A miracle deos not cease to be a miracle if it can be "explained by science" (anoither way of saying that we can understand it).  Many, many miracles can be explained by science.  Thats doesn't stop them being miracles.  Scientists spends their lives studying the miraculous!

Its not true either than scientists say homepthay cannot be anothing other than placebo.  The situation is that homepathy cannot demonstrate that it is anything other than placebo.  Its not an oppinion, its what the facts demonstrate.  That's the only reason why it violates common sense.  Its can't demonstrate that it works beyond placebo.

If homepathic remedies are so individualised, then how come I can walk into a shop and buy them off the shelf?

If water has a memory, then

a) how is this memory selective for homeopathic remedies and not raw sewage?

b) how does diltued the treatment further make it more potent?

Have a look at this short talk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWE1tH93G9U&feature=related

If it is placebo how do you explain it working on animals.  

Quote: If homepathic remedies are so individualised, then how come I can walk into a shop and buy them off the shelf?

Maybe we hit lucky and we fit one of the criteria.  I know that when I have used Silicea on a foreign object on my dogs paw it was ejected out the top of it by way of a huge cyst which burst the same night.

There are many homeopathic vets out there who have to qualify as a normal vet first.  Vets study as long if not longer than doctors, some have the forsight to use homeopathic remedies.

Why on earth would intelligent mammals like dogs be excluded from placebo effects?  That makes no sense to me at all.

"It follows that simply proving that water does have a memory does not prove that homeopathic medicines work." Martin F. Chaplin

Also., nothing in Eugene Stanley's research work supports the effiacy of homeopathy.

link to the orignal comment this post was clearly based on:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2229446,00.html

Not the way the authors (familiar to anyone readin this website) fails to provide any actual evidence that homeopathy works, but regresses into attacking other methods of treatment?  

Can anyone, when given un unidentified sample of water, describe a method to tell if it is a homeopathic treatment or just normal water?  So far, no one has been able to do this.  

Any homeopaths here up to the challenge to silence the critics once and for all?

http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2007/12/extending-simple-challenge.html

Hello Bryan/Harradine

You may wish to read the READERS RESPONSE in this month's CAM magazine which reports on how the Russian company MATERIA MEDICA has developed what they refer to as homeopathic technology. It appears that they have identified the 'polyclonal' antibodies produced by homeopathic remedies and they have developed the means to manufacture these on a commercial scale. Moreover these products have been developed as pharmaceuticals and have been on the market for many years.

The research into 'polyclonal' antibodies is now being pursued by GSK and others.

Perhaps as stated by the author the technology has overtaken the academic debate.

Graham

Reference water memory and raw sewage - good point and absolutely true!

However, what is missed by many is the fact that not only is a substance diluted but it is also energised by vigorous shaking (succussing in homeopathic speak) at each stage of a remedy being produced.  This is key to homeopathic remedy making.   Remedy-making is very methodical and goes as follows.

One drop of substance is added to a test tube containing 99 drops of water and alcohol. It is then succussed (vigorously shaken) 100 times.  The end result is the first centessimal - 1C (or one in a hundred).  One drop of that 1C is added to 99 drops of water and alcohol and shaken vigorously another 100 times to produce the 2C.  Remedies sold in shops are often in the 6C or 30C in this country  ie. the previously mentioned method has been applied 6 or 30 times.   After the 12th dilution there is reportedly no material of the original substance left - only 'water memory'.  

Yes, I too find it all quite whacky and strange!  I am a registered homeopath and know that it does work.  I also know when a remedy has not worked which also happens!  However, which conventional medic could claim that 100%  that he/she prescribes is successful.  Also what number of unpleasant other effects also result from many conventional prescriptions.

Hi Simone.  Thanks for explaining that.  

What intrigues me is whether a himpathic practicioner like yourself would see similar results in their patients if they were to use just ordinary water, or equally purified water that was free from the substance?  

Do you see what I mean?  I have no doubt that people do leave homeopathic practicioners feeling better (as you say, some not all).  But I wonder if this is down to the memory of water, or something else.  Normally this would be called placebo and just as with conventional medicines no doubt that account for some if not all of the effect.  But there may be something else that could account for the successes other than the memory of water.

What do you think?  Do you think if your remedies were controlled in a way that neither you nor the patient knew whether they were getting remedy of pure water, that the results would be different?  If everything else you did stayed the same?

