Minutus

I agree Tanya, and those were good points Chris, but he was overtaken. As wonderful a homeopath, person, and speaker in another situation he may be, she beat him up in the public view here. With her statements on placebo - which I was amazed at, it was a perfect opportunity to douse it some with facts like, allopathic doctors & patients both 'know what is being given', in homeopathy the wrong remedy will not work & the correct one work, and unconscious patients, babies & animals all respond...have her respond to something for a change and explain that.
She went on about being more dilute = being more *effective*, not correct. She said it works *because* water has memory, well yes, but an opportunity to build on that over simplification for the public ear. He agrees with her about being implausible quite well, not sure that helped without something sparkling to follow. Then the whole direction of 'only as last resort' was really stamped in there.
So it's not disrespectful to look at all this and be realistic as to what this looked like to the public.
Thanks,
Liz

--- In minutus@yahoogroups.com, "Tanya Marquette" wrote:

Well, I doubt I was the only viewer who wasn't overtaken by the female
speaker's presentation or who fell asleep listening to Lewith ). We know
that public tv performances are a whole artform unto themselves. No wonder
salespeople and politicians are trained beforehand in how to look, how to
sound, how to persuade, how to make that 5 second soundbite. Had Lewith
adopted a similar contemptuous or incredulous tone as did the female
speaker, *he* could have easily come across as male-dominant, and frankly
that has proven to be a real turn-off to a whole audience of female
listeners - and we know that women make up a large slice of supporters of
homoeopathy. The female speaker scored some points, but to me Lewith
countered with a very credible and undeniable fact, for which she had no
plausible answer. And this is it! Allopathic medicine has little or no
options when it comes to the treatment and *cure* of chronic disease. Who
doesn't have a relative suffering with arthritis, or who isn't on daily
allopathic cocktails for hypertension, depression, asthma, or who knows of
children in classrooms taking hyperactivity medication??? These people
become OUR patients. These people are OUR supporters, and that is due to the
fact that WE have successful cases that demonstrate this and where
allopathic treatment fails dismally.

Yes, there is room for improvement in public performances, I certainly
wouldn't have used the word "implausable" in relation to homoeopathy!, but
many of the current scientific trends that we take for granted today were
only 'imagined' last century and seemed otherwise entirely implausable then.
Who would have thought that nanoparticle technology would have been
developed for commercial use in many everyday consumer items?? I take my hat
off to anyone who can place themselves under the pressure of live-to-air
television interviews. I would still be taking heart and capitalizing on the
credible points he made because these same valid points are to made at a
grassroots level with the people you and I speak to day to day.

Chris.

I watched both those video interviews and I thought the homeopaths came out of it quite 'grown up'in comparison with the journalists.I did think of lots of things they should have said or should not have let the attackers get away with - but after the event. The ability to think of these things at the time is another matter and I agree that participating in media debates is a highly skilled business. It must be so easy to play into the hands of these debating types just by getting too carried away and not thinking every answer through. However,I am sure that most people can see how the discussions get shaped and who is doing what.

A patient came in this morning and told me he had been listening to a report on the radio about a research project at sheffield university 'proving' that homeopathy was useless. He said that as soon as the critics had had their say there was just one call after another from people saying how much they had benefitted personally. He said he tried to phone but the lines were so busy he couldn't get through.
Theresa
--- In minutus@yahoogroups.com, "Christine Gillen" wrote:

All truth passes through three stages.
First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer
German philosopher (1788 – 1860)

We are in the third stage
Lucy

Lucy De Pieri PhD, DCH

________________________________

From: Theresa
To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tue, December 1, 2009 7:28:52 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: [Minutus] Homeopathy in the news again today
I watched both those video interviews and I thought the homeopaths came out of it quite 'grown up'in comparison with the journalists. I did think of lots of things they should have said or should not have let the attackers get away with - but after the event. The ability to think of these things at the time is another matter and I agree that participating in media debates is a highly skilled business. It must be so easy to play into the hands of these debating types just by getting too carried away and not thinking every answer through. However,I am sure that most people can see how the discussions get shaped and who is doing what.

