NHS Should Stop Funding Homeopathy, Says Parliamentary Committee 507
An anonymous reader writes "Homeopathic remedies work no better than placebos, and so should no longer be paid for by the UK National Health Service, a committee of British members of parliament has concluded. In preparing its report, the committee, which scrutinizes the evidence behind government policies, took evidence from scientists and homeopaths, and reviewed numerous reports and scientific investigations into homeopathy. It found no evidence that such treatments work beyond providing a placebo effect." Updated 201025 19:40 GMT by timothy: This recommendation has some people up in arms.
Heomeopathy = Placebo (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Heomeopathy = Placebo (Score:5, Funny)
They should continue funding homeopathy. Just dilute the funding until there's less than a fraction of a penny per bill. According to homeopathy, this should be even better than receiving the full amount.
Re:Heomeopathy = Placebo (Score:4, Insightful)
Placebos work great till people start getting addicted to them.
Like a religion?
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That is actually a interesting question.
Have any studies show addiction to placebo ?
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Which is why I'm in two minds about this. Placebos are effective in a number of cases, and belief in the effectiveness of the placebo has been shown to increase this. If giving people a glass of water and telling them that it's magic pixie juice boosts their immune system and avoids the need to give them antibiotics, why not do that?
Re:Heomeopathy = Placebo (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Heomeopathy = Placebo (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps because it's deceptive, and profiting off lies is generally considered unethical,
Western doctors often prescribe placebos [about.com] for people.
Re:Heomeopathy = Placebo (Score:4, Interesting)
I feel like the Chinese are doing it right. Chinese traditional medicine [wikipedia.org] is deeply ingrained in Chinese culture, but they have no hesitation in adopting western medicine when necessary.
Traditional medicine for prevention and getting people to regularly pay attention to their health and see doctors.
Modern medicine for those times where there is no herbal treatment.
Best of both worlds.
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Re:Heomeopathy = Placebo (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Heomeopathy = Placebo (Score:5, Informative)
Unless, of course, you count the vast array of herbs used through the ages that pharmaceuticals are now based on
Two different things. Modern pharmaceuticals use refined extracts or man-made replacements. Homeopathy is water with nothing of value added other than hope.
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Re:Heomeopathy = Placebo (Score:4, Insightful)
The very moment a sufficiently peer reviewed and accredited study shows that the herbs in question have an actual quantifiable benefit, it is no longer "Herbal Medicine" or "Alternative Medicine" it is simply "Medicine" and would therefore be covered under the health coverage in all major modern industrialized nations except the US, which it would depend on what kind of an insurance plan you can afford.
Re:Heomeopathy = Placebo (Score:4, Insightful)
It has nothing to do with politicians and everything to do with the fact that homeopathy is "watered down horseshit" by definition - the more watered down, the better. If it were merely diluted from full strength, then you could formulate a theory of action that was consistent with modern knowledge of chemistry. However, when it's diluted so that the odds of finding a single molecule of the "active ingredient" are 10^80-to-1 against, there's no point even investigating further. If homeopathy worked, it would invalidated all modern physics and chemistry. Since you and I are still alive and able to have this conversation over a network of computers, it can't work.
Re:Heomeopathy = Placebo (Score:4, Funny)
Patient: Help me! I've overdosed.
Homeopathist: What did you take?
Patient: Nothing.
badum bum...
(Well somebody had to say it.)
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You laugh, but water poisoning is a very real, and very fatal condition... if you drink 20 gallons a day for about a year.
On the other hand, these people *are* drinking a whole lot of it.
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http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/KDND#Death_of_a_contestant_in_KDND_radio_contest [wikipedia.or]
Re:Heomeopathy = Placebo (Score:5, Informative)
Yes MODERN,LEGAL, homeopathy is watered down horseshit.
Nope, it's been that way since 1796. Homeopathy was founded by Samuel Hahnemann as a way to mitigate the toxic effects of chemicals being given to patients by diluting them down in water. Also, you keep falsely equivocating herbalism with homeopathy. The two are not synonymous.
