Re: Psych Today - The Strange Case of Homeopathy - Max & Amy Lansky
Posted: Mon May 10, 2004 10:51 pm
Amazing to be in Psychology Today
Good work Amy & Michael!
Amy & Max's Story in Psychology Today
http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/bookstor.htm#homeopathy
Amy's book can be bought at my website - Impossible Cure
http://babyurl.com/QQzc8o
PSYCHOLOGY TODAY
The Strange Case of Homeopathy
By Michael Castleman -- Publication Date: Mar/Apr 2004
Summary: PT examines whether treating illnesses with homeopathy is simply
unconventional nonsense or a medicinal cure thatis here to stay.
In 1994, NASA computer scientist Amy Lansky of Portola Valley, California,
began wondering about her two-year-old son. Max knew the alphabet and could
beat adults at memory games, but he barely spoke and, despite normal
hearing, didn’t seem to understand language. At preschool he was a loner.
His main form of communication was poking people with his finger.
Eventually, school officials urged Lansky to have him evaluated. The
diagnosis: autism, a neurological and behavioral disorder for which there
is no known remedy.
But Lansky refused to believe Max was untreatable. Her search for an answer
led her to homeopathy, an 18th-century healing art now enjoying renewed
popularity because of Americans’ growing interest in alternative medicine.
Homeopathy involves treating illnesses with such extreme dilutions of
herbs, animal substances and chemical compounds that frequently not one
molecule of the diluted substance is left in the solution. Homeopathy
defies the known laws of science, not to mention common sense. But rigorous
studies show it just may work.
In a German trial, a homeopathic treatment for vertigo outperformed the
pharmaceutical remedy; at Harvard, subjects with mild brain injury showed
significantly greater improvement with a homeopathic treatment than with a
placebo. And homeopathic remedies have been found to augment conventional
treatments, as well. In the case of infectious diarrhea, a University of
Washington study found that children given the standard rehydration fluid
containing water, sugar and salt, plus a homeopathic remedy, recovered
after two and a half days—a day and and a half earlier than those who
received just the rehydration fluid.
“I believe new science will explain how homeopathy works,” says Ellen
Feingold, a Wilmington, Delaware, pediatrician who left conventional
medicine to practice homeopathy. “But research is not my concern. I want to
heal patients. As an M.D., I mostly suppressed symptoms. Now I truly heal
people.” “Critics of homeopathy say that because its mechanism of action
can’t be explained, it can’t possibly work,” says Michael Carlston, a Santa
Rosa, California, physician who has combined mainstream medicine and
homeopathy for 30 years. “But that’s hypocritical. Aspirin was used for 90
years before its efficacy was explained—and no doctors shunned it.”
Strange Medicine
Shortly after her son’s diagnosis, Lansky found a magazine article on
alternative treatments for childhood behavioral problems.
Lansky’s acupuncturist referred her to homeopath John Melnychuk. He did not
perform a physical exam, nor did he order diagnostic tests. He just asked
questions, including many that M.D.s would consider irrelevant. He explored
Max’s milk craving, his fitful sleep, the bluish tint in the whites of his
eyes and his restlessness, intensity, sweetness, stubbornness and
perfectionism. Then, using reference books, he looked for substances that
produce the same effects in healthy people. This is the fundamental
principle of homeopathy, the Law of Similars. It’s the idea that illness
can be cured by substances—plant, animal or mineral—that evoke the same
symptoms in those who are well. Melnychuk decided to give Max Carcinosin, a
treatment made from—of all things—an infinitesimal amount of human cancer
tissue.
“There are two types of homeopathic remedies,” Melnychuk explains. “Some
treat symptoms; For example, arnica works well for muscle strains. Then
there are ‘constitutional’ remedies, ones that have to be matched to the
patient’s personality. Max seemed to fit the Carcinosin profile, which
includes symptoms of perfectionism, restlessness, sleep difficulties and
milk cravings.” However, Melnychuk cautions, not every autistic child
should receive Carcinosin. “You have to tailor the remedy to the patient’s
unique traits.”
Lansky mixed a little Carcinosin in water and gave Max a teaspoon each
morning. Within two days, she noticed subtle changes: “Max’s speech
improved, and he seemed more socially aware.” In the next two months the
trend toward improvement continued.
Maybe It’s Doing Nothing
Homeopathy developed during the late 18th century, a time when physicians
knew little about disease. They treated most illnesses by bleeding patients
and administering powerful laxatives. Such treatments were called “heroic
measures,” but the heroism was entirely on the part of patients, many of
whom suffered more from these interventions than from their illnesses.
