Homeopathy remedies

[jenny pink]

Homeopathy means literally 'cure like with like'........

so even 'if' it were a placebo,.....no harm done

It is proven to work on animals,so can not be a placebo.

[rendelharris]

jenny pink Wrote:

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> Homeopathy means literally 'cure like with

> like'........

> so even 'if' it were a placebo,.....no harm done

>

> It is proven to work on animals,so can not be a

> placebo.

Oh please! Can you point to a single peer-reviewed paper that "proves" homeopathy works on animals? Seeing as no reputable double-blind trial has ever been able to demonstrate any proof of it working in humans...

The harm done is that millions of people are being ripped off by unscrupulous snakeoil pedlars, that the NHS was wasting (until last year, thank goodness) a fortune on this nonsense, and that vulnerable patients, including children unable to make a choice for themselves, have had their illnesses worsened, and in extreme cases have died, by rejecting conventional treatments in favour of homeopathy. So, quite a lot of harm done, really.

[jenny pink]

at rendelharris...Why not do your own research....

Me,my dogs & other pets,have been taking them for years,where pharmaceutical drugs failed...& it cured various conditions..........

Why is Prince Charles the patron of Homeopathy,if it is a placebo....

The NHS has taken them off,like other holistic approaches,as there is no money to be made by big pharmas.....

& all their drugs have side effects,which means you have to take pills for ever,to manage said side effects..

if THAT is not a money spinner,I don't know what is

Show me cases where people have died from Homeopathy alone............

[JoeLeg]

@Jenny Pink

I?m not sure what I find more distasteful - your twisted view of modern medicine, your ill-informed opinions on why doctors and nurses use scientifically proven methods, or your wholesale rejection of anything that does not support your opinion that it?s all a money-spinning exercise for big pharma.

I?ll bet you?re an anti-vaxxer too. Take your tin-foil hattery back to 4Chan where it belongs.

?It?s proven to work on animals, so can not be a placebo?

Riiiiight. Do you have any idea how drug trials work? Come back to me when you do, and you?ll understand why the fact that something works on one species doesn?t mean it will work on another. Glad your dogs are ok though.

Feel free to have the last word on this, I?ll be here with my wife who was saved from certain death by Kings who used an awful lot of drugs that did indeed have side-effects when they pulled that 5.5kg infected fibroid out of her. She?s still here, thankfully.

If you want to spend your money on it then feel free. Please stop denigrating the hard work of trained medical professionals of whom you seem to believe your opinion is equal to their training and experience.

And as for profit? Well the owner of Brixton Wholefoods sent his son to Alleyns and his daughter to JAGS off the money he took in the shop, and that was AFTER all his staff were robbing him blind. So please don?t go telling me that the homeopathic world is averse to ripping off the customer - oh I?m sorry, I meant turning a ?healthy? profit.

[rendelharris]

jenny pink Wrote:

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> at rendelharris...Why not do your own

> research....

In other words, you can't offer a single peer-reviewed scientific paper "proving" homeopathy works on animals. I could do my own research from now until Whitsun and I wouldn't find one, because there isn't one. However your response is telling; you know that if such a paper did exist you'd be shouting it from the rooftops, but as it doesn't you have to fall back on the utterly lame "look it up yourself" defence.

> Me,my dogs & other pets,have been taking them for

> years,where pharmaceutical drugs failed...& it

> cured various conditions..........

The plural of anecdote is not evidence. I had rotten 'flu last week, and the drugs I took from Big Pharma didn't seem to make any difference. However, I did wear my purple dressing gown all week, and lo and behold this morning it's gone. Therefore wearing purple dressing gowns cures the 'flu.

> Why is Prince Charles the patron of Homeopathy,if

> it is a placebo....

If the best you've got is that Prince Charles, who has no scientific credentials nor intellectual credibility (best education money can buy and he managed two A levels (B&D) and a 2:2 in Archaeology!), supports you then you really are in trouble.

> The NHS has taken them off,like other holistic

> approaches,as there is no money to be made by big

> pharmas.....