A patient came in this morning and told me he had been listening to a report on the radio about a research project at sheffield university 'proving' that homeopathy was useless. He said that as soon as the critics had had their say there was just one call after another from people saying how much they had benefitted personally. He said he tried to phone but the lines were so busy he couldn't get through.
Theresa

--- In minutus@yahoogroups .com , "Christine Gillen" wrote:

What Lewith failed to capitalize on was the statement the female doctor made, "I have no *faith* in homeopathy..."
He could have easily replied, "For that matter, there are plenty of us who have no faith in pharmaceutical-based medicine. I thought this was supposed to be a scientific debate?"
There is nothing "scientific" about Faith or Belief, which is simply dogma supported by emotion.He should have called her out on her choice of words.
This woman's assertions about the "thorough testing" of pharmaceutical products could have easily been countered with information about the actual brevity of these tests, the fact that products are marketed even when their efficacy is marginally higher than placebos, and no long term studies are done on anything prior to marketing.
Wonder what she would have had to say about the glut of ghost-written or pay-as-you-go "peer reviews" that have been exposed lately? Anyone heard of drug recalls? How about hundreds of thousands of deaths from prescribed drugs? No?
Very impartial and scientific, wouldn't you say?
Homeopathy is nothing more than a placebo? Where's her evidence?
But this issue of "faith" and "belief" is at the core of why everyone hasn't given up on allopathic medicine yet, when it can be asserted that it doesn't work, or at least, not very well. There are plenty of us who find much of what conventional medicine has to offer as just plain unacceptable. The vast amounts of money that are at stake in maintaining the current status quo are geared towards profit and expanding markets, not the betterment of health and well-being. Joe Public doesn't know much about the history of medicine or medical issues beyond what's spewed out on the 6 o'clock news or in the newspaper. He is admonished to "trust" his doctor (with the possible exception of "ask your doctor if Viagra is right for you!"). He is easy fodder for the five-minute-fix or the 20 words-or-less explanation, which is generally just a brush-off.
It's easy to see why pharmaceutical companies would love everyone to believe that everything can be solved through Chemistry. But Chemistry is not the Be All and End All of science, and they don't own the discipline, much as they would like to posture.
Newtonian physics explains the "what", but not the "why" of certain phenomena. It may be convenient to have a Law of Gravity, but it certainly does not explain the "cause" of what we call gravity. Have we lost sight of the fact that this thing we call gravity was operating long before someone decided to make up an equation to try to codify it. And there is still some debate as to whether this is the result of "attraction" or "repulsion" and a number of other issues. There is more theory behind what we think we know than what we actually do know.
Allopathic medical theories come and go with frequent rapidity, the next one usually not much better than the last. Lots of expensive tests. No cures. Lots of expensive drugs. No cures. Lots of fundraising. No cures. Lots of running. No cures. Raffle off more houses and cars. Are we cured yet?
There are no molecules of the originating substance in many homeopathic remedies? So what. It is a "what" but not a "why", and offers no objective proof for or against. There is more that remains unknown about molecular biophysics than what is known. Quantum physics is overtaking Newtonian physics and there is a compelling body of evidence emerging to support energy medicine.
We have to speak up. This is not a Flat Earth anymore.
Laurie

________________________________

From: lightspirals
To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Mon, November 30, 2009 10:32:29 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: [Minutus] Homeopathy in the news again today
I agree Tanya, and those were good points Chris, but he was overtaken. As wonderful a homeopath, person, and speaker in another situation he may be, she beat him up in the public view here. With her statements on placebo - which I was amazed at, it was a perfect opportunity to douse it some with facts like, allopathic doctors & patients both 'know what is being given', in homeopathy the wrong remedy will not work & the correct one work, and unconscious patients, babies & animals all respond...have her respond to something for a change and explain that.
She went on about being more dilute = being more *effective*, not correct. She said it works *because* water has memory, well yes, but an opportunity to build on that over simplification for the public ear. He agrees with her about being implausible quite well, not sure that helped without something sparkling to follow. Then the whole direction of 'only as last resort' was really stamped in there.
So it's not disrespectful to look at all this and be realistic as to what this looked like to the public.
Thanks,
Liz

--- In minutus@yahoogroups .com , "Tanya Marquette" wrote: