NHS Overspend - again!

The mainstream media is reporting yet another NHS overspend this morning (18th June 2014). 

Of course, this is not new news - such overspends have been a regular feature of NHS health news for the last 60+ years and more. The usual reasons given (including by the BBC Today programme) is that the NHS is underfunded (currently the spending freeze is highlighted), and there is an ageing population. Yet the BBC Today programme featured two other health-related features.

• One concerns new NICE guidance to doctors regarding the treatment of Atrial Fibrillation - stop using Aspirin - and start using blood-thinning drugs like Warfarin.

• The other feature concerned Crohn's Disease, which it said had increased by over 300% over the last 10 years, and that one of the reasons for this was the prescription of antibiotic drugs to young children.

These news features were not linked by the BBC, of course, although there is a very clear link, as I have pointed out, in considerable detail, in my e-book, "The Failure of Conventional Medicine" (click here to read this). Conventional, drug-based medicine has always been expensive. Some drugs can cost £30,000 per annum per patient, and a few much more than this. 

Yet whilst the cost of conventional drugs is an issue it is NOT the fundamental reason the NHS is constantly found to be overspending. Indeed, the reason for NHS overspends are contained within the BBC's own reports today on Aspirin, and on Crohn's disease.

The NICE guidance on aspirin overturns conventional medical practice that has been in place for decades. What does this mean? It means that the NHS has now recognised that people have been taking a drug is not very effective.

"Aspirin has been used for years to help protect patients from strokes, but mounting evidence suggests the drug's benefits are too small compared with other treatments".

Yet the main problem with aspirin is not just that it is ineffective. There is a growing recognition that aspirin is positively dangerous to our health, especially when taken on a long-term basis. This, of course, was not mentioned by NICE, or by the BBC, but it could well be the primary reason for the change in advice.

Indeed, there is evidence, reported in the BMJ some years ago that the use of aspirin can actually triple the risk of stroke - the very condition it has been given to prevent!.

In terms of cost, this means is that the NHS has been using a largely ineffectual (and harmful) drug on the basis that it was doing us some good. This is not a one-off situation. It has been repeated regularly over the years - we are given a drug because it is supposed to be effective, only later for us to be told it is not effective! 

We are, however, not usually told that the drug we have taken for years is also dangerous.

However, this is not the case with the BBC's feature on Crohn's disease. The cause of this particular epidemic was actually mentioned. Antibiotic drugs. And particularly antibiotics given to young children. The dangers of antibiotics drugs have rarely been discussed by the mainstream media. The conventional medical establishment have, said for over 60 years, that these drugs were "very safe", and it has been on this understanding that most parents have allowed their children to take them over the years. 

The admission that Antibiotic drugs meddle with our gut flora, disrupt our digestive system, and can ultimately cause Crohn's disease, was mentioned in this BBC feature - but the issue was not pursued. The mainstream media, including the BBC, has rarely, if ever, discussed the issues of medical drugs causing such epidemics of chronic disease. There are many examples of this but they appear to be 'no-go' areas for our media!

Incidentally, there is also evidence that aspirin can also cause Crohn's disease!

So what are we facing in this situation? What are we missing? Basically, we are missing a vicious circulatory in the way we are delivering health services to sick people, and the outcomes.

• Start with an overspending NHS......
• Then consider the use of drugs, over decades, that are eventually found to be ineffective (and also harmful to our health).....
• Then consider the epidemics of chronic diseases, like Crohn's, often new diseases, caused by conventional drug treatment, which add to the levels of illness the NHS is having to cope with.....
• Then consider the additional demands this places on NHS services......
• And then ask the question - why does the NHS overspend its huge budget......

I wonder when the Media is going to be allowed to do some 'joined-up' thinking on the issue of health, and the domination of conventional drugs within the NHS?

BBC News highlights its own inadequacies in health reporting. Statin Drugs.

