Comments on: Homeopathy gives you Aids

By: Snuggie

Snuggie — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 08:58:49 +0000

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By: diudiu

diudiu — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 05:46:54 +0000

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By: mst

mst — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 07:47:58 +0000

“Homeopaths would be fine, if they could just shut up about serious stuff, like Aids, malaria, and MMR.”

As an NHS health professional from a science background who has studied homeopathy in some depth, I could not agree more with this statement!!

I find that homeopathy can have a valuable role in palliative care, the management of acute conditions and acute flares of chronic conditions in certain patients. But I would agree that homeopathy cannot and does not prevent nor treat infectious diseases. It *can* be a useful adjunct to conventional treatment in easing associated symptoms and/or adverse drug reactions in a complementary approach, not alternative.

“Side effects are an inevitable consequence of using medicines that work.”

Not so sure about this one though…the correct medicine at the correct dose should (usually) operate within the thresholds of efficacy and toxicity. Most medicines, when taken at the correct dose, work without causing side effects, so ‘inevitable’ might be a bit strong…?

By: Robert Carnegie

Robert Carnegie — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 21:47:11 +0000

Of course, utterly pure H-two-oh is liable not to survive as such. Water always has something in it. Chlorine, I suppose, and other hygienic substances, in tap water; bacteria in bottled water, benzene if you’re unlucky. If the homeopathic stuff starts out as absolutely only water then it won’t stay that way.

And so there could be side-effects.

By: wilsontown

wilsontown — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 13:57:44 +0000

Chi Masters,

There’s no doubt that medicines can cause side effects. That’s because they contain chemicals that are biologically active. Homeopathic remedies don’t cause side effects, but that’s because they don’t work.
Side effects are an inevitable consequence of using medicines that work.

By: warhelmet

warhelmet — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 18:52:15 +0000

Chi Masters,

Does one need to “understand” something in order to be qualified to make a judgement?

By: Chi Masters

Chi Masters — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 12:51:25 +0000

I understand the scientific minds are threatened that the facts homeopathy places a certain importance in society and also those who love to mock alternative therapies, would also loves to spend million of dollars into eating something that produces side effects. Can anyone deny the facts that modern medicine cannot restore our health? Once taken,we might be taking it for life, and all modern medicine produces side effects?
“It is a mistake to believe that a science consist in nothing but conclusively proved propositions and it is unjust to demand that it should . It is a demand only made by those who feel a craving for authority in some form and a need to replace the religious catechism by something else, even if it be a scientific one. Science in its catechism has but a few apodictic precepts; it consist mainly of statements which it has developed to varying degrees of probability. The capacity to be content with these approximations to certainty and the ability to carry on constructive work despite the lack of final confirmation are actually a mark of a scientific habit of the mind.”
Please don’t mock something that you know nothing of or so little is your understanding.

By: shpalman

shpalman — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:38:04 +0000

There’s an article, “Knowledge and Attitudes about HIV/AIDS among Homoeopathic Practitioners and Educators in India”: http://ecam.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/nem018v1

It says that “few homeopathic physicians were aware that AIDS could damage the brain. In addition,

By: Maya

Maya — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 09:30:46 +0000

In response to Robert’s comment as well, the research on patient-doctor time was done, as far as I recall, on cancer in the presence of different evidence-based treatments (I presume you accept clinical trials by major drug companies as evidence-based treatment). But I guess it’s not very right to exemplify from memory without citing the original source. This research was discussed in the book “EQ”, and I recall it did cite one or more peer-reviewed papers on which it was based. But don’t have it to hand I’m afraid

By: Robert Carnegie

Robert Carnegie — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 20:41:16 +0000

True MP3s are likely to be binary-identical files, but it wouldn’t be hard to fix them so that they aren’t – just mixing in a little white noise would do it. The question is whether the quack has taken the trouble to do that and also whether it is worth proving the case. And with DRM it’s another ball game.

