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Is the End of Government Acceptance of Homeopathy In Sight?
cold fjord writes: It looks like homeopathy is in for a rough stretch ahead as shown in a chart and noted by Steven Novella at NEUROLoOGICAblog, "Homeopathy is perhaps the most obviously absurd medical pseudoscience. It is also widely studied, and has been clearly shown to not work. Further, there is a huge gap in the public understanding of what homeopathy is; it therefore seems plausible that the popularity of homeopathy can take a huge hit just by telling the public what it actually is. ... In 2010 the UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee completed a full report on homeopathy in which they concluded it is witchcraft – that it cannot work, it does not work, and support for homeopathy in the national health service should be completely eliminated. In 2015 the Australian government completed its own review, concluding that there is no evidence that homeopathy works for anything. Homeopathy is a placebo. ... The FDA and the FTC in the United States are now both receiving testimony, questioning their current regulation of homeopathy. ... There is even a possibility that the FDA will decide to do their actual job – require testing of homeopathic products to demonstrate efficacy before allowing them on the market. If they do this simple and obvious thing, the homeopathic industry in the US will vanish over night, because there is no evidence to support any homeopathic product for any indication." — More on the FDA hearings at Science-Based Medicine.
I don't believe that I've ever known anyone that either believed in or took homeopathic potions as cures. Who actually buys that stuff?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
and let it be..
http://www.bmj.com/content/321/7259/471
There are many papers like this. Personally I think this can happen because the standards of evidence used by medical researchers is so low, but picking on homeopathy is unfair.
that's what my mother would say.
They are placebos as well yet no one seems to want those banned?
But I couldn't keep track of who was getting the sugar pills and who was getting the placebos.
What's wrong with having placebos? Placebos work. They are quite effective treatments for a variety of health problems, especially things like mental health problems. Homeopathy is obviously ridiculous, but I don't see anything wrong with having some kind of government-sanctioned system of placebo sugar pills available. Use the profits to fund actual medical science. The fact that the pills are placebo doesn't even need to be secret - you can post directly on the label that it has no active drugs in it and that it is still an effective treatment (both facts are true). A lot of people would consider lack of 'active drugs' a plus. Most people wouldn't even read the labels anyway. The pills would sell quite well.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
May be like a placebo effect or not, but in my own experience with a homeopathy, a product for nasal airflow (Rinus, etc) work for me and for every friend that use the same product.
Considerate the no side effects its ok for me.
There's no scientific evidence?
Well, there's a lot of evidence against many products which is very dangerous to health and their are legal.
... value in the ECB's Monopoly money, the French can still use it to buy baguettes to sodomize each other with. If that's not proof homeopathy's effective, what is?
Why does it even matter?
I mean, these treatments are pretty much just water. If somebody wants to drink water that they think has special properties, why stop them?
It's not even like drugs, where there can be severe harm to the users and others in the vicinity.
Jesus Fucking Christ, these treatments are just water!
Why the fuck does somebody choosing to drink clean water even need to be regulated?
Now we'll find out what lawmakers are owned by the placebo companies.
I do not believe in homeopathy. When I learned of taking 1/1000th of a 'reagent' for a
patient, I found it absurd that a three order of magnitude decrease of a substance would
somehow make it 'better'. That was back in high school, some 40 years ago.
It's bunk. But why should it be regulated? It isn't going to do harm, other than perhaps
someone not getting real medical treatment, but then again lots of people just don't go
to doctors when they should.
Regulations in the US (and a lot of Europe) have gotten out of hand. Yes, things like
homeopathy aren't useful, but they don't actively hurt either. So why have regulations?
I've long thought that the FDA should have radio and TV shows, where they describe
products that they like and dislike, and explain why. You could still buy xyzzy, but you'd
be warned that its useless, bad, or whatever.
Me, I'd listen carefully if I had reasoned pronouncements on health related items.
His Royal Highness Prince Jug Ears is going to have to write another letter to the PM.
What's wrong with having placebos? Placebos work.
No placebos do not work. They are the very definition of not working. There is a reason we use placebos as the control group when doing double blind tests. The placebo effect is real but the placebos by definition have no medicinal effect whatsoever.
Placebos do have their occasional use as a therapy but homeopathy is for all practical purposes a placebo sold at a huge markup to stupid people. Homeopathy is pure fraud for that reason. It astonishes me that it is legal to represent them in any way as something even vaguely medicinal.
Based upon the success of pro life legislation, I guess defense of homeopathy is what the GOP will champion for their next election cycle cause.
People will indulge in homeopathy, chiropractery and crystal healing. OK, they're not the sharpest knives in the drawer, but do you think banning these things will help? How's that worked out for drugs? Or cigarettes? Those have disappeared. Right? Oh, wait, they haven't.
For all these things, put the warnings on the label and let Darwin take care of the rest.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
IIRC, homeopathy in France is officially accepted by health authorities as being a useful placebo: it cannot harm, but it can help thanks to the placebo effect, therefore its use is allowed. It is not reimbursed by socialized healthcare, though.
I note the following in the summary:
the FDA will decide to do their actual job – require testing of homeopathic products to demonstrate efficacy before allowing them on the market.
I assume it is demonstrating better efficacy than placebo, because placebo has an efficacy itself.
If you don't allow sick morons to dose themselves with worthless remedies, we'll have to kill them ourselves. MYOB.
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Homeopathy today, religion tomorrow! Working towards reason is reasonable and away from it is, well, unreasonable.
You can take my cinnamilk from my cold dead hands.
As a longtime user of homeopathy, I have watched with amusement a scientific studies have been published recently purporting to prove that homeopathy does not work. I know from my direct experience that it works, so if science is finding something different, there must be something wrong with its premises. What we call science is actually just another religion that hold there is a world "out there" separate from the observer that can be experimented upon and manipulated to learn its secrets. Sciences believes one part can be split off and controlled or tested without affecting or being affected by the whole. Since homeopathy is holistic, perhaps this is why its power and effectiveness is beyond the grasp of science. Personally, I think science could do much better if the orthodox mindset embraced the full implications of the Heisenberg uncertainty principal, but of course there would still be the problem of money dictating what gets studied and what the acceptable (orthodox) outcomes are. We have been seeing a tremendous arrogance and overreach on the part of science, which is providing to be particularly impotent when it comes to what one might reasonably refer to as "health". How much difference is there really in Science saying vaccines are "safe and effective" and homeopathy "effective", then forcing its views on the rest of humanity (by forcing vaccination and outlawing homeopathy,) and the Catholic Church imposing any of its doctrines by force? Anyone with a bit of humility would do well to pause and reflect on this. We know the human body to be quite competent in healing itself and maintaining its own health, which is actually acknowledged on the face of the pharmaceutical drug trial protocol in form of the "placebo". I guess another way of looking at it is this: who gets to decide if a medication is effective? If I believe and have observed its effectiveness as part of a holistic approach to health and I am willing to spend my money on it, why should I be unable to do that? The attitudes that would say I should not are so very similar to those traditionally "religious" prohibitions we have seen for so many centuries.
