Homeopathy is bunkum

[Sheri Nakken]

Poor Sue
Clueless in the UK

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sue ... _fund_quac
ks_in_our_nh.html

Homeopathy is bunkum
Sue Blackmore

May 23, 2006 05:40 PM

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sue ... _fund_quac
ks_in_our_nh.html

A group of brave doctors has tried, again, to stop our precious NHS
resources being spent on quackery.

Oh yes, I'll get in trouble for saying "quackery"; I'll be told that
alternative therapists are not quacks, that they are all kind, caring,
open-minded people who help the sick and fight against the oppression of
closed-minded scientists who don't understand the holistic nature of these
truly spiritual human beings.

But these poor doctors will have it worse. They will get hate mail from
people who claim to be more loving and caring than them; they will be
called "arrogant" by people who "just know" that homeopathy works; they
will be threatened and ridiculed by people whose children have been "saved"
from the horrors of modern medicine by a homeopathic remedy that their
hardhearted doctor denied them on the NHS; and they will be questioned by
reporters who are nervous about siding with the unfashionable, commonsense
practice of actually testing whether a medicine works or not.

How do I know? Because it all happened to me during my 30 years of tackling
paranormal and alternative claims. And little has changed. Indeed, the fact
that mountains of negative evidence are simply ignored was one of the
reasons I finally got out. You can only bang your head against true
believers for so long. And being told you are arrogant, closed-minded,
unspiritual and heartless when all you are doing is trying to find out the
truth eventually gets you down.

We know that homeopathy doesn't work. We know this because (unlike those of
some treatments) the claims it makes are straightforward and testable.
Traditional homeopathy claims that if you choose the right remedy for that
particular person and give it at the right dilution (usually diluted so
much that it is nothing but water), then the person will get better. In
hundreds of experiments, this claim has been disproved (among them the
famous "remembering-water" experiment James Randi showed to be fraudulent
and repeated for television).

The opposition has recently become more sophisticated, with the claim that
conventional double-blind testing is not appropriate for alternative
therapies. We heard a version of this on BBC Radio 4's Today programme from
the wonderfully articulate, 93-year-old Jane Gilcrest, who said it was
"difficult to collect data" because it was hard to prove the effectiveness
of a therapy "based on people, not on symptoms".

Don't be fooled by this claim: the double-blind design works perfectly well
for people, not symptoms. Take 100 people suffering from anything you like,
as long as their state of deterioration or recovery can be measured. Then
let the best homeopaths do whatever it takes to choose the right treatment
for each one. They can spend hours or days questioning them; they can
explore their symptoms in any detail they like; they can do anything it
takes (other than give them real medicine, of course).

Now divide the group in half (ideally with roughly equal types of illness,
age, sex and so on in each of the resulting two groups); give the people in
one group whatever the homeopaths advised for each of them on the basis of
their personalised, holistic appraisal; take the other 50 and give them
someone else's bottle of specially chosen dilute solution (it won't do them
any harm: it's only water). And here's the critical point (the
double-blind): don't tell either the homeopaths or the patients whether
they are receiving their own treatment or someone else's. Now what happens?

We know what happens: it makes no difference. Experiments of this kind have
been done again and again. The people given the wrong homeopathic solution
get better just as often as the people upon whom time and effort was
lovingly lavished to choose exactly the right subtle combination of
spiritually attuned dilutions for their individual situation.

Homeopathy is bunkum; the time and effort are not. And there's the rub.
Please, please let's use NHS money to provide more time for doctors instead
of treatments we know don't work. If there is any money to spare on
holistic practices and on caring for the whole patient, not just the
symptoms, then let's give it to real nurses and doctors who use real
medicine that actually works. Then they, too, will be able to lavish time
and effort on their individual patients and bring about better medicine and
a better NHS.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Hahnemannian Homeopath
Well Within & Earth Mysteries & Sacred Site Tours (worldwide)
Vaccination Information & Choice Network
http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/vaccine.htm
http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/homeo.htm
homeopathycures@tesco.net
ONLINE Introduction to Homeopathy Classes
ONLINE Introduction to Vaccine Dangers Classes
Voicemail US 530-740-0561 UK phone from US 011-44-1874-624-936

[Rosemary C. Hyde, Ph.D.]

I guess the saddest part of Sue's article is her firmly entrenched belief
that in all circumstances, allopathic medicine is predictably effective and
beneficient.

