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UK May Blacklist Homeopathy (bbc.co.uk)
New submitter Maritz writes: Vindication may be on the horizon for people who defer to reality in matters of health — UK ministers are considering whether homeopathy should be put on a blacklist of treatments GPs in England are banned from prescribing, the BBC has learned. The controversial practice is based on the principle that "like cures like," but critics say patients are being given useless sugar pills. The Faculty of Homeopathy said patients supported the therapy. A consultation is expected to take place in 2016. The total NHS bill for homeopathy, including homeopathic hospitals and GP prescriptions, is thought to be about £4m.
There's no need for believers in homeopathy to worry about this. They can just grind the remaining prescriptions for homeopathic remedies into dust, and present a grain of that dust to the pharmacist, who then gives them a glass of water. Problem solved.
Note how sympathetic the BBC is to homeopathy, giving a soft ride to someone who makes money from punting it.
Apparently that's "balance".
Next week the BBC will run an article on the different viewpoints on the square root of 16, giving equal time to those who say it is 8.
Dominic Connor,Quant Headhunter
It's no different than prescribing a placebo, which does have a proven effect, although I expect it costs a lot more to see a homeopathy "specialist" than it does for a regular doctor to prescribe some do-nothing pills.
Oh no... it's the future.
Next time he does it, show him a picture of Steve Jobs at the end.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Here, can we compromise? The homeopaths get their £4m, only we'll first dilute it down 60X before giving it to them. That'll only increase it's buying power, right? ;)
Hello from Sputnik 2. I am receiving you.
The most common placebo is antibiotics prescribed for viral infections. Homeopathy is certainly better than that, since at least it is harmless (since there is nothing in it).
Let's say you are a doctor and you prescribe antibiotics for what you believe is actually a viral disease. In many cases they don't actually know for 100% certain that it is viral and cannot because they did not do any test to confirm that thesis. In some percent of the cases the disease will turn out to be bacterial. In most cases the antibiotics will have little to no short term negative consequences for the patient. It's not a placebo because it isn't actually clear that it won't treat the disease and we know for a fact that it has an actual medicinal effect. We know for a fact that homeopathy does not and indeed cannot have a medicinal effect because there is no chemical reaction.
So let's say you prescribe homeopathy instead of antibiotics and the disease progresses and the patient gets very ill or dies. Now you are guilty of malpractice because you prescribed something you knew to be snake oil. You would have been better off either prescribing the antibiotics or even doing nothing. When you get dragged into court the first thing the lawyer is going to do is ask you why you didn't prescribe an actual medicine.
It seems silly to ban homeopathy while overprescription of antibiotics is still rampant.
Those are separate problems and homeopathy is NOT the solution to over prescription of antibiotics. Let's not conflate two issues and give homeopathy credibility when it deserves none.
To expand a little bit, a vaccine contains a substance, often a specific protein, a viral capsid, or k illed/attenuated bacteria, which the human body recognizes as a pathogen. The immune system then mounts a response by creating antibodies and memory immune cells, which primes the system to appropriately and effectively mount a rapid immune response to eliminate the pathogen when it comes for real.
We can observe and measure the effects of a vaccine in the body. We can, and do, test for antibody production. I had some titers last year to verify that I had antibodies for measles, mumps, varicella, tetanus, etc. I didn't have any antibodies to mumps, so I had to get another MMR vaccine, and afterwards I had the antibodies. I was not immune to mumps, then I got a vaccine and now I am.
By contrast, homeopathic preparations contain literally no substances other than the dilutant (typically sugar, water, or alcohol). Homeopathic preparers take nonstandardized substances, such as a plant extract containing unknown and undstandardized quantities of who knows what, and serially dilutes them in water etc. After 10-100 dilutions, the final preparation typically contains none of the original substance at all.
Homeopathic preparations have no known or even theoretical mechanism of possible action. Indeed, the entire idea of homeopathy is directly contradictory to everything we know about biology, pharmacology, and physics.
Note that this is in contrast to herbal or natural remedies, which, while unstandardized and often not thoroughly tested, are biologically plausible.