There's a lot of snake oil outside of traditional medicine, but there's a lot of it *within* traditional medicine as well.
One of the really obvious low-hanging fruit that I've seen is the Burzynski Clinic.
To summarize, Stanislaw Burzynski (a doctor in Texas) claims to have invented a new cancer treatment that's better than Chemo. Someone made a movie "Cancer is serious business" which shows lots and lots of case file evidence that this is true.
We have a claim, and we have evidence. Is this bunkum or a scientific breakthrough?
It's usually easy to figure this out: interview the patients, see if they were treated, if they got better (or not), and if they are happy with the treatment. Examine the evidence and see if it's consistent with the claims.
In most cases of "bunkum", you'll find that the patients feel they were cheated, the treatment had no effect, they were also on traditional treatments, and so on and so on. It's pretty easy to separate the wheat from the chaff by examining the evidence.
In the case of Stanislaw Burzynski, no one does this. Read up on the reports and find that no one addresses the evidence directly: it's all ad-hominem attacks ("he's not a real doctor, he's not a cancer researcher"), indirect rationalizations ("it can't work because it doesn't fit my model", he doesn't have an explanation for *why* it works, it must be bunkum because it's too good), administrative accusations, and so on and so on.
One particularly salient point, brought up by many, is that the treatment is "untested". His treatment doesn't work because there are no studies to confirm this.
No one addresses the evidence.
I think what medical science, and science at large, have to realize is that people are starting to wise up to these "absence of evidence" statements. Just having a doctor say "there are no studies showing it's effective" won't cut it any more - it's seen as a verbal hand-waving to support schools of thought. It's "absence of evidence is evidence of absence".
This is what happened with Homeopathy. People had a rationalization for *why* it works and there was some historical evidence. Add in some first-hand accounts, and suddenly you've got a miracle cure that science can't explain (but really works!).
Not every crazy theory needs a full-fledged study, but I suspect a lot of good could be done by taking the top "fad" populist beliefs and making simple, definitive studies. I'd feel a lot more comfortable if a doctor could say "we studied it and there's no effect" instead of "there's no evidence that this has any effect".
The prior shows a logical certainty, the latter is rationalization.
Ok, I don't believe in homeopathy, but I suspect the market is people with ongoing medical problems where they've been thru conventional medicine, the doctors haven't helped and have given up.
Sometimes. People do turn to witchcraft sometimes out of desperation. And make no mistake that homeopathy is witchcraft. It is a placebo sold at a huge markup to stupid and sometimes desperate people. Most people who buy into homeopathy however are rather stupid new-age granola types who lack critical reasoning ability. I'm particularly disappointed in places like Whole Foods that sell this snake oil even though they have no excuse for not knowing better.
If that happened to you, YOU would be willing to try homeopathy and pretty much anything else that might work, because you don't have an alternative.
No I wouldn't use homeopathy because I am not stupid enough to ever believe it would cure me of anything. I'm going to die someday and I'd rather do so with some dignity rather than paying money to some snake oil salesman for something that will do nothing.
I agree that homeopathy is total nonsense. Unfortunately, it's commonly linked with other forms of alternative medicine that actually do work, and I won't want to see those go down as well. In fact, there is a push by the pharmaceutical companies for the FDA to regulate alternative medicines such that they will become no longer cost-effective to produce. Herbal meds take money out of the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies, so they will try to take advantage of homeopathy going down to elimiate herbal meds as well.
I could list all sorts of herbal and other alternative meds and their positive effects and side-effects. Two I'll mention:
- Dessicated bovine adrenal gland is useful if you have some mild adrenal dysfunction.
- Dessicated porcine thyroid gland is fabulous if you have a thyroid disorder and Levothyroxine hasn't been effective. The glandular is kinda like taking Armour Thyroid or Cytomel, except that you get the complete set of thyroid hormones.
Why does it even matter?
Because it is fraud. It parts people from their money under false pretenses. It leads people to believe it has medicinal properties that it does not and they sometimes choose to not seek genuine medical care as a result.
I mean, these treatments are pretty much just water. If somebody wants to drink water that they think has special properties, why stop them?
Because it doesn't have special properties and can be shown to lack the special properties claimed. When you sell a product you are required by law (or should be) to represent the product accurately. You should not be allowed to claim health benefits unless there is evidence to support that claim.
It's not even like drugs, where there can be severe harm to the users and others in the vicinity.
It fraudulently separates people from their money. It also at times keeps people from seeking genuine medical care when they need it.
Natural medicines tend to be effective when the subject has a sensitive body (achieved and sustained by healthy habits including daily exercise, near or vegetarian diet (maybe a vegan diet), not smoking, minimal or no drinking, eating healthy foods including plenty of fruits and vegetables (preferably with minimal pesticides), perhaps a regular meditation practice.
For those who combine habits such as eating lots of meat (usually packed with hormones and anti-biotics), dairy (usually packed with bgh), junk food (and gmo foods), smoking, drinking , rarely exercising, spend no time refining their higher mind, it is likely hard medicine (occidental - chemical) will be required to resolve illness and medical issues. Natural medicines would have little effect on such individuals. What would you expect? Refine your body and you can get away with more natural approaches.
I would rarely rule anything out unless I can verify it myself. Remember that the pharma industry has a vested interest in minimizing penetration of alternative medicines. The fda and similar organizations in g8 countries are revolving doors with the pharma industry. Conflict of interest is common at the highest level.
My own experience with homeopathy is hit and miss. However, It can be fun to experiment, and the hits have been interesting. The best was a substance called cina which rid me of parasites while traveling in Asia. (A month where I couldn't eat well and had very low energy when I did eat). I stumbled on a homeopathy clinic next to the hospital I was about to visit for tests. $5 and 3 days later I was cured.
I also experienced interesting results (hit and miss) in the ayurvedic domain. The hits usually came from old men who had been practicing a lifetime. So I would say the practitioner is a consideration. There are charlatans.
You'd be surprised. There's homeopathic crap sold in Wal-Mart, in the pharmacy, right next to actual medicine.
One time I really needed allergy eyedrops. As you might imagine, with my eyes watered, reading fine print was not particularly easy. And yet I managed to see a tiny "homeopathic" label on the eyedrops. Wal-Mart was trying to sell me a tiny, $6 bottle of water, in the pharmacy, in a misleading package. Thankfully I noticed in time to put it back, but I nearly put some kind of expensive, diluted bee-crap ("apis") into my eyes which were suffering from severe allergies instead of real medicine.
