Homeopathy

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Zephyr

Humans are ONE
Registered Senior Member
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phlogistician said:
Everybody knows what a placebo is, unless they're an idiot, or being deliberately obtuse.
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....hahhh. kno your reply would be such. you are verypredictable mon capiTAN

no. what i MEAN isss. what IS....IS it? whatactually is it meaning? medical science dont know sos i thought i'd ask you seeing you seem t know itall.
 
Sorry John, but you're an idiot. Not least for making a post and showing your ignorance, instead of spending the time looking it up.
 
Read Wikipedia's article on the placebo effect. Wikipedia is a good resource :p

Speaking of spending the time to look things up - Phlogistician, you obviously didn't read the second link I gave. It explained that Karen Nieber's experiment showed an effect on tissue from rat intestines detatched (unfortunately for the rodent) from the original rat. Are you suggesting that these tissue samples - on their own - are conscious and capable of producing a placebo effect? ;)

I can think of only one possible flaw with the experiment, but first I asked whether the university carrying it out is reputable. Obviously if they're known for producing crackpot research this result shouldn't be given much weight. But are they?
 
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phlogistician said:
Homeopathic effect has been shown to be at the same level of the placebo effect;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2903029.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4183916.stm

So, really, no effect for the alleged reasons ascribed at all.
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Mr. phlogistician probably thinks that he is being scientific referring to BBC news :D .

Well, I would not trust your opinions, since they are apparently biased by mainstream knowledge.

Why wouldn't you believe at least something like <a href="http://www.homeopathic.org/controlled.htm">this</a> information?
 
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phlogistician said:
Sorry John, but you're an idiot. Not least for making a post and showing your ignorance, instead of spending the time looking it up.
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Your right.My bad!! We could all go and 'look it up', but then what would be the point in belong to this 'community'? If i am an idiot in your eyes, a genius such as yourself should have no prob's in explaining...im sure youd be able to explain far better than any
phlogistician said:
looking it up.
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i could do. :eek:
 
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you see what the skeptics will --in a hostile manner, actually--rave against, is what they consider 'voodoo science'. Yet NOT it appears be affected by the knowledge of the toxicity of accepted medical drugs...

Thus tey will poo poo peoples own powers--ie., whic ignore-ant materialistic medical science calls 'the placebo effect', and push for more drug profits for the pharmacetical companines through their inevitable praise for approved medication
 
Say what you will, duendy. But, to date, homeopathy has not yielded results whereas modern medicine that undergoes the rigors of scientific testing has. Period. Homeopathy is a scam, designed to take money from the ignorant and willing such as yourself.

Are drug companies innocent? Certainly not. But with proper oversight and the right pressure, they can be balanced. I don't like spending $60/mo on my wifes anti-siezure meds, but I can tell you, without a doubt, that she would sieze without them.

Homeopathy depends depends upon diluting the active ingredient to a point that it is gone from the solution. It is BUNK. Show me the evidence that it works.
 
you do ealize i suppose many people are known to die fom their use of allopathic medicine....? dont think anyone has from using Homeopathy. andyes i have been aware of people who claim Homeopathy has worked for them

Also, another important point. For allopatic medicine to even be accepted involves the abuse of millions of animals--so-called animal-testing. which is an obscenity, AND is fraudulent too

read The Slaughter of the Innocents
 
Homeopathic "medicine" is often just water, duendy. I'm not surprised few have died from it, lest they choked.

And of course people "claim" it works. This is how pseudoscientific and paranormal things propogate among humans: anecdote and testimony. The various cults and religions of the world a based upon this vehicle. There are also those that think scam artists like John Edwards and Van Praagh are "really channeling the dead." People believe a lot of shit. But when it comes to showing the cards, only science and medicine have the upper hands -homeopathy is but a bluff.
 
SkinWalker said:
But, to date, homeopathy has not yielded results whereas modern medicine that undergoes the rigors of scientific testing has.
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Has nobody looked at the article I linked to? Nobody? I'm not saying that the principles of homeopathy - like cures like and dilution makes stronger and whatever - always work. But this experimenter claims that this particular solution had a measurable effect.

I was hoping for an intelligent discussion here, but it seems http://www.badscience.net/?p=170 already has a more thorough one.
 
