A kind of magic?

[Soroush Ebrahimi]

Series: Bad science

A kind of magic?
Time after time, properly conducted scientific studies have proved that
homeopathic remedies work no better than simple placebos. So why do so many
sensible people swear by them? And why do homeopaths believe they are
victims of a smear campaign? Ben Goldacre follows a trail of fudged
statistics, bogus surveys and widespread self-deception
Ben Goldacre
There are some aspects of quackery that are harmless - childish even - and
there are some that are very serious indeed. On Tuesday, to my great
delight, the author Jeanette Winterson launched a scientific defence of
homeopathy in these pages. She used words such as "nano" meaninglessly, she
suggested that there is a role for homeopathy in the treatment of HIV in
Africa, and she said that an article in the Lancet today will call on
doctors to tell their patients that homeopathic "medicines" offer no
benefit.
The article does not say that, and I should know, because I wrote it. It is
not an act of fusty authority, and I claim none: I look about 12, and I'm
only a few years out of medical school. This is all good fun, but my adamant
stance, that I absolutely lack any authority, is key: because this is not
about one man's opinion, and there is nothing even slightly technical or
complicated about the evidence on homeopathy, or indeed anything, when it is
clearly explained.
And there is the rub. Because Winterson tries to tell us - like every other
homeopathy fan - that for some mystical reason, which is never made entirely
clear, the healing powers of homeopathic pills are special, and so their
benefits cannot be tested like every other pill. This has become so deeply
embedded in our culture, by an industry eager to obscure our very
understanding of evidence, that even some doctors now believe it.
Enough is enough. Evidence-based medicine is beautiful, elegant, clever and,
most of all, important. It is how we know what will kill or cure you. These
are biblical themes, and it is ridiculous that what I am going to explain to
you now is not taught in schools. So let's imagine that we are talking to a
fan of homeopathy, one who is both intelligent and reflective. "Look," they
begin, "all I know is that I feel better when I take a homeopathic pill."
OK, you reply. We absolutely accept that. Nobody can take that away from the
homeopathy fan.
But perhaps it's the placebo effect? You both think you know about the
placebo effect already, but you are both wrong. The mysteries of the
interaction between body and mind are far more complex than can ever be
permitted in the crude, mechanistic and reductionist world of the
alternative therapist, where pills do all the work.
The placebo response is about far more than the pills - it is about the
cultural meaning of a treatment, our expectation, and more. So we know that
four sugar pills a day will clear up ulcers quicker than two sugar pills, we
know that a saltwater injection is a more effective treatment for pain than
a sugar pill, we know that green sugar pills are more effective for anxiety
than red, and we know that brand packaging on painkillers increases pain
relief.
A baby will respond to its parents' expectations and behaviour, and the
placebo effect is still perfectly valid for children and pets. Placebo pills
with no active ingredient can even elicit measurable biochemical responses
in humans, and in animals (when they have come to associate the pill with an
active ingredient). This is undoubtedly one of the most interesting areas of
medical science ever.
"Well, it could be that," says your honest, reflective homeopathy fan. "I
have no way of being certain. But I just don't think that's it. All I know
is, I get better with homeopathy."
Ah, now, but could that be because of "regression to the mean"? This is an
even more fascinating phenomenon: all things, as the new-agers like to say,
have a natural cycle. Your back pain goes up and down over a week, or a
month, or a year. Your mood rises and falls. That weird lump in your wrist
comes and goes. You get a cold; it gets better.
If you take an ineffective sugar pill, at your sickest, it's odds on you're
going to get better, in exactly the same way that if you sacrifice a goat,
after rolling a double six, your next roll is likely to be lower. That is
regression to the mean.
"Well, it could be that," says the homeopathy fan. "But I just don't think
so. All I know is, I get better with homeopathy."
How can you both exclude these explanations - since you both need to - and
move on from this impasse? Luckily homeopaths have made a very simple, clear
claim: they say that the pill they prescribe will make you get better.
You could do a randomised, controlled trial on almost any intervention you
wanted to assess: comparing two teaching methods, or two forms of
psychotherapy, or two plant-growth boosters - literally anything. The first
trial was in the Bible (Daniel 1: 1-16, since you asked) and compared the
effect of two different diets on soldiers' vigour. Doing a trial is not a
new or complicated idea, and a pill is the easiest thing to test of all.
Here is a model trial for homeopathy. You take, say, 200 people, and divide
them at random into two groups of 100. All of the patients visit their
homeopath, they all get a homeopathic prescription at the end (because
homeopaths love to prescribe pills even more than doctors) for whatever it
is that the homeopath wants to prescribe, and all the patients take their
prescription to the homeopathic pharmacy. Every patient can be prescribed
something completely different, an "individualised" prescription - it
doesn't matter.