Re:Heomeopathy = Placebo (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Heomeopathy = Placebo (Score:5, Informative)
Herbal medicine (a.k.a. naturopathy ) is BY NO MEANS the same thing as homeopathy. You should really educate yourself before you start correcting people.
-Peter
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Herbal medicine is by no means same thing as naturopathy.
True naturopathic treatment involves NO medication, of herbal or industrial sources. Naturopathy is a system involving the use of light, heat, exercise, massage, nutrition, air, acupuncture, etc., that focuses on disease prevention but also is used to treat some disease. Some people who practice na
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I'm not sure I was clear if you second statement still rings true to you :)
Naturopathy EXCLUDES herbal medicine, although some practitioners of naturopathy also prescribe herbal treatment in conjunction with naturopathy.
But it's tough because there are no, or very hazy, legal definitions. Some people who claim to be naturopathy practitioners use herbal remedies, but if they do, they're not really naturo
Re:Heomeopathy = Placebo (Score:5, Informative)
Again, more uninformed bullshit. You have been corrected six ways from Sunday by dozens of informed posters, yet you still persist in spreading misinformation. We've even said things like, 'homeopathy is not naturopathy.' and 'homeopathy is not herbalism,' and 'homeopathy is founded on the principle that diluting something makes it have the opposite effect.' yet you STILL insist on conflating homeopathy with actual, useful medicine like herbalism. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING.
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Naturopathy is using unrefined naturally occurring herbs to cure illness. It isn't terribly effective, but it is scientific, if only at a rudimentary level. Pick and herb, see if it works, pick another if it doesn't. Use as much as needed until problem solved.
Homeopathy is based on some notion of sympathetic vibrations with the body's own natural frequencies or some crap like that. Mystical pseudo-scientific hogwash. That is why the homeopaths always hyper-dilute everything with water. The idea is that
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Indeed. Although you know what they call 'herbal medicine, and other alternative medicine, that works'?
They call it medicine. ;)
All naturopathy either a) doesn't actually treat what it's supposed to treat, or, at least, is unproven to do so, b) treats it with near random amounts and can cause dangerous drug interactions, aka St John's wort.
WRT the first option, well, it really doesn't harm anything if people run around taking ginseng supplements. It's pretty bad when people get conned into herbs instead
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OK, so you start with pure water, add some substance, dilute it until it isn't there, but the water retains the pattern of the substance that isn't there anymore.
One question:
Where'd you get the "pure" water?
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You would be quite wrong in your claims. The term "homeopathy" was coined and first appeared in print in 1807 in the works by Samuel Hahnemann who founded homeopathy to begin with.
Your education is tuition free.
I would hope so since what you're saying is absolutely rubbish and wrong.
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Unlike "dietary supplements", which are virtually unregulated(the FDA basically has to have a bunch of reports of them killing people before they can do anything), homeopathic medicines are under the FDA's purview. However, they are subject to very much lighter scrutiny than standard drugs(none of that "safety and efficacy testin
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I don't think any contemporary pharmaceuticals are "based on" dilution to the point of nonexistence.
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Homeopathy is not about herbs... you do not seem to know what Homeopathy really is.
This youtube video is a nice introduction what homeopathy is all about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWE1tH93G9U [youtube.com]
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Re:Heomeopathy = Placebo (Score:4, Informative)
In homeopathic remedies, the mixture has been diluted so much, there isn't likely to be a single molecule of the active ingredient in most preparations. Well established herbal traditions, from traditional Chinese Medicine to Ayuervedic to American Herbalism, all have herbal preparations with large amounts of the active ingredients. Some preparations from these traditions have been shown to be very effective. Homeopathy has been shown, over and over again, to be nothing but placebo. Just because it's 'herbal' and 'all natural' doesn't mean it 'works.'
