Homeopathy: Frontier Science

I applaud this blog as a voice of truth in the darkness of our ongoing health care crisis. Homeopathy offers an unparalleled healing opportunity for both acute and serious chronic illness through an understanding of the complex tapestry of body & mind that has long eluded practitioners of “western medicine”. As the fastest growing alternative health care medicine in the world, it benefits us all to be open minded to the possibilities that lie beyond our current level of reasoning. Remember our predecessors who were so certain that the world was flat; the earth revolved around the sun, and that blood letting and leaches were the cure for removing ill humours of the body.

Welcome, but unfortunately I have to quibble with this:

“Mr. Goldacre’s statement is at odds with the excellent therapeutic results of homeopathic patients reported at the time of the epidemic … at the homeopathic hospital, where 61 patients were admitted, only 10 died (16 per cent).”

Instead of being a ringing endorsement of homeopathy as an effective cure, given that “Patients can be treated with oral rehydration solution, … With prompt rehydration, fewer than 1% of cholera patients die”, the death of 16% of homeopathic patients seems entirely in line with homeopathic treatment not doing harm like conventional treatment of the time (52% mortality), but not being positively beneficial either.

Sue, conventional drugs do not “mask” symptoms. Antibiotics, for example, kill the bacteria that are causing an infection.

Nor is homeopathy “natural”: that would be herbal remedies which contain active ingredients, unlike homeopathic remedies.

Wendy Pollock, homeopathy is also “Western”; Samuel Hahnemann was a German & when I last looked, Germany was in Western Europe.

Hey Gimpy!

I’m sure Richard Feynman was talking about disproving pieces of science for progress in the context of realizing the reductionistic model causes science to pigeon-hole and idealize, and by disproving something we discover something else related. i.e. more of the whole picture.

Its this whole picture that is inherently and directly dealt with in homeopathy. That is, there is nothing more to prove or disprove, it is a practical science and art that has surpassed the problem of Cartesian dualities, the only problem remaining in its application, the onus there being on the practitioner.

As a practitioner myself, I’m faced quite frequently, although less so with more experience and training, with a clinical experimental design that disproves that homepathy always works, which then allows me to conclude that it works according to my ability to apply the principle it was founded on.

For example I may give a remedy for a patient with a chronic condition (chronic also meaning nothing really has helped, not conventional nor alternative treatments of any kind) So I give a remedy, they return and say no change, and I see there’s no change, so I change the remedy, next follow up, there’s change, there’s improvement. next visit in a month or so, there’s more improvement, and hey, the patients actually changing in themselves: for example they’re not getting road rage now, they feel calmer, their dreams are changing, sleep better, they stood up to someone for the first time in their lives. next visit: more improvement, more change in themselves that they’ve never in their lives seen before, they start to have free will in their reactions to circumstances that in the past would cause them both emotional and bodily stress, very individual to them as a person.

After a couple years their asthma, or arthritis, or M.S. or migraine headaches have been gone for months or since the second or third monthly visit. (perhaps gone by objective test later in the case of M.S.) They’ve shifted in themselves 360 degrees, changed their whole perspective on life or their own world view, changed their lives accordingly and are generally OK with their whole world, after their whole life not being OK, often actually being very stuck and not even seeing how they were stuck in that time.

Often they don’t say fix my stuckness. It just happens as a matter of course of treating their main physical complaint. Is that placebo? Often I can’t even predict how they’ll change. People are open complex self organizing biological systems, and as such do not operate solely in linear mechanisitic cause-effect ways. That’s what Feynman fundamentally participated in demonstrating: the non-linear unpredictable nature of the universe. Thats how we as humans operate too. Makes sense, unless you consider yourself as somehow outside of this universe.

My soul aspires
For the mysteries,
For the hidden secrets of the universe.
It cannot be content
With much knowledge
That probes
The trivialities of life.

-Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935

OK Gimpy I can see why you were called that.

I’ll try and clarify a few things mostly for other readers sake, since I think you’re toying with me here. But if some glimmer of light should cross your eyes for even a millisecond coming from another paradigm, I’ll be impressed.

You start by already highlighting the difference between holism and reductionism, the former having to with the whole being more than the sum of the parts (a dynamic complex system), and the latter having to do with machines. (A closed dead system) Nice clock example. Its quite apparent to me you realize already that Newton’s idea that the universe operates like a machine has been disproven.

