Homeopathy within the NHS

[Rhedd]

On the 24th February 2010 there is a huge lobby taking place to defend Homeopathy and allow people to have the right to choose Homeopathy on the NHS.

What are you views?

Has Homeopathy helped you?

Should we not be given the choice as to how we deal with our health and our families health? After all Homeopathy has no side-effects, non-toxic and saves the NHS a lot of money.

What other Alternative Health System will be next in the firing line?

Here is a website which may provide some food for thought...http://www.homeopathyworkedforme.org/

[taper]

Homeopathy is cobblers.

Nope, nor anyone else beyond a placebo effect.

Nope, unethical to pretend something works when it doesn't.

Amber necklaces.

[taper]

And Rhedd, you should declare your pecuniary interest in this issue.

[Rhedd]

No pecuniary interest at all....just pure discussion and interest as to individuals personal views.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Absolute bollocks. As efficacious as amber necklaces - a discussion in the Family Thread that I just can't believe is going on between sane parents.

[SteveT]

Homeopathy seems to be full of failed hippies striving for a career.

It would be most unlikely of the NHS to participate in homeopathy when they haven't the funds to maintain their core services.

[Horsebox]

Rhedd Wrote:

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> No pecuniary interest at all....just pure

> discussion and interest as to individuals personal

> views.

No interest other than being a 'qualified' practicioner?

IMO: it's a sham. Snake Oil peddlers etc and the NHS should have no business wasting money on it.

[Huguenot]

Rhedd you get paid for practising homeopathy on home visits - that's about as big a financial interest as you can get.

Since homeopathy demonstrably doesn't work, the only conclusion is that you're either dense (in which case you shouldn't be performing home treatment), or you're deliberately misrepresenting homeopathy and defrauding your clients (in which case you should go to prison).

It doesn't start well, does it? The fact that you've denied an interest and been proven to have one will suggest to our community that you fall in the latter camp.

There are two key elements to health treatment that are a moral imperative: that you should obtain informed consent and that the patients rights should be respected. Homeopaths break both these rules in promoting wilfully insubstantiated arguments for the effectiveness of treatments.

It gets pretty bad doesn't it?

Worse still, when independently researched, homeopaths are shown to wilfully denigrate evidence based medicine in favour of quack remedies. This applies to everything from MMR, through malaria treatment to allowing real diseases to go undiagnosed because they are not sufficiently informed for the level of trust they demand from patients.

That's almost killing people isn't it.

Finally, the confusion and outrageous claims made by homepathy serves to undermine the public faith in the entire medical industry, threatening to reap widespread and devastating harm.

Rhedd, your denial of a financial interest in promoting homeopathy has already exposed you as a bullshitter. Change your life.

[Marmora Man]

SteveT Wrote:

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> Homeopathy seems to be full of failed hippies

> striving for a career.

>

> It would be most unlikely of the NHS to

> participate in homeopathy when they haven't the

> funds to maintain there core services.

Regrettably the NHS does fund at least four "Homeopathic Hospitals" which is a total waste of scarce NHS resources.

For once, and possibly the only time, I am in complete agreement with Hugenot's sane and rational responses to the question.

Homeopathy is a total sham - physically and medically impossible - no more than a con trick on gullible people.

[Brendan]

Really? How (and who) did they manage to make a valid case for that?

Are ?Homeopathic Hospitals? hospitals that practice exclusively in homeopathy or are they normal hospitals that tolerate homeopathy?

[Rhedd]

This thread is purely based on the fact that they are thinking of removing Homeopathy from the NHS. Personally I think that will be very sad day as it is taking away the rights of those people who have found Homeopathy works for them, the opportunity to see a Homeopath, who by the way are all qualified doctors, and the chance to be treated for free.

I think that the medical industry and Homeopathy have a lot to learn from eachother. There have been some amazing discoveries in medicine and doctors and nurses in the Emergecy Services - Brilliant, where would we be without them, but with all things in life it is never quite black and white....why there is a whole rainbow out there!

Even you Hugenot in amongst your rantings made a good point "that you should obtain informed consent and that the patients rights should be respected" I totally agree and that works in both cases whether you seek medical or any form of alternative health. It is always your choice and so therefore people should have the freedom to make that choice.

I am not here to convince you that Homeopathy works, debating or having an arguement about a choice that is very personal to every individual out there, after all it is your body, your health, your life.

However if you think that "The Powers that be" are going to stop there with taking things away from us, limiting our freedom of choice and not just with regards to health, you are very sadly mistaken.

[Ted Max]

First they came for the homepaths, and I did not speak out?

[LegalEagle-ish]

I can't believe my taxes are already being used to pay for something like this.

I didn't know that the NHS paid for homeopathic sugar pills. I think that's outrageous when other services have been cut.

If someone wants to waste their own money on that crap then that's up to them, but I am angry that my money is being spent on something that is a total waste of time and has no proven benefit to anyone other than the homeopaths.

I will lobby against the homeopathic industry trying to put their hands in my pocket.

[Huguenot]

Rhedd, you misunderstand 'informed consent'. The only accurate information possible about homeopathy is that it does not work.

Hence properly informed consent de facto does not exist for homeopathy.

You talk about people for whom 'homeopathy works for them'. It doesn't. They are simply confusing an improvement in their health with the effects of sugar tablets. This is understandable, but wrong. Most people get better most of the time irrespective of treatment.

To be a doctor entails taking an oath based on ethical behaviour. In this sense a 'homeopathic doctor' is a contradiction in terms.

The correct term is a 'homeopathic fraudster'.

[SteveT]

Huguenot wrote:- The correct term is a 'homeopathic fraudster'.

Even more so when the original poster does not have the honesty to declare their true interests.

I feel I've been duped by a poster who pulls such strokes.

[The Chair]

Right. Executive decision time. I'm bored of yet another thread devoted to this nonsense. There is already one in the lounge here that will suffice. Any further debate can continue there.

The Drawing Room is for factual discussion. Homeopathy is fiction. End message.