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Just to be clear, you are saying:
Herbalism=Plants with drugs in them.
Homeopathy=Water that had drugs in it, but now contains fewer active molecules than it has Carl Sagan molecules.
Can't see how anyone could confuse that.
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Saganite is a miracle element that can cure billions and billions of different diseases!
Re:Heomeopathy = Placebo (Score:5, Informative)
A good example of homeopathic remedy... is good old fashioned marijuana.
No, that's not an example at all. Herbal medicine actually has ingredients, some of which will have real effects.
Homeopathy is based on the idea that if you dilute a substance by millions or billions of times, it retains a memory of what used to be in it (no one has really suggested a mechanism for that), and that somehow cures things.
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You still have no idea what homeopathy is.
Smoking pot, while it may be effective and enjoyable, is NOT homeopathic. South American and African cultures have not been practicing homeopathy for ages, since it was invented in 1796 by a German quack.
By definition, homeopathic remedies give you more of what is alleged to be the cause of the disease. (Thus the "homeo" and "pathic" parts of the name.) So if you suffered from lead poisoning, you might get a solution of lead. Except that instead of any detectable am
Re:Heomeopathy = Placebo (Score:5, Informative)
One more time: homeopathy is not herbalism! NO traditional herbal medicines from ANY culture in the world use homeopathic principles.
And, FYI, I DO put that in my pipe and smoke it, because there are ACTUAL MEASURABLE ACTIVE INGREDIENTS in it.
I can only conclude you have no idea what the principles of homeopathy actually are. It is basically thus: you take something that CAUSES a symptom (not cures it!) and you dilute it down until it is pure water, and that pure water will then do the exact opposite of what the ingredient did.
Homeopathic pot, for instance, would be touted as a cure for laziness and lack of motivation.
There's a difference (Score:5, Informative)
Except that
1. it took some actual evidence-medicine to separate the few that work from the thousands that don't work. There's a name for traditional medicine that actually worked: medicine. The whole alternative gang is the ones that don't.
2. That's irrelevant anyway, because that's not what homeopathy means. Homeopathy can be summarized like this:
A) You notice what herb or substance produces what symptoms. E.g., caffeine produces insomnia.
B) Like cures like. When someone comes to you complaining about insomnia, you give them something that causes insomnia. E.g., caffeine.
No, it's sadly not a joke. The ingredient in most real homeopathic sleeping pills is caffeine.
C) Except you don't really. You dillute it to the point where there's hardly even a mollecule of the original substance left. The dilutions used in homeopathy are all powers of 10. It goes like this:
1X = 1 part active substance in 10 parts water. But this is too concentrated. You don't give them this one.
2X = 1 part 1X solution in 10 parts water, i.e., 1% active substance. Ditto.
3X = 1 part 2X solution in 10 parts water, i.e., 0.1% active substance. Ditto.
4X = 1 part 3X solution in 10 parts water, i.e., 0.01% active substance. Waay to concentrated still, you only use this one to make...
5X = 1 part 4X solution in 10 parts water, i.e., 0.001% active substance. Still too concentrated.
Actual homeopathic remedies start can be anywhere between 10X and 100X. But there's the small problem of Avogadro's number. A 100X solution, you'd have to drink whole swimming pools of it, before an actual mollecule of caffeine actually entered your system to cure your insomnia.
D) But that's supposedly OK, because water somehow has "memory" and cures every symptom like a substance it ever encountered. (So I guess since a lot of water is more or less recycled, and so many people wank in the shower, tap water should be a bulletproof contraceptive.)
The whole thing is stupid on several levels. Not just the "like cures like" or "water memory" stupidity, but starting on the very fact that it focuses on "what causes the same _symptoms_?" instead of the actual pathogen or mechanism involved. If you went to a homeopath with a pain in the throat, he/she wouldn't look at whether you have a pharingitis or a thyroid cancer, but simply at what else causes a pain in the throat. And give you a dilluted version of that. But curing RL illnesses doesn't work that way. Imitating the symptoms doesn't cure a cancer, nor kill MRSA. It's what you get from a brand of "medicine" which appeared before microscopes and is based on little more than ignorance and wild guesses, and inability to distinguish between symptoms and cause of a disease.