One 18th-century German doctor, Samuel Hahnemann, became so disgusted with
heroic medicine that he closed his practice. But Hahnemann did not exactly
reject conventional medicine. He was impressed with cinchona, the South
American tree bark that was the first effective treatment for malaria. In
1790, Hahnemann ingested cinchona and became cold, achy, anxious and
thirsty—all symptoms of malaria. That experience led him to postulate his
Law of Similars.
Hahnemann tested hundreds of substances on himself—plants, animal parts and
chemical compounds, including salt, zinc, gold and marigold
flowers—cataloging their effects. Eventually, he reopened his practice but
prescribed only homeopathic medicines.
Homeopathy was controversial from the outset because of Hahnemann’s other
postulate, the Law of Potentization, which holds that homeopathic medicines
grow stronger as they became more dilute. Critics howl at the law.
Homeopathy is “absurd,” argues William Sampson, a clinical professor of
medicine at Stanford University. “It is bankrupt in theory and practice.”
“There is no basis for believing that homeopathy has any effect,” says
Robert Baratz, president of the National Council Against Health Fraud, in
Peabody, Massachusetts. “Homeopathy is a magnet for untrustworthy
practitioners who pose a threat to public safety. It’s quackery.”
Maybe homeopathy involves treatment with nothing. If true, it’s still an
improvement over 18th-century heroic medicine—even if patients get little
more than water.
By the late 19th century, conventional medicine had moved away from heroic
measures. As they disappeared, the medical opposition led by homeopaths
lost steam. The discovery of antibiotics and other modern drugs further
strengthened conventional medicine at homeopathy’s expense. While
homeopathy remained popular in Europe, there were fewer than 100 homeopaths
in the U.S. by the early 1970s. Critics dismissed homeopathic treatment as
placebo.
Strange Power
Placebos have no direct impact on the body. But when given to treat almost
any illness—from colds to serious conditions—about one-third of recipients
report benefits. “Placebos work as well as they do because of the mind’s
ability to affect the body,” says Brown University psychiatrist Walter
Brown. Many studies have shown that when a doctor offers any treatment,
people expect it will help, and that expectation itself can aid healing.
Also, through a mind-body mechanism not entirely understood, placebos
trigger the release of endorphins, the body’s mood-elevating,
pain-relieving compounds. “Improvement in patients receiving homeopathy is
simply a placebo effect,” Sampson says.
But studies consistently yield conflicting reports. British researchers are
divided as to the power of arnica, often prescribed by homeopaths for
musculoskeletal pain. Patients who received arnica after wrist surgery for
carpal tunnel syndrome reported significantly less pain than did those in a
placebo group; yet patients with other joint conditions had no such luck
(among 58 rheumatoid arthritis sufferers, the placebo group reported
significantly greater pain relief).
In 1991, Dutch epidemiologists analyzed 105 studies of homeopathic
treatment from 1966 to 1990, most from French and German medical journals.
Eighty-one studies found patients had benefited from homeopathy, prompting
the Dutch researchers to conclude that “the evidence is to a large extent
positive. [It] would probably be sufficient for establishing homeopathy as
treatment for certain conditions.” A 1997 German analysis of 89 studies
agreed that homeopathy is often significantly more beneficial than the use
of placebos.
Preferring Alternatives
Ambiguous as the evidence is, in recent years homeopathy has enjoyed
renewed popularity in the U.S., coinciding with Americans’ ambivalence
about mainstream medicine.
One-half to two-thirds of Americans have used alternative therapies, and
Americans visit alternative practitioners more often than they visit
conventional practitioners—some 600 million consultations a year. They now
spend $30 billion a year on alternative therapies, according to a recent
report in Newsweek, and have as much confidence in alternative
practitioners as they do in M.D.s, according to a study in the journal
Annals of Internal Medicine.
Americans have not lost confidence in physicians—they’ve just expanded
their view of what’s medically helpful, believing that the combination of
mainstream and alternative medicine will provide the best results. “The
renewed interest in homeopathy,” explains Dana Ullman, author of eight
books on the subject, “is part of the groundswell of interest Americans
have shown for all the alternative therapies. People are not satisfied with
conventional medicine.”