Now here is the twist: one group gets the real homeopathy pills they were
prescribed (whatever they were), and the patients in the other group are
given fake sugar pills. Crucially, neither the patients, nor the people who
meet them in the trial, know who is getting which treatment.
This trial has been done, time and time again, with homeopathy, and when you
do a trial like this, you find, overall, that the people getting the placebo
sugar pills do just as well as those getting the real, posh, expensive,
technical, magical homeopathy pills.
So how come you keep hearing homeopaths saying that there are trials where
homeopathy does do better than placebo? This is where it gets properly
interesting. This is where we start to see homeopaths, and indeed all
alternative therapists more than ever, playing the same sophisticated tricks
that big pharma still sometimes uses to pull the wool over the eyes of
doctors.
Yes, there are some individual trials where homeopathy does better, first
because there are a lot of trials that are simply not "fair tests". For
example - and I'm giving you the most basic examples here - there are many
trials in alternative therapy journals where the patients were not
"blinded": that is, the patients knew whether they were getting the real
treatment or the placebo. These are much more likely to be positive in
favour of your therapy, for obvious reasons. There is no point in doing a
trial if it is not a fair test: it ceases to be a trial, and simply becomes
a marketing ritual.
There are also trials where it seems patients were not randomly allocated to
the "homeopathy" or "sugar pill" groups: these are even sneakier. You should
randomise patients by sealed envelopes with random numbers in them, opened
only after the patient is fully registered into the trial. Let's say that
you are "randomly allocating" patients by, um, well, the first patient gets
homeopathy, then the next patient gets the sugar pills, and so on. If you do
that, then you already know, as the person seeing the patient, which
treatment they are going to get, before you decide whether or not they are
suitable to be recruited into your trial. So a homeopath sitting in a clinic
would be able - let's say unconsciously - to put more sick patients into the
sugar pill group, and healthier patients into the homeopathy group, thus
massaging the results. This, again, is not a fair test.
Congratulations. You now understand evidence-based medicine to degree level.
So when doctors say that a trial is weak, and poor quality, it's not because
they want to maintain the hegemony, or because they work for "the man": it's
because a poor trial is simply not a fair test of a treatment. And it's not
cheaper to do a trial badly, it's just stupid, or, of course, conniving,
since unfair tests will give false positives in favour of homeopathy.
Now there are bad trials in medicine, of course, but here's the difference:
in medicine there is a strong culture of critical self-appraisal. Doctors
are taught to spot bad research (as I am teaching you now) and bad drugs.
The British Medical Journal recently published a list of the top three most
highly accessed and referenced studies from the past year, and they were on,
in order: the dangers of the anti-inflammatory Vioxx; the problems with the
antidepressant paroxetine; and the dangers of SSRI antidepressants in
general. This is as it should be.
With alternative therapists, when you point out a problem with the evidence,
people don't engage with you about it, or read and reference your work. They
get into a huff. They refuse to answer calls or email queries. They wave
their hands and mutter sciencey words such as "quantum" and "nano". They
accuse you of being a paid plant from some big pharma conspiracy. They
threaten to sue you. They shout, "What about thalidomide, science boy?",
they cry, they call you names, they hold lectures at their trade fairs about
how you are a dangerous doctor, they contact and harass your employer, they
try to dig up dirt from your personal life, or they actually threaten you
with violence (this has all happened to me, and I'm compiling a great
collection of stories for a nice documentary, so do keep it coming).
But back to the important stuff. Why else might there be plenty of positive
trials around, spuriously? Because of something called "publication bias".
In all fields of science, positive results are more likely to get published,
because they are more newsworthy, there's more mileage in publishing them
for your career, and they're more fun to write up. This is a problem for all
of science. Medicine has addressed this problem, making people register
their trial before they start, on a "clinical trials database", so that you
cannot hide disappointing data and pretend it never happened.
How big is the problem of publication bias in alternative medicine? Well
now, in 1995, only 1% of all articles published in alternative medicine
journals gave a negative result. The most recent figure is 5% negative. This
is very, very low.
There is only one conclusion you can draw from this observation.
Essentially, when a trial gives a negative result, alternative therapists,
homeopaths or the homeopathic companies simply do not publish it. There will
be desk drawers, box files, computer folders, garages, and back offices
filled with untouched paperwork on homeopathy trials that did not give the
result the homeopaths wanted. At least one homeopath reading this piece will
have a folder just like that, containing disappointing, unpublished data
that they are keeping jolly quiet about. Hello there!
Now, you could just pick out the positive trials, as homeopaths do, and
