A nice little Ernst-er

re: A nice little Ernst-er

a friend — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:39:20 GMT

There are quite a few Professors of complementary medicine and integrated healthcare in the UK now. Some I know of:

Professor Kate Thomas at Leeds

Professor David Peters at Westminster

Professor Nicola Robinson at Thames Valley

Professor George Lewith at Southampton

and I think there are more.... Enjoy that £10k

re: A nice little Ernst-er

Peter Carter — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:29:55 GMT

For those that have not rushed out and purchased the latest offering by the highly entertaining Prof. Ernst (not) I should like to clear up a few missconceptions:

1. No, this one is not self -published

2. Yes, it is one of the best cures for insomnia I have yet discovered ... and no drugs... does that make it 'complementary medicine' or just 'therapy'?

3. yes, the world is round.

The dear professor is considered by most in the CAM sector to be about as useful as a chocolate camshaft but it must be said he does contribute well to the old adage that 'Laughter is the Best Medicine'.

re: A nice little Ernst-er

stavros — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 11:37:40 GMT

Bryan,

I am sure you *must* know that a single trial is not solid evidence for efficacy! It has to be reproducible and consistent with other trials. Clearly this is not the case when a number of other trials come out negative. And in the case of alternative medicine, Bayesian theory has a lot to say about false positives!

And please read the paper you reference -not just the abstract! You will see the lack of any blinding, the subjective status of reporting, and the potentially biased reporting form homeopaths as opposed to the results obtained from the patients themselves.

So, sorry to say but no £10000 for you this time :-)

Oh, and Ernst is not Professor of Alternative Therapies, he is a Professor of Complementary Therapies. There is a huge difference there! There cannot be an 'alternative therapy'. If it works it will just be 'therapy'. But there can be complementary therapies of course.

And he is not the only one. He was just the first.

Man, you really need to do your homework better before posting something...

re: A nice little Ernst-er

DS — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:13:38 GMT

Did you even read the study that you referenced? Or are you not familiar with what the terms 'placebo' and 'blind' actually mean? I'm not trying to be patronizing, I'm genuinely curious how you could think that this study falls into those categories. No placebo was used, and they merely surveyed patients after being treated with a homeopathic or conventional remedy. In fact, that study shows that the patients receiving traditional treatment assessed their symptoms as being better than those receiving homeopathic treatment. The doctor's assessment was slightly different, but there were only 2 timepoints, and in all cases the error bars overlapped, meaning there is likely no statistical significance. Finally, these are patently bad ways of assessing efficacy. Do you have any objective studies for us to read?

re: A nice little Ernst-er

Rich — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 08:24:44 GMT

I think you missed quite an important snippet of information in the text of this study:

"The study was designed to reflect everyday practice. Therefore, it was planned as an observational, open and non-randomized investigation. "

No planning early retirement yet I'm afraid.

re: A nice little Ernst-er

Andy — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 11:24:07 GMT

And Bryan, did you actually read the conditions of the £10,000 challenge?

http://www.trickortreatment.com/challenge.html

It does not look like it. The Professor - the only one in the UK that actually acts like an academic and critically appraises his subject rather than blindly promotes - makes it very clear and simple what you have to do.

re: A nice little Ernst-er

Theo Muller — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:06:34 GMT

Why don"t you give us the link so we can read the study ourselves?

re: A nice little Ernst-er

Andy — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:28:41 GMT

Here is the study that claims to win £10,000.

Here is a summary of their results...

<b>Results</b>

A total of 118 children were included: 54 from homoeopathic (mean age ± S.D. was 5.1 ± 3.3 years; 56% boys) and 64 from conventional practices (6.2 ± 3.8 years; 61% boys). Eczema symptoms (assessed by patients or their parents) improved from 0 to 12 months for both treatment options, but did not differ between the two groups: 3.5–2.5 versus 3.4–2.1; p = 0.447 (adjusted). Disease-related quality of life improved in both groups similarly. In the subgroup of children aged 8–16 years the general quality of life showed a better trend for conventional treatment compared with homoeopathic treatment (p = 0.030).