Homeopathy is not the only alternative therapy conventional medicine can’t
fully explain. The energy pathways deemed fundamental to acupuncture don’t
correspond to any known structures in the body, but a 1998 National
Institutes of Health report concluded, “The data in support of acupuncture
are as strong as those for many accepted Western medical therapies.”
Nonetheless, homeopathy is nowhere near as accepted as acupuncture. The
latest Harvard report on Americans’ use of alternative therapies shows that
homeopathy accounts for less than 0.5 percent of alternative-practitioner
visits. Recently, University of Maryland researchers surveyed coverage for
alternative therapies by six major managed-care plans—five covered
chiropractic, four covered acupuncture, none covered homeopathy.
“Homeopathy,” Ullman says, “is the Rodney Dangerfield of alternative
therapies: It gets no respect.”
Impossible Cure
Amy Lansky didn’t care that homeopathy is one of America’s least accepted
alternative therapies. After nine months of homeopathic treatment, Max was
a different child: talkative, active, sociable and popular. Under
Melnychuk’s guidance, Lansky gradually decreased his dose of Carcinosin,
eventually discontinuing it. Max continued to improve. By age five, he was
virtually indistinguishable from any other kid. “He now sees Melnychuk
maybe twice a year,” says Lansky. “As far as I’m concerned, he’s cured.”
Max’s experience led Lansky to quit her job and study homeopathy full-time.
Last fall, she hung out a shingle. “As a scientist,” she explains, “I
recognize that homeopathy is implausible. But I’ve seen it cure my son.”
San Francisco-based writer Michael Castleman is the author of 12 consumer
health books, including Nature’s Cures (Rodale Press, 1995).
--------------------------------------------------------
Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Classical Homeopath
Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Nevada City CA & Wales UK
$$ Donations to help in the work - accepted by Paypal account
vaccineinfo@tesco.net voicemail US 530-740-0561
(go to http://www.paypal.com) or by mail
Vaccines - http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/vaccine.htm
Vaccine Dangers On-Line course - http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/vaccineclass.htm
Homeopathy On-Line course - http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/homeo.htm
ANY INFO OBTAINED HERE NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS MEDICAL
OR LEGAL ADVICE. THE DECISION TO VACCINATE IS YOURS AND YOURS ALONE.
******
"Just look at us. Everything is backwards; everything is upside down.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy
knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroy information
and religions destroy spirituality" ....Michael Ellner
Good work Amy & Michael!
Amy & Max's Story in Psychology Today
http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/bookstor.htm#homeopathy
Amy's book can be bought at my website - Impossible Cure
http://babyurl.com/QQzc8o
PSYCHOLOGY TODAY
The Strange Case of Homeopathy
By Michael Castleman -- Publication Date: Mar/Apr 2004
Summary: PT examines whether treating illnesses with homeopathy is simply
unconventional nonsense or a medicinal cure thatis here to stay.
In 1994, NASA computer scientist Amy Lansky of Portola Valley, California,
began wondering about her two-year-old son. Max knew the alphabet and could
beat adults at memory games, but he barely spoke and, despite normal
hearing, didn’t seem to understand language. At preschool he was a loner.
His main form of communication was poking people with his finger.
Eventually, school officials urged Lansky to have him evaluated. The
diagnosis: autism, a neurological and behavioral disorder for which there
is no known remedy.
But Lansky refused to believe Max was untreatable. Her search for an answer
led her to homeopathy, an 18th-century healing art now enjoying renewed
popularity because of Americans’ growing interest in alternative medicine.
Homeopathy involves treating illnesses with such extreme dilutions of
herbs, animal substances and chemical compounds that frequently not one
molecule of the diluted substance is left in the solution. Homeopathy
defies the known laws of science, not to mention common sense. But rigorous
studies show it just may work.
In a German trial, a homeopathic treatment for vertigo outperformed the
pharmaceutical remedy; at Harvard, subjects with mild brain injury showed
significantly greater improvement with a homeopathic treatment than with a
placebo. And homeopathic remedies have been found to augment conventional
treatments, as well. In the case of infectious diarrhea, a University of
Washington study found that children given the standard rehydration fluid
containing water, sugar and salt, plus a homeopathic remedy, recovered
after two and a half days—a day and and a half earlier than those who
received just the rehydration fluid.
