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Homeophobia

MrQhuest

Thinker
MrQhuest
Joined
Mar 22, 2007
Messages
150
Good Day!

I am in need of some help and advice. I'm sure this has already been posted, but I cant seem to find it.

I am looking for specific links to journals, articles, and reviews that discredit Homeopathy. While going through PubMed, I have, unfortunately discovered entries that support, disprove, or find evidence to homeopathy to be inconclusive. I am looking for something a little more solid than that.

MsQhuest has been seeing a Naturopath / Homeopath for her allergies, and I can't tolerate it any longer. She is an otherwise reasonable, intelligent, educated person.

This Homeopath seems to have independently confirmed her allergies without knowing them beforehand, by using an electro diagnostic machine. I know they are banned in the US, but I cant determine the machines status in Canada. Best I can tell, is that this thing measures my MsQhuest's electrical resistance. The machine apparently stores different “frequencies” for different allergens.

Help!

MrQhuest
 
A lancet meta-analysis looked at homeopathy, and found that "Biases are present in placebo-controlled trials of both homoeopathy and conventional medicine. When account was taken for these biases in the analysis, there was weak evidence for a specific effect of homoeopathic remedies, but strong evidence for specific effects of conventional interventions. This finding is compatible with the notion that the clinical effects of homoeopathy are placebo effects." In other words, homeopathic pills don't do anything that you wouldn't expect placebos/sugar pills to do.

Almost more worrying is this 'allergy test'. Homeopathic pills won't do anything (assuming they're genuinely homeopathic, not herbal etc...) but these fake allergy tests can be dangerous. Apologies for stating the obvious, but false negatives can cause serious harm, and false positives can lead to people eating an overly restricted diet.
These electronic allergy tests work about as well as guessing. See a summary of studies, and a journalistic investigation. Assuming the naturopath asked your wife about symptoms, what she thought she was intolerant of, etc. then you're effectively talking about a warm reading.
btw, my psychic powers tell me that the naturopath diagnosed your wife with lactose and/or gluten intolerance. Am I right?
 
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jon said:
btw, my psychic powers tell me that the naturopath diagnosed your wife with lactose and/or gluten intolerance. Am I right?
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Really? Because my psychic powers tell me it's cheese and chocolate.

jon's just making it up. ;)

eta: good heavens. The 'Vegetative Reflex Test'? Here's a rare moment of what almost sounds like honesty about it:

The VRT, which is subjective, is only as good as the clinician in charge. In the hands of a knowledgeable and experienced physician it can be of tremendous help to the patient.
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And the word quantum only appeared once on the whole page.
 
As always, you want to start with Quackwatch's related site: Homeowatch. If you can't find sufficient resources there ... you should keep looking but the point is that they have a lot of resources.
 
A couple here:

A Close Look At Homeopathy
Around 1800, the German medical doctor Samuel Hahnemann, obviously appalled with the still mostly medieval medical practices of his contemporaries, set out to revolutionize medical science. Today's followers of this quackery are remarkably successful in convincing people that the laws of the Universe don't apply to their water drops and sugar pills.
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Dilution or Delusion?
Homeopathy is a controversial concept of medicine with a large following, widespread popularity, even public and legislative support - and a theoretical foundation which is logically inconsistent and self-contradictory to an extent that borders on (or transgresses) the absurd.
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Also see http://www.naturowatch.org/ for naturopathy.

With some reservations, I also recommend "Homeopathy: How It Really Works" by Jay Shelton.
http://www.amazon.com/Homeopathy-Re...0050247?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175351281&sr=1-2

The problem is that it is not well-written, and can be confusing. Shelton know's that homeopathy is a sham; but sometimes he doesn't make it clear. He does, however, cite a wealth of sources.

As for the "electroanalysis" it is only reading electrical resistance. And the resistance it displays depends on how hard the probe is pressed against the skin. That was a common thing to check when I was in high-school electronics shop back in the olden days, before we had pocket calculators.
 
How about discussing the different treatment philosophies of homeopathy and naturopathy, to show that they are mutualy exclusive. They can't both be true(of course neither is true but that is a different point)
 
To the Alternative Medicine fan, it doesn't matter if two alt-med treatment philisophies are diametrically opposed to one another. If it's alternative, it must be good!
 
ponderingturtle said:
How about discussing the different treatment philosophies of homeopathy and naturopathy, to show that they are mutualy exclusive.
Click to expand...

