Cough! Cough!

[Professor Bear]

I've found consulting your chemist is just as good as seeing your GP in most cases.  Depending on how cynical you want to be about it, the chemist also doesn't have qualms about selling you more expensive meds, while your GP is usually under direction to prescribe the cheapest option.

[House of Usher]

You do realize that research proves homiopathic medicines work on animals?

Placebos may appear to work on animals because a) humans testing the placebo's effect record differently when they think there ought to be a result, b) animals show improved signs of health because humans treat animals differently when they know they are being treated homeopathically rather trhan not at all - i.e. they look after them more optimistically because they expect the treatment to have a beneficial effect, and it does have a beneficial effect due to more efforts at feeding the animal and more loving attention generally, c) because the sample tested isn't sufficiently large to yield statistically significant results, d) the condition may be self-limiting, and the creature might have got better without treatment anyway, or e) the creature's improvement in health is due to a delayed reaction to a conventional therapy discontinued prior to commencement of administering the placebo.

[TordelBack]

(f).  Homeopaths and their advocates don't feel bound by scientific practice in any way, and have been repeatedly shown to discard without record results which don't support their a priori conclusion.  This helps a lot with gathering supportive evidence for any proposition.

This isn't  to sat that homeopathic remedies don't have an effect, just that that effect has nothing to do with what's actually in the bottle.

[WoD]

You do realize that research proves homiopathic medicines work on animals?

Which either means animal brains are more sophisticalted than we have previously thought because they suffer from the placibo effect to....

Or..

Somehow it works....

Any chance you have a link to this work? I'd love to read it.

[Mike Gloady]

What TB said.

[johnnystress]

Last year I spent a lot of money going to a homeopath for an ongoing medical condition. I was and still am skeptical but I figured it was worth a try- I'd even gone to a holy joe faith healer- which yielded no results( surprise surprise)

This homeopath hooked me up to all sorts of B-Movie machines- one of which recorded my "energies" or something onto a piece of card that I had to hold to my chest for half an hour every day- taking care not to hold it near a mobile phone lest the electronic properties be erased....yes indeed. Interestingly he did allergy tests that matched what my local pharmacist suggested might be exacerbating my condition; wheat, spicy food, dairy, alcohol. The difference being that the pharmacist told me all this for free.

I should've listened.

One thing I kept hearing from friends and colleagues was that it was my fault for not 'believing' in the cure - which is just bollox of vatican-esque proportions. I went in with an open mind, hoping for a cure but allowing myself to accept that it may or may not work. I even cited the "animals have been treated successfully" idea more than once( to myself and to others).

After following the recommended restricted diet for a couple of months and taking the homeopathic remedies I was prescribed I decided to give up. The diet made sense, the distilled water..as useful as the vinegar baths the aforementioned holy joe had be taking. That's right, vinegar baths.

I saw no improvement in my condition. The homeopath said it would take much longer than what I was allowing to see any changes. I reckoned that a few months on the restricted diet and the nature of my condition I probably would see some improvement but that would have nothing to do with the distilled water I was drinking.

So now I'm on a course of seriously strong 'western' medicine which will mean regular blood tests and monitoring. I'm expecting good results - I was on it before and it worked a treat. Only thing is I cant have any alcohol for 12 weeks!

One long, boring week down, 11 to go.

Anyway here's what UK skeptics have to say on the matter of animals and homeopathy

http://www.skeptics.org.uk/article.php?dir=articles&article=it_works_in_animals.php

[The Doctor Alt 8]

Last year I spent a lot of money going to a homeopath for an ongoing medical condition. I was and still am skeptical but I figured it was worth a try- I'd even gone to a holy joe faith healer- which yielded no results( surprise surprise)

This homeopath hooked me up to all sorts of B-Movie machines- one of which recorded my "energies" or something onto a piece of card that I had to hold to my chest for half an hour every day- taking care not to hold it near a mobile phone lest the electronic properties be erased....yes indeed. Interestingly he did allergy tests that matched what my local pharmacist suggested might be exacerbating my condition; wheat, spicy food, dairy, alcohol. The difference being that the pharmacist told me all this for free.

