payne, Mar 2, 2014.

  1. Craig Payne

    Craig Payne Moderator

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    If anyone still had any lingering doubts....

    The Guardian are reporting:
    MPs deliver their damning verdict: Homeopathy is useless and unethical
    .
    .
    Full story
     
  2. Admin2

    Admin2 Administrator Staff Member

  3. Craig Payne

    Craig Payne Moderator

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    This bit bears repeating :sinking:
    That is as damning as it gets!
     
  4. Craig:

    Does this mean I should stop using this homeopathic product that you said worked so well for you?.....:rolleyes:
     
  5. Dr. Bates

    Dr. Bates Member

    I taught MD/DO Family Practice residents at UTSW/Parkland Hospital for the last third of my Podiatry professional career. One MD FP resident had completed a General Surgery residency at a major USA institution. I asked why he sought additional training, and his answer "Because I want to practice Homeopathic Medicine'' stunned me into silence. Later I asked why Homeopathy was not well accepted in modern times, and he answered that "Homeopathic Medicine was rarely practiced correctly.''
     
  6. manmantis

    manmantis Active Member

    Actually, as welcome as this report was, the more worrying issue is raised by Ben Goldacre's article linked at the end of this piece.

    Julian
     
  7. Griff

    Griff Moderator

    He's committed a classic logical fallacy there: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/no-true-scotsman
     
  8. simonfeet

    simonfeet Active Member

    Why does the Society of Podiatrists & Chiropodists still support homeopathy? ie: Still push it at the conferences. A few years ago went to a laughable lecture by one of its protagonists that if verrucae hadn't gone after a year of this hocus pocus suggested saline footbaths!!
     
  9. Griff

    Griff Moderator

  10. perrypod

    perrypod Active Member

    If anyone saw the Horizon program concerning placeboes on the BBC in Britain last month, are they now wondering if the efficacy of any double or triple blind trials, especially those set against placebo have any real valid meaning at all. Placebo itself, appears to be as good as, if not better than many well tested conventional medicine and surgical techniques in certain situations. If those that saw this program, conclude that scientific trials as they are carried out at present, are best practice then could you please explain why?
     
  11. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

    Articles:
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  12. BEN-HUR

    BEN-HUR Well-Known Member

    This issue has been making the rounds of late... here are two found within my sources over the past 24 hours. Says pretty much the same sort of thing... anyway, another 2 to add to the P.A quiver on the topic:

    - No evidence to back homeopathy: NHMRC:
    - Homeopathic treatments 'no better than a placebo': Study of alternative medicine on 68 conditions found 'no evidence it was effective':

    I feel that the various groups/organisations (i.e. Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council) etc.... concerned about Homeopathy should at least begin loosing the word "medicine" from such phrases as "complementary medicine" or "alternative medicine" when referring to the likes of Homeopathy (as well as the media for that matter). The realms of Medicine & Science should be guarded/ordained via empirical research/evidence... not tainted with evidently pseudoscientific associations :wacko:...
    I wasn't aware of the following - bit of a shock :eek:... then again, after thinking about it, it doesn't surprise me...
    I remember seeing a comedy sketch (YouTube video, on this forum I believe) about an emergency ward situation practicing homeopathy - English from memory - I now understand why it was done.
     
  13. W J Liggins

    W J Liggins Well-Known Member

    Aye, that was Mitchell and Webb. I particularly liked the 'payoff' where the practitioner needed a good strong drink, asked for a homeopathic beer and was served a pint of water with just two drops of beer.

    Why we have Homeopathic hospitals here is another question. I'm tempted to say that the four are in Bristol (yokels), Glasgow (men in skirts), Liverpool (scousers) and London (cockneys) - what more can you expect? The truth is that these are not hospitals at all but just the odd room for those deluded enough to seek such 'treatment' and are entirely historically based - you'd have thought we'd moved on from the 1850's! The full story is here. http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2010/03/are-there-any-homeopathic-hospitals-in-the-uk.html.

    Well, I'm off for a full strength glass or two - or perhaps I should make it go further by diluting it by 10,000%?

    Bill Liggins
     
  14. BEN-HUR

    BEN-HUR Well-Known Member

    Mitchell & Webb hey (not familiar with them - not on Australian TV as far as I know) but this must be the sketch (funny & clever)...



    ... & to think our drinking water is recycled... trespassing no doubt through some pretty unsavoury places in its history on this planet (I'm not willing to entertain that thought too far :wacko:). What would homeopaths think of this... could well be their explanation for the amount of disease/cancers we have today. Anyway, it still certainly pays to filtrate your water. Come to think about it, a homeopathic beer may well be healthier than the full strength version (i.e. alcohol - class 1 carcinogen)... as well as reducing the incidence of related social misconduct & accidents (i.e. vehicle crashes).
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 22, 2016
  15. Craig Payne

    Craig Payne Moderator

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  16. BEN-HUR

    BEN-HUR Well-Known Member

    What concerns me (which I wasn't aware of until reading recent articles) is that there are "Homeopathic Hospitals" & that such associated "hospitals" is run/funded by the NHS (in England). Now, I don't no too much about the NHS, but I believe it is government (thus public) funded (i.e. thus tax payer funded)??? It baffles me how such practices could attract government recognition/funding & why the more educated of the public tolerates such resources being directed that way... where I believe the NHS is under some financial strain as it is.