The mainstream media does not report the dangers of pharmaceutical drugs, and this includes BBC News, a public service broadcaster that has repeatedly refuses to inform its viewers and listeners of the harm Big Pharma drugs can cause.

It was therefore a surprise to hear this morning (11th June 2014) that the Today programme reported that certain senior doctors have asked NICE to re-look at its advice to prescribe Statin drugs to healthy people. Perhaps they did not realise that they were giving an opportunity for these doctors to state that Statin drugs cause serious adverse reactions, including kidney and liver damage, muscle damage, and diabetes (dementia was not mentioned).

The BBC, and most of the mainstream media, have never reported these disease-causing-effects of Statin drugs before - and the question needs to be asked - Why not?

(Incidentally, the 'epidemic' rise of diabetes was featured by the Today programme the previous day, 10th June 2014. No connection was made to this, or the fact that many conventional drugs are known to cause diabetes).

What astute listeners would  have realised is that BBC News have never announced these adverse reactions, and have always been happy to parrot the conventional medical establishment's view that these drugs were 'entirely safe', and that 'everyone should take them'.

The report also demonstrated that NICE make their recommendations without access to all the evidence known to Big Pharma companies about the adverse reactions of drugs. 

John Humphries seemed genuinely surprised about this 'revelation'. Perhaps we should ask where he has been during the last ten years and more!

It also seemed to come as a surprise that NICE was dominated by people who had close links with Big Pharma companies.

For a moment I thought that the BBC had changed their policy on health issues - a sudden conversion to open and honest and impartial reporting. However, it is more likely that they stumbled on this evidence. Whether they pursue such concerns in future remains to be seen. But by past performance, they will continue to believe everything the conventional medical establishment tells them, and assume that the only people who know anything about health are conventionally trained doctors.

Patients are badly served by the BBC, and by the mainstream media generally. This is one of the main reasons for this, and similar blogs - to inform people about the dangers of conventional medicine - to inform people that the NHS, NICE, the MHRC, et al, are part of a monopoly that is causing harm to our health.

Cystitis. Why Homeopathic treatment is best

This blog first published on "Why Homeopathy?" website

Cystitis is inflammation of the bladder, usually caused by a bladder infection. The condition is often referred to as a ‘urinary tract infection’ or UTI. NHS Choices says it can be caused by not emptying your bladder properly, for example, because of pregnancy or an enlarged prostate, damage or irritation around the urethra (the tube that carries urine from the bladder out of the body), bacteria being transferred from the anus to the urethra, for example, during sex.

The symptoms of cystitis are well known:

•     an urgent and frequent need to urinate
•     pain or stinging when urinating
•     pain in the bladder

CONVENTIONAL MEDICAL TREATMENT

NHS Choices says that the symptoms of mild cystitis “usually clear up without treatment within a few days”. It offers several ‘self-help’ treatments, such as:

• painkillers like Paracetamol and Ibuprofen, which “can reduce pain and discomfort” but then tells you to read the information leaflet because of the dangers of doing so!
• drinking plenty of water is often recommended as a treatment for cystitis
• avoiding alcohol.
• refrain from having sex.
• using ‘urine alkanising agents’, such as sodium bicarbonate or potassium citrate, for a short period to relieve pain when urinating.

However, NHS Choices warns that “there is currently a lack of clinical evidence for their effectiveness”. 

When the symptoms of Cystitis become more severe, or when it recurs regularly, Antibiotic drugs are then prescribed, with all their inherent dangers.

THE HOMEOPATHIC TREATMENT OF CYSTITIS

Please click here to see the evidence basis for Homeopathy

Important Note

Homeopathy does not treat illness or diseases. It treats the individual who has been diagnosed with a particular illness or disease. The distinction is important, and if you wish to read more about this, click on the chapter “Illness Diagnosis” above.

In acute cases of bladder infection, the following homeopathic remedies are the most commonly used and effective:

Aconite

Useful at the beginning of a bladder infection, when the symptoms come on very suddenly.