Would Bryan like to withdraw his claim gracefully?

re: A nice little Ernst-er

Gertrude Surmer — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:00:59 GMT

How could you trust somebody who can't spell Edward?

Or a study where the symptoms are assessed by patients or parents without an independent monitor?

re: A nice little Ernst-er

Andy — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:08:16 GMT

Gertrude - it is Edzard.

Come on Bryan. Are you going to drop your claim gracefully?

re: A nice little Ernst-er

Graham ewing — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:52:36 GMT

Read the terms of the challenge. Messrs Ernst and Singh have absolutely no intention of paying anyone anything. This is the biggest demonstration of quackery by allegedly educated science writers. They are just looking for the publicity. There is not a hope in hell of anyone meeting the terms of the challenge - even if you can understand the text!

re: A nice little Ernst-er

Graham Ewing — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:07:57 GMT

Research-and-production company Materia Medica was founded in 1993, and was the first to start industrial production of homeopathic medicines in Russia. The company produces pharmaceutical products in tablets, granules, alcohol drops and homeopathic caramel, which are all sold as OTC products. Materia Medica is a leading Russian homeopathic producer. However, since the successful development of first medicines based on dynamized antibodies in ultralow doses, the strategic priorities of the company have switched to this new class of drugs. At the moment, Materia Medica has registered in Russian Federation 20 homeopathic and 10 antibody-based pharmaceutical products.

The medicines based on dynamized antibodies in ultralow doses open up new possibilities for treatment of a wide range of diseases. The recent R&D projects of Materia Medica led to the creation of new-to-the-world methods of pharmacotherapy by neuropeptides, brain specific antigens and immunoglobulins in ultralow doses. The antibody-based medicines are able to compete in their effectiveness with most recent synthetic medicines, developed by international pharmaceutical corporations. They can be used in the therapy of erectile dysfunction, alcoholism, prostate adenoma, drug addiction, stomach ulcer, allergy, arthritis/arthrosis, influenza, acute respiratory diseases and more.

Major pharmaceutical companies e.g. GSK, have established research programmes looking into this subject area.

All products of the company are registered as pharmaceuticals with drug control authorities. The effectiveness and safety of treatment with Materia Medica products have been proven and verified by clinical studies in the country's leading medical centers.

Science Intensive Production. Materia Medica conducts numerous R&D projects in cooperation with the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biophysics of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences (RAMS), the Institute of Pharmacology of the Siberian Branch of RAMS, the Ukranian Institute of Clinical and Experimental Neurology and Psychiatry, Anokhin Institute of Normal Physiology of RAMS, the Influenza Institute of RAMS.

Today, three antibody-based products - Impaza (erectile dysfunction therapy), Proproten-100 (alcohol withdrawal treatment) and Anaferon for children (influenza therapy) - comprise about three quarters of company sales. Several of these products are patented internationally. Largely owing to the success of antibody-based medicines, the company is experiencing extraordinary growth: it was able to double its sales in 2003 compared to 2002. Materia Medica believes it can continue to enjoy sustainable growth due to further recognition of existing antibody-based medicines and introduction of new successful products.

re: A nice little Ernst-er

Andy — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:57:49 GMT

Graham - it is not clear how you jump to the conclusion that Ernst and Singh would never pay out. Are you calling them liars? How do you substantiate that?

As for your Russian company, is there any independent evidence for what this commercial company claims? Can you point us to such evidence.

In the meantime, this thread is about Bryan's claim at the prize. Is he going to admit that he did not read the terms of the prize and did not even read the paper is submitted as 'evidence'? Will he withdraw gracefully?

re: A nice little Ernst-er

dgtucker — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:25:09 GMT

The reasons that no one has claimed James Randi's prize....are exactly the same as why no one will 'win' this prize.