So you don't have to be stupid to buy them. There are some that masquerade as medicine in mainstream pharmacies. I wonder how many people have been fooled? Half of them don't even know what "homeopathic" means to even recognize that they've been duped. They probably think it's a chemical name or something. And because it's water, it's generally just going to be ineffective as a treatment, rather than actively harmful (save insofar as it prevents or delays effective treatment, of course) so too many people will be none the wiser.
Honestly, I think we need a good 60-Minutes segment or something to clue people in on the scam.
OK, they're not the sharpest knives in the drawer, but do you think banning these things will help?
Short answer? Yes. Selling "medicine" under false pretenses is 100% of the reason why the FDA exists. If these products were represented accurately then I guess I have no problem with them being sold as entertainment but they are NOT medicine. You know what they call alternative medicine that is proven to work? MEDICINE.
That was hilarious. Thanks for posting.
You can't spell "oneiromancy" without "roman".
Someone has to make the pharmaceutical industry look good.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
I would not call it nonsense simply because I do not know how to apply it properly. By the same logic, brain surgery is nonsense, since if I do it, it will fail.
Maybe homeopathy is a forgotten art? maybe what you buy in store is actually not homeopathic medicines?
I agree with you, there is a tendency to BAN anything the medical establishment cannot prove to themselves is effective. Let's then ban computers since I am yet to see a doctor who can write a half-way decent program
+1 Insane Luddite anti-establishment rant. I mean, +1 funny.
Learn to love Alaska
Acupuncture works, and fMRI studies have proven that it does something, though exactly what and by what mechanism isn't fully known, but that's true of many things.
Learn to love Alaska
...concluding that there is no evidence that homeopathy works for anything. Homeopathy is a placebo.
And therefor if "there is no evidence that homeopathy works for anything", than obviously it is not a placebo, since there are legitimate studies that show positive effects from placebos.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Reply hazy try again.
People go to their physician to get better and expect to be prescribed some drug, or they will
change physician.
Most people go there because of psychosomatic problems due to stress and double binds that society throw at them.
So they don't need any drug but want them. That's not a real solution to their problems but it helps to cope.
They expect their physician to prescribe some drugs; that relieves their anxiety. Some one is taking care.
If the drug is reimbursed and not too cheap, "it must be good"; that is part of the placebo effect.
But the drug must be harmless, so it must be a placebo.
If the symptoms change or persist, the patient will go back to the physician so homeopathy does not
impeach a real cure if one is needed.
BTW, in France, homeopathy is reimbursed.
It is made by Boiron laboratories, a french company with subsidiaries all over the world with ~600 M € of annual revenue.
Doesn't scientologists sell or promote a device that ...
As contentious as it may be, and 'Ignorance' tag seems like it would be all too fitting.
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
I don't know of any universe in which mammalian glandular tissue counts as an "herbal" treatment. In fact, prior to the development of synthetics, it was the main source of several hormonal treatments commonly used by (the horror!) mainstream western MDs.
None of these surveys state that homeopathy does not work, or is not effective, they are simply stating that any studies that have been done do not meet the standards required for pharmaceutical products.
Pharmaceutical science does not compare the effectiveness of product A against product B, it simply states that statistically product A works, and any side effects are not worse than the original condition. This pharmaceutical science has been proven to be wrong for every pharmaceutical product withdrawn from sale.
Conducting a pharmaceutical science experiment costs millions of dollars, and is only done if the manufacturer is reasonably confident that the pharmaceutical product will work, and that the cost of doing the study can be recovered by charging any other manufacturers licence fees and by making a very good profit for every product sold.
Homeopathy products do not meet the cost recovery barrier that pharmaceutical science requires, and so they are based on the same raw science that provides the pharmaceutical science candidates.
Homeopathy products do meet the cost recovery barrier of pharmaceutical science are no longer called homoeopathy products, they are called pharmaceutical products, even if they have been changed to be less effective.
90s. He did all sort of aromatherapy, American Indian stuff, etc., and had people calling him night and day to ask if it was OK to eat this or that. Of course, he sold all sorts of homeopathic remedies for anything and everything. I ended up at a restaurant with him and some friends and shortly after dinner he lit up a cigarette. I asked him how he could be advising people all day long on how to stay healthy and then light up a cigarette. With a straight face he said "the stress of quitting smoking would cause him more harm the smoking itself causes".
What a f**king idiot!
If they do this simple and obvious thing, the homeopathic industry in the US will vanish over night,
Not really -- it will just be diluted until not a single homeopathy vendor remains, but the market will retain the essence of the original vendors and the effect will be even more potent.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
OK, I'll bite.
You didn't read the article did you? Even if homeopathy isn't complete and utter hogwash quackery, the article addresses your claim that it requires a holistic approach.
How can you justify homeopathic products sitting on pharmacy shelves being sold for ridiculously high prices, when in order for them to be effective they must be tailored specifically by a holistic homeopathic therapist? You're shooting yourself in the foot on this one.
Anyway, you're still wrong and homeopathy is complete and utter hogwash quackery, with or without Heisenberg uncertainty there is no valid scientific principle by which it can work. People who promote it are at best deluded, and at worst frauds.
Homeopathy was invented two centuries ago. Somehow, it's still around.
So now, for the next two centuries, we'll have to hear stories about how government is suppressing "natural" cures that they don't want people to have, because of big pharma (and Monsanto). Oh well.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
It is amazing how much effect the mind has over the body. I'm not saying placebos can cure cancer but if you got people to believe things like backaches, migraines, ulcers, etc when there are no signs of injury could be cured. I had horrible backaches until I read a book by Dr Sarno and realized it was all in my head. When I figured out I was repressing anger it all went away. That might have been a placebo as well but it worked wonders.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Lots of "medicine", especially at places like Whole Foods has this warning:
"*This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration"
This product is intended to diagnoise, test, cure or prevent any disease"
At most that would happen is that homeopathy products would get a label similar to this. Doctors would not prescribe homeopathy but do they do that now anyway?
As for why anyone would be a product with this label: because lots of stuff has the label. Some of it is clearly nonsense but others are actually useful, just as not studdied with enough rigor to be labeled as medicine.
was two things:
1. He drunk the bottle, not her, to show her it was nonsense.
2. (More importantly) She thought she was buying real medicine. Not sure what country the parent's in, but in America $250 isn't out of the ordinary for a drug not covered by your insurance, so the high price wouldn't necessarily be a tip off. Assuming I'm not just putting words in the parent's mouth than that's the scary part for me: that Homeopathy is indistinguishable from clinically tested medicine to an intelligent woman.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
So let's just assume that homeopathy actually works they way they claim it does, they dilute stuff throw away 9/10 of it, dilute it again, and it gets stronger and stronger at each dilution ..... what happens to that 9/10 they throw away? it goes down the drain, into the sea where it gets diluted way more, and presumably becomes far stronger, the ocean must be full of horribly strong medicine for all sorts of things, a quite dangerous place to go.