Re:There's a difference (Score:4, Funny)
>> D) But that's supposedly OK, because water somehow has "memory" and cures every symptom like a substance it ever encountered. (So I guess since a lot of water is more or less recycled, and so many people wank in the shower, tap water should be a bulletproof contraceptive.)
That explains the fertility crisis many developed countries have!!! Damn you Homeopathy!!!
Re:There's a difference (Score:5, Funny)
(So I guess since a lot of water is more or less recycled, and so many people wank in the shower, tap water should be a bulletproof contraceptive.)
You're missing the fact that the vessel containing the water has to be hit firmly against a suitable object ten times in order for it to magically remember what it's supposed to do. The object is traditionally a leather cusion stuffed with horsehair. Now, I don't know what you get up to in the shower...
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I seriously believe that if I spent an hour bashing my face into a brick wall, this would make perfect sense.
No, you have to dilute the bricks first.
Re:Heomeopathy = Placebo (Score:5, Informative)
Dara O'Briain said it best.
We tested all those vast arrays of herbs and treatments and the ones that worked we called "medicine". The ones that didn't we called "placebos".
Even better, Ben Goldacre in Bad Science talks about the dilution factor of homeopathic remedies, which are diluted so much that a sphere of water with a diameter equal to the distance between the Earth and the Sun would contain about 11 molecules of the original material, with the rest being water. Any benefit conferred by these diluted solutions, which are literally just water, are purely down to the placebo effect.
I can't remember the exact passage, and my copy of the book is on my bookshelf downstairs, but I'm sure it's online somewhere. Ah here we go, google to the rescue - from here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/nov/16/sciencenews.g2 [guardian.co.uk]
Many people confuse homeopathy with herbalism and do not realise just how far homeopathic remedies are diluted. The typical dilution is called "30C": this means that the original substance has been diluted by 1 drop in 100, 30 times. On the Society of Homeopaths site, in their "What is homeopathy?" section, they say that "30C contains less than 1 part per million of the original substance."
This is an understatement: a 30C homeopathic preparation is a dilution of 1 in 10030, or rather 1 in 1060, which means a 1 followed by 60 zeroes, or - let's be absolutely clear - a dilution of 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000.
To phrase that in the Society of Homeopaths' terms, we should say: "30C contains less than one part per million million million million million million million million million million of the original substance."
At a homeopathic dilution of 100C, which they sell routinely, and which homeopaths claim is even more powerful than 30C, the treating substance is diluted by more than the total number of atoms in the universe. Homeopathy was invented before we knew what atoms were, or how many there are, or how big they are. It has not changed its belief system in light of this information.
Homeopathic remedies are *literally* water - they have *no* medical benefit whatsoever apart from as placebos. (and placebos can be pretty powerful - but there is no magic - you could replace all those remedies with tap water and say it was a treatment and the effect would be the same).
Eh... no. (Score:4, Insightful)
99% of homeopathy is simply people using random herbs that are ineffective
99.999% of homeopathy is either water or sugar.
Re:Eh... no. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Eh... no. (Score:4, Informative)
Ummm, I believe they go to 10 nines and beyond. Hence they ARE placebos.
Re:Eh... no. (Score:4, Informative)
A "100C" dilution is divided by more than the number of atoms in the universe. Quite literally.
1x10^60 the dilution factor for a "30C" remedy. That's ten to the sixty.
Re:Eh... no. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Eh... no. (Score:4, Funny)
>> 99.999% of homeopathy is either water or sugar.
But ( 1.0 x -10^24 ) isn't.
Re:Eh... no. (Score:4, Informative)
99% of homeopathy is simply people using random herbs that are ineffective
99.999% of homeopathy is either water or sugar.