Cantharis

Perhaps the best known remedy for bladder infections. People needing this remedy have burning, scalding pains during urination, with a constant, frequent, often overwhelming urge to urinate, but only able to pass it drop by drop.

Apis Mel

Severe, hot burning pains, especially when passing urine. Urge to pass urine frequently to prevent leakage.  Often used when Cantharis is indicated but does not help.

Sarsaparilla

Severe pain during and at the end of urination; can urinate only in dribbles. Often a crusty urinary sediment.

Nux Vomica

Symptoms come on after over-indulgence, drugs or alcohol. There is pain before or during urination.

Lycopodium

Flow is slow to start; may be back pain before urination which goes away afterwards; may need to pass urine during night

Nux Vom

For cutting, burning pains, where little urine is passed and you feel chilly and irritable

Pulsatilla

Passes urine frequently, symptoms worse when lying down. Involuntary passing of urine  mainly at night, when coughing, passing wind.  Burning sensation during or after urination

Staphysagria

For cystitis after intercourse.

Many of these remedies can be found in simple home-use remedy kits that can be obtained from these Homeopathic Pharmacies.

Diabetes Drugs. So you think these are helping you?

Diabetes is reaching epidemic proportions. One of the main reasons for this is that diabetes is a direct 'side-effect' of many conventional drugs and treatments. Yet, far from having done enough damage, the conventional medical establishment gives us more drugs to treat the disease.

So what are these drugs like? What 'side-effects', or more accurately, what diseases, do diabetes drugs cause?

The dangers of the diabetes Avandia were so serious the drug was eventually banned in the UK and Europe in 2010. I have written about Avandia in previous blogs, and if you want to know the dangers of this drug, click the links here:

Avandia. Still on sale! (July 2010).

Avandia is banned (September 2010).

Avandia. Still on sale! (April 2011).

Another diabetes drug, Actos, has more recently been banned in India, German and France - because it is known to cause bladder cancer, congestive heart failure and death. It is, to the best of my knowledge, still on sale in the rest of the world! Indeed, Actos has been one of the world's most widely prescribed drugs for Type 2 diabetes. But it increases the risk of bladder cancer, the manufacturer knew this, and were fined $9bn by the USA courts for withholding the information!

And it is not just Avandia and Actos. In this blog, "Diabetes Drugs. The cost to our health", in May 2013) I described the harm caused by drugs called Victoza, Byetta, Nesina and Januvia.

The Agora Health website said this about the diabetes drug, Victoza, which was found to cause a rare kind of thyroid cancer, and pancreatitis, and could therefore be deadly.

“Victoza proved to be so dangerous that, in 2012, the FDA received a petition asking that the agency remove it from the market immediately. Even though Victoza "puts patients at higher risk of thyroid cancer, pancreatitis (and) serious allergic reactions", the FDA denied this request... as expected! 

And in July 2013, I wrote this blog, "Diabetes. Are patients better off with, or without these conventional drugs".

So perhaps we might expect that our drug regulators might be expected to be more cautious when approving new Big Pharma drugs! Not a bit of it!

Recently, the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved yet another diabetes drug that is riddled with serious and harmful ‘side effects’ - that is the drug causes disease!

Another Avandia? Another Actos? Probably. And the drug, called Tanzeum, will probably kill as many people as its predecessors before any action will be taken to protect patients. Tanzeum, a drug that has to be injected into the bloodstream, is designed to mimic a hormone that causes the pancreas to release insulin.

Drug Regulators, like the FDA in the USA, and MHRC in the UK, are aware of the dangers, but they take no action. 

Agora Health warned (in April 2014) about another diabetes drug, Invokana, and described it as a drug to be avoided, and outlined the futile efforts to ban it

“In typical FDA fashion, it's allowing GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the maker of Tanzeum, to conduct a 15-year study for a rare kind of cancer called medullary thyroid carcinoma that could be linked to Tanzeum. You read that right - 15 years! 