The NHS stopped providing homeopathy treatments after a long and intensive review of their efficacy which proved beyond doubt that they had a placebo effect at best. The NHS is, as we all know, strapped for cash, and desperate to save money; they frequently reject the provision of "Big Pharma" drugs on cost grounds. If homeopathy actually worked they would jump at it. Your statement implies that the doctors and other staff who run the NHS are deliberately rejecting effective treatment in order to boost the profits of pharmaceutical companies, which is not only tinfoil hat territory but also utterly contemptible.

> & all their drugs have side effects,which means

> you have to take pills for ever,to manage said

> side effects..

> if THAT is not a money spinner,I don't know what

> is

There are indeed many problems with the large pharmaceutical companies, but at least they're selling drugs that have been peer-reviewed, tested and shown to work. I'm sure they wish they'd thought of homeopathy; selling people bottles of water without a single trace of the original element in as a cure, that's the ultimate moneyspinner.

> Show me cases where people have died from

> Homeopathy alone............

Nobody has ever died from homeopathy alone and I didn't say they had. It's impossible to die from consuming tiny quantities of pure water. There are, however, numerous instances of people dying, or causing other people (particularly children) to die, by rejecting real medical treatment that could have saved them and using homeopathy instead. Here's a particularly harrowing example: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/28/homeopathy-baby-death-couple-jailed (warning, upsetting content)

[Sue]

JoeLeg Wrote:

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>the owner of Brixton

> Wholefoods sent his son to Alleyns and his

> daughter to JAGS off the money he took in the

> shop, and that was AFTER all his staff were

> robbing him blind. So please don?t go telling me

> that the homeopathic world is averse to ripping

> off the customer - oh I?m sorry, I meant turning a

> ?healthy? profit.

What have wholefoods got to do with homeopathy?

And why shouldn't the owner of a wholefood shop make a profit? Do you think he should have run it as a charity?

[JoeLeg]

Brixton Wholefoods on Coldharbour Lane (as opposed to the ?Wholefoods? chain) sold many homeopathic remedies back in the 90?s when my best mate was a long-term member of staff. He knew how much the owner was paying for them, and the extortionate mark-up subsequently applied.

Every member of staff there (my friend included, but in his defence the smackheads on staff were worse) was stealing from the place (and I mean in a serious way) one way or another and STIll the profits were enough to send two kids to local private schools. The rest of his lifestyle was similarly well-furnished.

What?s my point? My point is that anyone who thinks homeopathic remedies sold from cute, independent locations by former hippies are automatically going to be good value for money is sadly deceived. Of course they aren?t charities, but I object vociferously to the idea that somehow they are paragons of virtue.

There?s a huge amount of money to be made in such things, because of the perception that because it?s ?natural? somehow it?s automatically value for money. Personally I dispute that.

[Earl Aelfheah]

If people want to take sugar pills in the belief that they will cure all sorts of ailments then that is up to them. But thos selling such ?treatments? to others, profiting from their deception, should rightly be condemned. It?s cynical and manipulative.

[TE44]

JoeLeg, It feels your dislike for this person goes beyond the selling of homeopathic pills. I

Do not know this person, but it seems you do, to put so much personal information about him on this forum.It seems unfair when there may be people who know this person and this person is unaware of this thread. If this was someone posting the same info about a local chemist charging more for vaccines it would be wrong.

These topics go round and round on this forum and it never gets past right or wrong, shame.

[JoeLeg]

TE44 Wrote:

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> JoeLeg, It feels your dislike for this person goes

> beyond the selling of homeopathic pills.

Kindly re-read my post and show where I expressed a personal opinion of him.

For the record - seeing as this is obviously important to you and you think it relevant, I held no personal view on him past a dislike of his conspiraloon theories which even back then I felt were harmful to others.

I

> Do not know this person, but it seems you do, to

> put so much personal information about him on this

> forum.It seems unfair when there may be people who

> know this person and this person is unaware of

> this thread.

Wow. Not worth responding to.

If this was someone posting the same

> info about a local chemist charging more for

> vaccines it would be wrong.

Hilarious attempt at a straw man argument. So much wrong in that sentence I literally don't know where to begin...