I suspect you have been as stingy with your trailing decimal points as most homeopathy is with actual non-inert ingredients.
According to the report: "Homeopathic medicines are diluted so much that it is extremely unlikely that any active component can possibly be left in the solution. The committee failed to identify any plausible explanation for how such remedies might work."
The dilution factors are utterly astounding in many cases. The most common Dilution advocated for most purposes would require giving two billion doses per second to six billion people for 4 billion years to deliver a single molecule of the original material to any patient
The Homeopathy Wiki article [wikipedia.org] is even more dismissive than TFA, which by itself is rather astounding.
30 C dilutions (Score:3, Informative)
I was under the impression the most common dilution "30C", was something like 1/3000... But no, on further reading I discover it's 99.999999999999999999999999999999% water, as you say. i.e. even in a mass spectrometer we're not going to see any molecules of the original solution.
Re:Heomeopathy = Placebo (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Heomeopathy = Placebo (Score:5, Informative)
'It may have started out as some kind of herb or metal or whatever, but it's diluted past avogadro's number, making it just water.'
This is usually true, though in some cases preparations have been classified as 'homeopathic' while still containing significant concentrations of active (and potentially harmful) ingredients. Homeopathy seems to allow a very wide range of dilutions, from 1:10 all the way up to the well-known astronomical levels that make it (perhaps fortunately) extremely unlikely there's anything left of the original substance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathic_dilutions [wikipedia.org]
Zicam, which apparently qualifies as 'homeopathic', and has been blamed for damaging the sense of smell in some users, reportedly contains 33mM zinc gluconate, a pharmacologically active concentration:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=530 [sciencebasedmedicine.org]
It's been alleged that the company marketing this stuff simply used the lax rules governing homeopathic preparations in the US as a way of circumventing regulatory approval, which sounds like a rather worrying loophole.
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If nothing else works though, that hope does help them mentally so is that really that bad?
I feel the problem is when this stuff is pushed as _the_ cure instead of using scientifically proven methods. That is when the real damage is done an
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I see what you did there [wikipedia.org].
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Yes, it is. A lot of people will turn to flim-flam medicine in place of real, evidenced based medicine and get sicker as a result. You also have a huge industry based on sham medicine costing people billions in wasted money every year. Finally, the deeply flawed arguments used by pushers of these drugs leave a segment of the population distrusting "big pharma" as if the medical industry was out to get them...In
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I'm not familiar with requip, and Google doesn't turn up anything negative on the first couple of pages. As to the sales reps, I'll admit they're aggressive, but I've never met a sales rep that wasn't.
All of that being said, though...every time I go to the doctor's office, I'm made to feel better. When my mother had breast cancer, her treatments cured her. When my stepfather needed a kidney, dialysis helped in the interim. What I do
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There's a lot of people with severe fatigue problems (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Lupus, **Crohn's disease**, etc.), that regular doctors can't help, and usually can't even diagnose.
Without the diagnosis and subsequently treatment for my Crohn's Disease by **regular doctors** I'd be dead... as of 25 years ago.
There's a lot of people who have problems with wheat gluten, for instance, which exhibits itself with symptoms like migraines and fatigue, but regular doctors are of no use here as they don't even consider diet as a factor in treating patients, and think that someone eating healthy foods is just the same as someone eating junk food loaded with HFCS.
I've regularly been tested for gluten/wheat intollerances, and lactose intollerance, and have been referred to a dietician, by **regular doctors**, to help treat my Crohns, and YES, it was THEIR recommendation! And such atittudes aren't a rarity either, they're the norm in my experience here.