quote only those. This is called "cherry picking" the literature - it is not
a new trick, and it is dishonest, because it misrepresents the totality of
the literature. There is a special mathematical tool called a
"meta-analysis", where you take all the results from all the studies on one
subject, and put the figures into one giant spreadsheet, to get the most
representative overall answer. When you do this, time and time again, and
you exclude the unfair tests, and you account for publication bias, you
find, in all homeopathy trials overall, that homeopathy does no better than
placebos.
The preceding paragraphs took only three sentences in my brief Lancet piece,
although only because that readership didn't need to be told what a
meta-analysis is. Now, here is the meat. Should we even care, I asked, if
homeopathy is no better than placebo? Because the strange answer is, maybe
not.
Let me tell you about a genuine medical conspiracy to suppress alternative
therapies. During the 19th-century cholera epidemic, death rates at the
London Homeopathic Hospital were three times lower than at the Middlesex
Hospital. Homeopathic sugar pills won't do anything against cholera, of
course, but the reason for homeopathy's success in this epidemic is even
more interesting than the placebo effect: at the time, nobody could treat
cholera. So, while hideous medical treatments such as blood-letting were
actively harmful, the homeopaths' treatments at least did nothing either
way.
Today, similarly, there are often situations where people want treatment,
but where medicine has little to offer - lots of back pain, stress at work,
medically unexplained fatigue, and most common colds, to give just a few
examples. Going through a theatre of medical treatment, and trying every
medication in the book, will give you only side-effects. A sugar pill in
these circumstances seems a very sensible option.
But just as homeopathy has unexpected benefits, so it can have unexpected
side-effects. Prescribing a pill carries its own risks: it medicalises
problems, it can reinforce destructive beliefs about illness, and it can
promote the idea that a pill is an appropriate response to a social problem,
or a modest viral illness.
But there are also ethical problems. In the old days, just 50 years ago,
"communication skills" at medical school consisted of how not to tell your
patient they had terminal cancer. Now doctors are very open and honest with
their patients. When a healthcare practitioner of any description prescribes
a pill that they know full well is no more effective than a placebo -
without disclosing that fact to their patient - then they trample all over
some very important modern ideas, such as getting informed consent from your
patient, and respecting their autonomy.
Sure, you could argue that it might be in a patient's interest to lie to
them, and I think there is an interesting discussion to be had here, but at
least be aware that this is the worst kind of old-fashioned, Victorian
doctor paternalism: and ultimately, when you get into the habit of
misleading people, that undermines the relationship between all doctors and
patients, which is built on trust, and ultimately honesty. If, on the other
hand, you prescribe homeopathy pills, but you don't know that they perform
any better than placebo in trials, then you are not familiar with the trial
literature, and you are therefore incompetent to prescribe them. These are
fascinating ethical problems, and yet I have never once found a single
homeopath discussing them.
There are also more concrete harms. It's routine marketing practice for
homeopaths to denigrate mainstream medicine. There's a simple commercial
reason for this: survey data show that a disappointing experience with
mainstream medicine is almost the only factor that regularly correlates with
choosing alternative therapies. That's an explanation, but not an excuse.
And this is not just talking medicine down. One study found that more than
half of all the homeopaths approached advised patients against the MMR
vaccine for their children, acting irresponsibly on what will quite probably
come to be known as the media's MMR hoax. How did the alternative therapy
world deal with this concerning finding, that so many among them were
quietly undermining the vaccination schedule? Prince Charles's office tried
to have the lead researcher sacked. A BBC Newsnight investigation found that
almost all the homeopaths approached recommended ineffective homeopathic
pills to protect against malaria, and advised against medical malaria
prophylactics, while not even giving basic advice on bite prevention. Very
holistic. Very "complementary". Any action against the homeopaths concerned?
None.
And in the extreme, when they're not undermining public-health campaigns and
leaving their patients exposed to fatal diseases, homeopaths who are not
medically qualified can miss fatal diagnoses, or actively disregard them,
telling their patients grandly to stop their inhalers, and throw away their
heart pills. The Society of Homeopaths is holding a symposium on the
treatment of Aids, featuring the work of Peter Chappell, a man who claims to
have found a homeopathic solution to the epidemic. We reinforce all of this
by collectively humouring homeopaths' healer fantasies, and by allowing them
to tell porkies about evidence.
And what porkies. Somehow, inexplicably, a customer satisfaction survey from
a homeopathy clinic is promoted in the media as if it trumps a string of
randomised trials. No wonder the public find it hard to understand medical
research. Almost every time you read about a "trial" in the media, it is