I should've listened.

That... wasn't a proper homeopath... that was a shyster.... Homeopthaphic medicine is basied on treating "like with like"  (Not that I'm an exspert) so they don't use "magic cards"
They use technics like "psychics" a combination of cold reading and inteligent guesswork. Many people have low/ medium "food intolarences" like you discribe... and mast are caused by the same types of food.

[TordelBack]

Doc, stop please, I feel a irresistable evangelical urge to deluge you with links and literature...  Homeopathy is based on the treating of illness with water (and the odd drop of sugar or alcohol).    There is no 'like' in it, statistically not even a molecule of  any so-called 'active ingredient', once the farcical dilution  process has been followed.  It hinges on the belief that the less there is of something, the more powerful its effect.  This may be a principle many men cling to, but it ain't true.

[The Doctor Alt 8]

I know, I know, the "active" ingredient is many times less than possible. Homopaths recognise that they don't know why it works.
Nether do hyponotists... but look what Deran Brown can do to suseptible people.
But for a lot of people, even though it's the palcibo effect. it DOSE WORK for them.
It's also CHEAPER than conventional medicine with less to no side effects. For non serious condidtions, if it works, go for it.
It is also important to realize that there are a lot of frauds out there who need to be weeded out, it all sorts of althenative therapes and that the person consulted didn't sound like a homeopath to me....
As I think I pointed out... conventional means first... then if it fails try elsewhere... but keep your wits about you.

[Mike Gloady]

A non-fraudelent homeopath sounds like a reputable snake oil salesman to me.  If, as Charlie Brooker says, psychics are "grief-raping fucktards" Cod knows what homeopaths and their vile ilk are. 

[TordelBack]

But for a lot of people, even though it's the palcibo effect. it DOSE WORK for them.
It's also CHEAPER than conventional medicine with less to no side effects. For non serious condidtions, if it works, go for it.

Amend that to 'no side effects', add the caveat that it's cheaper beacause it's flavoured water and sugar pills with no expensive ingredients, research or clinical trials behind it, and this at least I can agree with.  As I've confessed here before, as a dyed-in-the-wool sceptic and advocate of the scientific method, I too take homeopathic remedies, in the shape of Bach's Rescue Remedy, which does me a power of good when the terrors of the modern world grip me.  I know it's just some pear brandy in a little brown bottle, but its inoffensive alcoholic version of herbal tea comforts me - and not because some lying nob tells me that dubious contact of the contents with dew on flowers remembers the sun's goodness.

As the good Doctor suggests there's no harm in a bit of placebo to take the edge off the slings and arrows, the problem is in the wider claims for legitimacy in treating actual illnesses, which keep people away from the treatment they actually need.  That and the fact that it undermines public belief in science, education and rational thought to the detriment of all, and supports con-men who prey on the vulnerable.  Oh, and if you spend two seconds thinking about the 'logic' behind it, it's an outrageous insult to all our intelligences.  

Grrr, now I'm all waddaycallit riled, where's me Rescue Remedy...?

[House of Usher]

Homopaths recognise that they don't know why it works.

#

Far easier just to say it doesn't and move on, I reckon. 

[Dandontdare]

Anyway here's what UK skeptics have to say on the matter of animals and homeopathy

http://www.skeptics.org.uk/article.php?dir=articles&article=it_works_in_animals.php

That is a fantastic website, just spent the last hour or so browsing it. Loads of useful information to throw back at gullible idiots who try to convince you of pseudo-scientific BS.

I liked the section on David Icke - did you know that as well as the Clintons, the Bushes and the Royal Family, he includes Kris Kristofferson and Boxcar Willie among the shape-changing lizards? What does he know about country music that we don't? 

[Mike Gloady]

Kris Kristofferson is too cool to be an alien.  Even if he WAS in that shite vampire movie.