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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.

5 of 668 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Does it matter? by WillKemp · · Score: -1, Troll

    I went to the chemist a while back to buy some ibprofen, the chemist suggested a homeopathic, insisting it was just as good. If I hadn't been educated about homeopathy, I would have probably bought the homeopathic crap.

    Recent research has shown that most over the counter painkillers are ineffective - i.e., no more use than homeopathics, exhibiting only a placebo effect. However there's nothing in homeopathic "medicine" that's likely to make you sick, but the same isn't true of analgesics. Homeopathics may not do anything, but they may do less harm than other "medicines", which also don't do anything.

  2. Re: Does it matter? by arth1 · · Score: -1, Troll

    Steve Jobs died because he delayed treatment for his cancer while he tried an alternative therapy with no backing by research.

    You're invoking magic in the form of clairvoyance here, and as a result, you are no better than the homeopaths. The problem is the word "because". You don't know whether he would have lived.
    Of course, choosing homeopathic "cures", if he did that, was extraordinarily stupid, but claiming to know what would have happened is even more stupid.

  3. Re:Yes it matters by paulj108 · · Score: -1, Troll

    Homeopathy is completely inappropriate for ER, which is one of the few areas western medicine actually excels. Perhaps it was meant to be funny, but it's also quite specious.

  4. Re:Yes it matters by MobSwatter · · Score: -1, Troll

    Exactly, and with Obamacare I wonder just how much was spent by big pharma to 'get that done'.

    Some say homeopathic isn't the way to go, but what is Chinese medicine based upon? The medicinal use of garlic is awesome in the way it forms different compounds when it breaks down in the body but way to cheep to market, big pharma's gotta hate that with heart conditions; http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medline... . I've seen doctors tell a cancer patient that they are a gonner, but I've seen Indian Bloodroot turn it around where mainstream medicine obviously failed. There is a large amount of American medicine that is based off organic compounds and that is exactly what homeopathy is about. To each their own unless you like Obamacare forced between your cheeks.

  5. Re: Yes it matters by MobSwatter · · Score: -1, Troll

    Actually I would never advise a patient to come off chemo. I rather enjoy hearing about the doctor who told the patient they are dead within at year but have to cope with something else added to treatment that has worked outside the normal mainstream medicine. That will be a doctor that retains an open mind to the fact that there are other answers and can produce better results than what that doctor has been taught do within mainstream medicine. What Indian bloodroot does is attach itself to a cancerous cell and mark it for the body to expel through it's natural processes and it is a bit better about dealing with new cancerous cell division than chemo. It does not matter if the cell is already being attacked or not, it does not fix a cancerous cell, and does not put cancer into remission, it expels it This was developed by native Washoe Indians in a region that is known to be plagued with uranium, and obviously radon gas that decays into the daughters of radon which are 5 times more radioactive than radon itself. Not bad for a 'boneheaded' Indian medicine man huh? But it does work.