“I believe new science will explain how homeopathy works,” says Ellen
Feingold, a Wilmington, Delaware, pediatrician who left conventional
medicine to practice homeopathy. “But research is not my concern. I want to
heal patients. As an M.D., I mostly suppressed symptoms. Now I truly heal
people.” “Critics of homeopathy say that because its mechanism of action
can’t be explained, it can’t possibly work,” says Michael Carlston, a Santa
Rosa, California, physician who has combined mainstream medicine and
homeopathy for 30 years. “But that’s hypocritical. Aspirin was used for 90
years before its efficacy was explained—and no doctors shunned it.”
Strange Medicine
Shortly after her son’s diagnosis, Lansky found a magazine article on
alternative treatments for childhood behavioral problems.
Lansky’s acupuncturist referred her to homeopath John Melnychuk. He did not
perform a physical exam, nor did he order diagnostic tests. He just asked
questions, including many that M.D.s would consider irrelevant. He explored
Max’s milk craving, his fitful sleep, the bluish tint in the whites of his
eyes and his restlessness, intensity, sweetness, stubbornness and
perfectionism. Then, using reference books, he looked for substances that
produce the same effects in healthy people. This is the fundamental
principle of homeopathy, the Law of Similars. It’s the idea that illness
can be cured by substances—plant, animal or mineral—that evoke the same
symptoms in those who are well. Melnychuk decided to give Max Carcinosin, a
treatment made from—of all things—an infinitesimal amount of human cancer
tissue.
“There are two types of homeopathic remedies,” Melnychuk explains. “Some
treat symptoms; For example, arnica works well for muscle strains. Then
there are ‘constitutional’ remedies, ones that have to be matched to the
patient’s personality. Max seemed to fit the Carcinosin profile, which
includes symptoms of perfectionism, restlessness, sleep difficulties and
milk cravings.” However, Melnychuk cautions, not every autistic child
should receive Carcinosin. “You have to tailor the remedy to the patient’s
unique traits.”
Lansky mixed a little Carcinosin in water and gave Max a teaspoon each
morning. Within two days, she noticed subtle changes: “Max’s speech
improved, and he seemed more socially aware.” In the next two months the
trend toward improvement continued.
Maybe It’s Doing Nothing
Homeopathy developed during the late 18th century, a time when physicians
knew little about disease. They treated most illnesses by bleeding patients
and administering powerful laxatives. Such treatments were called “heroic
measures,” but the heroism was entirely on the part of patients, many of
whom suffered more from these interventions than from their illnesses.
One 18th-century German doctor, Samuel Hahnemann, became so disgusted with
heroic medicine that he closed his practice. But Hahnemann did not exactly
reject conventional medicine. He was impressed with cinchona, the South
American tree bark that was the first effective treatment for malaria. In
1790, Hahnemann ingested cinchona and became cold, achy, anxious and
thirsty—all symptoms of malaria. That experience led him to postulate his
Law of Similars.
Hahnemann tested hundreds of substances on himself—plants, animal parts and
chemical compounds, including salt, zinc, gold and marigold
flowers—cataloging their effects. Eventually, he reopened his practice but
prescribed only homeopathic medicines.
Homeopathy was controversial from the outset because of Hahnemann’s other
postulate, the Law of Potentization, which holds that homeopathic medicines
grow stronger as they became more dilute. Critics howl at the law.
Homeopathy is “absurd,” argues William Sampson, a clinical professor of
medicine at Stanford University. “It is bankrupt in theory and practice.”
“There is no basis for believing that homeopathy has any effect,” says
Robert Baratz, president of the National Council Against Health Fraud, in
Peabody, Massachusetts. “Homeopathy is a magnet for untrustworthy
practitioners who pose a threat to public safety. It’s quackery.”
Maybe homeopathy involves treatment with nothing. If true, it’s still an
improvement over 18th-century heroic medicine—even if patients get little
more than water.
By the late 19th century, conventional medicine had moved away from heroic
measures. As they disappeared, the medical opposition led by homeopaths
lost steam. The discovery of antibiotics and other modern drugs further
strengthened conventional medicine at homeopathy’s expense. While
homeopathy remained popular in Europe, there were fewer than 100 homeopaths
in the U.S. by the early 1970s. Critics dismissed homeopathic treatment as
placebo.
Strange Power
Placebos have no direct impact on the body. But when given to treat almost
any illness—from colds to serious conditions—about one-third of recipients
report benefits. “Placebos work as well as they do because of the mind’s
ability to affect the body,” says Brown University psychiatrist Walter
Brown. Many studies have shown that when a doctor offers any treatment,
people expect it will help, and that expectation itself can aid healing.