What works, through the processes of science, becomes medicine, and what doesn't work,
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Bullshit! You have no idea what homeopathy is. Homeopathic preparations are NOT diluted due to legal issues, dilution is the whole. god. damn. point. it is what supposedly makes an ingredient alleviate the symptoms it causes if not diluted. There is no change or advancement in this fundamental, central, FOUNDING PRINCIPLE of homeopathy over the 'ages.' You are spouting absolute, uninformed CRAP, trying to put homeopathy in the same boat as herbalism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy [wikipedia.org]
Educate yourself be
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Did you realize that you were making a pro-homeopathy attack on someone who was trying to make a pro-homeopathic argument?
Remind me to keep quiet about any causes you are defending.
GP said, basically: The gubmint is holding homeopathy down! They won't let us use the stuff that would show homeopathy to work!
You said: OMFG YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT HOMEOPATHY IS!!!!
He didn't say 'Gubmint makes us overdilute useful parts', as you seem to conclude. He didn't use the phrase "watered down" to refer to homeopathic conce
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As long as the sources are cited in the article, why wouldn't you consider it a viable source to cite on an Internet Forum?
If a Wikipedia article is filled with [citation needed], then yes it is a bad source...but as long as sources are cited, what's the difference if you find the info through Wikipedia or not?
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They can patent the method for isolating or synthesizing those ingredients, however, which is what they usually do. Big pharma companies spend a lot of money researching naturally growing herbs, and have made bank on said research.
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Re:Heomeopathy = Placebo (Score:5, Insightful)
Now you can claim it was a fluke. But you cant convince me that a 4 year old who didn't understand the infection or the treatment was miraculously cured by placebo effect.
I'm unimpressed. If you have a horrible infection, its almost certain that in two weeks either your immune system kicks in and you're cured, or it doesn't kick in and you're dead. Why would this be surprising?
Time does heal a lot of wounds. If drinking weird substances is a way to pass the time, then so be it.
Also correlation does not equal causation. I had an infected paper cut on my thumb for the last couple days. Its healing nicely thank you. I prefer vi over emacs most of the time. Therefore vi is an antibiotic. Huh? No causation means the correlation is meaningless, just a fluke.
Re:Heomeopathy = Placebo (Score:4, Funny)
Well if you were using Emacs you could have just done a M-x fight-infection and your thumb would have been better yesterday.
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Do you have any idea how lucky you are? [whatstheharm.net]
If people want to play games with their own lives, that's their call. However, exposing children to these kinds of risks isn't just irresponsible, it's criminal. If your stepson had died as a result, you and your wife would both be in jail.
Actually, re-reading what you wrote, I see that you were responsible enough to actually take the kid in for surgery after giving him the "medicine". That's great. Unfortunately, there have been many cases where other couples have
First AGW, Now Homeopathy (Score:2)
The Brits seem to be on the forefront of pseudo-science debunking.
Good job, mates!
Re:First AGW, Now Homeopathy (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems to me to be the exact opposite. The fact that they were funding it up to this point is be a sign of backwardness.
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The Brits seem to be on the forefront of pseudo-science debunking.
Seems to me to be the exact opposite. The fact that they were funding it up to this point is be a sign of backwardness.
In Britain as Christianity gets less and less popular astrology, magic, neo-paganism, etc become more popular. Far too many people actually seem to care what's printed in a horoscope.
this makes it more powerful (Score:5, Funny)
As everyone knows the more you dilute a Homeopatheic reagent the more powerful it becomes. Diluting their funding will only make them stronger.
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Which is why a scientist is being sued for libel because he called chiropractors quacks and frauds.
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That's because Britain's libel laws are generally weighted in favor of the plaintiff. [nytimes.com] In Britain, the plaintiff need not demonstrate that the statements are false; the statements are presumed false and the defendant must prove them true. The plaintiff need not demonstrate direct harm either. The U.S. (and much of the rest of the Western world) has much more stringent rules; in the U.S., the plaintiff must prove the statements false and demonstrate harm. If they are a "public figure", they also need to prove
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Because I think GP was serious.
I for one thank.... (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a less harsh solution: (Score:2)
Let them do something like, oh, dispense only one-tenth as much for each prescription, then make the patient dilute it prior to use, like the US insurers that force people to get double-dose pills and split them.