Mind you it's also full of diluted fish-poo too .....
Meanwhile I'm off to make some 150 proof homeopathic beer ...
Let's not forget this drugs sordid history. While this snake oil did sort of work, it was prescribed for decades before it was removed from the market. Funny how bad apples from the drug corps doesn't overturn the cart. But if they don't own the rights to something then all bets are off.
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
As a longtime user of homeopathy, I have watched with amusement a scientific studies have been published recently purporting to prove that homeopathy does not work. I know from my direct experience that it works, so if science is finding something different, there must be something wrong with its premises.
As a longtime user of a tiger-repelling rock, I have watched with amusement a[s] scientific studies have been published recently purporting to prove that tiger-repelling rocks do not work. I know from my direct experience that it works, so if science is finding something different, there must be something wrong with its premises.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
The origional theory behind homeopathy is actually sound. That theory is NOT what you just thought of. It has nothing to do with diluting something untill there are no molecules of it left. That is the BULLSHIT focused on by it's detractors. I fully agree that diluting something that much and claiming it still has an effect is garbage. But that isn't what homeopathy started as.
The real theory behind homeopathy actually makes sense. If you are experiencing a certain set of symptoms, homeopathy says you should find natural substances that by themselves produce that same set of symptoms. Then take a miniscule amount of said substance(s). Your imune system knows how to deal with naturally occuring herbs. When it mounts a natural response to those substances, that same response will directly address the symptoms in question. The theory is that the body will recognize the beneficial effect of that response and continue further with it than the low dose of an otherwise poison would have elicited. So yes, homeopathy recommends diluted poisons, but ANY drug modern medicine recommends is a poison unless taken in very small (milligram or less) doses. Homeopathy is just suggesting an appropiate immune response. And it is NOT in any way trying to say dilute it till it doesn't exist. Only stupid people, like all you idiots who beleive sensationalist healines, would buy into that bullshit.
Did you hear about the guy who forgot to take his homeopathic medicine? He overdosed! :)
Homeopathy is mind-bendingly stupid, and yet loads of people claim it makes sense to them.
It makes my head hurt to think about how these people must "reason" things out in their daily lives.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Hey, can I buy that tiger-repelling rock?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Perhaps if we all took super-small does of radioactivity we'd get that homeopathic effect and we'd all become immune to nuclear bombs.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
If homeopathy worked, the military would be using it, and they're not.
This is one of my "litmus tests" for whether or not shit is real. Does the US military use it? If so, then it's probably real and probably works.
The military will use whatever works regardless of cost or practicality. But if it doesn't work, you won't find them using it.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Seems like you have quite a club going here - incredible arrogance on display. No, I didn't read the article, and I don't need to since I have been following the Slashdot threads on this and similar topics in the "anti-science idiots" vein for a long time. My point is not about homeopathy, per se, as much as Science as a religion. You have your so-called "facts", but they are part of a particular worldview that is less applicable to human health than, say, tablet display technology. Modern medicine is great for physical trauma and stabilizing acute illness (that is, keeping you from dying right now,) but beyond that, it is almost completely charlatan. For sure it is a complete failure at curing any of the rapidly expanding list of serious diseases. Yuck it up fellas.
The commercialization of 'health' is no difference from the commercialization of anything else
Just like there are people willing to pay top dollar for Armani suits there are people happy to part their money to purchase things that they think are 'healthy'
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
You know what they call it when "Alternative Medicine" is effective? "Medicine"
Odds are, you are wrong.
Just sayin'
Learn to love Alaska
Interesting- as we have countless prescription and OTC drugs with essentially no better then placebo results. And an FDA that approves drugs with just 3 studies showing "better then placebo" results- regardless of the fact the pharmaceutical companies often run dozens or even hundreds of studies to get these three results, often tailoring their studies more each time for desired results after the failed studies.
Maybe we should be discussing the failures of the medical world and the supposed scientific method, rather then bashing a treatment that is as sucessful as many "Accepted" tratments (and has far fewer side effects).
I'm not a fan of homeothapy. But I have seen many people- and animals, seem to have decent results with it. As much as I can say for "accepted" pharmaceuiticals, and I've never known anyone to become addicted to nor have serious, or life threatening reactions as I have with many pharmaceuiticals and OTC drugs.
So I have to wonder...why this irrational hatred?
The Placebo Effect is effective about 50% of the time according to some research. Merely getting people to believe they will get better helps. Out waiting the disease helps in many cases while the body's natural mechanisms come into play for healing. This may in part explain it. Just gotta believe. :)
I didn't believe it when someone told me they knew about people getting vaccinated for radiation, but apparently it is a real thing:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17867496
The biggest homeopathic "remedy" companies won't be hurt by this at all. They already use a different method to get their products to consumers that won't change, by using multi-level marketing (aka pyramid schemes) to push products and (questionable) information on them. A good example of this is the "essential oils" scheme that is quite popular right now, which often appears to be a weird hybrid of Shaklee and Scientology. Look at how they push their product, and tell me how it would matter if the government changed their position tomorrow.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
... especially if you look around and find books dedicated to homeopath(et)ically treating illnesses by drawing symbols on the skin ... (my take on that book is https://antifande.wordpress.com/2015/03/01/endlich-verfugbar-medizin-zum-aufmalen/, german original)
How can ANYONE who is not rooted in the dark ages even CONSIDER such outrageous claims, be it these extremes, or the "regular" ones made by and for those extremely diluted solutions?
But then, I reckon the ones falling for that crap also believe in an all-knowing power that - albeit knowing what's best and having pre-planned everything - can be swayed into working for you if you just pray enough)
Considering the reach of government in much lesser issues, it's about time all and every governments step in and do their job!
Homeopathy works the way religion works. If you believe in it, that is.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
"Thyroid disorder" LOL!!! Yeah, right. Of course, there are cases where Levothyroxine won't work: hyperthyroidism.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
"I know when my Vicodin is not Vicodin. Do you know when your birth control is not birth control?"
All that will happen is that the claim will be entirely divorced from the contents. If this happens, homeopathic stuff becomes an alluring online business- make up a name (that you can copyright), do the homeopath shuffle to produce a substance chemically identical to water (because it IS just water after that many "remove 90%, fill with water, shake" steps)... and don't make any claims.
Then another website just so happens to map your trademarked names to the supposed whatever the fuck a 100x mixture of semen and bug brains is supposed to work on. The believers still buy their potions, but the pharmacists likely can't be the ones doing the mixing.
