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Australia Declares Homeopathy Nonsense, Urges Doctors to Inform Patients
jones_supa (887896) writes "Homeopathy is a 200-year-old form of alternative medicine based on the principle that substances that produce symptoms in a healthy person can be used to treat similar symptoms in a sick person. The National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia has officially declared that homeopathic remedies are useless for human health. The body today released a guide for doctors (PDF) on how to talk to their patients about the lack of evidence for many such therapies. Doctors will also be told to warn patients of possible interactions between alternative and conventional medicines. On top of that, the council has produced a 300-page draft report that reviews the evidence for homoeopathy in treating 68 clinical conditions. It concludes 'there is no reliable evidence that homoeopathy is effective for treating health conditions'.
Representing the opposite viewpoint, Australian Homeopathic Association spokesman Greg Cope said he was disappointed at the narrow evidence relied on by the NHMRC in its report. 'What they have looked at is systematic trials for named conditions when that is not how homeopathy works,' he said. Homeopathy worked on the principle of improving a person's overall health and wellness, and research such as a seven-year study conducted in Switzerland was a better measure of its usefulness, he added. There are about 10,000 complementary medicine products sold in Australia but most consumers are unaware they are not evaluated by the domestic medicines safety watchdog before they are allowed on the market."
Representing the opposite viewpoint, Australian Homeopathic Association spokesman Greg Cope said he was disappointed at the narrow evidence relied on by the NHMRC in its report. 'What they have looked at is systematic trials for named conditions when that is not how homeopathy works,' he said. Homeopathy worked on the principle of improving a person's overall health and wellness, and research such as a seven-year study conducted in Switzerland was a better measure of its usefulness, he added. There are about 10,000 complementary medicine products sold in Australia but most consumers are unaware they are not evaluated by the domestic medicines safety watchdog before they are allowed on the market."
"There are about 10,000 complementary medicine products sold in Australia but most consumers are unaware they are not evaluated by the domestic medicines safety watchdog before they are allowed on the market." Why on Earth would you ever submit a product to the medicines watchdog when it doesn't contain medicine? You might as well ask them to evaluate the effects of Heinz Tomato Soup as a medicinal recipe. It does bring feelings of well-being and contentment, you know.
"Is the Chief Priest an Offlian? Do dragons explode in the wood?"
But won't telling the patient "the facts" diminish the placebo effect?
What would maximize the placebo effect?
Is using the placebo effect always bad practice?
It doesn't work by treating conditions. You're using it wrong. The first thing you need to do is stop expecting it to do anything.
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Homeopathy worked on the principle of improving a person's overall health and wellness
If this is true, then why are they marketed to help with specific ailments?
Most people I know who spout this nonsense don't visit the doctor very much, after all "big medicine" is in the pocket of "big pharma," so they wouldn't hear the message anyway.
For those who might listen, one might temper it by saying homeopathy *does* work, but it's thanks to the placebo effect.
Courtesy of Mitchell and Webb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0
Replace homeopathy with creationism.
One wonders what the response would be then.
"What they have looked at is systematic trials for named conditions when that is not how creationism works," he'd say. "Creationism worked on the principle of improving a person's overall health and wellness, and research such as a seven-year study conducted in Switzerland was a better measure of its usefulness," he'd add.
I have long maintained that if you could induce the placebo effect 50% of the time you'd be doing better than modern medicine.
That being said, since homeopathy has no measurable effects, and works in an undefined way which can't be seen or measured ... calling it out as bunk is probably good.
You can't make medical claims unless you have evidence to back it up. And it sounds like there's zero actual evidence.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Says it all...
Curse you, actual scientists, with your "facts" and "data". Where we come from, we don't need no facts.
I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it. I was recently afflicted by a non-systematic, unnamed condition, and drinking lots of water helped.
Hmm, now that I think about it, I may have been thirsty.