>

> These topics go round and round on this forum and

> it never gets past right or wrong, shame.

No, it's not a shame to point out that the homeopathic industry peddles a view of itself as somehow being more ethical and reliable than 'big pharma', when the opposite is demonstrably true. As Sue points out, none of them are charities.

There is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in our philosophy, and modern medicine can't explain or treat absolutely everything, but it does a damn good job with a lot of it - as evidenced by the increasing length of many peoples lives and the comparative lack of things like cholera epidemics - but when people like Jenny Pink start accusing the NHS of being a money-spinning arm of big pharma and asserting that basically all modern medicine is a con, that's when I get really angry.

[lavender27]

Yeah man, for I , the one who started this post, I say "yeah man" play cool everyone, peace and love. Smoke a joint, don't forget the roasties.

[Cardelia]

jenny pink Wrote:

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> & all their drugs have side effects,which means

> you have to take pills for ever,to manage said

> side effects..

> if THAT is not a money spinner,I don't know what

> is

>

>

> Show me cases where people have died from

> Homeopathy alone............

One of my favourite homeopathy-related stories comes from a Finnish guy on another forum I frequent. A couple of years ago he took part in a mass homeopathy overdose, to prove to people that homeopathy was completely ineffective and didn't do anything at all. He took hundreds and hundreds of the little homeopathic sleeping pills within the space of an hour or so and - obviously - nothing happened.

Until the next morning that is, when he woke up with severe stomach cramps and diarrhoea. Turned out that the little sugar pills he consumed had a tiny lactose coating, and the guy had a lactose intolerance! Side effects are not the sole preserve of big pharma.

[fishbiscuits]

jenny pink Wrote:

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> Why is Prince Charles the patron of Homeopathy,if it is a placebo....

hahahahaha... heeheehee... hahahaha!

But seriously... jesus christ... I absolutely despair sometimes.

[Sue]

A lot of complementary remedies and treatments work on an energetic level.

I haven't found homeopathy helpful, but I have found other complementary treatments helpful, and I don't believe due to a placebo effect.

There is absolutely no point in discussing it on here, because there are people who will always mock. Like somebody who can't see in colour, so does not believe that it could possibly exist.

Also, I think it is quite wrong that very personal information about a specific individual and business has been posted on here, and I think it should be deleted.

[TE44]

Lavender27, I agree with Sue trying to have a discussion on here seems impossible but I am interested on whether you found anything that helped.

[fishbiscuits]

Sue Wrote:

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> I haven't found homeopathy helpful, but I have

> found other complementary treatments helpful, and

> I don't believe due to a placebo effect.

This is part of the problem. People conflate things.

Criticism of homeopathy is not the same as criticism of "alternative" medicine in general.

e.g. I'm quite happy to believe many herbal remedies are effective (although saying that, lack of testing/regulation makes it hard to know which ones are really effective, and what the side effects may be)

[Earl Aelfheah]

Let's be open about what 'alternative medicine' means. It's an alternative to evidence based medicine. Does that sound good anyone? Why would someone want to sell you a product that they claim will make you better, but not present robust evidence that it will do what they say. If the substance works, why not prove it in a clinical trial.

[Sue]

rahrahrah Wrote:

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> Let's be open about what 'alternative medicine'

> means. It's an alternative to evidence based

> medicine. Does that sound good anyone? Why would

> someone want to sell you a product that they claim

> will make you better, but not present robust

> evidence that it will do what they say. If the

> substance works, why not prove it in a clinical

> trial.

First of all, it's not "alternative". It is "complementary."

Very few practitioners of complementary medicine would suggest you give up going to your GP if necessary (apart from obviously minor ailments), and if anybody did I'd suggest you find somebody else.

Secondly, to have a clinical trial you need to have sufficient subjects for any results to be statistically significant. And you need to have strict criteria on what is going to be considered a "successful" result.

And the trial needs to be extremely rigorously controlled.

Complementary medicine and treatments, by their nature, do not lend themselves to that kind of trial.

But I don't even know why I'm bothering.