    Found the following (in this section) discussing the issue... pertaining to the U.K:

    It may appear that such funding could cease in the not too distant future.
     
  17. Burke

    Burke Member

    All we need to do is find a stronger placebo. If only the Homeopaths could distill out the placebo content within their potions. Imagine Placebo Forte, Placebo XR. They could have a whole new range of cost effective 'pseudo drugs' and save us heaps of money. :pigs:
     
  18. Craig Payne

    Craig Payne Moderator

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    It works for me on the Arena'ettes:
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 22, 2016
  19. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

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    Does the weight of evidence signal the end of homeopathy?
     
  20. Craig Payne

    Craig Payne Moderator

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  21. W J Liggins

    W J Liggins Well-Known Member

    To judge the efficacy, and hence the value, of homeopathy on the basis of randomised controlled trials misses the point. Such trials are the gold standard for conventional drugs because they test a medication’s effect across a population, eliminating placebo effects and other forms of perception bias.

    But – and here’s the crux – homeopathic medicines are not drugs and homeopathy involves much more than the use of a particular therapy. People don’t visit a homeopath wanting a drug, in fact they often quite deliberately don’t want one; they want individualised treatment.


    That's surely the whole point. They're not getting 'treatment', they're getting a placebo. That's fine, as long as they're not being ripped off and no-one's peddling twaddle to treat serious pathological conditions such as carcinoma.

    Bill
     
  22. Craig Payne

    Craig Payne Moderator

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    It does work for some things:
     

    Attached Files:

  23. Craig Payne

    Craig Payne Moderator

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  24. clongenbaugh

    clongenbaugh Welcome New Poster

  25. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

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    Homeopathy is faith healing without religion
    David M Shaw
    Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies; Volume 19, Issue 1, pages 27–29, March 2014
    Full text
     
  26. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

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  27. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

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  28. Craig Payne

    Craig Payne Moderator

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    Have Homeopaths Reached Peak Stupid?
     
  29. maikelcaarels

    maikelcaarels Member

    Interesting discussion this one...

    Over here in The Netherlands people are now asking questions about, as we like to call it, "integrative medicine". This is, of course, because traditional "Western" medicine hasn't been treating medical conditions at its source. Right? It's like: we will prescribe you some drugs and you feel better. Don't get me wrong: drugs work most of the time by surpressing symptoms and we will live happily ever after. It's quite similarly with how homeopathy works.

    The big problem here is: evidence from "Western" science suggests the traditional good and bad difference between homeopathy and "Western" medicine. Western medicine feels homeopathy is gaining popularity and gets furious about that. So scientists (sometimes with support from the pharma industry) state that homeopathy is bad and everyone believes them. Because they rationalize...

    I think there is no good or bad in this case. After all: science and rationale don't solve anything. Let people make their own choice.
     
  30. Griff

    Griff Moderator

    .....
     

    Attached Files:

  31. Craig Payne

    Craig Payne Moderator

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    Clinical trials of integrative medicine: testing whether magic works?
    The false dichotomies of CAM and “integrative medicine”
    Wrong. That is a myth that is promoted by the scammers. Doesn't an antibiotic treat the condition at its source? ... ie the infecting bug
    That is because the science says that it is no better than a placebo.
     
  32. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

    Articles:
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    NHS Lanarkshire to end referrals to Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital

    U.K. health officials decide homeopathic treatment not justified after review
     
  33. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

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  34. NewsBot

    NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

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    Press Release:
    NHMRC releases statement and advice on homeopathy
     
  35. BEN-HUR

    BEN-HUR Well-Known Member

    The above release was also picked up by the press - News ABC (Australia)...

    Homeopathy no more effective than placebos, major Australian study finds (link)

    ... there was a response... from the homeopathic association...

    I wonder what treatments fell under the banner of "homeopathy" in the WHO review... the following figure seems very high to me... surely Australians aren't spending that much :eek: (if it was Britain, I could understand it :rolleyes:)...

     
  36. W J Liggins

    W J Liggins Well-Known Member

    "We're applying the prism of [a] very, very narrow, restricted format of research that applies well to situations where you're testing one drug against one pathological state," she said.

    "Homeopathy is a holistic form, meaning we are taking into account the psychosocial, the physical, the emotional state of the person in assessing what they might need medicinally." ...