some bogus fish oil "trial" that isn't really a "trial", or a homeopath
waving their hands about, because the media finds a colourful quack claim
more interesting than genuine, cautious, bland, plodding medical research.
By pushing their product relentlessly with this scientific flim-flam,
homeopaths undermine the public understanding of what it means to have an
evidence base for a treatment. Worst of all, they do this at the very time
when academics are working harder than ever to engage the public in a
genuine collective ownership and understanding of clinical research, and
when most good doctors are trying to educate and involve their patients in
the selection of difficult treatment options. This is not a nerdy point.
This is vital.
Here is the strangest thing. Every single criticism I have made could easily
be managed with clear and open discussion of the problems. But homoeopaths
have walled themselves off from the routine cut-and-thrust of academic
medicine, and reasoned critique is all too often met with anger, shrieks of
persecution and avoidance rather than argument. The Society of Homeopaths
(the largest professional body in Europe, the ones running that frightening
conference on HIV) have even threatened to sue bloggers who criticise them.
The university courses on homeopathy that I and others have approached have
flatly refused to provide basic information, such as what they teach and
how. It's honestly hard to think of anything more unhealthy in an academic
setting.
This is exactly what I said, albeit in nerdier academic language, in today's
edition of the Lancet, Britain's biggest medical journal. These views are
what homeopaths are describing as an "attack". But I am very clear. There is
no single right way to package up all of this undeniable and true
information into a "view" on homeopathy. When I'm feeling generous, I think:
homeopathy could have value as placebo, on the NHS even, although there are
ethical considerations, and these serious cultural side-effects to be
addressed. But when they're suing people instead of arguing with them,
telling people not to take their medical treatments, killing patients,
running conferences on HIV fantasies, undermining the public's understanding
of evidence and, crucially, showing absolutely no sign of ever being able to
engage in a sensible conversation about the perfectly simple ethical and
cultural problems that their practice faces, I think: these people are just
morons. I can't help that: I'm human. The facts are sacred, but my view on
them changes from day to day. And the only people who could fix me in one
camp or the other, now, are the homeopaths themselves.
It doesn't all add up ...
The 'science' behind homeopathy
Homeopathic remedies are made by taking an ingredient, such as arsenic, and
diluting it down so far that there is not a single molecule left in the dose
that you get. The ingredients are selected on the basis of like cures like,
so that a substance that causes sweating at normal doses, for example, would
be used to treat sweating.
Many people confuse homeopathy with herbalism and do not realise just how
far homeopathic remedies are diluted. The typical dilution is called "30C":
this means that the original substance has been diluted by 1 drop in 100, 30
times. On the Society of Homeopaths site, in their "What is homeopathy?"
section, they say that "30C contains less than 1 part per million of the
original substance."
This is an understatement: a 30C homeopathic preparation is a dilution of 1
in 10030, or rather 1 in 1060, which means a 1 followed by 60 zeroes, or -
let's be absolutely clear - a dilution of 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000.
To phrase that in the Society of Homeopaths' terms, we should say: "30C
contains less than one part per million million million million million
million million million million million of the original substance."
At a homeopathic dilution of 100C, which they sell routinely, and which
homeopaths claim is even more powerful than 30C, the treating substance is
diluted by more than the total number of atoms in the universe. Homeopathy
was invented before we knew what atoms were, or how many there are, or how
big they are. It has not changed its belief system in light of this
information.
How can an almost infinitely dilute solution cure anything? Most homeopaths
claim that water has "a memory". They are unclear what this would look like,
and homeopaths' experiments claiming to demonstrate it are frequently
bizarre. As a brief illustration, American magician and debunker James Randi
has for many years had a $1m prize on offer for anyone who can demonstrate
paranormal abilities. He has made it clear that this cheque would go to
someone who can reliably distinguish a homeopathic dilution from water. His
money remains unclaimed.
Many homeopaths also claim they can transmit homeopathic remedies over the
internet, in CDs, down the telephone, through a computer, or in a piece of
music. Peter Chappell, whose work will feature at a conference organised by
the Society of Homeopaths next month, makes dramatic claims about his
ability to solve the Aids epidemic using his own homeopathic pills called
"PC Aids", and his specially encoded music. "Right now," he says, "Aids in
Africa could be significantly ameliorated by a simple tune played on the
radio."
· Ben Goldacre is a doctor and writes the Bad Science column in the
Guardian. His book Bad Science will be published by 4th Estate in 2008. Full
references for all the research described in this article, and the text of
the Lancet article, can be found at badscience.net
.
Regards

