Why is Homeopathy under attack?

There is a new attack on homeopathy on the way. This is nothing new, perhaps, but it does raise the question 'Why?'.

The answer is relatively simple. So-called 'Quackbusters', and organisations like 'Sense about Science' speak for so-called 'scientific' medicine, based on Pharmaceutical drugs. They support hugely powerful vested interests, and they do so in the name of 'science'.

However, how scientific are they? Let us use an analogy to describe what they do. It is well known in the game of cricket that bowlers can get the cricket ball to 'swing' after it is bowled. Every cricketer knows this.

Good swing bowlers have learnt how to swing the ball, both ways, and use the technique to get batsmen out. A bad swing bowler would be someone who observed the swing, but stated that there was no scientific evidence to suggest why this should happen, and refuses to believe it could happen.

Good batsmen know that swing bowlers can swing the ball, and take this into account when playing the ball. A bad batsman would know that there is no scientific evidence to suggest that the ball will swing, and does not allow for it.

In a similar way, a good scientist is someone who observes the world, notices that for over 200 years people have got better after homeopathic treatment, and seeks to explain why this should be. A bad scientist, the denialists, like those in Sense and Science, just dismisses the evidence before their eyes.

Science, say the denialists, has no explanation that suggests homeopathy can work; therefore it cannot work, and does not work. Homeopathy is no more than placebo (even when animals are treated). Anyone who says that homeopathy has has worked for them are dismissed as deluded, or mad, or both.

Even when these denialists are presented with scientific evidence (and there is plenty of it), they dismiss it as 'inadequate' in some way. They ignore it. And they continue to repeat, ad nauseum - homeopathy does not work, because it cannot work.

Just ask the question. What if Newton, or Galileo, or Einstein had said this? We would have much less understanding of our world today. Good, perhaps, for the Pharmaceutical companies; bad for patients.

The Vicious Circle of Illness

My e-book, freely available by clicking on this link, talks about the 'vicious circle' of conventional medical failure. By this I mean that the more money spent on the NHS during the last 60 years, principally on Pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines, the sicker we have become as a nation.

And yet we do live longer! This greater longevity is more apparent than real, more to do with less poverty, improved diet than medicine - and more a statistical device. Take a base figure in the mid 1850's, when large numbers of people died every year in new, industrial and insanitary towns, where people lived in poverty and squalor, longevity was bound to improve during the last 150 years alongside improved public health measures, improved diet, better housing, and so on. But NHS-ConMed has expropriated the credit for this trend. It consistently leads us to believe that our increased life-expectancy was the result of their drugs.

So what about the generation, now in their 60's, who have lived all their lives under the NHS, and have taken more pharmaceutical drugs, earlier in life, than any other generation in history?

New recent evidence from the USA suggests that this generation is actually sicker than previous generations, and that longevity is beginning to level out, and is beginning to reverse. This is just what could be expected - the more pharmaceutical drugs we consume, the sicker we become. Perhaps over the next few years, we will longevity trends falling back.

Why do skeptics hate homeopathy? Homeopathy and the treatment of autism.

"Perhaps because it is one of the most threatening alternative modalities – financially, philosophically, and therapeutically. Actually, homeopathy has been a threat to allopathy ever since the 1800s, when German physician Samuel Hahnemann developed the homeopathic system".

So says Amy L. Lansky, PhD (see http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/12/22/Why-Skeptics-Love-to-Hate-Homeopathy.aspx).

Amy used ConMed treatment for herself and her family until her 3 year old son showed signs of autism, and that started her search for a safer form of medicine. She found homeopathy, and as she says, "after two years of treatment, he was testing normally and was released from eligibility for special education benefits".

The skeptics will dismiss this experience as anacdotal; but then they would, wouldn't they! The safety and effectiveness of homeopathy is a threat to ConMed, and skeptics want to stop people getting access to any treatment that is safer and more effective than their favoured treatment.

For more information, look at Amy's website, http://www.impossiblecure.com/.

Medicine - the use of low doses in cancer treatment

Conventional medicine (ConMed) would have us believe that only by taking highly toxic drugs in large physical doses can have any impact on our health. This is quite wrong, and the evidence of the benefit of low, minimal and homeopathic doses is actually well known to science - except, of course, to the skeptics and supporters of the Pharmaceutical drugs industry.