Again, and LISTEN this time Gimpy, as if you weren’t: just like the universe, the body acts as a living open self-organizing system susceptible to entropy yes, but also chaos and new order. I believe from my experience that this is how we heal ourselves. The parts of a complex system are interrelated in complex communicative ways, non-local communication, the kind that was originally involved in that self-organization. Unlike a clock, there is unpredictablility in the midst of entropy and the possibility of new order. I believe, and its only a hypothesis, that chronic disease is a slightly destabilized system within all the systems around it, waiting to come into more of its own form. When healing takes place, thats what happens, but it happens to the whole system. If we removed a rain cloud from a storm because it was full of water, therefore causing the unpleasant weather, would we be curing the weather problem? This is analogous to the mechanistic allopathic approach. The weather systems will change and then stabilize in relation to all the life that is supported by it. Curing a disease entity (the part) is like trying to cure something that shouldn’t be there when that something is there simply as a part of a process of the attempt to reach a stability that can be in harmony within and without of the system, but its stuck in its own instability.

I believe almost every ailment can be cured with homeopathy within the limits of the practitioner and those having do do with a lot of tissue damage, although I have seen necrotic bones re-grow and regenerate, and thats documented on Xray. So yes a system is a system.

I see that I made a slight error when I said: “Homeopathy neither has to, nor does reject science to exist. I understand that it is always trying to…” When I say “it”, I mean science, not homeopathy.

Anyways the statement is already squared: just because homeopathy accepts science, it doesn’t mean that we need to use linear Newtonian science to explain the no molecule part of remedies. I think even with new physics its going to be a while before we can explain that one.

The next statement you wanted me to clarify, I already tried to by asking you questions that you didn’t answer, so until you do sorry no clarification for you. The big question basically was: Does your world only consist of straight lines?

I AM proposing an unseen or maybe immeasurable force that we know exists, and we know it exists by the expression of its moving interaction: perhaps its a field, a matrix for which light, darkness, matter and energy dance. And it sure is awesome to watch.

I think perhaps its actually true that you have an inability to look at anything holistically, even if you can read Feynman. Human relationships are the system that extends outside out own intricately related system. and you still refuse to answer any of my questions with nothing more than more questions. Have you ever felt your body react to something that was said to you? Or maybe in your case, your mind? You see: a relationship. Homeopathy facillitates healing. Healing has to do with creating harmony from within and outside our interrelated system. Interrelated to everything: to your world. Now hang on, we’re going to expand a bit here now: What goes on in your body, what you think, and what goes on in your life and how you react to it are all related, they are a SYSTEM, get it? an OPEN system.

I don’t counsel people. I give them a remedy and they counsel themselves. They tell me how they’re working out their problems. Often, from the start, they don’t even care about their problems in human interactions, they want their hemmorhoid cured. But when I ask them, has anything else changed for you ? they tell me they’re handling their brother who always belittles them better, or they feel like they’re much more in control of their time, and THEY tell me how they’ve done that. I haven’t told them anything.

And, now LISTEN closely again Gimpy, to get through that thick head of yours: they’re getting better PHYSICALLY at the SAME time.

I have a little trouble with this idea of inductive reasoning. I admit I’ll have to look at it more closely. You’re saying if I can say that a placebo doesn’t work and a remedy does then I’m demonstrating that I’m willing to disprove homeopathy??

Weird.

What would convince me that homeopathy doesn’t work would be for you to come to my office, have your case taken, or someone you know thats sick, let me treat them for a reasonable period of time, and to have them tell you or for you to tell me that you/they feel it didn’t work. That same person should be able to tell you that nothing they’ve done in the years they’ve had they’re preferably chronic problem has worked. Of course I mean not working if they’re not still taking it. (You see, when homeopathy works after a while the remedy can be stopped and the problem doesn’t return, unlike allopathy’s idea of cure, that when you give the drug it will work: AS LONG AS YOU’RE TAKING THE DRUG.)

There. How’s that? Can I induce some evidence there?

