Minutus

Dear All,
Can anybody provide MM on Mica and Cortisone.
Thanks a lot,
Dr.Partha Chakraborty.

Dear Shannon,
I have tried to continue this debate in legible form below. Bit complicated
but hope it makes sense.

T> I too know people who prescribe it,

S: This hasn't been my understanding, and will *certainly* not be the way
it's
being done in e.g. Africa, as removing the need for complicated assessments
is (as I've understood it) part of its gift.

T: I based this comment on a case published in Homeopathy in Practice (july
2003) - the practitioner used it alongside other remedies and I had got the
impression that this was after consultation with Peter but I can't see now
how I got that impression so may be wrong. I also believed Didi used it this
way but perhaps we should ask her.I know she does use multiple prescriptions
at least sometimes (and to very good effect in one case that I know of
personally) I am, however, even more concerned if no
attempt at individualised prescribing is made at all. There are many
homeopaths in 3rd world countries who are managing to prescribe on a basis
of symptom similarity, sometimes seeing tens of patients a day. They may not
be using psychotherapeutic models but they are issuing individualised
prescriptions in a sound homeopathic tradition. Not all homeopathic
treatment has to be constitutional in my view although we can get into
semantics here and it is not the point.

S: My understanding is that "regular" constitutional prescribing also works
well -- and will, I assume, cure at a far deeper level, as it's curing the
*reason* the person got sick, not simply the sickness. However, regular
constitutional prescribing is not available to "the masses" in this
situation, so the choice for most is either PC1 and a 60% chance of complete
cure, or no treatment, and die. Hm, which is the more honorable choice...

T: See above. To say that it is a question of a single disease-diagnosis
based prescription or nothing in third world countries is quite demigrating
to the individuals and organisations who are doing and have for many years
done so much in Africa, South America, India etc. using extensive and
detailed knowledge of materia medica to differentialte remedies.

S: I realize that "60% chance of complete cure" is not a completely accurate
figure, since the website says (if I remember right) that only 60% of the
patients were able to be followed as long as needed. If we assume that all
of the rest had *no* benefit, that still leaves 60% of 60%, or 36% of the
*total*, achieving complete cure in three months, which still to me looks
more than respectable, especially considering the added presence of
starvation, other illnesses and other "lifestyle challenges". To me the
results look excellent; how do you read it?

T:I would need to know a lot more about how the questions were put, how the
feedback assessed, whether any other measures/remedies were being used. In
short, I find the kind of work described in David Little's email which
crossed my first, much more impressive. You did ask how *I* read it!

S: I'm interested to hear that! I didn't know that anyone ran a *practice*
with combos. Sure you can't do deep constitutional work that way, or do
they feel they can, or ?? (Just curious.).
T: What can I say? I don't know if you are from the UK or where, but there
are many practitioners in UK who work almost entirely with combos. They have
seldom been to the 'normal' homeopathic colleges but have been trained by
organisations such as Noma and manufaturers.
The patient assessment is generally fairly allopathic or 'naturopathic' and
the remedies are aimed at diseases and organs. Nowadays many use diagnostic
machines. I don't think you can practice long in the uk without having
patients coming to you expecting this because it what they had before 'and
it worked then'. One or two I have had had pulled back from long term
chronic illness with this treatment. More often I think it just patches up
the symptoms, but this is just an observation and not something I would care
to write a paper on.

S: How about if you either had an AIDS patient you had been so far
unable to help (and all of us fail with some people), or knew someone with
AIDS who could not/would not get constitutional care but wanted help? Would
you feel it better to leave them to follow out their expected spiral however
they chose, rather than offer PC1 because you don't "understand" it? Even
having seen these very promising write-ups?

T: This is a good point. I did use Secretin when Ainsworth's was running a
'trial', but I explained to the patients ( or the responsible adult) what I
was doing and how it fitted in with other treatment I was giving them, and
they filled in the assessment forms supplied by Ainsworths - that is a
vaguely comparable case. I did know what Secretin was, though, and how
it might be expected to work if it did.
I doubt I would treat someone this way (or any way) who 'would not ' take
other remedies and as I have said 'couldn't' doesn't come into it in my view

T:>> In addition I agree with everything David Little said concerning the

S: Yeah, not the US either. That's because "cure" doesn't pay as well.

T: come on! It is because they reckon that the diseases are containable if
treated conventionally (which we might have our own 'take' on), but also
because historically they have attracted their share of exploitation by the
'alternative' world. Not everyone offering 'alternatives' wears a halo and
certain groups of people, the poor, ill-educated and, of course those
diagnosed as terminally ill, are very vulnerable groups. I really don't want
to get into a discussion on the evils of allopathic medicines and
pharmaceutical companies - they are not my models. There was an article in
the paper a few months ago about an American pharmaceutical firm running
trials in South Africa because they had to pay less and provide less
safeguards for those on the trial, (and, I believe, there was no commitment
to continue the treatment beyond the trial if successful). It appeared few,
if any, of the patients really understood what was happening. The company
claimed that this treatment was more than the people would otherwise have
had and they were lucky to get it. Maybe someone else can remember the
details on this but it didn't strike me as a good example to follow and was
certainly being slated in the press. The drugs may be more damaging but
there is a principle involved, too.
S: What does Peter and Didi's work need, in your understanding, to get past
the
label of "unproven"?
T: see above. It is possible to do outcome assessments of homeopathic
remedies that stand up to scrutiny, even easier if only one remedy is being
used for a named disease.
S: MDs frequently don't know that much about
what they prescribe either.
T: they should find out! They are not my role models either!

S: We don't necessarily know what's in our
"classical" remedies either (how many remember how to make Causticum, or
what minerals are in Sanicula? Not to mention what's "in" a marigold...)
But we have learned what to use them *for*.