It would appear that researchers within the conventional medical establishment are beginning to get the message. Read this at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2754535/?tool=pubmed for a broad overview of the research that looks at the advantages of low doses, mainly in the treatment of cancer.

Of course, the lower the dose, the safer the medicine. Samuel Hahnemann got to know about minimum dose over 200 years ago, and homeopathy has taken the concept to its ultimate conclusion. This is why homeopathy is safe medicine. But ConMed is welcome to the party, better late than never!

Scarlet Fever and Homeopathy

Samuel Hahnemann published his pamphlet Cure and Prevention of Scarlet Fever in 1801, that is, over 220 years ago. In this he promoted Belladonna as a specific prophylactic (preventative) remedy for Scarlet Fever / Scarlatina.

Since that time homeopathy has become aware of many other remedies that prevent and treat this condition, and deal with the aftermath. It was always more successful in treating epidemics of of disease, and remains a better treatment than anything offered by conventional medicine.

Many people have benefitted from homeopathy during the last two centuries, and Belladonna has become an important homeopathic remedy for many conditions. Not only is the remedy effective in many conditions that involve high fever, it is also extremely safe - like all homeopathic remedies - and unlike all conventional drugs.

Junk Science vs Homeopathy

It is always useful to engage in discussion about health issues. In a previous post, the Black Duck has raised a study by George Lewith and Trevor Bryant in 2003 on Belladonna. So for readers of the blog rather that BD.

• There are other trials that prove that Belladonna is an effective remedy (for patients who have symptoms of illness that reflect the Belladonna symptom picture). The point is that trials must reflect what is being claimed for homeopathic remedies - and one remedy for one condition is not what homeopathy is about
• This reflects the 'dead end' of RCTs. Such trials rarely throw any light on anything useful. In fact, you can design RCT studies to prove whatever you want to prove.
• The real benefits of Belladonna are seen with patients with Belladonna symptoms; sudden, high fever, burning heat, redness, etc. Belladonna will have no visible effects on people who do not have such symptoms.
• So large RCT trials that give Belladonna to people who don't need it will certainly prove that Belladonna has no effect!
  

The real point, though, and the point being made throughout this blog, is that giving Belladonna in potency to someone who does not need it may do no good, but it does no harm. This is why homeopathy is a safe medical therapy.

In contrast, most, if not all conventional medical (ConMed) drugs do harm to patients, whether they are correctly prescribed or not. Some kill patients. Other lead to patients developing other diseases. Most ConMed drugs are positively harmful to people's health. And the 'scientific' testing of ConMed drugs has done little or nothing to protect patients from such outcomes.

And did homeopathy ignore the study? No we did not! Lionel Milgrom wrote 'MacCavity's not there!" and published it in JACM.

This is the point that Black Duck does not want to acknowledge.

Dana Ullman, Homeopathy, and Skeptic Interference

Dana Ullman is writing an amazinging good blog on the Huffington Post. To see his latest go to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-ullman/how-homeopathic-medicines_b_389146.html?show_comment_id=36324951#comment_36324951.

You will see that his blog comes under the same kind of 'skeptic' interference as this one, from the self-style quackbuster, Black Duck. My advice to everyone, including those who have written in to support homeopathy, is to stay calm. This is what I have written to Dana's blog - and I reproduce it here because I believe it is good advice.

"Stay calm, Dana! The skeptics have been placed here to annoy us personally, and undermine homeopathy particularly. I am having the same problem on my blog http://safe-medicine.blogspot.com/. The purpose of my blog, and yours, is to try to inform people about the benefits of homeopathy, particularly at a time that conventional medical drugs are proving to be so dangerous, and based on such bad science. Indeed, it is strange that skeptics don't have anything to say about the almost daily revelations about the cheque-book, junk science that serves as the 'evidence base' for conventional medicine.

So for readers - don't be put off - skeptics are widely believed to be funded by the drug companies, who don't like homeopathy because it is not good for their business!

And Dana - stay calm. I thoroughly enjoy your blog, and I hope that you are bringing more people to question conventional medicine, and to realise that that there are safe and more effectives forms of medical therapy out here".