Zephyr said:
I was hoping for an intelligent discussion here, but it seems http://www.badscience.net/?p=170 already has a more thorough one.
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Thanks for the link, Zephyr. Wo-of, what a heated discussion!
Funnily, the comments there show the same lack of understanding (or desire for it?) between the two camps as we observe here.

Why does the coin "scientifically implausible" scare people from the "scientists" camp so much?

A couple of sources I have found on PubMed:
"Are the clinical effects of homoeopathy placebo effects? A meta-analysis of placebo-controlled trials"
Klaus Linde MD, Nicola Clausius, Gilbert Ramirez DPH, Dieter Melchart MD, Prof. Florian Eitel MD, Larry V Hedges PhD and Dr. Wayne B Jonas MD
Lancet, Volume 350, Issue 9081 , 20 September 1997, Pages 834-843

Whoever here has a full-text access to Elsevier, please check it out. It is an impressively well organized statistical study.


The basic conclusion the authors make is as follows:
"The results of our meta-analysis are not compatible with the hypothesis that the clinical effects of homoeopathy are completely due to placebo."

Ironically, there is a recent article in the same magazine with an almost identical title:
"Are the clinical effects of homoeopathy placebo effects? Comparative study of placebo-controlled trials of homoeopathy and allopathy"
Aijing Shang MD, Karin Huwiler-Müntener MD, Linda Nartey MD, Peter Jüni MD, Stephan Döriga, Jonathan AC Sterne PhD, Daniel Pewsner MD and ProfMatthias Egger MD
(Volume 366, Issue 9487 , 27 August 2005-2 September 2005, Pages 726-732)

It is a very similar study, yet this time the conclusion is not in favour of homeopathy. It reads:
"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 , but strong evidence for specific effects of conventional interventions. This finding is ."

(O-ops, I thought the whole point was to eliminate placebo-linked error. So how could it be that actual "evidence for a specific effect of homoeopathic remedies", though "weak" is still "compatible with the notion that the clinical effects of homoeopathy are placebo effects" :confused: )

Yet, the editors are very quick to jump in with an editorial titled no less as "The end of homeopathy"! Of course, the former study was left without such attention (which also means it has been assumed scientifically sound, since no major corrections have been made, right?). I can only suppose that it left the respected "peer-reviewers" numbed from awe for the whole 8 years ;) .
 
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The ineffectiveness of homeopathic 'drugs' was well demonstrated by the failure of a mass suicide by homeopathic sleeping tablet overdose. The link is here , but for those of you with a deluded world view that you're not ready to kick just yet I'll post the quote below:

Another highlight was the successful failure of a Homeopathic Mass Suicide. Before the convention, we marched into a Sydney Pharmacy, yes, a pharmacy, and bought almost $100 worth of worthless sleeping pills. Then, as you can see in the photo, Prof. Colin Keay, Dr. David Brookman, myself, Barry Williams, Dr. Phil Plait, Peter Bowditch and Dr. Steve Roberts (not pictured) took the lot. We ate enough sleeping pills each that we should now all be dead.
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The point, apart from showing once again that this stuff is rubbish, was to also remind the audience that some parents actually try to vaccinate their babies with "Homeopathic Vaccines". This could indeed have deadly consequences.
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If you are feeling up to joining the modern world you could do worse than to follow the link and select 'commentery archive'.
 
fakedlunch said:
A couple of sources I have found on PubMed:
"Are the clinical effects of homoeopathy placebo effects? A meta-analysis of placebo-controlled trials"

The basic conclusion the authors make is as follows:
"The results of our meta-analysis are not compatible with the hypothesis that the clinical effects of homoeopathy are completely due to placebo."
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Interestingly enough, you quote-mine this article with some efficiency. Such that you omit the very next sentence: "[ b]ut there is insufficient evidence from these studies that any single type of homoeopathic treatment is clearly effective in any one clinical condition."