Regards

H

James Randi's investigation into the claims of homeopathy showed conclusively that there is no measurable effect. Homeopathy is 'magical thinking', just like Astrology. Both make pots of money for those who practice them and both have no basis in fact.  

i use homeopathy to stop my ponies itching. the tiny sugar pill tablets are concealed in carrots or it could prove difficult to administer to such a large animal.

suprise suprise it works. placebo? i dont think so.

The placebo effect works perhaps on you, Mini. You imagine that the ponies are scratching less. Perhaps you are so confident it works, you don't look so much to see if they are scratching. Anecdotes aren't scientific. People swear by all sorts of things - Astrology, Palmistry, Tarot, Spiritualism, shamanism,....homeopathy is just another bit of quakery that people swear by when there is not an iota of evidence for it.  

no it is clear that the sulphur is the only treatment used. the tails no longer become red & inflamed, turning into weaping sores, as they did before. even if i could be so dense as to miss them in the action of doing it i am not turning a blind eye to broken hairs or skin. this is not a placebo on me tony.

Scientists oppose Homeopathy because they cannot understand how it works. So what?  To the thousands that have successfully used it - it does.  Even if it were a placebo,  if it works for someone isn't that a good thing?  At least it doesn't harm, unlike the sledghammer approach of 'scientifically proven' drugs that frequently cause other illnesses -and deaths!  Millions can attest to the success of Homeopathy for themselves, their pets or farm animals, so shouldn't we be allowed the freedom of choice to have the treatment we want?  Homeopathy could save the ailing NHS millions of pounds every year. The only ones opposed to this are scientists who feel threatened by something they do not understand, is so simple and preferred by so many.  

I’m a homeopath practicing in the USA, and I’ve been reading this with some interest.  I would make the following points.  First of all the remedies themselves aren’t individualized.  There are over 3,000 remedies available.  In Classical Homeopathy each one is made from a single substance by a process of repeated dilution and succussion (shaking).  It is the choice of the remedy that is individual.  By this I mean that the remedy is selected based on the most striking and unique characteristics of a person’s symptoms and personality.  So you could have 10 people with the same diagnosis, who may each be given a different remedy, because they have different outlooks on life, different responses and preferences regarding foods, weather etc, and different factors that may ameliorate or aggravate their symptoms.  This is both the strength of homeopathy from a therapeutic point of view, and its weakness in the typical random, double blind, cross over medical study.  If you give everyone in a study the same remedy, only a small proportion of them will improve.  In properly conducted blind studies where remedies have been individualized, homeopathy has been found to be highly effective (“Treatment of Acute Childhood Diarrhea with Homeopathic Medicine: A Randomized Clinical Trial in Nicaragua”; Jacobs et al, Pediatrics, Volume 93, Number 5, pp719-725)

Secondly, the infamous “Memory of Water” debacle.  James Randi is a magician, not a scientist, so I don’t see why anyone should give him such huge credibility in the scientific context!  None of the debunkers of Benveniste’s work were immunologists, so there was a lack of understanding of the experimental processes involved.  Benveniste’s results showing that water can carry the memory of a substance have been replicated several times, including by skeptics for example immunologist Dr Madeleine Ennis of Queen’s University Belfast.  Other studies (eg Dr Vittorio Elia) show that “homeopathic water” ie double distilled water having a homeopathic dilution of sodium chloride, exhibits different thermodynamic properties to pure, double distilled water.  I could go on about the properties of water, but I’ll stop here.

Thirdly in clinical practice, many clients come to homeopaths having exhausted other treatment options, both conventional and alternative.  If the placebo effect is so strong, wouldn’t they have got better from the previous treatments?  Take a case of mine, in which a young man suffering from hidradenitis (an extremely distressing chronic condition in which the sweat and skin glands become horribly inflamed and infected, leading to painful, discharging abscesses and boils in the hairy areas of the body).  This condition is pretty much untreatable by conventional medicine.  After a few doses of the homeopathic remedy, the boils were smaller, less painful and fewer in number.  In fact they had disappeared from the lower areas of the body.  In addition the patient’s mood improved, as did the joint pain he had also been suffering from.  Was this a placebo effect?  Interestingly, homeopaths do very occasionally give placebos, to assess a client’s response.  We do not see the same degree, type or sustainment of improvement compared to a real remedy.