Oh, that's right -- since diluting homeopathic remedies makes them stronger, they'd be putting everyone at risk of overdose. Never mind, then.
Re:Here's a less harsh solution: (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, that's right -- since diluting homeopathic remedies makes them stronger, they'd be putting everyone at risk of overdose. Never mind, then.
The latest terror threat; credible reports have been received by British Intelligence that terrorists plan to drop small quantities of homeopathic remedies into the nations reservoirs. The resulting homeopathic overdoses could bring the nation to its knees.
Police are on high alert and pharmacies are advised to report any suspicious individuals purchasing homeopathic remedies, particularly individuals who purchase ONLY SMALL QUANTITIES at a time.
Placebo No Treatment? (Score:5, Interesting)
If the homeopathy is performing as well as placebo, but doctors offering placebo treatments do so at a risk of litigation, wouldn't the Homeopathy still be better than nothing?
Or is No Treatment = Placebo?
-Rick
Re:Placebo No Treatment? (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference between a placebo and homeopathy is the doctor prescribing a placebo KNOWS there is no medicinal value in what they are giving to a patient, whereas the person using homeopathy CLAIMS there will be a medicinal benefit.
In the former, the doctor is merely giving sugar pills (or something similar) in a controlled environment to test whether the person's condition is real or imagined, or is part of a study to see if a new medicine actually works.
In the latter, the person using homeopathy claims that by repeated dilutions of a mixture to the point there is no discernible ingredient other than water, that somehow, through some unknown conveyance, the water "remembers" what it was instilled with and thus, miraculously, can become effective at treating an ill.
So no, homeopathy is not better than nothing. If anything, it is more harmful because a) people with serious medical conditions do not seek out real medicine to alleviate what afflicts them, b) it sucks money from people without offering any evidence that what it claims to do actually takes place, c) it runs counter to every scientific principle of how things really work, thus dumbing down even further the public's understanding of how science is performed.
Granted, a and b aren't really that bad as it tends to cull the herd, but c is what exasperates those who use common sense by having to listen to such drivel.
Re:Placebo No Treatment? (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, how well your new drug works compared to existing therapies is exactly what many healthcare providers and payers want to know, which is why regulators increasingly demand active comparator trials. In some countries reimbursement is explicitly linked to how well you fare against whatever the current standard of care is.
Homeopathy != All Non-Pharmaceutical Medication (Score:5, Insightful)
It's worth noting that homeopathy != all natural remedies nor does it mean the only medication that works come from pharmaceutical companies and doctors.
Or maybe it's not worth noting. I had to look what homeopathy actually was though, since a lot of "natural" remedies get lumped into it as well. Even vitamins/minerals or probiotics tend to be looked on as non-traditional medicine and thus highly suspect.
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For example from here: [guardian.co.uk]
Out of hundreds of "probiotic" strains of bacteria under consideration, not one was shown to improve gut health or immunity. Taurine, the amino acid added to energy and sports drinks, was not found to boost energy. Nor was there evidence to support the claim that glucosamine is beneficial for joints, although it is widely marketed as such.
The benefits of vitamins and minerals on the other hand do have evidence backing them up, but members of the alt-med community goes so far as claiming that they cure AIDs.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The benefits of vitamins and minerals on the other hand do have evidence backing them up, but members of the alt-med community goes so far as claiming that they cure AIDs.
While I've never heard the AIDs claim, I wouldn't be surprised. Interestingly enough, there may be some evidence behind such a claim. Even the famous MD Anderson did cancer treatment trails during the 80's and found that their early formulations were as effective, if not more effective than some conventional (at the time) radiation therapies against some cancers. The studies were stopped before wider testing could be conducted. Regardless, they did prove that alternative vitamin therapies may have value for
The placebo effect can be powerful! (Score:2)
With that said, homepathy, like religion, although it can help people, technically it's still fraud.
