NEEPS

Forget-me-Not · Neepster Joined: 25 Jan 2008 Posts: 1035 Location: Insch

I'm with you on homeopathy, It worked when nothing else did on me when I was too little to understand, had a huge beneficial effect on my daughter who has no understanding of it and I've seen it work on animals.

Beth
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IainC · Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 9:39 pm Post subject:

http://friendlyatheist.com/2009/11/01/homeopathy-in-comic-strip-form/

Can't say I've really paid attention to it previously, but then again I've not really ever needed anything... other than a few headaches, a ripped ankle[1] and getting a fishing hook out of my eye lid I've not really ever needed to see a doctor or someone like that for anything.

[1] - Ligaments I think it was that snapped... the perils of having a drink and trying to do a somersault... my foot slapped down as I landed and I heard the CRACK... thought it was the bone I shattered, but the doc said different the day afterwards... leg was BLACK from my big toe to my knee, apart from a 10p sized bit on the end of my big toe which was fine

IainC · Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 9:42 pm Post subject:

oh, and meant to add... I've had pretty much all vaccines that I'm meant to have had (AFAIK)... generally I've never needed the "top up" ones when you get a bit older, 'cos I've always tested as still having plenty of "whatever" in my bloodstream when they've tested before giving the second lot of jabs, etc.

Personally I don't think I'd bother with the swine flu jab, I think my wife feels the same, but due to being a nurse and working with some fairly ill people, I'm not sure she really has a choice IYKWIM.

Julie · Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 11:31 pm Post subject:

JamesB · Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 10:21 am Post subject:

Martin · Neepster Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 675

Julie - Couldn't agree more - we need "both" - each doing what it's best at - I think there's room for all sorts of "alternative" therapies, BUT, and it's a very big "but", Big Pharma doesn't want that - it wants a total monopoly of all health care - when lavender oil drops on a pillow can be enough to induce sleep in the elderly, the drug companies would far sooner have them addicted to some mind bending "hypnotic"... etc, etc, etc
I fear that the excellent revised version of the hippocratic oath is routinely broken, both in word and spirit - it's easy to get rid of a patient by flashing the prescription pad, far harder to carry out REAL medicine......
I think we have to learn from history, and it is littered with drugs that were touted as "safe", until the body count got too big for even them to hush up....valium being a particularly dirty business (there were hundred of others) -
Yes we need drug therapy in extremis, but for "everyday" ailments, something from nature's medicine chest is probably far safer/more effective/cheaper!
Having wandered off-topic a touch, I think vaccinations are yet another good money-maker for Big Pharma, and to be honest, most are completely unnecessary, and grossly "oversold" to a gullible public - doctors make a nice little extra sum for every "jab" administered----
kerrrching!

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Martin · Neepster Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 675

James, I think in a way, you've made my point for me - let us take homoeopathy as a fr'instance, let us assume for a moment that 2,000 laying hens' dramatic overnight recovery from infectious bronchitis was a figment of my fevered imagination, as is the fact that I have to avoid the higher potencies of homoeopathic preparations as they "blow my head off", and assume that they are nothing more than a sugar pill placebo - we have someone suffering from "nerves", and they have two choices - their not very good gp, or a homoeopath.................
The gp will likely prescribe something from the drugs arsenal - (and if you think valium was dangerous, some of the more modern ones solve the problem by inducing suicide) - in my experience this will either result in addiction, the problems getting worse etc, BUT, it got an annoying patient out of the surgery pdq............
On the other hand, the homoeopath will take a full history, look at them "in the round", take time to discuss their problems, advise on diet, and prescribe for THEM (the remedy for ostensibly the same disease can be different for many different "types" of people, which is where many tests of the therapy fall down)..........then even assuming what they're given is no more than a useless "sugar pill", they start to get better, perhaps through the power of suggestion/intervention of angels.......... it really doesn't matter a flying fig - if it achieves a cure, and it does so without all the problems of modern drug "therapy", then it is arguably a better therapy than allopathy with all that unnecessary surgery/useless drug prescription (if you were allowed to apply the same searching look at drug effects as the knee surgery...........but Big Pharma wouldn't allow that!)
Modern medicine is often downright dangerous, and the pharmaceutical companies work VERY hard to make damned sure that's overlooked!
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Fia · Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 12:13 pm Post subject:

Oh dear Martin, I'm firmly on James's side here.

If "alternative" medicine can ever provide a properly controlled double blind trial which proves efficacy I'd be the first person to cheer. But they haven't. All they can offer is anecdotal evidence, which is not enough. How do you know that something didn't clear up of it's own accord - our bodies are pretty amazing. Homoeopathy, for instance, relies upon some woo which states that water has "memory". This has NEVER been proven. Herbal medicine is a slightly different bag, as many of our tried and tested drugs come from plants anyway eg aspirin from willow bark, belladonna from foxgloves. But dosing yourself with medicinal plants without an enormous amount of knowledge and care can be fatal. The point of properly controlled drugs is that the ingredients are pure and the doses are controlled. Contrast, say, pharmaceutical morphine with street heroin...