    Isn't this the whole point? A comparative test can only be valid when it is a comparative test. Even if you wanted to, how on earth can a scientist account for all the variables in the "psychosocial, the physical...and..the emotional state". If an attempt was made then the test per se wouldn't be scientific.

    Bill Liggins
     
  37. perrypod

    perrypod Active Member

    Complementary Medicines Australia (CMA) today responded to the position statement by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) on homeopathy, by reiterating its concerns into the NHMRC’s methods used to review the evidence of effectiveness on homeopathy.
    Mr Carl Gibson, Chief Executive of CMA said “We are very disappointed with the position taken by the NHMRC, especially when a number of independent experts in the sector have expressed strong concerns with the methodology of the review, according to information obtained from NHMRC under Freedom of Information laws."
    “The NHMRC Review on Homeopathy had Five Fundamental Flaws:
    1. Shoddy Methodology: NHMRC provides no adequate explanation of why randomised controlled trials (RTC) were excluded from the Review. The NHMRC decision not to adhere to a search of all Level 1 evidence, as per International standards, should certainly be justified.
    2. Selective Research: The choice of databases searched was not broad enough to capture the balance of complementary medicine specific content, and excluded non-English studies.
    3. Lack of Expertise: NHMRC did not appoint a homeopathic expert to the Review Panel.
    4. Flawed evidence: NHMRC did not provide an adequate explanation of why only
    systematic reviews were used where systematic reviews have inherent weakness as a
    reliable source of evidence.
    5. Ignoring Opinion of Experts: Two out of three Experts who NHMRC consulted prior to
    publication expressed numerous concerns over the methodology and selective use of the data and recommended the NHMRC could not come to the very definitive conclusion that it came to. The NHMRC then chose to ignore these Expert Opinions.
    Mr Gibson added; “Papers released under Freedom of Information show that the NHMRC failed to appoint a homeopathic expert to the Review Panel, left out randomised controlled trials, excluded all studies not published in English, and limited the choice of databases searched, which basically meant that the balance of complementary medicines specific content was omitted.”
    “No valid conclusions can be drawn from this Review, except that the NHMRC has failed to uphold its own standards of ethics and quality research in this instance,” said Mr Gibson.
    Mr Gibson went on to say “The NHMRC did accept that some studies reported homeopathy was effective – but has ruled them out of the review, presumably because they did not meet the narrow orthodox pharmaceutical view. Homeopathy has been around for hundreds of years, and I am sure will be around a lot longer than some of the critics.”
    ENDS
    For Further Information Contact:
    CMA, Chief Executive: Carl Gibson 02 6260 4022
     
  38. W J Liggins

    W J Liggins Well-Known Member

    What one would expect from an organisation which has a negative interest. However, the statement that experts expressed numerous concerns over the methodology is interesting. Ruling out studies which did not meet the 'narrow orthodox pharmaceutical view' in all probability means that they did not fulfill scientific rigour. In other words, he criticizes the scientific methodology of the study and then criticizes it because it's too scientific! Par for course.

    Bill Liggins
     
  39. perrypod

    perrypod Active Member

    "The objective of the pharmaceutical cartel is to squeeze out all opposition. The cartel does not exist for the benefit of mankind, nor to improve people’s health. It’s highest objective is to return the best possible profit to its shareholders, through whatever means legally, though not ethically, available to it. You might say we are slipping into the Dark Ages of Medicine, where freedom of choice is being slowly undermined, and those essential human elements of true healing, insight, intuition, empathy, are undervalued, sometimes shunned. These elements are absolutely excluded from the double blind or randomised clinical trials, which are designed for evaluating what effect pharmaceutical drugs have on human populations. These human elements are dismissed as ‘anecdotal’ by the hegemony. For anecdotal, read ‘unable to be duplicated in a random group using the same medicine’, despite the positive health result achieved for the ‘anecdotal’ patient in the consultation"........

    This is not my own quote (I do not live in Australia) , but it is that of an Australian citizen. Do Australians generally tend to trust the NHMRC because it has proven to be an outstanding ethical organisation, or is there a general suspicion of mistrust such as that expressed above regarding its links to the pharmaceutical industry? Are the majority of Australians happy with what the NHMRC are doing for them as an official organisation? Has this organisation gained substantial popular support with the public?
     
    Last edited: Mar 11, 2015
  40. W J Liggins

    W J Liggins Well-Known Member

    In medieval Europe, church bells were rung to chase away thunderstorms. Why? Because it worked - every single time. Was there a single shred of scientific validity to the practice? No - and some of the educated people of the time were aware of that. Seafarers for example didn't have church bells to ring. However, the superstitious ignorant majority just, well, just knew it worked by anecdote. Therefore, why go to all the trouble of checking and testing or investigating alternative explanations? Of course, in the 21st century, some people still believe that there are fairies at the bottom of their gardens. I expect someone told them.

    Bill Liggins
     
    Last edited: Mar 12, 2015
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