T: The same is true, of course, of computers and electricity - we take a lot
on trust. However, the information is largely there if we choose to look it
up and a surprisng number of people do know what is in a marigold and what
makes the light come on.. What is more to the point is that we don't really
know how any homeopathic remedy works - we just have models that get
postulated, tested and accepted or not. If something works that doesn't fit
into accepted models we have to be exceptionally careful in deciding that it
does, in fact, work and if so be prepared to re-draw the models.
If Peter has found a single remedy that leads to a spectacular 60% cure rate
for a specific viral disease , in whomever and however manifested, there is
no logical reason at all why a single remedy can''t and won't be found
similarly for all other viral diseases at the least. This would include
warts, flu, chicken pox, viral menignitis, herpes, Epstein Barr etc etc.
Extend it to non-viral illnesses and we would have cancer, syphilis, TB etc
etc. This would be a brave new world indeed and would call for some pretty
major model-redrawing, by us as well as the allopaths. I am not saying it
couldn't happen (never say never!) but the proof that it is happening would
have to be pretty irreproachable for me. (It'd put me out of a job for
starters .
T; and which doesn't involve

S: It's mentioned *very* clearly there that "failure to practice safe sex"
is
one of the factors that can sometimes prevent PC1 from working, as the
patient "may" become reinfected. In other words yes, condoms are necessary!

T: yes he does say this - I got a bit carried away with my rhetoric there.
It is just that
those African governments who are promoting safe sex on the grounds that it
is the only way to control the epidemic must be very wary of alternative
methods being offered to a population notoriously reluctant to use condoms
and willing to seize on any excuse not to. Hardly surprising they would want
to see more conventionally presented 'evidence'.

S: The website gives results from what appear to me to be controlled
clinical
trials.
T: I don't get this impression particularly. Depends what you mean by
'controlled'.

Thanks for taking the trouble to pick up on my email in such detail,
Shannon. I really just wanted to open this up for debate as I have been so
surpised at the unquestioning acceptance of this project whenever it gets
mentioned on the internet - and from people who are normally so critical!

BW

Theresa

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Hi Theresa,

on 9/6/04 2:49 AM, Theresa Partington at theresa@frogsisland.freeserve.co.uk
wrote:
S: I don't know enough about it to reply with any meaning. I guess I have
assumed it was acting as the Genus Epidemicus remedy for AIDS, and in using
a GE remedy in an epidemic situation, the only individualization is cursory
(if possible, and it is not always possible). At least, that has been my
understanding.
Likely those patients have no need for PC1. I know that regular classical
prescribing can work very well for AIDS, and I have thought (assumed) that
PC1 is not an attempt to replace or improve upon that, but an attempt to
help those folks for whom the "regular" approach is either unavailable or
not working out. Again, tho, I'm not the best one to debate this with,
since I don't know any more about it than you do! Only what I've read on the
websites, and heard discussed here.
Sure, we can leave "constitutional" out of it.
?? do you mean "denigrating", as in "putting them down"? No, it's not...
This offers a different approach, which may be applicable to different sets
of circumstances.
You misunderstand me. If they are being successful with what they are
doing, and are able to reach all of the patients in their area who need
help, then PC1 will be of no concern to them, and fine with me!

I suggest, tho, that *if* PC1 is a serviceable genus epidemicus remedy,
which could allow evaluation and patient information to be accomplished in a
short term versus other methods, that it may still have value. However,
that's on ly my relatively uninformed opinion...
Yes, it would be good to know all of that.
??? You mean prescribing in the usual way, incorporating alternations etc.
as needed, and intercurrents, nosodes, etc.? In other words, a full-blown
"regular" approach? I agree, it's more impressive and as I said, I would
expect it to heal at a deeper level. But again, replacing this has not been
Peter's aim; he has (if I've understood right) seen this as a way to reach
more needful people, quicker.

ork that way, or do

Well, there are many approaches, but I would *assume* it's not the same
depth of healing as with singles? Only my assumption, tho.
True. Here too I would favor "education not regulation" -- because even if
we assume that "vested interests" have no bearing on it (and I would have a
very hard time making that assumption, tho I realize that for *individual
doctors* the issues are different, having to do with what world view they
have been taught -- financed by pharmaceutical companies with *their* vested
interests -- and their belief that their knowledge and experience is
"better" than the patients'...), even the best intentioned among us are
sometimes wrong.

The fact that it's not legal in the US for anyone but an MD to treat certain
diseases is IMO *absollutely* not defensible from any standpoint *except*
vested interests of folks in power. That is my belief and understanding,
but I'm not willing to spend the time pursuing the argument at this point;
it's been talked about plenty before this. Plus, it's irrelevant to our
main points here.
I agree that should be done. I hope the results on the webpage have been or
are being written up in full detail to be published somewhere, making sure
it's all up to research standards.

Some few diseases do seem to have this correspondence. Hahnemann mentions
Belladona and "the smooth scarlatina of Sydenham" (did I remember that
right???), which I *think* meant "strep throat"; and other similar
correspondences have been mentioned (two remedies for cholera, and ??). And
an epidemic will typically have one or two(?) GE remedies to choose from.
So how is this different?

But as you've noted, all of this is only speculative since we have such
limited information about the remedy...

And BTW why do you assume it's not a "single remedy"? *Nothing* he said
suggested any combination...
Theorizing is fine, but I'm more interested in finding out just wha *is*
happening with PC1.
Have those governments objected so far?
Hm, it hasn't seemed "unquestioning" to me!
But discussion about it has come up once or twice already in the past, and
some of us have encountered the issue elsewhere already, so maybe that makes
the group look less questioning that it really is?

Anyway, it's a very interesting area that certainly merits ongoing
discussion!

Cheers,
Shannon