So GSK will also report back to the FDA about the heart risks of Tanzeum, but not, of course, until the drug has been causing disease, and killing people, for a very long time!

So are there any diabetes drug not mentioned in this list? There probably are lots more. But would you want to take the chance that these are any safer? It is not the wise option. We all need to learn from experience. Conventional medical drugs do not just cause 'side-effects', they cause disease and death!

The End of Conventional Medicine

The end of conventional medicine is getting ever closer. The time is rapidly coming when the conventional drugs and vaccines that we have all become used to, and considered for so long to be ‘life saving’, will no longer be available. They will all have been deemed ineffective, or just too dangerous.

So have you decided yet what you will do when your doctor tells you that all his/her drugs are not fit for purpose, that they are too dangerous to our health, that their medicine cupboard is bare?

Painkillers.

I have already blogged about doctors who are asking what painkillers than can use for patients with chronic pain, because all the one’s they use, and have been using for years, are becoming too dangerous to prescribe. Click this link to see how doctors are now discussing what they can do for patients who are experiencing significant pain.

Antibiotics

The World Health Organisation (WHO) have been telling us for some time that these drugs are reaching the end of their useful life, and that no new ones are in the pipeline. Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), admitted recently that antibiotics have been so over-used that they are now almost completely useless against 'super strains' of bacterial infection. Superbugs are the result, and conventional medicine has no answer to these.

The same warning have come from Sally Davies, the UK's Chief Medical Officer, who said:

“... the rise in antibiotic-resistant diseases could trigger a national emergency comparable to a catastrophic terrorist attack, pandemic flu or major coastal flooding."

When such stalwarts of the Conventional Medical Establishment (who usually stick together, and deny such problems when they are raised) begin to announce these imminent disasters we can all be assured that something is going disastrously wrong with the drug-based medicine, that has dominated health care for the last century and more. 

So what does this mean - for anyone who is not already searching for safer, and more effective medical treatment?

It means, in effect, that operations now considered as ‘routine’ will become impossible to carry out, and minor cuts and grazes will become potentially life-threatening. 

Infections are becoming immune to antibiotics. And antibiotics have, in any case, nurtured a whole array of new ‘superbugs’ which are already resistant to them. 

And it is worth noting that no new antibiotic has been developed for 50 years, and there are non in the pipeline. 

It would appear that drug companies are not interested in developing new antibiotics. Big Pharma have calculated that they make more money by developing new drugs for diseases that are now reaching epidemic proportions - like drugs for diabetes, for cancer, for heart disease, for dementia and for lowering cholesterol.

Drug companies, after all, are in the business for making money. Making us better has never been their priority!

That is why they are always keen to hide from us, from patients particularly, the potentially lethal “side-effects” of their drugs and vaccines. David Healy, Professor in Psychological Medicine at the Cardiff University School of Medicine, has commented on this, and the fact that drug companies often simply refuse to publish the full science that (supposedly) supports their use, both in terms of safety and effectiveness.

And drug regulators, as we too often see, are doing little about this situation. Set up to protect patients from dangerous drugs, they appear to be more intent on protecting the Big Pharma from losing profitable drugs. 

For example, one patient in the US was recently awarded $9 billion compensation after he developed bladder cancer from taking the diabetes drug, Actos. Apparently, the drug company knew about the link between this diabetes drug and bladder cancer, but had withheld the information from patients, and indeed, from doctors too. In the interests of sales and profits, they expect patients to add cancer to diabetes to their list of diseases.

France has banned Actos as it causes bladder cancer. Does this mean that French people are more susceptible to the drug than people in the rest of the world? No! It means that other drug regulators apparently do not care that the drug causes bladder cancer!

And the mainstream media companies, whose job it is to tell us about such things, do likewise. This is because our ‘Free’ Press, and even public service broadcasters, like the BBC, are not telling us about what is happening within the conventional medical system, or what their treatments are doing to our health:

• even when, as in this case, the evidence comes out through the public courts
• even when a drug company is found guilty of deceit
• even when they are fined a massive amount of money. 