Marty: ‘What would convince me that homeopathy doesn’t work would be for you to come to my office, have your case taken, or someone you know thats sick, let me treat them for a reasonable period of time, and to have them tell you or for you to tell me that you/they feel it didn’t work. That same person should be able to tell you that nothing they’ve done in the years they’ve had they’re preferably chronic problem has worked. Of course I mean not working if they’re not still taking it. (You see, when homeopathy works after a while the remedy can be stopped and the problem doesn’t return, unlike allopathy’s idea of cure, that when you give the drug it will work: AS LONG AS YOU’RE TAKING THE DRUG.)

There. How’s that? Can I induce some evidence there?’

I am surprised you would stop believing if homeopathy did not work for one person once.

I was taken to see a homeopath for about a year when I was 16, sometimes weekly & at least monthly, for two things, one of which I’ve had all my life, one that I’d had for maybe 3 years by then. I took pills she gave me (sorry can’t remember what as was 8 yrs ago now), and wasn’t on any ‘allopathic’ medication at the time.
I quite liked seeing her as she was good to talk to & the treatment was not unpleasant.
However, I wasn’t ‘cured’ or helped by anything beyond a friendly chat.
Sorry about that, I really do wish it had worked, for my own sake too, but it didn’t.

Sorry Gimpy if I was sounding insulting. Its just that you claimed such undirected ignorance so many times I thought you were playing a game with me, the intentions of I couldn’t really guess, but if you want more civility from me, so be it.

In response to: “We know that the body is a complex system consisting of many separate parts (cells, organs) that cannot survive by themselves (except in laboratory conditions and only for short periods of time). Does your holistic theory take this into account? How can your holistic theory explain and prevent, say, a point mutation in a gene encoding a transcription factor that goes on to destabilise the regulation of cell division and cause cancer?”

What you did in your thinking/question above is, you went from the whole to the part. VERY much the part: down to the point mutation. You started by answering your own question essentially saying that the part cannot operate without the whole, then went on to say what about the part? If you’re asking me to account for the things that deterministic science has accomplished in lieu of the holistic nature of an organism I would say this: The causes you speak of are EFFECTS of a system that is out of harmony with its own environment. While its true that parts of a whole system have their mechanisms, and that there are cause-effect interactions, the overall pattern of disharmony is what is significant from a holistic point of view. Point mutation is a susceptibility, prone to ALL KINDS of variables, like any complex system. If we change the complex system, then we prevent the mutation from happening, because the system is no longer patterned to include the mutation. That’s the same way it would be cured.

You see you keep contracting, and I keep expanding. Yin/Yang – infinite/finite, we must mend the duality. Your contraction is good for controlling things, my expansion is good for curing things, because the contraction is within the expansion. Of course the expansion is within the contraction too, therefore we can still heal the part by dealing with more of the whole. A little taoist rhetoric for you there.

So let me ask you in your reductionistic theory to account why it is that some people’s immune systems fail them in preventing cancer and some people’s do not?

Look, if you go into a forest and cut out the diseased trees do you really think you’re going to cure the forest of the “disease”? I doubt it.

In response to “Do you think that incurable diseases such as autism or AIDS can be cured by homeopathy. If so, how?”

Yes, both myself and colleagues have had their minds blown by the response we get using homeopathy for autism. I personally have not seen AIDS cured, had some partial results, but I believe it can be using homeopathy. A colleague of mine suggested a particular remedy to an M.D. working with many AIDS cases in Africa. Now this remedy was not individualized except more to the disease itself, which at face value is not in line with how we use homeopathy, but because some diseases encompass such a large qualitatively (with specific characteristics) expressed totality of symptoms themselves or within their epidemics, a remedy can be prescribed more pathoneumonically. Anyways, my colleague suggested this remedy at his friend’s desperate plea for something that could help. The M.D. went on to use it and has been way more impressed with the results than any of the allopathic meds he was using. I don’t know if it was curative in some cases. Homeopaths recognize some diseases: major virulent infectious ones, as being difficult to treat, because likely we’re dealing with collective and individual systems at the same time. Other incurables are curable: M.S.(not so difficult), cancer (although this too can be very difficult), One homeopathic colleague of mine has had major success curing Myesthenia gravis, incurable and fatal in short periods of time.