Soroush Ebrahimi Peter Hughes
Finrod Ltd

[Rochelle]

This is the Society of Homeopaths reply to the Lancet article which I have
not seen.

Rochelle

Letter to the Editor of The Lancet
Dear Sir

We read your Special Report on homeopathy in Britain (Vol 370) with
interest. For a publication that bills itself as the world's leading
medical journal, we were surprised that Udani Samarasekera's report merely
rehashes time-worn arguments, without presenting any new information to your
readers.

As you know, we provided you with a six-page set of responses to questions
posed in connection with this report. We find it fascinating that not one
of those responses was actually printed.

To better inform your readers, we would like to point out that The Society
of Homeopaths is the largest professional organisation registering
homeopaths in Britain, representing more than 2,300 members overall. We are
committed to fostering an integrated, patient-centred approach to health and
wellness, treating each person's symptoms as unique and each person's care
as an individual programme.

Society registered homeopaths have satisfied The Society's educational and
professional requirements and agreed to practise in accordance with The
Society of Homeopaths' Code of Ethics & Practice, the Core Criteria for
Homeopathic Practice and the National Occupational Standards for Homeopathy.

We concur with our colleagues across the medical profession that proper
regulation is essential to delivering integrated, patient-centred care and
we welcome increased regulation of the homeopathy profession. In fact, it
is something that we, as the leading professional organisation, have been
advocating for years.

Kind regards,

Paula Ross
Chief Executive
Registered Homeopath
EFT(Advanced) Practitioner
www.southporthomeopathy.co.uk

[muthu kumar]

Peter Chappell, whose work will feature at a conference organised by
called
"Aids in
Has this claim been made by Peter Chappell? If it has been and if we
tolerate such claims in our conferences then no wonder we are getting
beat up - with good reason...

This is the kind of "expanded" homeopathy that we should guard against...

I agree with some of the points that are made in this article even
though they were made with the intent to harm homeopathy and a
conviction that the sugar pills cannot do anything.

We have seen various opinions in this forum as more fodder for what
this guy says:

1)That thatched roofs of huts have vitality
2)Viruses have delusions
3)If there is some medicinal substance in the remedy that is not
homeopathy , it has to be only "energy"
4) Meditation provings are valid and so are medicines prescribed
according to chakras
5)There are no such things as viruses or bacteria
6)Never talk about disease diagnosis, we do not need them
7)Never talk about vaccines -
8) Medicines can be arrived at using pendulum, periodic tables, and
the saree a woman wears...
9)No prevention is necessary since it is all about the terrain and
constitution
10)Homeopathy cannot be researched and so need not meet the needs of
modern science

I could go on and on but you get the idea...

I have always been saying that

1) Homeopathy is first and foremost a medical science and should be
considered and researched as such

2) If we define it as a medical "science" and not an art then it
should be researched and approached the way any other scientific
endeavor is - this is the time of evidence based medicine where even
questionable allopathic prescriptions and practices are abandoned-

3)It is a world of accountability and so we need to come up with
research methods that retain the spirit and case taking of homeopathy
and at the same time are acceptable to the research community

4)We should NOT consider ourselves as being in the opposite camp of
allopathy. Align ourselves with the science- allopathy is the science
that has survived; opposing it we are getting a bigger enemy. We
should be trained in all things allopathic ( at least to the extent of
an allopathic nurse or nurse practitioner) and then go beyond
that...This may not look correct to the "classical" eye - but if we
want to survive and flourish this is what we need to do- otherwise it
will Ben Goldacre now - Ken Somebodyelse tomorrow-
BTW this is what is being done in Homeopathic medical schools in
India- and which Manish Bhatia bemoaned in one of the editorials that
was posted here...

5)A century ago homeopathy made allopathy face up to the ridiculous
and sometimes barbaric practices in it and to correct itself... may be
it is time for us to do the same because of the pressure from
allopathy and get rid of some of the baggage and myth we have
collected ourselves...

6) Our joining the alternative therapy camp has branded us ( see in
the article how we have been clumped together with other toad oil
therapies)- we should seek out ways of distancing ourselves from them
at least in the future and slowly- When we are practising a therapy
that in itself is being questioned for authenticity and integrity
already, by aligning and practicing things that are even more so - is
not wise.

7)Accept the research and modern discoveries - may be with a larger
grain of salt- but try to use them to our advantage instead of going
around saying that there are no viruses in the world...

8) We do not have to oppose tooth and nail all the things that come
out of the allopathic camp- the need of the hour is to define who we
are, what we do and what WE should do and go about doing it...when we
talk about "it is all in the terrain", then we must first correct our
"terrain".

9)Establish a set of best practices...make sure all practitioners
follow that as applicable by law, do not bad mouth local allopaths,
try to work with them- alternative medicines are becoming more popular
- there has been more acceptance of these and that is why there is so
much opposition from allopathy- at the same time popularity comes with
a peril - our system is much more visible and so will get more
notoriety if we go about prescribing Butterfly LM to clean out throat
chakras...