And our media certainly does not investigate the issues when they do arise (or cannot be hidden). All they do is to invite conventional medical ‘experts’ to pour balm of the problem, and to tell us that we do not have to worry, that all is well.

So, the Media is failing to tell us that conventional medicine is failing. As a result, the imminence of it’s downfall is likely to be an immense surprise for most people.

In short, we all going to need to come up with alternatives to conventional drugs and vaccines. The reason is not just that the drugs and vaccines we now rely on have been proven to be either ineffective, or too dangerous to use. It is because there are alternatives available, and these alternatives are both safer, and more effective. The result is a public that is not well informed. 

• They are not asked, by doctors, by the NHS, by drug regulators, by the media, by government, to question the adverse reactions of drugs and vaccines, and whether they wish to put themselves at risk by taking them. 
• Too many people are outside the privileged few who know about safer, scientifically proven, natural cures and preventative treatments that will protect from disease, and treat it successful.
• To many people simply taking the drugs and vaccines, and succumb to chronic disease; becoming a statistic in the epidemic rise of diseases like ADHD, Cancer, Autism, Alzheimers, Diabetes, Heart Disease, et al.

And have you noticed that the Big Pharma industry is being ‘re-organised’? Pfizer has been proposing to take over AstraZemica? Other drug companies are busy exchanging parts of their business in order to ‘focus’ on a particular area of health care. 

Does this mean an expansion of a successful business? No, we are watching the travails of a declining, contracting industry, an industry whose drugs and vaccines are failing, and have been failing for decades. And an industry which has no safe or effective drugs or vaccines to take their place. 

When Big Pharma lose their industrial and financial muscle (which at the moment is considerable), they lose their ability to bribe our doctors, to infiltrate drug regulation agencies, to control the mainstream media, and to hold our governments to ransom. 

Then, and only then, Big Pharma will become a part of our past, and we will look back at the latter half of the 20th Century, and the first part of the 21st Century, and wonder why we were so foolish as to go down this rather unsuccessful and dangerous aberration in health care, that significantly harmed humanity. 

Yet today, the demise of conventional medicine is going to come as a shock to many people. Soon we will all have to look for alternative medical therapies. When we do, we will all discover just how dangerous our commitment to conventional drugs and vaccines has been, especially over the last 50-60 years of ‘free’ NHS medicine. 

We will have to learn quickly that we must no longer place our trust and confidence in medicine that fights against the natural immunity of our body, but find therapies that seek to support it.

Ultimately, placing our reliance on our natural immunity, and medical therapies that supports it, is the only path to living our lives in a healthy manner, free from the chronic disease epidemics that now dominate health care, and has been the major outcome of the conventional, drug-vaccine based healthcare of the last 50-60 years.

Our 'Free' Press is controlled by Big Pharma, and Big Corp.

This article was written for the Sunday Mail in April 2014. It was written at the specific request of a journalist who assured me that it would be published. As far as I can ascertain it has never been published. I did enquire of the journalist, who never responded to my email.

This is just another example of the British media refusing to criticise the conventional medical establishment, or to publish anything favourable to Homeopathy. 

It would appear just one more example of our 'Free' Press being under the financial influence and control of big corporate business, including Big Pharma.

Homeopathy, Lothian Health Board and Patient Choice

Every political party supports the concept of ‘Patient Choice’. Yet the decision by Lothian Health Board to cease funding for homeopathic medicines is another example of the NHS diminishing our choice - by closing down the limited options available to patients.

The demand for Homeopathy, and other alternative treatments, is growing. People are searching for safer, more effective medical therapies. And when patients find Homeopathy, the evidence is that they like it

• The campaigns against the closures of Homeopathic hospitals. These campaigns have been ignored by Lothian, and other local NHS organisations, leading already to the closure of one Homeopathic Hospital. All the others are under threat.

• An NHS sponsored study in Northern Ireland is 2008 was almost totally positive - but since it was published it has been completely ignored.