I would agree that some GPs are too quick / busy to give the time that "alternative" practitioners can - as they charge loads for it! The placebo effect, combined with, as Martin says, time to talk through the issues with the patient, can be scientifically verified to work. Why do they seem to work? Because some folk BELIEVE they will, and can easily pass that power of suggestion onto others, eg children. In fact, you don't even need the sugar pill, just a blind faith that woo works. Our minds are amazing too!

I'd like to see a little less emotion and conspiracy theories on this. IMHO the only way to verifiably say something works is by doing the science. That's why we have the scientific process. And through that, paradigm shifts can and do occur (e.g. before we ever saw a photo of our planet scientists worked out it was round, not flat like it appears) - it's the whole point. Woo has singularly failed to do this so far.

Oh, and I will be having the swine flu jab as I'm a front line health care worker, and personally see it as respect for my clients.
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Martin · Neepster Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 675

don't get me wrong - there is a definite place for drugs and surgery, but even you must admit that drugs are over, and wrongly, prescribed to the nth degree, when often a safe natural remedy would be better all round- what I object to is that "balance" and choice is totally disappearing - and as I said before, Big Pharma wants it ALL........
As for "proof" of homoeopathy, I'll try to be brief - firstly the sort of trials as used for crude drugs are unlikely to prove it works (in simple terms, they prescribe for the patient as much as for the illness, so you can't expect the same remedy to work the same way for everyone, as everybody is different).
"Anecdotal is not enough" - as I've already pointed out, science may not yet have the tools to understand the "how?" , it does NOT mean that it doesn't work, it may well be that we do not yet understand the mechanism. Most of the homoeopaths I know are "converts" from conventional medicine, who have tried homoeopathic remedies out of desperation or despair, found they have worked safely and effectively, and have eventually largely given up "conventional remedies" - both doctors and vets......... I asked our local homoeopathic vet how it worked,
he grinned and said "I don't bloody know, but by golly, it does........" (he's a very highly qualified "conventional vet" who "converted").
As for herbalism, you used a very dirty word - "pure", which is the current lame excuse used by Big Pharma to deny herbalism's rightful place as a far older, safer, and entirely proven therapy.
All the drug companies want to do is find something they can patent - in this country, you can't patent a plant or it's natural extract, but you can patent a "clone" of an active ingredient (kerrrching) - I would opine that it is FAR safer to take most things as they naturally occur, as has been proven many times, the agglomeration of different compounds in a plant can work synergistically to produce it's healing effect - because the pharmaceutical industry is not capable dealing with, or understanding such complex interrelationships, they will do their usual, and "rubbish" the idea - in many cases, extracting an active ingredient and using it is "when the trouble starts" - the other big thing in favour of herbalism is that he remedies' properties and side effects have been documented for hundreds (if not thousands) of years of clinical observation - as the great pile of "turned out to be dangerous" drugs that were touted as "completely safe" prove, in a great many cases, we'd be far safer to use a proven herbal remedy (as the French have the good sense to do) - as you may have noticed, most Pharmacie stock a really good range of herbal and homoeopathic remedies, and their health system is geared to it's use!)

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JamesB · Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 2:12 pm Post subject:

lets just clear up a few terms.
homeopathic is not herbal medicine, dont ever confuse the two. I'm all for herbal medicines that work and many have been proven to. The same cant be said for homeopathic pills.
Im not against alternative medicines, far from it but if you are talking about giving people pills (homeopathic or otherwise) then they have to prove that they work (efficacy).
Yes some drugs are over prescribed but that was never the point and no reason for homeopathic.
trials dont care how something works just efficacy (does it work) and effectiveness (does it work under realistic conditions). I couldn't care less how homeopathic works (and its irrelevant to this discussion) but if you are going to give someone a pill then you should have proof that it works. you take lots of people who are at risk of getting a condition or disease, randomly assign them the 'drug' or placebo and monitor them. if homeopathic pills worked then you would see evidence from this type of trial. rest, diet etc are all important in convential or homeopathic but the issue is the pills. so a very bad trial would allow the homeopathic patients extra time to recover, good diet etc. Improved diet is an intervention in itself, you cant compare conventional pill for someone on a bad diet to homeopathic pill for someone on a improved diet. a properly conducted trial will aim to eliminate these biases.

I should also point out that a lot of these trials are funded by the NHS directly, nothing to do with drug companies. The NHS has lots of choices of where to spend its money and I think (disagree if you want) that only treatments that are proven to work and be effective should be widely funded.

James
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