Fourthly, the homeopaths I know do not make huge sums of money, rather they are dedicated to improving the lives and health of their clients, and keep their fees as low as they can (in the USA homeopathy is not typically covered by health insurance).

The dilemmas at the heart of 'alternative medicine'

All forms of ineffective treatment, 'alternative' or otherwise, pose real dilemmas that are usually neglected.

The definition dilemma

Once any treatment is shown beyond doubt to be effective, it ceases to be 'alternative' and becomes just like any other part of medical knowledge. That means that 'alternative medicine' must consist entirely of unproven treatments.

The lying dilemma

Suppose that a treatment owes all its effectiveness to the placebo effect, e,g. homeopathy (even Peter Fisher almost admitted as much). But in some people, at least, the placebo effect is quite real. It may be a genuine physical response, though one that does not depend in any activity of the drug, or other treatment.

If the placebo effect is real, it would be wrong to deprive patients of them, if there is nothing more effective available. For example, if terminal cancer patients say they feel better after having their feet tickled by a 'reflexologist', why should they not have that small pleasure?

If the foregoing argument is granted, then it follows that it would be our duty to maximise the placebo effect. In the absence of specific research, it seems reasonable to suppose that individuals who are susceptible to placebo effects, will get the best results if their treatment is surrounded by as much impressive mumbo jumbo as possible.

This suggests that, in order to maximixe the placebo effect, it will be important to lie to the patient as much as possible, and certainly to disguise from them the fact that, for example, their homeopathic pill contains nothing but lactose.

Therein lies the dilemma. The whole trend in medicine has been to be more open with the patient and to tell them the truth. To maximise the benefit of alternative medicine, it is necessary to lie to the patient as much as possible.

As if telling lies to patients were not enough, the dilemma has another aspect, which is also almost always overlooked. Who trains CAM practitioners? Are the trainers expected to tell their students the same lies? Certainly that is the normal practice at the moment.  Consider some examples.

The training dilemma

If feet tickling makes patients feel better, it might be thought necessary to hire professional feet ticklers who have been trained in 'reflexology'. But who does the training? It cannot be expected that a university will provide a course that preaches the mumbo jumbo of meridians, energy lines and so on.

A good example is acupuncture. It is often stated that one of the best documented forms of 'alternative medicine' is acupuncture. Certainly the act of pushing needles into to your body elicits real physiological responses. But recent experiments suggest that it matters very little where the needles are inserted. There are no 'key' points: it is the pricking that does it. But its advocates try to 'explain' the effects, along these lines.

"There are 14 major avenues of energy flowing through the body. These are known as meridians".

The energy that moves through the meridians is called Qi.

Think of Qi as "The Force". It is the energy that makes a clear distinction between life and death.

Acupuncture needles are gently placed through the skin along various key points along the meridians. This helps rebalance the Qi so the body systems work harmoniously.

I suppose, to the uneducated, the language sounds a bit like that of physics. But it is not. The words have no discernable meaning whatsoever.  They are pure gobbledygook. Can any serious university be expected to teach such nonsense as though the words meant something? Of course not. Well so you'd think, though a few 'universities' have fallen for this, to their eternal shame (e.g, Westminster, Thames Valley, Salford, Central Lancashire, Lincoln:

The above taken directly from here:

http://www.dcscience.net/improbable.html#dilemma

I find myself laughing at those who poo poo homeopathy. I do not know how it works all I do know is that it does. For about 18 years I have avoided colds by treating myself with aconite as I feel one coming on. I use hepar sulph for dog bites to stop infection and arnica to treat the trauma. I have cured myself of duputrens contracture. I treat aspects of my Type 2 diabetes homeopathically. I could bore you to distraction by enumerating the cures I have experienced. Suffice to say I am told that alopaths suffering from Type 2 diabetes have a 35% higher mortality than their patients suffering from the same disease.

I have only once suffered a significant reaction to a homeopathic remedy and I soon slept it off. For reasons I don't understand I can now take that remedy without any unwanted side effects.

I have yet to hear of a death from a homeopatic remedy. If I choose the wrong remedy nothing happens it just goes straight thro' me. I am so grateful to have avoided doctor's surgeries for many years. My one fear is that I may mis diagnose myself and mis prescribe. So I keep a contact with alopathy and I use the net for information.