( as an aside, yesterday I read in Yahoo that a man in India married a
dog to atone for his act - he killed 2 dogs a few years back and
believes that he has been cursed ever since... the reason that this is
being covered? Would any one have bothered to report this happening in
a village? It is because India is doing well economically and there
is much more investment there that this has become news- so popularity
comes with such risks)

10) Our actions will be come under microscope more and more, even
minor lapses and loose talk will be taken up to represent the whole
system ( like the way one homeopath explained her prescription of Apis
- "because the patient was a very busy person- busy like a bee- so I
gave her Apis") and pointed out for ridicule- and nothing is as
powerful and kills as quickly as ridicule...

[Luise Kunkle]

Hi H.,
Does Peter Chappell call his method homeopathy?

it sounds more like the "Lama Pills" of Tibetan Medicine - in his case
probably based on something equivalent in original African Medicine.
Does anyone know more?
Where did the article refer to your nos 1), 2), 3), 4), 8), or any of
the others you could name by going on and on (please do)?

If you can point them out to me this might be the kind of back-up I
have been asking for - so far without answer.

To me the article just fleetingly touchies your points 5), 6), 7), 9)
and alltogether is about what I have been claiming all along:
1.
no evidence in the trials of effectivenes beyond placebo,

2.
claims that high potencies can cure being nonsense.

There has been no way to show by present science methods to show that
there is any medicinal value in high potencies o even that high
potency of a remedy is in any way different from the carrier medium.
The claims about Beneviste having shown the latter and having been
tricked out cannot be held. There was not only the "Randi Bet" matter
where the results could not be reproduced.

Some years ago Chris Kurz, who is a scientist (cosmologist) AND
homeopath convinced of the method, posted about this matter on
"Lyghtforce". It remains to be seen whether the recently published
results by different methods of detecting will be reproduceable by
other researchers. The claim that this should be so is IMO valid.

So all that remains for us is to show that homeopathy is indeed
effective beyond the placebo effect. And this could be done if
concentrated on and worked in an intelligent manner.

I do not know how far the trials in Dana's ebook on trials have been
selected by stringent scientific principles. If they have they should
be made available to the homeopathic community free of charge - as a
service.

I do know that the trials in Michael Deans hard cover book have
undergone stringent scientific evaluation and that they could not be
shrugged off by the scientist! It is true, that this book also has to
be bought, however, Mike has donated his author's fee to homeopathic
research and the publishers themselves are a non-profit organisation
committed to this reasearch.

I myself am trying to do my small part by making available to everyone
documentation (as contrasted to anecdotal evidence) of cures by
homeopathy, also without any material reward.

But the interest in all the above is minimal.

While I am not in the least opposed to books like Dana's newest on
what fanous poeple had to say about homeopathy, I do also not in the
least see where the opinion of Elvis Presley et al. will help us in
our fight for the preservation of homeopathy. There has been no
shortage of anecdotal texts on the craft - and I have yet to see where
it has had any effect in swaying the opinions of the oppositional
forces.

Regards

Luise

PS: I have no problems with your statements below.
--
One thought to all who, free of doubt,
So definitely know what's true:
2 and 2 is 22 -
and 2 times 2 is 2:-)
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[Carol Boyce]

re the Science - I posted an article I had published in Similia June 2007 about the Science behind homeopathy - I didn't get one response from the list. As someone who has spent the last two decades working 'in the trenches' defending / promoting homeopathy (for no reward) I wrote a long and detailed response to the Bleeding to Death email pointing out some of the reality of our situation - within minutes it had morphed into another internal debate about what is and what is not homeopathy. At this rate that question will soon be ACADEMIC.

Rustum Roy - one of the most renowned material scientists in the world has proved conclusively that a homeopathic preparation is not the same as plain water. That STRUCTURE is much more important in defining the properties of a substance than COMPOSITION - that potentization changes structure - so Avogadro's number has no relevance - and he can measure the difference between a potentized substance and plain water - not with anything weird and wonderful but with well respected and accepted measuring techniques. And that a process called Epitaxis is responsible for transfer of information - currently used in the computer manufacturing industry.
Now why is that not front page news I wonder? You can download his powerpoints from the site hosting the recent national debate in the US.

Yes if only Ben Goldacre would read research papers like those listed below - given in my article - but as I said in the previous detailed posting - this is not about research so much as it is about politics. He's a smart man, for all his self-denigrating posturing, but the harsh reality is HE IS NOT INTERESTED he would rather still rant on about Avogadro's number..... So addressing his diatribe is a distraction imho.

Whatever I think about Ben Goldare it bothers me much more that the homeopathic community doesn't seem to be that interested either.......