Now, that's in the US. in the countries where it's basically paid for by the government as part of a national health care plan, these changes will only be positive- you'll still be able to buy your placebo, but not have the rest of the citizenry pay for it. Hell, that'll probably increase the "efficacy" of it, if you have to pay for it yourself...
Placebos often work quite well compared to doing nothing. I have always viewed homeopathy as a good way for doctors to prescribe placebos when that was the medically best option. I think it's a shame that this option is being taken away.
Whether he is serious or not, right or wrong doesn't matter. People should have the right to make their own choices, even if those choices are unscientific.
And even then...
agreed, some alternative medicines are just bio-active materials that big pharma has not got around to commercializing, or wont commercialize because the natural product is perfectly effective and much cheaper.
case in point is the bitter melon gourd. Largely unexplored because no pharma supported lab is going to fund putting their own anti-diabetes drugs in the shade.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12625217
Here in the Philippines the bitter melon gourd is regularly prescribed for a population that cant afford western anti-diabetic drugs. The gourd juice side-effects are largely limited to diarrhea and flatulence, and hypoglycemia if you take too much, which is a testament to its effectiveness.
Alternative medicine should be either based on science or it should be religion. If it's not religion AND it's not working the people to be healed can be seen as helpless victims. If it is religion then people can be seen as if acting by their own "free will": The "healer" is just an intermediary who speaks through God, for example, and the healing "just happens" when there is enough mercy/understanding/wisdom/etc. in the air. There are no victims in religions, just mutual understanding and lack of it keeps you sick.
I have no problems with idiots making dumb decision. I take issue with the fraud of the liars who try to sell others on their delusions so that they don't feel bad being the only ones who believe dumbly.
Learn to love Alaska
Not in my country there hasn't been.
Maybe in some religdiot caliphate, or backward third world banana republic.
Homeopathy is like religion - usually it does absolutely nothing except waste your time, and leave a foul taste. Occasionally, like religion, it can be extremely harmful and kill you.
As a longtime user of homeopathy, I have watched with amusement a scientific studies have been published recently purporting to prove that homeopathy does not work. I know from my direct experience that it works, so if science is finding something different, there must be something wrong with its premises.
Ker-ching! And this is why Randomized Controlled Trials are used in serious studies: to eliminate observer bias.
Come back when you find a repeatable RCT of a homeopathic remedy that shows an effect better than placebo. Note that I say repeatable: if you do enough trials, by chance some will appear to show an effect, but it will not be repeatable in subsequent trials.
Acupuncture "works" in the sense that for certain conditions it makes patients feel better. However, this improvement is not better than placebo. Neither is it better than sham acupuncture, using "incorrect" acupuncture points or fake needles that don't penetrate the skin. That a brain scan shows something when you think someone is sticking needles into you is not terribly surprising.
Placebos and placebo-like interventions can be fine for conditions that (a) are not life-threatening, and (b) cannot be cured by any other known method. But not more.
The problem is that there are parents who believe in this crap that use it to "treat" their kids instead of providing them with proper medication and therapy. I've known some of them.
They're as bad as the religious fundamentalists who insist on "prayer healing" for their children instead of taking them to a doctor.
It's the kids who suffer, not the idiots themselves. So, yes, homeopathy can do real harm to people other than the nutbars and lunatics who believe in it.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
If Homoeopathy is so wrong, how come Paediatricians all over Europe, people with at least ten years medicine study behind them, tend to increasingly try Homoeopathy before resorting to other means while they can mostly benefit from hard cash or otherwise 'expensive' compensations when they prescribe meds produced by large pharmaceutical labs? How come these specialists resort to that sort of sorcery?(In most EU countries Paediatry is a speciality and requires additional study on top of "just medicine")
In my personal opinion a baby or toddler cannot experience the placebo effect. Yet, many common homoeopathic remedies seem to work very well up to a certain degree - not that one is going to fight-off antibiotic-resistant streptococcus with homoeopathic means, but point is, it works in many cases.
I'm just asking because i have half a dozen doctors, all specialists, in my close family - we call it a 'family sickness'. Two of them are paediatricians and do not believe that a baby can experience placebo effect either. All but one of them, an Anaesthesiologist, do offer the homoeopathic route when possible or advisable, while they could perfectly cash in from mass-prescribing chemicals like many others do without even thinking about it. Retribution from Pharma-labs for prescribing medicine is a thing, i thought the phenomenon to be worse in the US than anywhere else, apparently i was wrong... In many places in France for example, a country that has made it very difficult to become a doctor, let alone a specialist, pharma sales people will usually come in on Tuesdays at Physicians offices and market their medicine. They also have sales objectives, which they share with the Physician. If the objective set by the company for a certain area is reached within a certain amount of time, said doctors can benefit from many "goodies", ranging from free meds to distribute to a vacation for two over to a big fat check, depending on field, novelty of the compound and many other factors.
another Anonymous Coward
The idea that somehow things were actually better off in the past as they were now, so what has changed in the world sense the past, and what new methods should we avoid. Just like how everything your Grandmother made is superior to what you can make. Or the idea of a secret Native American cure...
Some of this is from most of our cultural experience. Europe fell into the dark ages shortly after the fall of the Roman empire. After we got out it, we got back to reading the ancient texts of the past and found great knowledge in them. As well many of the religious texts that made it seem like the people in the past had a more direct relation with the supernatural.
However for the most part we know more then what we did in the past, while it is wise to not ignore the past and we should study it for some forgotten knowledge, it should be reevaluated scientifically to see if it does or doesn't work. A lot of the material from the past has things that work, but their explanation on why it works is way off, because their explanation is off, it means using it for untested things can be dangerous.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
But the placebo effect has been shown to work on things like cancer as well.
Learn to love Alaska
http://whatstheharm.net/homeop...
This is the page on homeopathy, but If you go on the home page you will see more of such stories for other woo stuff.
Homeopathy should be properly labelled as containing no active ingredient whatsoever , a bit like the big black label on cigarettes, or even downright banned until it pass the same STANDARD test on animals and human to demonstrate the advertised effect.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
This is a horrible idea. Government needs to fund homeopathy as much as possible.
By my understanding of these things, that should mean the tiniest fraction of a cent's worth of funding to cover the next 50,000 years. With that sort of money behind them, homeopaths should be the richest people in the world!
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
As a longtime user of a tiger-repelling rock, I have watched with amusement a[s] scientific studies have been published recently purporting to prove that tiger-repelling rocks do not work. I know from my direct experience that it works, so if science is finding something different, there must be something wrong with its premises.
Yes, of course. When I throw rocks at tigers, they are generally repelled too... unless they are already in mid-charge.