Also, through a mind-body mechanism not entirely understood, placebos
trigger the release of endorphins, the body’s mood-elevating,
pain-relieving compounds. “Improvement in patients receiving homeopathy is
simply a placebo effect,” Sampson says.
But studies consistently yield conflicting reports. British researchers are
divided as to the power of arnica, often prescribed by homeopaths for
musculoskeletal pain. Patients who received arnica after wrist surgery for
carpal tunnel syndrome reported significantly less pain than did those in a
placebo group; yet patients with other joint conditions had no such luck
(among 58 rheumatoid arthritis sufferers, the placebo group reported
significantly greater pain relief).
In 1991, Dutch epidemiologists analyzed 105 studies of homeopathic
treatment from 1966 to 1990, most from French and German medical journals.
Eighty-one studies found patients had benefited from homeopathy, prompting
the Dutch researchers to conclude that “the evidence is to a large extent
positive. [It] would probably be sufficient for establishing homeopathy as
treatment for certain conditions.” A 1997 German analysis of 89 studies
agreed that homeopathy is often significantly more beneficial than the use
of placebos.
Preferring Alternatives
Ambiguous as the evidence is, in recent years homeopathy has enjoyed
renewed popularity in the U.S., coinciding with Americans’ ambivalence
about mainstream medicine.
One-half to two-thirds of Americans have used alternative therapies, and
Americans visit alternative practitioners more often than they visit
conventional practitioners—some 600 million consultations a year. They now
spend $30 billion a year on alternative therapies, according to a recent
report in Newsweek, and have as much confidence in alternative
practitioners as they do in M.D.s, according to a study in the journal
Annals of Internal Medicine.
Americans have not lost confidence in physicians—they’ve just expanded
their view of what’s medically helpful, believing that the combination of
mainstream and alternative medicine will provide the best results. “The
renewed interest in homeopathy,” explains Dana Ullman, author of eight
books on the subject, “is part of the groundswell of interest Americans
have shown for all the alternative therapies. People are not satisfied with
conventional medicine.”
Homeopathy is not the only alternative therapy conventional medicine can’t
fully explain. The energy pathways deemed fundamental to acupuncture don’t
correspond to any known structures in the body, but a 1998 National
Institutes of Health report concluded, “The data in support of acupuncture
are as strong as those for many accepted Western medical therapies.”
Nonetheless, homeopathy is nowhere near as accepted as acupuncture. The
latest Harvard report on Americans’ use of alternative therapies shows that
homeopathy accounts for less than 0.5 percent of alternative-practitioner
visits. Recently, University of Maryland researchers surveyed coverage for
alternative therapies by six major managed-care plans—five covered
chiropractic, four covered acupuncture, none covered homeopathy.
“Homeopathy,” Ullman says, “is the Rodney Dangerfield of alternative
therapies: It gets no respect.”
Impossible Cure
Amy Lansky didn’t care that homeopathy is one of America’s least accepted
alternative therapies. After nine months of homeopathic treatment, Max was
a different child: talkative, active, sociable and popular. Under
Melnychuk’s guidance, Lansky gradually decreased his dose of Carcinosin,
eventually discontinuing it. Max continued to improve. By age five, he was
virtually indistinguishable from any other kid. “He now sees Melnychuk
maybe twice a year,” says Lansky. “As far as I’m concerned, he’s cured.”
Max’s experience led Lansky to quit her job and study homeopathy full-time.
Last fall, she hung out a shingle. “As a scientist,” she explains, “I
recognize that homeopathy is implausible. But I’ve seen it cure my son.”
San Francisco-based writer Michael Castleman is the author of 12 consumer
health books, including Nature’s Cures (Rodale Press, 1995).
--------------------------------------------------------
Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Classical Homeopath
Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Nevada City CA & Wales UK
$$ Donations to help in the work - accepted by Paypal account
vaccineinfo@tesco.net voicemail US 530-740-0561
(go to http://www.paypal.com) or by mail
Vaccines - http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/vaccine.htm
Vaccine Dangers On-Line course - http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/vaccineclass.htm
Homeopathy On-Line course - http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/homeo.htm
ANY INFO OBTAINED HERE NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS MEDICAL
OR LEGAL ADVICE. THE DECISION TO VACCINATE IS YOURS AND YOURS ALONE.
******
"Just look at us. Everything is backwards; everything is upside down.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy
knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroy information
and religions destroy spirituality" ....Michael Ellner