Indeed, Linde et al point out that the largest, most reliable study involved in their meta-analysis was also the one that demonstrated the most significant negative result, whereas the smaller, less reliable studies were the ones that demonstrated positive results. Moreover, their meta-analysis was far too broad and encompassed a wide range of alleged treatments -too wide to narrow in on any real trends.

fakedlunch said:
It [Shang et al 2005] is a very similar study, yet this time the conclusion is not in favour of homeopathy. It reads:
"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 , but strong evidence for specific effects of conventional interventions. This finding is ."
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Shang et al also concluded with, "[o]ur results confirm these hypotheses: when analyses were restricted to large trials of higher quality there was no convincing evidence that homoeopathy was superior to placebo, whereas for conventional medicine an important effect remained. Our results thus provide support for the hypothesis that the clinical effects of homoeopathy, but not those of conventional medicine, are unspecific placebo or context effects."

I would say that, while Linde et al was obviously hopeful about the prospects of homeopathy, both Linde and Shang agreed that studies with appropriately large sample sizes and solid methodologies showed no significant positive result for homeopathy beyond placebo expectations.

fakedlunch said:
(O-ops, I thought the whole point was to eliminate placebo-linked error. So how could it be that actual "evidence for a specific effect of homoeopathic remedies", though "weak" is still "compatible with the notion that the clinical effects of homoeopathy are placebo effects" :confused: )
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I don't understand your confusion. Very clearly, homeopathic medicine has effects comparable to placebo and this is what both authors were stating their meta-analyses found. In other words, people think they are being treated and respond as if they are. But with allopatric medicines, there is a significant positive response that far exceeds the placebo expectation.

fakedlunch said:
Yet, the editors are very quick to jump in with an editorial titled no less as "The end of homeopathy"! Of course, the former study was left without such attention (which also means it has been assumed scientifically sound, since no major corrections have been made, right?). I can only suppose that it left the respected "peer-reviewers" numbed from awe for the whole 8 years ;) .
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I think the error is in your reading of the study. I read both and my copy of the 1997 Lancet has two editorial comments about the meta-analysis by Linde et al. Moreover, I came away from reading Linde et al with the understanding that they found no significance in homeopathic remedies over placebo but remained hopeful that further study would be more revealing. It would seem that, in 2005, it is.

References

Linde, K.; Clausius, N.; Ramirez, G.; Melchart, D.; Eitel, F.; Hedges, L.; Jonas, W. (1997). Are the clinical effects of homeopathy placebo effects? A meta-analysis of placebo-controlled trials. The Lancet 350(9081), 834-843

Shang, A.; Huwiler-Müntener, K. and Nartey, L et al. (2005). Are the clinical effects of homoeopathy placebo effects? Comparative study of placebo-controlled trials of homoeopathy and allopathy, The Lancet. 366 (9487), 726–732
 
Zephyr said:
Hmm, not sure if this belongs in parapsychology but I've seen it mentioned here so *shrugs*

Is the university of Leipzig reputable, and can anyone here read the German original of this article? http://translate.google.com/transla...ig.de/presse2003/homoeopathie.html+&hl=en&lr= Google translation is all very well but it doesn't really flow. Other websites referring to the same person say that she's proven a homeopathic effect though.
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Since the criticism that none have actually read the article you linked to and are simply commenting on the status of homeopathy in general is a fair one, I went back and re-read the article in both its translated as well as its original German. Being a press-release (and perhaps an article of popular media), there are some things missing: notably the methodology and the data. So I went to the Leipzig Uni site and poked around for a publication title ... nothing. The author has some published works in mainstream journals, but nothing on the topic at hand that I noticed.

I would question whether the study was double-blind in nature and what sort of data sets were used. This is something that, if done correctly, the author should have insisted upon in the press release, I know I would have insisted on a short sentence that said something like, "double-blind study of 118 rats." But nothing of the sort was mentioned. If the sample size was very small, and the researcher conducting the experiment new what outcome was expected, then confirmation bias creeping in must be expected.

Remember, the beladonna solution that was used was diluted to the point that no molecule of beladonna remained. That means that it was either the solvent (water?) which was affecting the rat intestines or an error on the part of the researcher. And if proper controls were used and the intestinal reactions were random, this researcher would have known which solvents were controls and which were the alleged "dilutions."

Its all poppycock. I'm betting that once the paper is produced (if it ever is), there'll be major flaws in double-blinding and data-sets (the controls).
 
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