Oh, well... Rosemary

[Lucy De Pieri]

So Sue how would you explain that homeopathy works on animals that have no idea about quakery, homeopathy or allopathy?
Lucy

Sheri Nakken wrote:
Poor Sue
Clueless in the UK

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sue ... _fund_quac
ks_in_our_nh.html

Homeopathy is bunkum
Sue Blackmore

May 23, 2006 05:40 PM

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sue ... _fund_quac
ks_in_our_nh.html

A group of brave doctors has tried, again, to stop our precious NHS
resources being spent on quackery.

Oh yes, I'll get in trouble for saying "quackery"; I'll be told that
alternative therapists are not quacks, that they are all kind, caring,
open-minded people who help the sick and fight against the oppression of
closed-minded scientists who don't understand the holistic nature of these
truly spiritual human beings.

But these poor doctors will have it worse. They will get hate mail from
people who claim to be more loving and caring than them; they will be
called "arrogant" by people who "just know" that homeopathy works; they
will be threatened and ridiculed by people whose children have been "saved"
from the horrors of modern medicine by a homeopathic remedy that their
hardhearted doctor denied them on the NHS; and they will be questioned by
reporters who are nervous about siding with the unfashionable, commonsense
practice of actually testing whether a medicine works or not.

How do I know? Because it all happened to me during my 30 years of tackling
paranormal and alternative claims. And little has changed. Indeed, the fact
that mountains of negative evidence are simply ignored was one of the
reasons I finally got out. You can only bang your head against true
believers for so long. And being told you are arrogant, closed-minded,
unspiritual and heartless when all you are doing is trying to find out the
truth eventually gets you down.

We know that homeopathy doesn't work. We know this because (unlike those of
some treatments) the claims it makes are straightforward and testable.
Traditional homeopathy claims that if you choose the right remedy for that
particular person and give it at the right dilution (usually diluted so
much that it is nothing but water), then the person will get better. In
hundreds of experiments, this claim has been disproved (among them the
famous "remembering-water" experiment James Randi showed to be fraudulent
and repeated for television).

The opposition has recently become more sophisticated, with the claim that
conventional double-blind testing is not appropriate for alternative
therapies. We heard a version of this on BBC Radio 4's Today programme from
the wonderfully articulate, 93-year-old Jane Gilcrest, who said it was
"difficult to collect data" because it was hard to prove the effectiveness
of a therapy "based on people, not on symptoms".

Don't be fooled by this claim: the double-blind design works perfectly well
for people, not symptoms. Take 100 people suffering from anything you like,
as long as their state of deterioration or recovery can be measured. Then
let the best homeopaths do whatever it takes to choose the right treatment
for each one. They can spend hours or days questioning them; they can
explore their symptoms in any detail they like; they can do anything it
takes (other than give them real medicine, of course).

Now divide the group in half (ideally with roughly equal types of illness,
age, sex and so on in each of the resulting two groups); give the people in
one group whatever the homeopaths advised for each of them on the basis of
their personalised, holistic appraisal; take the other 50 and give them
someone else's bottle of specially chosen dilute solution (it won't do them
any harm: it's only water). And here's the critical point (the
double-blind): don't tell either the homeopaths or the patients whether
they are receiving their own treatment or someone else's. Now what happens?

We know what happens: it makes no difference. Experiments of this kind have
been done again and again. The people given the wrong homeopathic solution
get better just as often as the people upon whom time and effort was
lovingly lavished to choose exactly the right subtle combination of
spiritually attuned dilutions for their individual situation.

Homeopathy is bunkum; the time and effort are not. And there's the rub.
Please, please let's use NHS money to provide more time for doctors instead
of treatments we know don't work. If there is any money to spare on
holistic practices and on caring for the whole patient, not just the
symptoms, then let's give it to real nurses and doctors who use real
medicine that actually works. Then they, too, will be able to lavish time
and effort on their individual patients and bring about better medicine and
a better NHS.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Hahnemannian Homeopath
Well Within & Earth Mysteries & Sacred Site Tours (worldwide)
Vaccination Information & Choice Network
http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/vaccine.htm
http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/homeo.htm
homeopathycures@tesco.net
ONLINE Introduction to Homeopathy Classes
ONLINE Introduction to Vaccine Dangers Classes
Voicemail US 530-740-0561 UK phone from US 011-44-1874-624-936
Visit Minutus Website at http://www.minutus.org

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[Penelope]

A lot of Guardian readers are humanists, mostly a decent enough group
of people but convinced that life evolved and that all what you can
see is all that there is. Science is all they have got. Homeopathy
would ruin their beliefs if true.
--- In minutus@yahoogroups.com, "Rosemary C. Hyde, Ph.D."
wrote:
belief
effective and