References
5. Jibu M., Hagan S., Hameroff S., et al. Quantum optical coherence in cytoskeletal microtubules:
Implications for brain function. BioSystems 1994;32:95-209
6. Roy R., Tiller W.A., Bell I., and Hoover M.R. The structure of liquid water; Novel insights from
materials research; Potential relevance to homeopathy. Mat Res Innovat 2005;9:559-576
7. Rey L. Thermoluminescence of ultra-high dilutions of lithium chloride and sodium chloride.
Physics A 2003;323:67-74
8. Tschulakow A.V., Yan Y., and Klimek W. A new approach to the memory of water.
Homeopathy 2005;94:241-247
9. Popp F.A. and Chang J.-J. Mechanism of interaction between electromagnetic fields and living
systems. Science in China (Series C) 2000; 43:507-18
10. Maclaughlin B.W. et al. Effects of homeopathic preparations on human prostate cancer growth
in cellular and animal models. Integr Cancer Ther 2006; 5:362.
If you want to read the full article - it's not very long - you can find it here:
http://www.homeopathyoz.org/downloads/S ... mple-2.pdf
and here:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=d5hxwt3_3f7b8pq

Carol
Carol Boyce MCh, CCH, RSHom(NA)

[Shannon Nelson]

Hi Carol,
Your post on the Bleeding topic I thought was a terrific one, and IMO
the way the discussion got so promptly sidetracked I think is very
representative; we tend to wrestle with those issues that are easier,
or that we're already familiar with and already have tracks laid for
our "trains of thought".

I have two suggestions (and then am gone for the weekend): One is,
Don't be discouraged by lack of feedback from this list!! Most of us
have "too much to do, and too little time to do it", and can't always
take the thoughtful reply time (or even "thinking about it" time!) that
we'd like to; but I know I speak for others when I say that "lack of
reply" does NOT necessarily equate with "lack of appreciation"! I know
I am in the same position as others when I say that I *learn* so much
from this list, and am not always able to mirror that back in replies.
over, and for many of them there just isn't an easy answer--but that
doesn't mean it's not valuable to have them laid out for us! Sometimes
over and over again. Take heart from "chaos theory"--sometimes small
changes in "input" can lead to big changes in "output", and you never
know what seeds will take root where! (And more "seeds" are apt
to give rise to more roots...)

My second is to keep putting it into the journals, where it can reach
those people who are "working with it" elsewhere, rather than "talking
about it" e.g. here.

And I would like to repeat some of your points that I think are so
important:

Too many of the "Quackbuster" style discussions are based on inadequate
information, the above being only a small part of that..
And from your prior, 12 Nov. post,

Carol wrote:
I wrote a long and detailed article in Similia in June laying out the
specific and orchestrated anti-homeopathy campaign that can be
tracked for at least the last 3 years, maybe longer - and what we
might do about it. At that time I could not get the relevant
homeopathic groups to see the bigger picture.

######### And I think that is tricky in *part* because the "bigger
picture" is different in different communities; and the global picture
is obscure by design. But I agree with you that it is IMPORTANT--and
increasingly so--that we get a better understanding of just what that
bigger picture IS, because increasingly, what impacts one part of the
world, will be spreading to the rest in a shortish time. I'm not sure
where to begin with that, tho...

Carol: Yes the science is important - and I'll include a link to an
article
I wrote about it also published in Similia in a separate posting.

But we should not be naive. The issue is NOT about whether
homeopathy works or not. The issue is about POLITICS and POWER and
PROFIT - however unpalatable that may be to a healing community.

########### Yep.
If it were about healing, surely we would be, at worst, left to sink or
swim as we can, without these efforts to legislate us out of business.
The legal stuff is coming in purely because of politics and power.
Funny, huh, that death as a "side-effect" of prescribed meds is
acceptable, but homeopathic remedies are being restricted? How weird
is that!

######## My further comments if any will have to wait...
But don't be discouraged, and do keep putting these things before us!
Best wishes,
Shannon

Carol: The anti-homeopathy movement (relatively small but very vocal)
is not
interested in whether it works or not. They are only interested in
sound bytes they can use to ridicule and discredit. They are the
same people who were happy to publish the fatally flawed
meta-analysis in The Lancet in 2005 and call it science. The main
author of that study was instrumental in having homeopathy removed
from Swiss Health Insurance.
Sense about Science is a group masquerading as an information source
for the public - check out their backers - the successful demand for
withdrawal and revision of the 2005 WHO pro-homeopathy report came
from Renckens - Chair of the Dutch Union Against Quackery and other
Quackbusters. The revised report has still not been published. (all
this is documented with references in my article.)

I also make the point that it is no coincidence that the Royal London
Hom Hospital was targeted first. It's a touchstone for homeopathy
around the world - if it goes and homeopathy is removed from the NHS
it will be cited by anti-homeopathy groups all around the world - as
indeed it was by the anti-homeopathy speakers during the recent
national debate in the US : Quackery or Medicine of the Future?
They will be able to say hand on heart that Homeopathy will not have
been removed from the NHS because of lack of funding but because "IT
DOES NOT WORK". That has potential repercussions for every
homeopath, within the NHS and outside it, in the UK or anywhere in
the world.