[Sue]

fishbiscuits Wrote:

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I'm quite happy to believe many herbal

> remedies are effective (although saying that, lack

> of testing/regulation makes it hard to know which

> ones are really effective, and what the side

> effects may be)

Well, very many what you describe as "herbal" remedies are now integrated within conventional medicine.

Digitalis is derived from foxgloves. Just one example.

[rendelharris]

Sue Wrote:

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> Secondly, to have a clinical trial you need to

> have sufficient subjects for any results to be

> statistically significant. And you need to have

> strict criteria on what is going to be considered

> a "successful" result.

>

> And the trial needs to be extremely rigorously

> controlled.

>

> Complementary medicine and treatments, by their

> nature, do not lend themselves to that kind of

> trial.

That's the most ridiculous of all the homeopathic (specifically homeopathy, not other complementary medicines, some of which, as you note, can certainly be helpful) copouts - "Oh we can't be measured by standard means" - why not? Homeopaths claim that their preparations (which, let us not forget are water, pure and simple, derived from solutions so diluted that no trace of an original additional element remains) are efficacious in relieving or curing all manner of conditions. Therefore the results they claim should be achievable and measurable in randomised double blind trials, such as all conventional medicines have to undergo. That's not demanding that it be proved how they work, just that they do. If homeopathy works, it would pass such a trial - it never has, not once.

Please don't give it the "I don't even know why I'm bothering" as if you have a monopoly on sense and understanding in these issues and anyone who objects is just being awkward. Some people are talking a lot of nonsense on here, e.g. "It has been proved that homeopathy works on dogs" and deserve to be challenged.

[JoeLeg]

Sue, there is a massive gulf between what you are advocating - which is sensible, evidence-based analysis coupled with the awareness that there are things out there with *some* people have found useful - and the generalised attacks on modern medicine mounted by those who have an innate refusal to question their own beliefs.

I have no issue with people spending their own money and time on the use of homeopathy. I virulently oppose the spread of disinformation - even propaganda - against the wider medical community, especially when it had no basis in anything other than an individuals personal belief and some joke websites they have read. In my defence I would point out it was only Jenny Pinks ridiculous assertions regarding the motives of the NHS and presumptions about the efficiency of modern medicine that raised my ire.

I also have no problem pointing out the profits made by sellers of homeopathic remedies; you said yourself that they are not charities, yet many of them happily cultivate an image of razor-thin profit margins. I never mentioned anyone?s name.

Homeopathy is perfectly capable of mounting fairly aggressive attacks, and does not - in my opinion - do enough to dissuade people from the idea that it is the only safe form of treatment. I?m thinking particularly of the anti-vaxxer lobby.

There is absolutely a place for the analysis of whether previously unknown ingredients can have medical applications, but the wholesale assumption that an untested regimen of 100% natural origin will somehow be superior in all respects to medical treatments is dangerous and must be challenged.

Knowledge is power. Assumption is mother of all f-ups. And much of homeopathy is based on assumption.

[Earl Aelfheah]

@sue - it's a fair point about 'complimentary' medicine. I used the term 'alternative' because I was responding to another post which had used that phrase. As a compliment to traditional medicines it is likely that other 'remedies' are likely to do little harm (other than making you a little poorer). That said, I do think that any effective treatment should be capable of passing the standards of a clinical trial. I don't have an issue with people taking placebos if they wish. I do still feel uneasy about people who make a living selling compounds off the back of unproven claims of efficacy.

[Sue]

JoeLeg Wrote:

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the wholesale assumption

> that an untested regimen of 100% natural origin

> will somehow be superior in all respects to

> medical treatments is dangerous and must be

> challenged.

>

Sorry, but I'm very confused now.

Who has suggested that, either on this thread or anywhere else?

[Sue]

JoeLeg Wrote:

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I never mentioned anyone?s name.

You didn't have to.

They were very easily identified by the contents of your post.

[TE44]

Looking at medicine, whether alt or conventional,

It is recognised in science as being only part of

healing. The placebo effect has always fascinated

me, and It shows how much our bodies can heal without intervention with meds. It very interesting to read studies looking at this.