I remember the vice president of Glaxo Smith Kline once saying that pharmaceutical drugs are only 30% efficacious. I believe he reported this to undermine our confidence in old established drugs so that he could peddle the new ones developed since the mapping of the human genome. Whatever the truth I shall use herbs, homeopathy and any other remedy that works for me.

Just to complicate the debate I use homeopathic remedies that have never been near water but have had vibrational frequencies imparted to them. There's another cause for everyone to get heated over. Are vibrational remedies gobbleydedook. Does it matter if they work?

Hi Ken,

Glad to hear that you have found a use for homoepathy.  In answer to your question, no it is not essential that we understand how "vibrational energies" "work", provided that they do indeed work.

Where I think you are I would differ is in how we would define "work".  On the one hand, you might define this as "it works for me".  I would add one or two caveats to that, such as it has worked for the ailments you have experience, so far.  And two, that the treatments you have used "work" for you is no evidence that they will work for a) anyone else or b) any ailment that you have not suffered from.

In short, your experiences are just that, your own personal experiences.  There is very little more you can say than that and I'm sure you are not claiming to.

However, when I describe that a treatment "works", what I mean is that it has been deomnstrated to be sufficiently effectly that its use can be advised to others to treat whichever ailment it has been shown to be effective in treating.  There is a much larger burden of evidence to be able to make such a statement.  The fact that the treatment has support from people leike yourself, for example, does not meet the criteria for such evidence.

for that you need blinded tested.  If the treatments really do work to the point that they can be advised to others, then testing will demonstrate this quite clearly.  And if it fails to, if it works no better than placebo, then we can be confident that the treatment, although in this case free from side effects, is perfectly sufficent in treatment minor ailments, but should not be used as an alternative for a treatment that has been demonstrated to work more effectively than placebo.

If we advise people to use treatments that failed to show efficacy infavour of those that have, for life threatening conditions, then we are acting unethically.  I say again, if we advise people.  Not if we chose to use the treatments ourselves.  That is our free choice.  But it is wrong for anyone to claim a position of medical authority and advise others who are not using advice that may do them harm.

So no, it really doesn't matter that we understand the mechanism, since for many conventional drugs this is not understood dully either, and yet they have been demonstrated to be effective and so are used.  

It would be interesting to hear what the vibrational frequencies actually means in this context though.  I say this becuase there is quite a difference between an incomplete understanding of how a treatment works, and a completely made up idea designed to decieve people who are scientifically illiterate.  Often one hears people defend made up theories as "misunderstood" on the ground that they beleive these theories may one day be vindicated as our knowledge grows, as often happens in real science.  However, what they fail to appreciate, or be able to disciminate, real science (which all the gaps in its knowledge) from purely made up "theories" designed to sound scientific but of no discernable meaning whatsoever.

From a neutral perscpetive (although a scientific one), I find it a shameful tactic to use words and phrases designed to deceive people into beleiving that treatments of no proven effiacy are actually based on some line of real research.  Words such as "quantum" "vibration", "frequency" "energise" and others have been hijacked in this way.

Regards

H

For example, a revolutionary new therapy has emerged based on research conducted using the Large Hadron Collider.  Recent breakthroughs in our understanding of the subflux field has allowed researcher to harness this power to treat biological systems that are out out flux, making them unwell.

The treatment is based on the previously unknown principles of quatum mechanics.  Practicioners are trained in how to harness this new force, to allign the flux of each cell nucleus in harmony with the subflux field.

Recipients of this groundbreaking therapy feel their lives turned around.  Increased energy levels are universally reported, along with resistence to all infections, increased nutrient absorption and in many cancer disappearance of tumours, allegies and many other life changing effects.  

Here is what just some of those treated have said:

"I used the subflux treatment after doctors told me there was nothing they could do to treat my chronic fatigure syndrome.  Before hand my life had been hell, but after just two painless treatments, I felt completely regenrated.  I never get infections now, my moods have improved and my family all say I am a new person."

And another..

"Before I discovered this hidden scientific breakthrough, my life was a living hell with chronic asthma, eczema and early stage arthritis.  Immediately after the subflux therapy, all my allergies improved an after just a few weeks of treatment, they were completely gone.  Now I tell everyone about subflux therapy".