All CAMs are currently under threat - and again in the Similia
article - legislation is being drawn up in the European Union and the
US - the public are moving towards CAMs in their millions, Homeopathy
is the fasted growing modality on planet earth. We are NOT a
complementary therapy - we are an ALTERNATIVE system of medicine
which can provide Primary Care Medicine - so therefore we pose the
biggest threat - and the volume of the anti-homeopathy voices is
directly proportional to the threat we pose.

I truly believe that this is the most exciting time to be a homeopath
- the shift to energy medicine is already happening - all we need to
do is keep our heads - DON'T be distracted by the anti-homeopathy
brigade - DON'T take it personally - demand our societies protect our
interests and support them in that - KNOW we have truth on our side -
FOCUS on being the best practitioners we can be - and PULL TOGETHER.
This is our time. Some of us have been waiting for this for 25+ years.

I asked to present this material in detail at the NCH conference in
2008, because I really believe as a profession we need to know the
situation but my submission was not accepted. Yes we do need materia
medica and case presentations at conferences, but imho we also need a
forum where these vital political issues can be discussed within our
profession. Right now I am pouring my own energy and resources into
a major media project which will redress some of the balance - I'll
post the link as soon as I can!

Hold tight, rise above the madness and stay focused!

[muthu kumar]

> >
of

The article does not refer to these but these appeared in some of
the postings here. This might provide more fodder to articles like
these
I
9)

Yes but what about low potencies... problem is even our folks are
not convinced that low potencies could be effective or can cure- you
know that there have been so many posts about potency being more
important than probably even like cures like- and also how if one
does not practice according to 5th or 6th or water potencies you are
not doing homeopathy... that is the reason the argument was made to
bring it down to the basic criteria - if 6c has enough curative
power to demonstrate the effectiveness with that... and when we
match the remedy to the disease it is consistently based on what we
agree is the key way we should be doing in homeopathy
that
medium.

Yes and that is where we will always be weak -

[muthu kumar]

- given in my article - but as I said in the previous detailed
politics.

Yes I agree that it is more about politics than substance and
science... he is just clutching at things that he could beat us with-

at the same time it is what impression we have created for ourselves
also-

[Luise Kunkle]

Hi Carol,

I did read the article.

In order to say more about it from a view open to both sides I (and
others) would have to read at least the article by Rey et al. Where
can I get it?

As to the articles by Maddox and Rey I should at first lkie to
know what they (each individually) mean by ultra-high dilutions.

As far as Roy et all goes: There have been publications on such kinds
of research at least a decade or 2 ago. There was a "symposium on
water" at the University of Graz with similar-sounding ideas,
including its potential relevance to homeopathy. I do not
know what happened to that line of inquiry. But it seems that the
linking up with hom. was not achieved.

It is very true that there is a regrettable lack of interest on the
part of homeoaths and the homepathic societies in this kind of
research. Probably the linking up would have to be done by people
being scientists as well as homeopaths - we have quite a number of
them. It appears that they have turned to homeopathy in order to turn
away from science or to use it as a balance to their scientific work,
in the way some others like Feynman used to play the drums and paint.
So they do not want to bring the scientific approach into their "other
homeopath half).

Perhaps if they along with the other homeopaths wake up to the threads
that concern us all things may change. But actually I doubt very much
that such awakening will occur.

Regards

Luise
--
One thought to all who, free of doubt,
So definitely know what's true:
2 and 2 is 22 -
and 2 times 2 is 2:-)
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[Luise Kunkle]

Hi Shannon, Carol,
Luise writes:
I think we are making a possibly fatal mistake in thinking so and
acting accordingly.

These interests are there, no doubt.

But the same time and quite probably even more so there is genuine
scepticism by scientists and also politicians, having nothing to do
with their being corrupted. To act as if they were will just drive
them deeper into the other camp.

Shannon - do talk to your husband and ask him what *he* would think if
he had not had the potential effectiveness demonstrated to him by his
"alternative" wife.

Talking about such things with people we respect and know to be
straight should help a lot. At the same time that we are rightly
expecting the other side to be less prejudiced and more open to
evidence, we on the other hand have to be more critical of the kinds
of evidence offered in favour of homeopathy. We have to try and see it
from the view-point of the sceptics - no matter how often we repeat
such things as "homeopathy cannot fail", "we do not need any other
kinds of therapies" .......ad infinitum - this will not convince
anywone who was not convinced before.

Regards

Luise
--
One thought to all who, free of doubt,
So definitely know what's true:
2 and 2 is 22 -
and 2 times 2 is 2:-)
==========> ICQ yinyang 96391801 <==========