Of course to you and me, if we are not homeopathic or PC believers, if the file contents are identical then it makes no difference where we downloaded it, but I daresay the faithful respect the ritual of downloading the data from the guru’s site and putting it as near to the root directory of their PC as possible – well, all right, I made that up, but you know what they’re like.

Anyway, if caught out, he could just say, “Oh! So sorry! I do not understand computers well and I have given you the wrong file, the one without my special treatment!” And he would be forgiven.

By: warhelmet

warhelmet — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 18:47:11 +0000

In response to Robert’s comments, in my limited experience, there are various factors that influence the length of time that a GP will stretch your consultation to. Too many to go into here, but, in short:-

You want extra time, you go private. Else be really interesting as a patient/symptom combo.

By: Stuu

Stuu — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 17:50:48 +0000

The reason why I was interested to do some analysis of the original vs. woo’d MP3s is because surely it would be fraudulent to sell something you claim to have processed without having actually done so. I mean, it’d be like selling people sugar pills made with solutions that never actually contained any solvent in the first place rather than going to the effort of diluting it out of existence.

By: manigen

manigen — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 16:06:19 +0000

“Just how bisturbile is it, compared with other cranabolic amphetamoids?”

It’s lethal mate. Seriously, you’d be better off mainlining Biscuit.

By: ShatterFace

ShatterFace — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 10:25:34 +0000

I’m worried about my Cake habit now.

Just how bisturbile is it, compared with other cranabolic amphetamoids?

By: Ambrielle

Ambrielle — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 10:25:26 +0000

Just a thought: All these homeopathy programmes in Africa to ‘treat’ AIDS. Are any of them receiving international aid? There is millions of pounds of money for HIV/AIDS in Africa from different countries and charities. I hope the quacks aren’t getting any of it. Any way we could find out?

By: Robert Carnegie

Robert Carnegie — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 23:23:57 +0000

I’m not qualified to find or criticise any research on the question, but I think that the total length of time a doctor spends with the patient depends on factors including how sick they are, and that’s going to be difficult to control for… I suppose you could randomly assign more time than apparently necessary and see whether it helped. The extra time might for instance be spent discussing diet and exercise… hmm, that’s going to make a difference too.

Maybe the length of consultation makes a difference in the absence of evidence-based treatment.

By: DoctorDavid

DoctorDavid — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:46:20 +0000

I’m glad to see that my own MP, Andrew Lansley, did not sign the Early Day Motion, particularly as he is the Shadow Secretary of State for Health.

By: BSM

BSM — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 15:27:49 +0000

“I’d be interested to obtain an MP3 from the quacky website, and then the original MP3, and run some analysis on them… I wouldn’t be overly surprised if there was little to no difference.”

The Remedy maker woman in the US claims you tell whether it’s working by dowsing, yes really, the remedies to make sure they’re been properly juiced up.

Quite marvellously self-referential.

Unfortunately, just like the purveyors of those other machines she does not explain how she designed the machine in the first place.

I think they mostly function y what Rolfe at JREF has described as ‘argument by bald assertion’- I put the sugar pills into this machine and I assert that they are imprinted with energy patterns so that is what is happening.

By: martin_z

martin_z — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 13:18:57 +0000

“I’d be interested to obtain an MP3 from the quacky website, and then the original MP3, and run some analysis on them… I wouldn’t be overly surprised if there was little to no difference.”

Well, of COURSE there won’t be any difference. They are homeopathic energy wave patterns, and the less of them there are, the more effective they are.

(I’m sorry – I should really have come up with something more insightful and earnest for my first post.)

By: wilsontown

wilsontown — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 12:05:34 +0000

Just had a look at the website of the journal “Homeopathy”. They have a list of accepted articles. One of these articles goes by the title ‘Homeopathy in survivors of childhood sexual abuse’. The mind boggles, but the paper isn’t available yet, so can’t be absolutely certain that it’s total nonsense.

http://intl.elsevierhealth.com/journals/homp/accepted.cfm