Subflux therapy has no side effects, is painless and harm free.  The treatment is easily administered by trained professional practicioners.

All just made up in the last 5 minuted.  And all nonsense.  Some of the terms there are real science, but its all a load of old nonsense.  But even with that, there will be some people who geneuinely would beleive in this treatment and probably try it (if it existed) and no doubt many of them would genuinely feel better afterwards.  My tactic would be to gather all their testimoies together and present them as hard evidence that my treatment MUST work- why would all these people say it does if it doesn't?

Obviously as soon as it was tested, it would fail.  There would be some placebo effect for some people, nothing more.  I would try to avoid the need for this research at all costs, obviously.  

And all made up by me just now.  Its very easy to do.  Scientists will not try to blind you with science.  People trying to flog you something that they know perfectly well doesn't work will use sciency sounding words to do that.  Its called fraud and it makes scientists get very frustrated for good reason.

And its not just dodgy health claims.  I find it wrethed watching many ads on TV for items usch as cosmetics and shampoo, which also use this tactic of using sciency-sounded words (like boswelox, liposomes, etc).

The moral is to use whatever works for you, but not be gullinle.  This is not a defence of drug companies (who are guilty of some of the most advanced distortions of science one can find).  But there is more to this debate that "if it aint pharma, its must therefore work".

Obviously this sort of thing become lethal when used to mislead people who have life threatening problems.

Regards

H

How far would one have to go to read this sort of nonsense?  Well, not far.  Just have a look at the shop of this site:

http://www.wddtyhealthshop.com/main.asp?sitepages=QLinkHome

Its everywhere.  I would like to say just the internet, but its everywhere.  On out TVs, our supermarkets, our medicines.  Everywhere.  This is why scientists appear so damning of this movement.  Its threatens the public trust in science (which is a fragile and delicate thing) by exploiting the publics faith in its methods.

And all to sell.  Drug companies do this too, in a very sophisticated way (so much so, that even trained scientists can be fooled by their claims!).

I hope this give you some idea of where I am coming from.  When you see and hear this sort of nonsense, its quite distressing.  Distressing because in my opinion, the values mankind has embraced since the times of the enlightenment are totally undermined by this sort of thing.  That might seem quite far removed from ones everyday life, but it is anything but.

Hope this makes some sense Ken, all the best!

H

What I would emplore people not to fall into is allowing a misunderstanding of science to be exploited by people who will try to explain it to you badly.  

First off, drug companies will do that.  They have been targeted by a system of governmental regulation that has been set up specifically to spot this.  This is becuase the are seeling drugs to people.  Of course they need to be scrutinised and of coure they are.  But politics make this harder than it should be.

Also you have companies who are not so regulated (becuase they sell products that cannot hurt you).  They will claim the authority of science to convince you that their products are for you benefit.  Whether it be high dose vitamins, face creams, healthy additions to food.  These are other ways of making you part with you money and science sonding words are used to sell.

Constrast this with real science.  The academics who have given us knowlegde of the atom, of the universe and all its mysteries.  Who, through their study, have taught us just how mysterious and wonderous not only our universe is, but how much of it works.  How much of our own bodies work, yet how little we know, expecially in the fields of neuroscience.

I would love all debates to be with people who are scientifically literate.  But they cannot be any more than I can be literate of all things beyond my field (I am a neurscentist, not a physicist).

But please, do not let this be confused with a beleif that mystery and wonder is only for the new age thinkiers, or those who have no or poor scientific training (they are easy to spot, they are selling you something.  The most wicked of all are calling it "natural" in a bit to tap into a current vogue.

How does one tell the difference?  Ask for evidence.  Ask everyone.  Real science, real detailed, considered and reproduible phenomina all have evidence to support them.  Escpecially in health claims.  Ask for the evidence again and again and again.  Ask your GP, ask your homepath, ask everyone always.  If they cannot or will not provide it, then ask why not.  

Good health to all. H

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1APOxsp1VFw

But if you still think that scientists are people who think they "have all the answers", then watch this lecture.  

Scientists have learned that there is more that we cannot know or understand, more wonders that are beyond us than any other study of the world

Be sceptical of anyone who tells you they know it all.  That can never be a scientific view.  Watch the video, thus.