Minutus

Yes, definitely confirmed to occur, and interesting indeed! Certain of the epigenitic *effects* were noted years back, tho the name and more developed concept are I think pretty new. Examples would include the observation that offspring of victims of famine, starvation, and some nutritional defiencies still show the effects even generations later; also an example given on the show was that cloned animals do not have exactly the same markings, and it was, if I remember right, specifically said to be influenced by epigenetic factors.
Shannon

Ah. Thank you!

John
2009/11/3 Shannon & Bob Nelson >

This is more info on the gene changes:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8346715.stm

Kerry

kerry
interesting article. what concerns me is that the focus seems to be how
to use drugs (more drugs) to alter behavior.
what i am interested in is how homeopathy can undo those genetic changes
it seems to me that if they can use lab techniques to trace epigenetic changes
due to stress, why can't homeopathic impact be assessed to undo those changes
or create other changes that counterbalance the damage?
tanya

There is no profit for them in homeopathy so they are never going to be
interested. I would also hope that there would be no one within the
homeopathic community who would be barbaric enough to cause misery to an
animal for the homeopathic cause. We know what homeopathy can achieve
without making animals suffer. We would do better to ensure that as
many cases as possible are documented and presented to the public - the
internet is an excellent medium for this as it is now easily accessible
to many in the developed worlds where the drug companies are doing their
best to attack homeopathy. How many homeopaths photograph things such
as tumours and skin diseases, and continue to photograph as improvement
develops? I realise that this is something that you need client
approval for, but I am sure many would be happy to give that permission.
A series of photographs can hold attention and pass the message on far
better than a series of words; combine the two and you can work wonders
in helping homeopathy to become more mainstream.

If it is ok with Saroush I will post a series of photos to the groups
photo section of the home page to show what I mean, or I will if I can
find them. They show a mammary tumour on one of my pigs and its
progress with homeopathy - it was homeopathy done badly by a
practitioner that had little understanding of Hahnemann's teaching but
despite that it still achieved results.

Kerry

Hi, Kerry --

Thank you for that additional information. I agree completely that animal experiments are unnecessary in showing homoeopathy's potential. That said, there was, I recall, some work done, at least eight years ago, on the influence of high homoeopathic potencies on fruit-fly genetics. I don't recall the effect being transmissible to the next generation, but it may have been; I don't think I read the complete reports.

Tanya, though a drug was used in the experiment, it's my understanding that it was used merely to show that the immediate cause of the mice's problems was the hormone, not as an experimental treatment; at least, so far.

Though I've little doubt that homoeopathic treatment could cause the reversal of untoward epigenetic changes, such an aim seems to me to be in a completely different camp from the aim of causing other changes to counterbalance the traumatic ones.

Let's remember always that the basis of (the practice of) homoeopathy is (a knowledge of) its capacity to derange health and that any substance capable of causing a change in health has that capacity by virtue of its capacity to derange it; in other words, that there can be no counterbalancing except via (stimulating) the organism's reactivity, its production of a secondary action in response to a medicine. With that firmly in mind, it becomes clear that two derangements differing in consequence sufficiently to cause differing sets of epigenetic changes are unlikely to enjoy a homoeopathic relationship. Even reversal of traumatic epigenetic changes would be a misleading aim; our true aim must always be to find a substance sufficiently similar to the patient's symptoms that it is capable of replacing them with its own. Reversals of many kinds are, of course, the natural result.

Cheers!

John
2009/11/9 Kerry

Can you imagine if Hahnemann hadn't have had the forethought to go with
human provings and instead had used animals? We could immediately write
off the sensations section of the repertory, the pain section and the
mentals (there would be mental reactions but we would have no means of
interpreting them correctly). We could write off most of the time
section and the modalities section. Forget the voice section that
wouldn't be there. Menstruation section would be gone or would have
little relevance to humans. A lot of the male and female sexual system
symptoms would be gone. A lot of the bladder section would be gone, as
would most of the appetite and foods sections. Basically we would have
a system of medicine that was as worthless as the allopathic system. I
sincerely hope that we don't start to go down the experiment route now,
as it would only detract from a system that is based on compassion, true
observation and genuine understanding of disease. We don't need to
demonstrate to the scientific community that homeopathy works, a
community who would never listen anyway, we need to demonstrate to the
general public, and that doesn't need animals to suffer in order to get
the message across.

Kerry

Well spoken!

John
2009/11/9 Kerry

like your approach
tanya