I visited a homeopath once. I had dreadful allergies and was quite desparate. So off I trundled to the homepaths tent in the festival I was attending. There they did some sort of reading and asked a few questions. They opened a huge old book and spent a few moments throughtfully reading through various passages. Then delivered the news that I needed arsenic. Only this poison could help me. They procused a small plastic bag containing small spherical white pills. I complained that I was not keen on taking arsenic in any shape of form. So they explained that they started with a huge vat of water with a little bit of arsenic in it. Took a tiny drop of that water and diluted it further, and once again until only the essense of asenic remained. There wasn't any arsenic in those pills. By this time I was laughing so hard I had completely forgotten about my allergies. I left with a big smile on my face and used the sugar pills in my coffee.
So sorry everyone, homeopathy works.
Yeah...because its Republicans who are into homeopathy, healing crystals and all that mystical unicorn feel-good hippy bullshit.
Not actually true. There are a couple medications that have very different effects if you drink a lot of water or are dehydrated.
I agree with your point, just thought I'd point that out.
but I have seen a great deal of patients recover from terrible illnesses only because it helped them not give up, or worked very efficiently as a placebo
And how is that an improvement over giving them a medicine that beside a placebo effect of identical magnitude additionally causes direct pharmaceutical effects? Since when do these two effects clash?
Ezekiel 23:20
As someone noted, more expensive placebos seem to be more effective. If you're an ethical homeopath, you will charge those $30 to make it more effective, and then donate the money to cancer research foundations. ;-)
Ezekiel 23:20
If it contains actual measurable quantities of something, it isn't homeopathy. Keep THAT in mind.
Mostly random stuff.
Even in Quebec?
Surely I can pay for homeopathic medicine by simply rubbing money on the seller?
Mostly random stuff.
STOP. JUST FUCKING STOP!!!! Why do you have to turn every fucking news into a political commentary? Just to troll people? Or just to make yourself feel better? You just made a few people sick regardless of your political affiliations, you asshole.
homeopathy, healing crystals and all that mystical unicorn feel-good hippy bullshit.
Well, that's one way of describing Christianity. Still awaiting repeatability on water-into-wine.
(TBH the Jesus character was a fairly decent superhero - reminds me of Crash Test Dummies' "Superman Song". But so many of his followers are cunts. What's up with that?)
This is a political topic, whether you want it to be or not. It's politics that allows this sort of crap to persist in the US because people should be allowed to do whatever they want, up to and including completely ripping off their fellow man.
The term you are looking for is "Faith-based economic policy".
If it's nonsense (it is), and it makes health claims (it does), and it doesn't work (it doesn't work), just ban the sale and promotion of such products or severely restrict its sale, health insurance coverage, and the people who practice this form of "treatment". Same goes for chiro, accupuncture, and other common forms of quackery.
I spent my youth on homeopathy w/o any major issues, and now that i'm sick, neither homeopathy nor commercial medicine are much help
For most people their youth is generally spent without major health issues. Attributing that to homeopathy is rather unnecessary.
> The term you are looking for is "Faith-based economic policy".
I think this also works if you replace the word economic to get one of the following:
* Faith-based social policy
* Faith-based foreign policy
* Faith-based domestic policy
* Faith-based public policy
* Faith-based science policy
* Faith-based government policy
Or simply remove the word economic and get:
* Faith-based policy
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Beer is the mind killer. Beer is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my beer. I will permit it to pass over my lips and through me. And when it has gone past I will drop my trousers and turn the inner eye to the path to show passers by I have not only faced my beer but got shitfaced on the beer.
Haven't you heard the joke?
What do you call "Alternative Medicine" that's actually supported via good evidence?
Medicine.
There's nothing controversial about the idea that certain herbs and natural substances, diet changes, etc. can treat illness. A doctor that doesn't use all the evidence-based approaches at his disposal is simply a bad doctor. A doctor that does use evidence-supported natural-based remedies as appropriate isn't practicing "alternative medicine", he/she is simply being a better doctor.
The idea of using porcine-derived thyroid hormone isn't "alternative medicine" at all... you can get a prescription for it and have it filled at any pharmacy; the brand name is "Armour Thyroid". I'll certainly take an FDA-approved Rx procine thyroid over some unregulated junk at the local Health Food store.