I love that the Coldenza packaging says “drink plenty of fluids.” Well, quite: presumably, the more you drink, the more effective it becomes.

England’s Chief Medical Officer Liam Donaldson, who has raised the issue of unnecessary operations before, said: “…it is important that effective therapies to address significant health problems are adopted and that ineffective treatments are abandoned.”

What’s the betting Homeopathy isn’t even on the long list of “ineffective treatments ” to be abandoned?

“On a physical level, Arsenicum Album helps the body release fear and tension held in the kidneys, adrenals, and nervous system.”

I’d forgotten fear and tension had a physical form.

T

Avian flu anyone?

The Great Debacle: The Society of Nhojoeopaths Annual Conference 1998, The Homoeopath No. 71, Read and totally mystified, but put in anyway by Divad Sille.

The 5142nd annual Nhojoeopathic Conference was held on the 3lst-33rd of September 1998 in Croydon. As Nhojoeopathy is of such a high vibration the conference was held on the etheric. A summary of the main presentations is given below.

What a Gem! by Nhoj Eel
Nhoj was to explain just how much fun a heroic, material dose proving can be with vintage Double Diamond beer. However an amazing event of synchronicity occurred two days before when Nhoj was shopping in Tescos in Purley. Whilst searching the shelves looking for a tin of tuna a large tin of John West salmon fell on Nhoj’s lap. This was obviously a sign from the Universe and therefore Nhoj spoke about Salmon at the conference instead of Double Dia-mond. Unfortunately many of the delegates were expecting free beer and when offered a tin of salmon instead, trouble started in the auditorium. This all stopped when Nhoj appeared in a puzzling purple kaftan surrounded by white smoke.

New Physics Of Nhojoeopathic Dilutions, by Nhoj Eel
Nhoj became Nhojradamus and predicted that, one day, patients will spit or urinate into a Nuclear Magnetic Radionics Nhojo box and out will pop a remedy. This should be even faster than the current Nhojoeopathic blindfold and pin method. Although surely it cannot be more reliable. Nhoj told of how a Nhojoeopathic student recently urinated into the wrong hole and fused a Nhojo box.

Understanding The Crux Of Nhojoeopathy
Nobody was any the wiser after this one.

The Five Sides Of The Nhojoeopathic Prescription
1, Blindfold and pin. 2, Dice. 3, Roulette wheel. 4, Pendulum. 5, Coin.

Prescribing From A Nhojoeopathic Perspective
This lecture mostly referred to the ‘Five Sides of the Nhojoeopathic Prescription lecture’.The event was marred by an altercation between Classical and non-Classical Nhojoeopaths. This occurred at 11pm after the six-hour heroic proving of Double Diamond. Apparently some non-Classical Nhojoeopaths started drinking Fosters, thereby mixing the drinks. This incurred the wrath of the Classical Nhojoeopaths. Nhoj had to sort it all out and administered Double Diamond 30c or Fosters 30c to all provers. Harmony was soon restored.

What is certainly is a concern is that it is masquerading as medicine. That’s why it’s got those little ‘Keep out of reach of children’ and ‘if symptoms worsen…’ messages. That’s just a marketing con, just like Sunny D tried to pretend it was proper orange juice, but it might hoodwink those casually after a cold/flu remedy.

In fact shouldn’t an overdose have less effect than the prescribed level of medication??

Presumably there is not a wealth of published research on the subject…

I’m not saying it’s a sinister conspiracy, and I certainly don’t approve, I hate them homeopathists, but if you make patients into “clients” and encourage them to think of the relationship like they would any other transaction with a service-provider, then the magic is gone and a big lump of GPs’ ability to make people feel better goes out the window. It’s easy to think of placebo as a bad thing, but for a lot of conditions, maybe it’s the best medicine.

If you’re a homoeopath, you don’t want them to start thinking at all.

Yes, usually known as “mummy’ll kiss it better”.

Since when has lying and hand-wringing become an acceptable substitute for formal education?

What’s happened here is some clever chap has worked out the numbers and if a few fools get seriously ill due to taking homeopathic remedies, they can consider themselves collateral damage.

How the hell can you have any pharmacological, pharmacokinetic or toxicological data from homeopathic preparations? I would have thought it looks like this:
Pharmacology: no effects on any cellular, organ or animal models
Pharmacokinetics: n/a as we can’t detect anything going in, therefore makes it a bit tough to determine standard pharmacokinetic parameters
Toxicology: as for pharmacokinetics, but no one’s ever been poisoned by it.

for comparison look at emc.medicines.org.uk/ and search for any medicine you like, and see the amount of information in the SPC (summary of product characteristics), and then remember that this is just a summary of the data.