Citation? The placebo effect has been shown to "work" on asthma as well. This means that asthmatics "treated" with sugar pills or sham acupuncture report feeling better than without such treatment. However, objective measurements of their breathing capacity don't change under such treatments. This is downright dangerous! It gives a false sense of security without actually changing the risk of life-threatening complications. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/1...
This is unfortunately a very widespread misunderstanding, but placebos are not harmless, even if they "work". They are positively harmful in cases where better-than-placebo interventions exist for life-threatening conditions.
Post fits in subject line.
I know from my direct experience that it works,
Direct personal experience is good to coin questions, not to produce validated knowledge.
== Sound: My "direct personal experience" tells me there is a constant high pitch sound in my environment. Knowledge tells me it is Tinnitus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....
== Sight: My "direct personal experience" tells me I see phantoms right now. Knowledge tells me these are floaters https://en.wikipedia.org/?titl....
== Taste & Smell: My "direct personal experience" tells me I am eating a peach. Knowledge tells me I smelling a peach, while biting and shewing an apple.
== Taste: My dad's "direct personal experience" tells him this peach has no taste at all. Knowledge tells him he is suffering Ageusia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
== Touch: My "direct personal experience" tells me I have pins and needles on my arm. Knowledge tells me I have a kind of nerve anesthesia.
== Sight: Through "direct personal experience", billions of individuals believed earth is flat. Knowledge tells us it is spherical.
== Sight: Through infinitely reproducible "direct personal experience" billions of individuals - including you right now -, across many centuries, across many civilizations, every where on the planet can drop a pen in a glass of water and believe it is broken. Knowledge tells us the refraction of light leads us to believe so.
See for yourself what your "Direct personal experience" tells you for example there on first Google hit on "optical illusion" : http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/
Not a single sens we have can be trusted to produce knowledge. Not mines. Not yours. This is basic knowledge. At 18 years of age, school should have informed you about objectivity and subjectivity.
"it therefore seems plausible that the popularity of homeopathy can take a huge hit just by telling the public what it actually is."
This is a startlingly naive statement. If there were any truth in this there wouldn't have been homeopathy in the first place. People are not rational. Telling them the simple truth will only make them more stubborn in their ignorance.
To quote another Slashdotter (19thNervousBreakdown):
"The placebo effect from homeopathy is pretty neat, but on the downside you have to be a fucking idiot for it to work"
Post that kind of controversial allegation : homeopathy is not working, and you get only one thing, a deluge of local quarrel. :)
Think of it next time....
in your daily life. There is absolutely no good reason for the FDA or any other government body to be involved. People should be free to take any natural substance if they so chose to do so. And there are vast resources available to anyone who wishes to research any of these products.
Stop trying to "save" us from ourselves.
I agree that homeopathy is total nonsense. Unfortunately, it's commonly linked with other forms of alternative medicine that actually do work, and I won't want to see those go down as well. In fact, there is a push by the pharmaceutical companies for the FDA to regulate alternative medicines such that they will become no longer cost-effective to produce. Herbal meds take money out of the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies, so they will try to take advantage of homeopathy going down to elimiate herbal meds as well.
I could list all sorts of herbal and other alternative meds and their positive effects and side-effects. Two I'll mention:
- Dessicated bovine adrenal gland is useful if you have some mild adrenal dysfunction.
- Dessicated porcine thyroid gland is fabulous if you have a thyroid disorder and Levothyroxine hasn't been effective. The glandular is kinda like taking Armour Thyroid or Cytomel, except that you get the complete set of thyroid hormones.
Neither of those is herbal.
More proof that we are turning away from reason than bigotry and hatred of religion.
I'm no believer of mystic medicine, but for one thing homeopathy works: friends that tell me they are using it often say the "doctor" actually talks to them, ask how are their lives, how is it going, etc., and by taking troubles out of their chests, some illnesses just go away. The medicine itself is probably just assuring something to themselves, but in the end, the cure works. This is a good move, since more and more doctors just don't care for their patients, they just want to finish the consult and call the next customer, for more and more money. Listening to people can, many times, effectively help them. If it quacks luck a duck, sits like a duck, and dilutes like a duck, it's a duck.
I keep seeing people claiming that Arnica Montana cream works to reduce swelling. Unfortunately, they also sell Arnica Montana as a homeopathic pill.
I took a homeopathic medicine for dehydration and got better.
"Evil will always triumph over good, because good is dumb." - Dark Helmet (Spaceballs)
If you think it is so terrible, don't use it. Why do lefty libtards think they have the right to ban everything they don't agree with? Do you not assume any personal risk or responsibility for any thing you do? This is one of the key things that I can't fathom about the mindset of lefties. "We decided that you can't have that." How bout instead you shut the fuck up and stop trying to dictate what other people besides yourself should choose? You don't get to choose for other people. If you are too stupid to understand something you probably should not use it. I is not my responsibility to protect you from yourself and neither is it the government's.
Easy. Just test a combination of various homeopathic agents, with one of them actually being a real drug (under a fancy homeopathic name) at high enough concentration to have an actual effect.
I have seen studies done this way. Always check the homeopathic medicine in question for barely diluted, real drugs.
I've said it before: Homeopaths actually can be useful, if they are well educated (medically) and do take their time speaking to a patient. I've met doctors I wouldn't trust making a relyable anamnesis and I know homeopaths whos diagnose I would trust. At least more than some of those doctors.
The medicine of course is bunk, but here in Germany it's partially justified by some as a cheap means to get to placebos.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I don't believe "the wheel" is a valid concept, as I couldn't find any published study that specifically deals with it.
My point is: you can't expend resources to analyze everything, and it would be dangerous to dismiss treatments that were accepted by so many people for so long just because the current mainstream school of thought doesn't accept them. We are far from thoroughly understanding how our bodies work, and keeping an open mind is one of the preconditions for good science.
And it also is, and always will be about the freedom of choice. If one chooses to use sugar pills to cure one's ailments, we should'n force our magic bullet on them, even if we feel their choice is wrong. I for one don't believe in homeopathy because of those outrageous dilution factors, but I know persons effectively getting better from it, so who am I to interfere?
There is also Chiropractic, which is a weird field because its:
1. The theory
2. Study of stance of a human, and how to do it wrong
3. Massage
4. Overlap with Osteopathy due massage and stance
Odds are I've thought about this and looked into it a lot more than you. Odds are I'm a lot more articulate than you speaking about it. And odds are I'm better trained in science and more experienced working with technology than you. Just sayin'.
This is an interesting statement your are making : because your are (so you say) more educated you would be less subject to believes. You will be surprised to know that this statement has been properly studied. And... the results are exactly the opposite ! Yes. ( I was actually surprised too.) http://www.lazarus-mirages.net....
The concepts of "believes" and "faith" are extremely interesting objects. Homeopathy is good test case to study them.