The question of “how” I can answer by saying: with the right remedy. And maybe I can clarify something for DUCK here: As I already said: Results with homeopathy will vary dependent on the practitioners ability to choose a suitable remedy for an individual which includes their disease which still bears the person’s characteristic fingerprint. There is individuality in disease as there is in people. People are not separate from their disease. Duck, you weren’t given a good remedy by a good practitioner. And Duck, it’s a good point you make. I may not stop believing in homeopathy if it didn’t work that one time, I may just change the remedy, but I’m confident enough if given a reasonable chance, it would work. Having said that its not infallible and its not easy to use. It takes keen unbiased perception, analytical skills to define patterns, and a wide scope of knowledge and/or ability to reference. I don’t know how old you are now Duck, but probably when you were 16, there weren’t a lot of good homeopaths who got consistent results meeting the potential that homeopathy has. Homeopathy has come a long way- for many of us anyway, in the last 10 years.

Anyways as I said I don’t really understand the point of proving that homeopathy doesn’t work.

Technically speaking the ‘how’ is a big question. Practically speaking, we apply the law of similars and watch it work, manage the case and bring it to completion.

Hey EVENING PERSON, thanks for joining. You’re not getting it either. It seems to me, like many critics, you know next to nothing about homeopathy. Over 200 years ago, a dynamic (that means inter-relational and moving) principle was discovered that remains consistent to this day, that’s the law of similars I just mentioned. Bone up on that OK? The evolution/advancement of homeopathy has had to do with applying that law more and more consistently to cure diseases and people, and to make and explore more remedies to do so. Like I implied before, we have our grail already, we don’t need to look further. And what have we been doing while all these deterministic discoveries have been made? We’ve been working and dancing with the side of life that cannot be predicted, the creative and moving forces of nature. Pretty powerful. And we’ve been making non-toxic true cures, more than I can say for what these discoveries have lead to. Tell me of ONE, just one cure something stemming from these discoveries has made? No wait, don’t bother. You don’t really know what a cure is. I can tell you what it isn’t: it isn’t suppression and control of disease, because again, that deals with the part, not the whole.

The evidence for my dynamic world can be seen anywhere, but its not so measurable within the parameters of Newtonian science. Gimpy, can you come up with an equation to describe the dynamic occurring between us now? And don’t separate it as “human interaction” There are 2 PEOPLE (machines?) involved here between you and I. I’d like you to include that variable, a well as every other one in the equation. Then we can know for sure there is a dynamic OK?

The dynamic world involves inter-relational EXPERIENCE. Do you experience something relative to your environment? I do, and I’m sure its different than anyone else’s experience, although perhaps has the same components. Can we do a double blind placebo study to prove that you experienced what you experienced?

Gimpy. Your study is interesting, but I don’t know if it would work so well given that as I said above, we follow a case through, if a remedy isn’t working we change it. Sometimes we re-dose it. i.e. a remedy isn’t given on a daily basis. Its given infrequently usually, in-between its the person’s own system that takes over and goes through a healing process. That’s why I call it a true cure, because it’s the person’s system itself that is doing the healing: provoked or catalysed by the remedy.

And as a process, if I followed it blind, I would soon know that either my remedy was wrong or partially acting (as they sometimes do) or it was a placebo. The other thing is that, for a given individual, some symptoms improve earlier and some later. When we assess in practice we watch that something has changed, lessened or disappeared, and if we continue to see that each time, usually following up between 4-6 weeks, or that what’s changed is staying changed and the person is evolving more in their process, we keep going with the remedy. We insist on a reasonable time for a major physical problem to diminish, and it could be some months. Sometimes major things improve or disappear right away. So it gets tricky working with a complex non-linear system: it’s a non-linear cure. But I could say probably there would be enough change after one follow up, depending on the parameters of the expectations, or what we were measuring, and the time allotted before assessment, that some significant results could be measured. It seems to me something similar might have been done already. This would be a much better study to demonstrate the effects of homeopathy than a DBPS done on huge sample groups, since that totally ignores the individual aspect of homeopathy.

HUMILIATED AND CONDEMNED!!!! WHO ARE YOU?
This is appalling.

It is okay to have your point of view and to post that, but to threaten another poster like this is not okay by me.

What it would take for me to re-evaluate my stance on homeopathy: A confirmed case of Addison’s disease who is then treated with homeopathy and no longer needs to take any medication (corticosteroids).