It always amuses me how homeopaths and their supporters can mention other alternative remedies without referring to them as 'Allopathy'. :D

Of course, they are just as 'allopathic' as conventional medicine when looked at through the eyes of a homeopath.
 
ponderingturtle said:
How about discussing the different treatment philosophies of homeopathy and naturopathy, to show that they are mutualy exclusive. They can't both be true(of course neither is true but that is a different point).
Click to expand...
Actually, naturopathy incorporates just about any quack method (http://www.naturowatch.org/) and is not in conflict with homeopathy. I am not sure of the homeo position on naturo, except that they present themselves as better trained in it than naturos. See below:
tracer said:
To the Alternative Medicine fan, it doesn't matter if two alt-med treatment philisophies are diametrically opposed to one another. If it's alternative, it must be good!
Click to expand...
 
Soapy Sam said:
MrQhuest- You might PM Asolepius. This gentleman is very clued up on the subject.
This site may interest you.
http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/index.php/site/project/5/
Read Prof Baum's letter to NHS trusts on the page linked to above.
Asolepius is one of the signatories.
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Thanks for the flattery Soapy! I would just say that the problem is not one of proving homeopathy (or any other sCAM) doesn't work. Frankly, proving a negative can't be done. When people make claims, the onus is on them to back up claims with evidence. Now when I do this with homeopaths (and recently I was debating face to face with Dr Peter Fisher, the Queen's homeopath, and several leading lights from the Society of Homeopaths), they always cite 50 clinical trials and several meta-analyses which they claim do provide the evidence. They conveniently forget a number of key factors:

1. The majority of clinical trials which show no evidence - far more than 50.

2. The matter of trial quality. Most trials of homeopathy are of very poor quality. Most importantly, the better the quality, the less likely they are to show an effect. The meta-analyses they cite usually do not exclude poor quality studies.

3. Reproducibility. Almost no homeopathy trials which seem to show an effect have been replicated. If you do enough trials, by chance you will get positive results from a minority.

On top of this, I am currently looking at studies of `basic science' in homeopathy. These are experiments which test the idea of the `memory of water', ultra-dilution etc. Firstly, a study by homeopaths showed that there is virtually no reproducibility of results:

Vickers AJ. Independent replication of pre-clinical research in homeopathy: a systematic review. Forsch Komplementarmed. 1999 Dec;6(6):311-20.

The bottom line is that all studies purporting to show a mechanistic basis for homeopathy are spurious. Subjecting some of these studies to expert review reveals very tiny effect sizes, which could easily have been the result of confounding factors.

Now all this is rather a lot with which to convince a lay person. I usually end up asking the question: "Do you want homeopathy to be judged by the same standards as are applied to orthodox medicine?". In my last debate, even the homeopaths had to answer yes. If they accept that, then their claimed evidence falls apart. You can also turn this round, and ask whether orthodox medicine should be tested by ignoring study quality, and/or accepting anecdotes as evidence. Nobody I know has said yes to that. But somehow the homeopaths manage to cling to a double standard - as does the government and the regulatory authority.
 
There's a great video where Randi tears homeopathy a new one. He explains the concept behind how it's supposed to work, the dilution, and tops it off by overdosing on the pills.

I haven't reached my 15 posts yet but you can find it on Google Video (not Youtube).
 
JJM said:
Actually, naturopathy incorporates just about any quack method (http://www.naturowatch.org/) and is not in conflict with homeopathy. I am not sure of the homeo position on naturo, except that they present themselves as better trained in it than naturos. See below:
Click to expand...

So naturopathy is entirely a useless term as it does not describe any specific set of practices and included mutualy conflicting practices?
 
ponderingturtle said:
So naturopathy is entirely a useless term as it does not describe any specific set of practices and included mutualy conflicting practices?
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I note that you are a philosopher- I am not. However, I agree with your statement; although naturos will not. They will tell you they have a set of principles that defines them; but those principles are really vague (see the site I linked).

One of their "principles" is to prevent disease rather than merely treat it. Yet, too many of them oppose vaccination (except, for their homeopathic vaccines!?). They will tell you to adopt a healthy lifestyle. What do they mean by that? It seems to include herbs and supplements, as if you need more weeds in your diet. Medicine brought us the researched recommendations for nutrition, exercise, and rest.

Medicine identified all known methods for disease prevention begining with sanitation and vaccines, and moving through avoiding tobacco and asbestos exposure. Naturopaths have not advanced preventive medicine, except in their imaginations.

Aside from vague principles, they have no real oversight- once graduated, they are free to do whatever they want as long as they don't really screw the pooch. Kurt Butler (A Consumer's Guide to "Alternative Medicine": Prometheus, 1992) describes a licensed naturopath who killed his wife by treating her Hodgkins disease with herbs. The quack did not even receive a reprimand from the licensing board.
 
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