Mercola's Will the FTC End Homeopathy
Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2016 4:33 pm
Friends,
Below is an email that I sent to the editor at Mercola.com. I had initially sent her a copy of my article on the FTC's ruling which got published at:
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/extrem ... c-medicine
However, instead of publishing my article, they decided to write their own. Prior to publication, they sent me a copy of this article...here's what I wrote to them...and sadly, they didn't change one word of their article:
I am extremely disappointed with the article your website plans to publish. The title of your article is awful and inaccurate. Your author (not Dr. Mercola, even though they put his name on it) did not provide any evidence that the FTC plans to "end" homeopathy. Instead, you created fear-mongering and sensationalistic journalism. Sadly, this is not good health journalism or science writing.
Worst of all, your article actually repeated the FTC's misinformation about homeopathy being born in the late 18th century, even though my article provided evidence that the word itself wasn't coined until 1805 and Hahnemann's first book was not published until 1810. How is THAT the 18th century? The homeopathic principle, "the law of similars," was discussed by Hippocrates. Should they have said that its principles were several thousand years old...and thus "out of date"?
Further, your article repeated the MYTH that the homeopathic medicines are too dilute to have any remaining molecules, even though my article cited an important study in LANGMUIR, a journal published by the American Chemistry Society, that proved that nanodoses of medicines persist in solutions...and that these doses are similar in size to doses in which many of our body's hormones are known to respond. I therefore asserted that people who believe that homeopathic doses are too small must also assume that our body's hormones are just placeboes.
This article provides no history or present status of American regulatory agencies and the problems they have had on natural health issues. This article provides no reference to the most extensive review of homeopathic research ever conducted sponsored by a government (Switzerland!). This article provides no reference to the newest meta-analysis on homeopathy and no mention of the important quote I provided from that meta-analysis that asserted that FOUR of the FIVE recent meta-analyses on homeopathy have been FAVORABLE towards the subject and verify that there is a difference between homeopathy and placebo. Instead, this article spends almost as much time implying that homeopathy is like a placebo than it spends talking about homeopathy.
Also, this article has no information about the implications of this FTC ruling on homeopathy today, while my article has an entire section on this useful information.
Further, this article has no information about my discussion of the NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE's article that emphatically asserts that "observation trials" are as reliable as double-blind and placebo controlled trials...and that these observational trials are better ways to evaluate "real world medicine." And your article has no reference to the body of evidence that presently exists that shows the benefits of homeopathic medicines in observational trials.
I am very disappointed. I had had a healthy respect for your website.
-- Dana Ullman, MPH, CCH
Below is an email that I sent to the editor at Mercola.com. I had initially sent her a copy of my article on the FTC's ruling which got published at:
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/extrem ... c-medicine
However, instead of publishing my article, they decided to write their own. Prior to publication, they sent me a copy of this article...here's what I wrote to them...and sadly, they didn't change one word of their article:
I am extremely disappointed with the article your website plans to publish. The title of your article is awful and inaccurate. Your author (not Dr. Mercola, even though they put his name on it) did not provide any evidence that the FTC plans to "end" homeopathy. Instead, you created fear-mongering and sensationalistic journalism. Sadly, this is not good health journalism or science writing.
Worst of all, your article actually repeated the FTC's misinformation about homeopathy being born in the late 18th century, even though my article provided evidence that the word itself wasn't coined until 1805 and Hahnemann's first book was not published until 1810. How is THAT the 18th century? The homeopathic principle, "the law of similars," was discussed by Hippocrates. Should they have said that its principles were several thousand years old...and thus "out of date"?
Further, your article repeated the MYTH that the homeopathic medicines are too dilute to have any remaining molecules, even though my article cited an important study in LANGMUIR, a journal published by the American Chemistry Society, that proved that nanodoses of medicines persist in solutions...and that these doses are similar in size to doses in which many of our body's hormones are known to respond. I therefore asserted that people who believe that homeopathic doses are too small must also assume that our body's hormones are just placeboes.
This article provides no history or present status of American regulatory agencies and the problems they have had on natural health issues. This article provides no reference to the most extensive review of homeopathic research ever conducted sponsored by a government (Switzerland!). This article provides no reference to the newest meta-analysis on homeopathy and no mention of the important quote I provided from that meta-analysis that asserted that FOUR of the FIVE recent meta-analyses on homeopathy have been FAVORABLE towards the subject and verify that there is a difference between homeopathy and placebo. Instead, this article spends almost as much time implying that homeopathy is like a placebo than it spends talking about homeopathy.
Also, this article has no information about the implications of this FTC ruling on homeopathy today, while my article has an entire section on this useful information.
Further, this article has no information about my discussion of the NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE's article that emphatically asserts that "observation trials" are as reliable as double-blind and placebo controlled trials...and that these observational trials are better ways to evaluate "real world medicine." And your article has no reference to the body of evidence that presently exists that shows the benefits of homeopathic medicines in observational trials.
I am very disappointed. I had had a healthy respect for your website.
-- Dana Ullman, MPH, CCH