If you can holistically treat the symptoms of tiredness, feeling cold all the time, lack of appetite, weakness, postural hypotension, skin pigmentation etc with your magic water and that somehow either causes the adrenal glands to start working again, or makes the body no longer need the hormones produced by the adrenal glands. Well then you will have an instant convert.

I am not a homeopath. But I am interested in these discussions. I have looked online for double blind placebo controlled studies about homeopathy and this is what I found so far. Any comments?

http://www.holisticonline.com/Homeopathy/homeo_clinical.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=9828870

http://www.mercola.com/2000/aug/27/homeopathy.htm

Click to access produkte.asp

http://www.homeopathic.org/controlled.htm

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WXX-4K991BS-4&_user=10&_coverDate=07%2F31%2F2006&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=6dfb9134b342bb3851bcf3de8979e896

Gimpy. There’s a couple problems here besides your righteous indignation. But I would agree with freeto choosehealth that you’re loosening up a bit.

One is that your system of medicine, although you haven’t said your a doctor, sets out to prove something that can then be applied. Homeopaths apply something that they go on to prove is working or has worked.

Now yes, its us proving it to ourselves that we’re getting somewhere and that indeed the disease is getting better, (Although we do rely on the objective tests of the kind allopaths, and thats covered by our provincial insurance) but my patients generally are smarter to not stick around so long if they don’t feel they’re expectations are met. Of course I don’t meet the expectation all of the time, but enough to keep me busy and to recieve a lot of gratitute, and to be in awe when something serious does respond. A Type 1 diabetic patient came to see me for her migraines. Her migraines were getting better, then the following month she had to start lowering her insulin intake, and that hasn’t happened since she was 12, now she’s 40. The case isn’t cured yet, but its exciting there’s been some effect in Type 1 diabetes, and I’ve seen that before. And you see, they come to me for their physical problems not just for counselling. Many of them come from M.D.’s fed up that nothing really has worked. Do you think people like this will be happy with something ELSE that doesn’t work? Most will not. Is it my fantasy? It must be my patients fantasy too. And I often do wonder why homeopathy is so under-rated. One of those Banting or Best guys got a nobel peace prize and I’ve got nada.

Another problem is your prejudice, as your aware, the stuff of religious extremism, but perhaps too, you could stand to see more documentations of cases that have responded. Thats no doubt one of the reasons homeopathy is under-rated, that and the fact there aren’t many homeopaths practicing, especially full time. The problem with documention is confidentiality, but perhaps consent could be arranged. I’m OK believing what I see. You may not be. Its a lot of work doing what I do. Even this blog takes too long. If the one of these charities could hire someone to round up the documentation and consent etc. that might be the ticket. Meantime, yes it definately requires faith, faith in my teachers, predecessors, what I’ve been taught and what I’m learning, faith that its going to work based on that. As I said, there were times it wasn’t working, so I worked on what I could have been doing wrong. My colleagues helped me. Then it worked. Same in practice: Its not working, what am I doing wrong? Figure that out, do something different –> it works, there, I can have faith again. Overall I get enough results to keep my faith up, otherwise I actually tend to get depressed, although thats gotten better witha remedy I’ve been taking for myself.

Duck, I actually think that one case cured in homeopathy is signifnificant because its a lot different than saying something is cured by general standards, as I’ve been saying.

Again, its because the patient gets well in themselves, many or all of their niggly things clear up in time, not just the chief complaint, there’s a change in the whole – as I’ve been saying. (Refer to some of the above comments.) So when that happens my sense is that the main complaint will not come back. Yes its a sense and until the person dies without a recurrence it may be just a theory, but when I apply these religious theories of mine, they seem to jive with my experience.

And they aren’t new: its many times been said that the map is not the territory. I would adjust that to the map is a reflection of the territory, but the territory is the real thing, but the map AND territory co-exist.

Cutting out the ickiness from the holleyhock may have worked that time, as antibiotics wil work at times, but then what? Do the antibiotics prevent the disease form returning? Perhaps, sometimes, dependng on the person, but a common reason why people come to see me is that it doesn’t, and parents are frustrated by their kids recurrent ear infections, having to always give antibiotics and and daycare germ flus and colds – ick. And why does C. difficile, and Staph superbugs show up? Why do bacteria mutate in response to antibiotics? To defend themselves? Probably, but thats the reduced world, still relevant, but there’s another world, a world of of complexity with so many variables we can hardly touch it by looking at it with a microscope.