Re: (Score:2)
With that said, homepathy, like religion, although it can help people, technically it's still fraud.
Homeopathy can be tested and results viewed (e.g., bacterial counts). You've actually proven all religions and any religion to be frauds?
Re: (Score:2)
You've actually proven all religions and any religion to be frauds?
Yes, it says so in a book I read. Proof enough for me!
Article title not true (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Not only that, there is no such thing as the UK NHS, in Scotland the NHS is separate and responds to different priorities
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The Prince of Wales (Score:4, Insightful)
From the fine article:
"Either we are governed by evidence and science, or by Prince Charles." --Edzard Ernst
Awesome.
-Peter
but (Score:4, Insightful)
You get that even if they only produce the placebo effect they will do as good as many popular current drugs for patients and without the horrible side effects that come with them.
Simon Singh (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Simon Singh (Score:5, Informative)
That's not what he's being sued for.
He's being sued for suggesting that the chiropractors were willfully giving people treatments they knew to be be useless. Personally, I don't see think that's what he meant in his article and that's his argument, too, but the one thing he's *not* being sued for is saying chiropractic remedies are little more than horseshit - there's be no lawsuit if that was all he'd said.
There always seems to be a remarkable amount of bitching about the British libel system, but really all it boils down to is that if you publicly smear someone, you'd better be able to damn well prove it. Where exactly is the problem in that? From what I've seen of American media and politics, it'd be a hell of a lot better if there were some requirement for people to be able to back up their accusations...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Calling chiropractors frauds is no more a libel than calling mobsters violent hoods.
Re:Simon Singh (Score:4, Insightful)
There is nothing wrong with the ideal of disallowing libel, but it is the way in which that ideal is implemented in British law that is what causes most people to "bitch". For example, in the chiropractic case, the courts have essentially asked Simon to defend against the worst possible allegation that one could possibly read in to his case --- he now essentially needs to prove dishonest intent on the part of the chiropractors, which is even more unfair by the fact that *his* intent to make that claim dishonestly was assumed with little opportunity for him to defend it.
Specifically, his statement was "despite a lack of evidence, the BCA happily promote these remedies ..." and the judge decided that the claim of dishonest conduct was implied by the use of the word happy. I don't know how you feel, but I'd say that any fair reading of that statement is not going to assume that that claim was made. The upshot of all of this is that Simon Singh has to prove that chiropractors are intentionally dishonest or pay up around half a million pounds. He can't just argue that reasonable people should have some reason to believe a remedy works before they sell it! He's clearly being sued for making a statement which was an expression of his opinion.
A law is judged by the way it is implemented, and the effect of the British libel laws (in this case and many others) has been to chill criticisms. I disagree with you --- I think the American system, which also allows people to sue for Libel, but asks the plaintiff to prove that the defendant stated something specifically untrue as fact, is far more ideal. There may be a lot more "noise" on the news, but at least no one's being censored.
Re:Simon Singh (Score:4, Interesting)
He's being sued for suggesting that the chiropractors were willfully giving people treatments they knew to be be useless.
So they're admitting ignorance to the efficacy of their treatments?
Reminds me of the excuses of the Iraq War promoters. Before the war, it was all about the weapons of mass destruction. After the war, excuse me, major combat operations, it was all about the positive results of regime change, despite the lack of weapons.
There are no liars anymore, just blithering idiots with hearts of gold.
Homeopathic A&E (Score:5, Funny)
Tim Minchin - Storm (Score:3, Funny)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB_htqDCP-s [youtube.com]
Loophole (Score:3, Funny)
Even if the government stops paying for homeopathic medicine, you can just take your last subsidized dosage and add it to a gallon of distilled water. Not only do you now have more of it, it's now phenomenally more powerful! And when you're almost out, you can do it again! And it only gets better!
Seriously, why ever pay for this stuff more than once?
Homeopathy does work. (Score:3, Funny)
A homeopath recently overdosed. (Score:4, Funny)