How about £10,000 for anyone who can produce evidence of God?:)

Now, you may choose without any 'proof' whatsoever, to believe implicitly in any of these fields.

...Up to you.

Or you may choose not to

re: A nice little Ernst-er

Joe Britto — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:33:21 GMT

Dear Sirs, Gentlemen and ladies of course!

On various occasions when I read your e-mails, I find some to be a bit informative, and the rest(majority)amusing. There are so many professors around the world, but none of them talk any sense. They say one thing one day, then they change the subject the following day, and when no one listen to them, they then commit suicide, and blame some one else. Now I am looking for a good Scientists, who is able to create a population of talking monkeys. It will be great, and our open zoos could generate lots of income from visitors, specially from China, Nepal and Gaza.

I know to to do it, but I need the help of a good scientist to put the formulae into practice. He will be well paid.

Best wishes

JB.(who else)

re: A nice little Ernst-er

Andy — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:56:49 GMT

dgtucker - I am not sure your arguments hold water by comparing Ernst's challenge for asking for proof of god.

Ernst And Singh has given clear conditions for when they will pay out - publication of a review in the Cochrane Library. Such a thing is feasible, achievable and easily verified. If the review does not exist, then any homeopath could write one. There are many homeopathic sites that list positive papers for homeopathy - the review just needs to aggregate those results and show why they support homeopathy.

Still waiting to see if Bryan acknowledges this.

re: A nice little Ernst-er

Valerie Steiner — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:56:30 GMT

I believe that Homeopathics get rid of the symptoms, not the condition! Years ago I had a young Female come from USA to participate in Tri-athalons. [I live in New Zealand] She said she had been de-sensitized of all her allergies. I use all herbal products and tested using Kinesiololgy. She tested as needing to start with around 30 capsules of Bee Pollen. And over the time she was here, she came and went participating in tri-atholons and of course the number of daily Bee Pollen capsules decreased right down and she was feeling so much better. She then returned to the US.

Another case I had was a male. He also had been treated homeopathically for allergies, but still required many Bee Pollen to bring him to a stage where his body tested as being able to cope with most foods. Those days I had very few products to work with.

I had Dr Christopher's AG-X and one other combination as well as the Bee Pollen. Today I find I mainly need Nature's Sunshine Proactazyme Plus. Starting with higher doses and working down to 1 daily.

Except for Celiacs they require Histablock, Colostrum and or Intestinal Soothe and Build. All Nature's Sunshine products.

Thirdly I had a Mother with a very sick child where she was giving him a homeopathic. As we worked on the problem and his symptoms decreased she told me she discontinued the homeopathic as she realised that if she continued, her boy would refuse to take the herbals, saying he was better as all the symptoms dissapeared, when he still required the natural products to totally clear the problem. Valerie

re: A nice little Ernst-er

John Smith — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 08:52:53 GMT

One has to accept that some people cannot think rationally and are thus an easy target for criminals who are of course drawn to all kinds of trickery which will make them some money and which they cannot be punished for and they even don't have to pay tax for that income. God is sending me a signal...is there a Norma Johnson in the audience? You're suffering from.... God told me that in my hidden earpiece.

re: A nice little Ernst-er

harradine — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:32:31 GMT

Joe

"There are so many professors around the world, but none of them talk any sense"

Are you serious? You really believe that NO PROFESSOR anywhere in the world talks any sense? Eh? So, Feynman, Hawkins, Newton, Galileo, talked no sense? Mathematics, biology, anatomy, physics.. all of this is nonsense then? The fact we know what electricity is, light and , matter, all of the predictive and proven ideas of the last 500 years. All nonsense?

Pray tell who on earth does talk sense by your definition? Professors disagree and debate, argue and refine their positions all the time based on the growing evidence as it develops. What do you base "sense" on then?