• A more comprehensive study in Switzerland in 2011 was equally clear - people want the option of choosing Homeopathy as their medical therapy. 

So how can the NHS oppose government policy on patients choice? The government says it is about ‘local decision making’. So patients can choose any medical therapy they want - as long as local NHS bureaucrats agree!

Let’s be clear. ‘Patient Choice’ means that any individual has the choice. It does not mean that personal choice should be determined by NHS bureaucrats! 

The NHS Establishment, nationally, locally, and in Lothian, is dominated by conventional medics who offer us only pharmaceutical drug treatment on a ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ basis. The NHS has become a monopoly: and like all monopolists, they want to keep it that way.

Why do people want to choose their treatment? 

First, it is becoming clear that pharmaceutical drugs are failing. 

• 85% of conventional drugs have been found to be ineffective.
• Painkillers are now so dangerous GP’s are in a quandary about whether they can prescribe them. 

Even Antibiotics now face levels of resistance that will make them redundant - imminently. 

The conventional drug cabinet is getting bare!

Second, pharmaceutical drugs are dangerous. Even Statins, drugs once said to be “so safe we should all take them”, are now known to cause disease - liver damage, memory loss, and Asthma. Is it surprising that people want to avoid harm caused by drugs?

Third, people increasingly mistrust Big Pharma drug companies, who seem intent on selling their drugs regardless of the consequences to patients. They have been found to be bribing doctors, to over-hyped claims for drugs based on research they have paid for, and to withhold negative findings about their drugs. The drug companies have been heavily fined for such practices, and public trust in what they tell us is a diminishing asset.

So people look for safer, more effective medical treatments. 

And the NHS says “No, we know best”. 

So much for Patient Choice! 

"Quack!" Just another personal attack from a Homeopathy Denialist

Writing, and providing evidence about the safety and effectiveness of Homeopathy is a task that always attracts the attention of 'Homeopathy Denialists', or 'Militant Skeptics'. I have talked about them before, here:

http://safe-medicine.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/militant-skepticism-and-homeopathy-what.html

http://safe-medicine.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/militant-skepticism-and-homeopathy.html

Twitter is their favourite vehicle, particularly if I have the audacity to say that homeopathy can treat serious illnesses and diseases effectively. These are not statements I make without supporting evidence. Many millions of very sick people have been treated successfully with homeopathy. And there is a growing body of scientific evidence to support their experience. But the militant skeptics, no doubt in the pay of the Big Pharma companies, just don't want to know!

I have talked about their argument before. Basically, they have none, other than abuse, and statements of denials, unsupported by evidence. I have provided examples of this in both the blogs I mentioned above. But to my amusement they continue to come! Here are some of the recent ones!

• "He actually believes homeopathy works! Stunned silence"
• "Homeopathy does not work. Transmission ends"
• "For unsound, illogical and poorly researched medical tips, give @stevescrutton a follow!"
• "It works for making the credulous poorer and/or dead. It also works for making the scumbag homeopaths rich!
• Maybe he didn't see that? Hey, @stevescrutton, seriously, pay attention. It's no better than a placebo.
• Are you a Homeopathy Practitioner?" < no, because I'm not a dangerous lying charlatan like you.
• dangerous charlatanry
• utter twaddle. You charlatans are being dealt with finally.
• Homoeopathy is utter nonsense peddled by charlatans to the gullible.
• @stevescrutton #homeopathy is still horses hit
• How vaccination compromises our natural immunity. // It doesn't.
• You are sentencing kids to death you obscurantist knob end.
• homeopathic remedies don't interact or have side effects because they have no effects. Shame on you, you leech
• pathetic beyond words. Still breaking the law claiming your magic water cures measles?
• Your ignorance is laughable
• Scarlet Fever and Homeopathy: a remedy used 200 years ago is still used today! And still no fucking use"

The assumption is always that homeopathy does not work, and that conventional medicine and drugs do! Most recent comments come about my ebook, "Why Homeopathy?", which for each illness or disease goes into detail that just the opposite is true, that homeopathy is a more effective, and safer treatment for the illness. Big Pharma skeptics don't question the evidence - they just stick to their guns - and throw abuse. They have nothing else to say.