Please end all of them.. as government accepted and healthcovered cures. You can leave them for people to pay for themselves. Evidence also show placebo works better the more people have to pay for it, so it should improve its efficiency.
The best we can do is make absolutely clear that the placebo is just a placebo and that it will not provide a cure for any disease, only at most a small bit of short-term pain relief.
No that is not the best we can do. We can make it illegal to even hint that homeopathy or anything resembling homeopathy is a cure for anything. If someone wants to represent something as a treatment then they can get it tested through the FDA like actual medicine. Furthermore a disclaimer ("this product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease") is NOT sufficient to get a free legal pass for you your snake oil.
Placebos _are_ scientifically proven options - for pain relief, mental health issues, and other ills. There are many illnesses for which placebos are literally the best known 'medicines'.
WRONG. Placebos do NOTHING. If it actually does something then it by definition is not a placebo. The placebo EFFECT is real but that is not the same thing as saying placebos are medicines. We use placebos as the benchmark for determining if a treatment has a curative effect. If it isn't better than placebo then it means it does nothing to treat the disease. Better than placebos is the demarcation for where medicine begins and snake oil ends. It certainly isn't an excuse for allowing a placebo to be represented or even implied to be a therapy.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/placebos-work-even-when-you-know-10-12-23/
They said "a thyroid disorder", not all thyroid disorders. I'm assuming, they were referring to hypothyroidism or sub-clinical hypothyroidism.
>some mild adrenal dysfunction.
Adrenal 'dysfunction' or 'fatigue' is bunkum in itself.
and about your desiccated bovine whatever, lesser said, the better.
Its like people who think eating beef testicles will increase their 'virility'. Simpletons.
You know what you call alternative medicine that's been proven to work? Medicine.
+1. Tanks. Simple. Judgment less. Auto-teaching. Thanks.
While people are ranting about how perfect they think scientific studies are for proving how safe and effective things are, I'd like to point out the multitude of drug recalls issued by the FDA on drugs that had large sums of money spent on them and long term studies conducted on them that then turned out to be too dangerous to be left on the market. Not to mention the fact that CURRENT research shows no link between dietary cholesterol and blood cholesterol, nor any direct link to heart disease. Yet statin drug sales still run around 10 billion a year. Who's swallowing snake oil there? Don't assume that everybody in a white lab coat is a paragon of virtue and always speaks the truth. The AMA and FDA are driven by profits. Money makes the world go round, and medicine is no different. It's not just snake oil salesmen that will lie to you to make a quick buck. The FDA is more than happy to take your money and then issue drug recalls on what they had declared perfectly safe.
Man. Some people keep missing the "and other alternative" parts. Can't read much?
Adrenal fatigue is a real thing. I have it. And if you want a norepinepherine boost, those glandulars work great.
And there's the woo. This is why it all needs to be banned - gullible people will believe the nonsense you've just typed.
Homeopathy is obviously nonsense - less isn't more, MORE is more. But the companies that sell "homeopathic" products are among the best sources of certain herbal remedies that work just fine for me and my wife (minor things for minor complaints, with less stomach upset than aspirin, with arnica for sore muscles being the best example). Unfortunately the two concepts - homeopathy and herbalism - are often confused in people's minds. People forget how many of the older drugs have plant origins, and the drug industry would love to help everyone forget faster so they can patent more naturally-occurring compounds from sources already known to folk medicine. (Please note, I'm not talking about believing every old wives' tale, I'm talking about researching those tales and finding the nugget of validity at the core, just like the people who extracted and synthesized aspirin from the plant once used by brewing it as a tisane.)
Think of the children! Parents obviously hate their children and that is why the loving Father State needs to step in and correct them! /sarc
I'm all in favor of homeopaths being able to marry. Oh. Never mind.
Well, you can "take issue" with them all you want, but disliking something or believing it is dishonest is not sufficient justification for outlawing it.
Examples of this are rife everywhere - from my own experience, any asthmatic can tell you in the 2000's their rescue inhaler only cost them $15 for the generic - however, when the gas inside the inhaler was changed from a CFC-based propellant to nitrogen, they filed new drug status (for the same ancient drug), purely because they changed the propellant - asthmatics now pay $45 for the same inhaler (with insurance, FYI) with the new gas. Who's to say they won't switch to oxygen or CO2 as a propellant when the next round of patents expire and the prices drop to generic levels?
On the opposite side of the spectrum, herbal remedies can for some things be quite helpful - and some of the "herbal cures" in that realm like Slippery Elm for diverticulitis work very well but are not prescribed by any doctor lawfully as these cures are not tested by anyone officially - because doing so won't guarantee the researchers investment in testing will be paid back because they cannot control who sells that herbal cure afterwards. There are cures in nature that are not being directly researched, presented or even considered by the big pharma community because of this. Many cures in nature are being researched so that the potentially patent-able bits are pulled out for testing and potential commercialization. If they found that chewing a certain leaf or making tea of it cured something important, big pharma would never tell us - not until they pulled the active parts out and sold that to us 15 years later at a premium after extensive testing as well.
I suppose the FDA should be doing this on their own, but that's an extra that's not in their charter..
Thousands of results.
This is unfortunately a very widespread misunderstanding, but placebos are not harmless, even if they "work". They are positively harmful in cases where better-than-placebo interventions exist for life-threatening conditions.
So the placebo is harmless in all cases, and the only "harm" that may occur is someone not selecting the optimal treatment, but that's true of all treatments, not just placebos, and placebos cause no harm themselves, but delays in treatments may cause harm.
Your linguistic inaccuracy makes you 100% wrong.
Learn to love Alaska
Okay, so what are your scientific training credentials? Being articulate makes you more effective at communicating, but it doesn't make you right.
A lie for personal gain is fraud. Thus, the issue I take with it is that it's fraud, and fraud is (and should be) illegal.
Learn to love Alaska
It doesn't work with the 3x strength flower crap nonsense, but it does contain a solvent that is great at cleaning away urushiol oils. I don't know but I wonder if getting itself FDA approved for the solvent would be so expensive that they snuck a good product through as homeopathic. The Inert ingredients are the actually beneficial ingredients. The active ingredient is bullshit, but it can be sold this way.
No, a "lie for personal gain" does not automatically constitute legal fraud; changing that would be a tremendously bad idea In fact, it is doubtful whether fraud should even be a criminal offense, instead of a civil matter.
Besides, I don't see why you believe that homeopathic practitioners are lying to you: they are telling you what you are getting and why they believe that it works. Where is the lie?
they are telling you what you are getting and why they believe that it works. Where is the lie?
Does it work?