I’m proposing that its that world which gets effected by homeopathy, because thats how it looks to me.

Of course the world looks different to everyone, one person’s truth is anothers fantasy, which is where this debate has landed. What to do about that? Science? Well I haven’t made up all this holistic rhetoric, I’m told reputable scientists like Einstein and Feynman, Bohm, and Prigogine have discovered a lot of things that makes a fantasy out of whats been commonly accepted as fact through other great scientists like Sir Issac Newton, Rene Descartes, etc.

Hey wewillfixit, I haven’t seen Addison’s Disease cured by homeopathy, but it may have been, or been helped by some homeopath out there. I guess it may depend on how much destruction of the gland has taken place, but still, look at the diabetic’s response. Apparently 70 % of cases are idiopathic, another word for too complex for science to figure out. As I was saying above, any disease will respond to the degree that the person as a whole responds in general, of course the disease not being seperate from that person, which depends on the degree of – and I love this word – resonance – the person has with the remedy. (thanx for reminding me of that word, Gimpy)

Gimpy, I see how you feel threatened: that people will forsake conventional medicine. Thats not my experience at all. Most people appreciate it. These days it has more to offer than its day of blood letting, leeches and mercury poisoning. I wouldn’t betray it, and I wouldn’t set out to deter people from using it. At times, its absolutely essential. Speaking of humility (oh wait you said humiliation) – do you not agree it has its limits? That PERHAPS, some alternative may have something more to offer?

Listen, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, although I do admit I enjoy Michael Moore’s movies (but I haven’t seen Big Pharma, should I?) I do think, however, I am ethical and I want to help others, not hurt them. I am well educated, understand much of the pathophysiology of disease, its natural course, the times it could get critical. I’m not out for money, I seem to function alright, no one has told me I’m crazy and have been serious about it. I don’t tell my patients, ever, to get off any of the drugs they take. When they realize they might be able to, I get them to talk to the Doctor that has put them on it. Sometimes people say to me: Should I stop this? I say no. If someone said to me, I’m not getting chemo or surgery, I want to go with you for my cancer, which has never been the case in my 17 years of practice, I would say well you’d better be extremely careful, and get monitored frequently by your oncologist. And if what we’re doing isn’t working you may have to go that route, or another experimental route, or die. Your choice.

But you know Gimpy, you should give people more credit. Most are reasonable, and watch out for themselves, can EVEN CHOOSE for themselves, aren’t so susceptible to cults or far-out quackery. Hey, are you a genuine quackbuster? You sound like it. You guys kill me. – so to speak…

So relax Gimpy, let me come up with a remedy for you, so you don’t have to be so angry.

Again, I am not a homeopath, just a very interested consumer.

What is a homeopath supposed to say then, when both he and the patient experience the cure of a disease process.

What if I go to the homeopath with diagnosed Addison’s and over a course of treatment, the Adddison’s is gone. Are they to keep it a secret?

I don’t understand.

And why are they not allowed, by their organizations, to say so? I find this all very confusing to say the least.

M SIMPSON’S simple and valid statement/question seems to be neglected by you folks. He/she wrote:

“All I would need is this: a properly conducted, double blind, randomised controlled trial, published in a respected, peer-reviewed journal, with results that showed an inarguable difference between homeopathic treatment and placebo in both the original trial and repeats of the trial by other researchers.”

If homeopathy could simply stand up to repeatable, randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled study conducted by unbiased researchers, then this argument would be resolved — and IT HAS BEEN RESOLVED. Homeopathy is no more effective than a PLACEBO. Studies after studies have already proven this!

As for GIMPY: Your patience with these people is highly admirable. My blood pressure went up several notches just in reading this dialogue and I can guarantee that there isn’t a homeopathic remedy on earth that could bring it back down.

To support homeopathy, you are also giving license to other products to market themselves as “homeopathic” (to bypass FDA regulations) when in fact they are not. For this reason, homeopathy is NOT safe.

I once foolishly tried a so-called homeopathic remedy. As it turned out, the so-called homeopathic remedy was laced with ingredients high in vitamin K, which counteracted with my anticoagulants –resulting in me having a stroke and spending seven days in the hospital.