• Risks but no real benefits. Potentially leading to illness going untreated with real medicine. To be avoided.
• Right up to the point where your child goes blue and dies from entirely treatable asthma.
• associating homeopathy as a 'treatment' for TB (even in addition to standard treatment) is dangerous and evil.
• Measles. Why risk the MMR vaccine?" < because it *works* you utter charlatan.
• homeopathic remedies don't interact or have side effects because they have no effects. Shame on you, you leech
• People like you have children's deaths on their hands.
• Homeopathy for tetanus? Please tell me you're joking. Your advice will kill people.
• Why homeopathy's dangerous - if used in place of medicine.

Recently I have received an email, in similar vein. Is there any argument here that provides evidence that homeopathy does not work? See for yourself!

 

WOW you are dumb.  Like cures like right?  So what cures stupidity?  Hanging out with other stupid people?  Then I guess you are healed already! 

You guys remind me of my old school nurse… what ever was wrong with you she’d give you a panadol and a glass of water…  except, you know, with you guys it’s water and sugar… but same diff… except at least the panadol helped with any pain!  Lol…

My theory is that surely no one is that dumb.  You must just be one of society’s leaches sucking money out of vulnerable people.  Either way you’re either an idiot or a scumbag, hence I’d rather be me than you J Enjoy your life as an Idiot and/or Scumbag. 

Your children must be so proud of their idiot/scumbag Dad! 

Here is a list of things people believed in 200 years ago:

• apoplexy (a syndrome of fainting spells)
• spontaneous combustion (especially of "brandy-drinking men and women")
• death from drinking cold water (your guess is as good as mine)
• death from near-misses from cannonballs (yes, seriously – they believed that the close contact could shatter bones and even cause blindness)
• Bloodletting
• Homeopathy (no really, people back then believed this rubbish!  Luckily we are smarter now than we were then!)

Check out what they used to do for toothache 200 years ago, it’s almost as weird and crazy as believing in homeopathy!

• "In order to relieve the tooth-ach, we must first endeavour to lessen the flux of humours to the part affected. This may be done by mild purgatives, scarifying the gums, or applying leeches to them, and bathing the feet frequently with warm water. The perspiration ought likewise to be promoted, by drinking freely of weak wine-whey, or other diluting liquors with small doses of nitre." - 1828

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go.  I have to go cure my aching feet by putting three leaches on each leg, standing on one leg, hopping and then doing three twirls to the left, three to the right then barking like a dog and speaking in tongues.

Good day to you sir!

So, as you see, not much light here either. 

• Panadol is, of course, a trade name for Paracetamol - one of the drugs doctors are fearful of prescribing because of its harmful and dangerous adverse reactions. (Let it not be said that I am saying something that is not true - go to this link to see doctors discussing the problem).
• Bloodletting was a procedure used by conventional medics at the time, and one of the treatments Hahnemann thought was too dangerous, and led to the discovery of Homeopathy
• Not sure what any of the other points has to do with homeopathy!

It's not my task to throw abuse back at these people. Yes, they fail to provide any evidence that homeopathy does not work. They fail to explain why the millions of people cured by Homeopathy over 220 years, and throughout the world, are not to be believed. They cling to their unshakeable belief that homeopathy cannot work, and so does not work. No doubt they earn their Big Pharma pay (?) by attempting to rubbish homeopaths who are treating patients, successfully, throughout the world, every day.

If Homeopathy Denialists wish to do so, indeed if Militant Skeptics have nothing better to do, and nothing better to offer ill patients, than pharmaceutical drugs, okay. That is their prerogative. As patients, we are all entitled to choose the medicine we want.

So excuse me if, in the meantime, we homeopaths get on with treating patients, and making them better.