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The UK's New Minister For Magic
An anonymous reader sends this depressing excerpt from New Scientist:
"A serious blow to science-based medical practices has been dealt in the UK with the appointment of Jeremy Hunt as Health Secretary. The fortunes of the UK's National Health Service (NHS) are about to be transformed with the help of the magical waters of homeopathic medicine. Top marks to The Telegraph's science writer Tom Chivers for quickly picking up on talk that the UK's new health minister, Jeremy Hunt – who replaced Andrew Lansley yesterday in a government reshuffle – thinks that homeopathy works, and should be provided at public expense by the NHS."
And this is why all centralized power is dangerous. Eventually an idiot WILL be put in charge. If it were one hospital, insurance provider, pharma company, whatever it is bad but survivable. But when it is a government with a virtual monopoly on something important like medicine and a real monopoly on the use of force to back it up, shit gets serious.
Democrat delenda est
At least leeches actually *do* have genuine and well-demonstrated medical applications.
Homeopathy doesn't.
Please don't think I'm trying to suggest a sample size of one is sufficient, but as an illustrative example I give you Steven Paul Jobs, who famously tried to cure his pancreatic cancer with a whole host of homeopathic remedies until it had progressed so far as to be inoperable. The placebo effect is well-demonstrated and reliable, so you would expect homeopathic remedies to show some benefits, as you allude to. It's when people forego useful medical treatment in favor of homeopathic fairy tales that the real dangers of homeopathy are apparent.
Unfortunately herbal remedies and Homeopathy tends to get lumped together. I know first hand many herbal remedies work and some legit doctors have been prescribing them for decades. Athletes use Arnica for muscle strain and I found it works pretty well on migrains for lessening the symptoms. Cinnamon has been found to be at least as effective as most of the diabetes medicines used for controlling blood sugar peaks and it's also recognized as a stimulant. There are hundreds of medically proven herbs that are cheap and effective with potentially thousands more untested that are in traditional medicines. Homeopathy on the other hand to me is mostly snake oil. Things like diluting a compound and having it still be effective is just plain silly. I'd consider most of it placebos. The problem is there's no clear line between herbal and homeopathy. For back aches I call Tiger Balm, Arnica and ice packs the holly trinity. To me they are herbal remedies but you find them in the homeopathic section of health food stores and some drug stores. Herbal remedies should be government funded because they are inherently cheaper than factory drugs and with fewer side effects. The problem is there's been so little testing since the drug companies don't stand to get rich or get exclusive rights to them so it's hard to make rules as to which are truly effective. There's things like Goat Weed that is a herbal Viagra that is effective but then again people still take ground up Rhino horn which is expensive snake oil. With all the hundreds of billions a year that are spent on drugs there should be government testing on herbal remedies if for no other reason than saving money. The problem comes in the form of resistance from drug companies. Cheaper solutions threaten profits so don't expect government standardized testing of most herbs any time soon if ever.
EU just rolled out a new directive. Traditional (also herbal) and homeopathic medicine has the burden of proof now for safety and quality. If the EU does one thing well, it's consumer protection.
You can apply for funding to be able to afford the clinical trial. This is an excellent move sorting out the effectiveness and at the same time preserving traditional "household" medicine. In the end, that's what science is about: Whether it is aesthetically pleasing or illogical that drops are diluted in a huge amount of water is irrelevant. All you have to answer is does it work (better than placebos in a double-blind trial)?
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
The latter is more correctly categorized as "naturopathy". For some ailments, it can work as well as traditional medicine because plants do have various chemicals that can cure disease.
Now there's the issue of those chemicals not being "clean" (i.e., mixed with other undesirable substances), not knowing the dosage (because the amount of the useful chemical varies from plant to plant), and, of course, misidentification of plants (which can lead to one ingesting the wrong chemical). And though all of the issues mentioned can arise when a chemical (which, in this usage, is referred to as a drug) in pill, elixer, injection, or suppository form is prescribed by a physician and used as directed by the patient, the likelihood of an undesired outcome is lowered considerably when the forces of science and modern manufacturing technology are brought to bear.
Of course, feel free to chew on a willow branch instead of taking an aspirin for your dose of acetylsalicylic acid - I certainly won't stop you. But when you end up with your muscles still aching because your jaw muscles and teeth gave out before the pain was gone, don't come crying to me.
That is all.
Oh, a wired article about a know clinical process that they don't understand.
Hint: Placebos are not increasing effectiveness.
In fact, they have no effectiveness.
They just decrease the perception of pain or other subjective symptoms.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on