A friend of mine has been ill for over two years while under the treatment of a homeopathic practitioner and refuses conventional care because he has been manipulated by his practitioner to believe that conventional medicine is “bad,” and that his declining symptoms are “good” and a sign of toxins being “released.” He has been ill for TWO YEARS.

I have serious issues with homeopathy and those who promote it for these reasons, and for the simple reason that it is a scam.

To John Melnychuk,

Thanks for you thoughts on autism in particular – that’s an area I’m particularly interested in.

I was having an interesting conversation with ‘Free to Choose Health’ here:
http://freetochoosehealth.wordpress.com/2007/11/23/autism-is-caused-by-conventional-medicine-but-homeopaths-can-cure-it/#comments
(at least until xe deleted most of my comments).

At what age do you think that children ‘become autistic’, or are they born that way, or somewhere between the two (maybe a stress-diathesis model)?

In your view, can children show signs of ASD before vaccination?

As a psychology undergraduate, I’ve been taught that we aren’t yet sure exactly what causes ASD – genetics almost certainly play a part, acquired brain damage or developmental problems also raise the incidence. There’s promising work going on into cognitive & perceptual mechanisms but we aren’t there yet. *Extreme* privation during development may produce autism-like symptoms. Some related disorders (Rett’s, Fragile X) have a clear genetic basis.
What would you add to this list? I’d be interested also if you could suggest mechanisms / background reading, I’m happy to do the same. If you’ve your own website/blog I’ll happily discuss this there, so it doesn’t get ‘lost’ on here.

Thanks,
Duck.

Gimpy, I acknowledge that part of the reason organizations are set up and then make rules is to cover their butts, that and to have a certain standard of practice the public may be able to seek out. (Although unity on those standards has been tricky)

But I don’t think you’d find anyone in any of these organization that would care about whether or not they were satisfying your scientific standard of whether or not homeopathy facillitates cure.

By the way did you notice I used the word “facillitate” In fact I have never and never will say to anyone that me myself, or my remedies cure anything, because they don’t, they simply facillitate a cure. I’m talking about what – for you – is this nebulous complex natural world that you can’t seem to get your head or your measurements around.

To state what one has seen happen is not the same as saying I’m going to cure you. I never promise anything. I say this is what I’ve seen, or what my colleagues have seen, and based on that and a whole system of healing that is anchored by a natural principle thats been applied 100’s of 1000’s of times with success, you have a good chance of being helped.

Now my statements in this blog are also based on what’s been EXPERIENCED by me. For me to simply state my experience is not a crime, in fact if I’m not able to state it, THATS a fascious crime.

I suppose you may already have some background as some political aid to some autocratic regime somewhere. Myanmar? Perhaps that qualified you for your senior position in the Quackbuster regime.

Dear M Simpson,

You misread it- he said YOUR STANDARD:

“But I don’t think you’d find anyone in any of these organization that would care about whether or not they were satisfying your scientific standard of whether or not homeopathy facillitates cure.”

Not the society’s standard, but yours…

GG

More about my experiences:

My mother almost died in childbirth due to being mismanaged by her OB and was left with kidney damage as a result.

My mother was given an overdose of Gentramycin, and suffered vestibular inner ear damage- she now has severe balance problems. She is the first to state that her health problems all have stemmed from being mismanaged by her doctors, but being of her generation she still does not question any treatment. She wonders why I am so vocal!!

I once nursed a child who developed Rye’s syndrome after taking asprin while having the chicken pox- he was in intensive care with system wide organ failure and I don’t know if he survived.

I saw many drug errors made, and mismanaged cases while working as a nurse.

I have posted previously on Gimpy’s blog that I discovered homeopathy after my second of four children were born, and that they have all been under the care of a homeopath- never took any antibiotics nor any other drug while they were still at home. Their form of rebellion, once they left home, was to take allopathic medication and see for themselves if it worked! They usually have come back to their homeopath for treatment.

So you see, it is important for you badscience people to listen to us consumers- human beings are more than the sum of our parts, allopathic medicine does has its place, as does homeopathy. Please be careful to not destroy something so wonderful as homeopathy. I have experienced its wonders.

GG

My bad – I misread ‘of’ as ‘or’!

I wondered why it didn’t seem to fit the rest of the argument…