A conversation with a medical fundamentalist

As readers of this blog will realise I don't engage in conversations with medical fundamentalists, for two main reasons. First, they have nothing useful to say on the health issues that are important to debate. And, like most fundamentalists, religious, medical or otherwise, their views are entirely fixed, unchanging, and unreasoning. There is also a third reason. They try to engage with me on Twitter, constantly, and invariably they are abusive. They are trolls. They are not interested in debate, only on propagating and enforcing their own views.

So how would a conversation with a medical fundamentalist go?

Homeopathy is a very effective medical therapy.

• No, it's not! There is no evidence that homeopathy works! Only conventional medicine, and its pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, are based on science!

Yet many millions of people have been cured of all kinds of diseases for over 220 years, all over the world, so it must be effective.

• No no-one has been cured by homeopathy! It is the placebo effect! They just thought they got better! There is no evidence that homeopathy works! Only conventional medicine is based on science!

But I have been cured with homeopathy. How do you explain that?

• You are mistaken! You are lying! It is just the placebo effect!

But homeopaths throughout the world are curing sick people every day. Can all these people be mistaken? Are they all lying?

• Yes, there is no evidence that homeopathy works! Only conventional medicine works because it is based on science! It is just the placebo effect!

But homeopathy works with animals and plants, how can that be a placebo effect?

• That's all nonsense, there is no evidence that homeopathy works with either animals or plants! 

There are now nearly 500 studies that have demonstrated that homeopathy works, and here they are.

• No, these a not proper studies! They do not prove anything, and I will no change my mind! There is no evidence that homeopathy works!

What sort of studies would demonstrate to you that homeopathy works?

• RCT's, Randomised Controlled Tests. These are the 'Gold Standard' in scientific testing! And your studies are no good enough! There is no evidence that homeopathy works!

There are an increasing number of RCT's amongst the studies I have shown you. Why do you dismiss these?

• They are not acceptable to me! All of them do not meet my criteria for acceptability! There is still no evidence that homeopathy works!

Is there not enough evidence, within the studies I have shown you, and patient experience through the last 220 years, to suggest that more research should be done on Homeopathy?

• No! There is no evidence that homeopathy works! It cannot work! It is just the placebo effect! Homeopathy goes against all the known laws of science!

If RCT's are really so good, why is it that all conventional pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines have been tested, and pronounced to be effective and safe for patients, yet they have failed to pre-warn us about about the disease they have caused, and they serious harm they have done to patients?

• (Silence)! Medical Fundamentalists never answer questions about the iatrogenic disease caused by pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines that they maintain are supported by their science.

This pharmaceutical drug, or this vaccine, which has been banned, or withdrawn, or about which there is increasing evidence that it is causing harm. Why is this, if conventional medicine is supposed to be 'scientific'?

• (Silence)! Medical Fundamentalists may appear to support 'scientific' medicine, but they never explain or answer questions about either its ineffectiveness, or the harm it has consistently caused to patients.

Is not the first requirement of any medical therapy that first it should do no harm?

• (An ongoing and almost deafening silence ensues)!

So would you, at least, agree that homeopathy is a safe form of medicine?

• No, homeopathy is safe because there is no active ingredient! Remedies are no more than sugar pills! Homeopathy cannot work because no-one can explain its working mechanism! Homeopathy just cannot work!

Is it not the task of science to discover the working mechanism of Homeopathy?

• There is no reason to look into this! As a scientist I know that homeopathy is against all the known laws of chemistry! So I know that it cannot work! And despite all the evidence you have given me I insist that I am right! And nothing will prove that I am wrong!

Okay, so we have different views, but we can at least agree that patients should have a choice of medical therapy when they are ill.

• Certainly not, any money spent on homeopathy is a waste because it does not work. Homeopaths are quacks, charlatans, out to earn money from vulnerable, unsuspecting sick people.

Yet many people would want to choose homeopathy because they know it is both more effective, and safer. Would you deny them this choice?

• Yes. By offering patients homeopathy you are causing them harm! There is no evidence that homeopathy works! Pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines are supported by science! So by offering patients homeopathy you are denying them medicine that is based on science!

But conventional medicine has a long history of banned and withdrawn drugs and vaccines that have harmed patients. Medical science has not protected them. So how can denying patients a safe and effective medicine be dangerous when you recommend that they accept conventional medicine?

• (Silence)!

So should everyone be forced to accept the medicine you advocate, despite the harm it has caused, and is causing to patients?

• Yes, because pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines are based on real science! As a result everyone should be forced to accept the drugs and vaccines I believe in! Moreover, I campaign to ban homeopathy from the NHS as there is no evidence that homeopathy works!

Of course this is not what a real conversation would be like with a mental fundamentalist. I have not included all the personal abuse that they engage in when 'discussing' health matters. But for anyone interested in what medical fundamentalist trolls have to say, I have written about this abuse in several blogs I have published in the past.