Learn to love Alaska
"I just reply to you when I see you spamming Slashdot with your nonsense"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
Why agree w/ my points on hosts then? Quoting you on it next:
"I'm not denying all those things" - by dave420 (699308) on Wednesday September 17, 2014 @11:39AM (#47927435) FROM -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
Of course you're not: It's impossible to dispute FACT on HOSTS FILES superiority to other methods!
(Since they're fact in favor of hosts doing more than so-called competitors & doing more with less for more security, speed, reliability, + anonymity online - which is, of course, more than a mere trolling stalking harassing "ne'er-do-well" like yourself could *EVER* manage).
---
"I'm simply pointing out that it takes an AdBlocker to block your spamming"- by dave420 (699308) on Friday June 19, 2015 @10:31AM (#49945047)
Then WHY DON'T YOU DO THAT, shithead? Answer that!
(You stalk/harass me instead!)
If you're "so-called 'better solutions'" are BETTER, & I bother you? Use them... OBVIOUSLY, asshole, you don't & you're just a "ne'er-do-well" troll, OR you have "other motivations" (see next):
* DO YOU WORK FOR AN ADVERTISING FIRM, or ARE YOU A WEBMASTER/WEBCODER, or ARE YOU A MALWARE MAKER, or ARE YOU AFFILIATED WITH 1 OF MY COMPETITORS?
Answer that too!
I'll be waiting (but you'll avoid every question, or lie - which only makes you look stupider than ever vs. myself)
(You must be involved with 1 of those above, especially since you're TOO STUPID to EVER "get the best of me" & you know it, witness the above - & their "so-called 'solutions' are INFERIOR TO MINE on TONS of levels, evidencing their stupidity in & of itself via inferior designwork!)
APK
P.S.=> SEE Dave420 SQUIRM everybody, lol - evasions galore from him to ensue are almost guaranteed... apk
Ok, room full of computer guys, all of us are overweight. Way overweight. ALL of us have tried, for around 20 years to lose weight. Even Fen/Phen, etc. All of us are about 100 lbs overweight. Dude tried HCG. We all thought - here we go again. He lost 30 Lbs, then 60, then 90. I lost 90. Everyone else that tried it lost around 90. 100% effective. So that's just plain old water? Some water.
I know, I know... it was the 500 calorie diet and not the water. Oh yea, how come since I've gained 40 of it back because I blew it off... how come I can't lose it without it?
One thing is for sure, I wouldn't be here if I hadn't lost it. Doc told me that.
Just sayin'
Waiting patiently for Drinkypoo to chime in on this discussion....
Ya, yeah ya fucking will. You won't know until you're there trying one last hail mary. I know this. I work in hospice care.
"The problem with labelling something no better than a placebo as "healthcare" is that people who could benefit from real treatments can be led to use a placebo as a replacement for actual effective treatments"
If, after you have made a valiant attempt to educate these pool souls using all the logic and reason you can muster, they still decide to use homeopathy anyway....that's their God given right. And you have no say whatsoever in the matter. Because it's none of your fucking business.
It's time for you and your ilk to kindly shut the fuck up. Stop trying to argue people into government slavery, asshole. You are a moron. What makes you think a moron such as yourself should have any control over other people's lives? Mind your own business.
Someone with a realistic come-back...
Tell you what, all you "fact-based" zealots.
Why don't you make RELIGION put warning signs on the packets too, and publicly inform everyone that RELIGION DOESN'T WORK.
Cause there's no clinical nor scientific evidence of any kind in the existence of a diety, so let's shut that shit down.
Since I don't want item X in the market, no one should have it.
Let Darwin sort out the homeopathic adherents. If it's your right to waste your existence lauding a sky daddy and running (and maybe ruining) your life (and often lives of others) according to goatherd texts, then it's equally your right to believe in magic pills. What's the essential difference, my good friends, between the concept of a soul, almost universally accepted without exception, and the idea of an "energy" transmitted magically through dilution ?
I don't see it. Let people be people.
Yes, it does work: more people get well on it than without treatment, and it causes no physical harm. The way doctors and pharmacists usually use this is that, before they start off with a prescription drug regime that may cause serious side effects and cost a lot of money, they combine a placebo (homeopathy) with lifestyle changes. It's a sensible approach, both because of the placebo effect, and because it stops irrational patients from hurting themselves with drugs they may not need.
And I'm sorry to burst your illusion, but efficacy, safety, and scientific rationale for FDA-approved drugs is usually not that great either, and failure of FDA-approved drugs to live up to their promises costs society far more than homeopathy even if homeopathy were not useful.
And I'm sorry to burst your illusion, but efficacy, safety, and scientific rationale for FDA-approved drugs is usually not that great either,
They are tested against, and must beat placebos to be approved.
But I get it now, it isn't that homeopathy works, you agree it doesn't. It's that everything the government touches is worse than doing nothing. That's a different discussion. I hear, I understand, and I think you are a nutjob that should just join a militia.
Learn to love Alaska
Yes, I'm quite familiar with how that works, which is exactly why I was saying efficacy, safety, and scientific rationale for FDA-approved drugs is usually not that great either. See, determining whether a drug "beats" a placebo is difficult and involves judgment calls.
Which part of Yes, it does work did you not understand?
Which part of Yes, it does work did you not understand?
The part where "placebo" is given as proof it works. That means it doesn't work, and the person using "placebo" knows it doesn't work.
The anti-government loon is just re-defining "work" to mean "doesn't work, in a manner I find pleasing".
Learn to love Alaska
If you are going to outlaw homeopathy because it's little more than a placebo, you need to also pull all the drugs from the market that are also little more than placebos, which includes many antidepressants.
If homeopathy has failed at anything, it's at properly advertising and usurping and corrupting scientific method, like the pharmaceutical industry with the help of the more unscrupulous members of the medical community has been so very successful at for decades.
In India there are Homeopathy colleges around the country, all big government hospitals need to employ at least 1 homeopathy doctor. All people I met (in 40 years of my life), except one or two all BELIEVE in homeopathy from personal experience and even encourages it to be side effect free and less dangerous. Don't see it is going to go anywhere atleast in India in next decade
I'm just curious as to how people survived as a species. If "homeopathy" is really ineffective, and sometimes dangerous, then humanity surely would have been lost to disease, disaster, and famine long ago. The fact of the matter is that big pharma has been fighting with copious amounts of money to secure the natural resources that are used to synthesize their white person approved medicines from the same ingredients as the native medicines. Opium poppies contain some over 25 different medicinal compounds. Several thousands of species of plants and fungi that grow in the south american jungles are being harvested to make your medicines using the same damn chemicals. If your definition of homeopathy includes people praying to crystal obelisks, you're very confused.
Well, Big Pharma pays about 1.6 billion per year settling lawsuits under the "False Claims Act", that is more than the Vatican paid total.
Looks like someone else is doing all the lying...
Everything you write is nonsense APK.