Article in the Telegraph says Homeopathy is witchcraft:
Hundreds of members of the BMA have passed a motion denouncing the use of the alternative medicine, saying taxpayers should not foot the bill for remedies with no scientific basis to support them.
The BMA has previously expressed scepticism about homoeopathy, arguing that the rationing body, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence should examine the evidence base and make a definitive ruling about the use of the remedies in the NHS.
Is this another Big Pharma promoted effort to suppress natural healing?
Full story link:
and what about tax payers footing the bill to treat problems caused by allopathic medicine then?
anything that helps a patient to recover should be promoted.
Article in the Telegraph says Homeopathy is witchcraft:
Is this another Big Pharma promoted effort to suppress natural healing?
Full story link:
This makes me FURIOUS! :035:
The third greatest cause of death in USA after cancer and heart disease is reported fatal reaction to medical interventions including pharmaceuticals taken as prescribed, as reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA - the world's most widely read and approved medical magazine), [url]see here.[/url]:eeeK: - so how many incidents go UN-reported?????
Similar figures apply here in UK but there is too much fear to report them as such and 'other' causes of death are found. These are from 'scientifically tested' and 'proven' procedures and medications given in the prescribed manner.
How much harm is done with homeopathic medicines????? NONE! and a considerable amount of good is the result - even if it is a placebo effect (not an unknown function in alopathic medicine). That information alone should be enough to shut the bigots up, but I doubt it.
As for witchcraft - I thought that was a charge dropped in the 18th century (possibly earlier) so, such ignorant bigoted comments should be put back where they came from!!!! Step off my :soapbox: box now!
The next thing is how to deal with the disinformation from bigoted medicos. They remind me of a cartoon I saw where the scientist was looking in his sock drawer and the comment from him was "The answer is not in there, so it can't exist"
Disgruntled and disgusted!
I heard it being discussed on Radio 2 yesterday on Jeremy Vine's show (I can't help it, that's what's playing in our office! 🙁 ). The people against homeopathy didn't have a clue what they were talking about. Some people in my office were supportive of it being taken away from the NHS saying there was no proof it worked. I chose to set them straight on a few facts and they now don't know how they feel about it.
I actually took a homeopathic remedy myself last night. For some reason my sinuses were all congested. My other half and myself consulted our homeopathy books and we came up with two possible remedies to use. I favoured one and the other half favoured the other. In the end I went with her suggestion, but didn't believe it would work as I thought the picture for my choice was clearer. Within 5 seconds one of my sinuses cleared outright and within a minute, the other cleared too.
Placebo or not. It worked. No waiting to see a doctor, no suffering overnight till they opened, no paying extortionate amounts of money for a prescription that would likely do very little. Just a quick and easy on the spot homeopathic remedy from our homeopathic first aid kit. It did the job, and no side effects, what more could you want. 😉
All Love and Reiki Hugs
Fascinating subject! Here's yet another horrific statistic: [DLMURL] http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=deaths-from-avoidable-medical-error-2009-08-10 [/DLMURL]
Hey Giles, why is it that everyone is embarrassed to admit to listening to Radio 2? 😀
I love the Jeremy Vine show and found that bit on homeopathy very interesting. Here is the link to Monday's prog. if anyone wants to hear it:
I felt the doctor, Sarah ? was on very shaky ground. Someone had rung in saying their child was cured of epileptic fits thanks to homeopathy and yet she just tried to dismiss it because it didn't fit in with her own parameters. Has it never occurred to her that the effect of allopathic drugs might also be dependent on the placebo effect - that it is people's faith in the drugs, the doctors and the medical organisations and pharmaceutical industries which gives drugs their power?
Not many people know that Mary Baker Eddy practiced homeopathy during her journey in the 19th century to finding the basis of metaphysical healing in Christian Science. She mentions it 50 times in her writings and describes some of her experiments with it. There is a description of a case of dropsy (oedema) on page 156 of Science and Health where she became concerned about even the tiny amount of the drug and started giving the woman sugar pills and she continued to improve. (It's within this link to some of her observations about homeopathy if anyone is interested.)
Here are two statements that may be of interest:
[COLOR="Blue"]
Homoeopathy is the last link in material medicine. The next step is Mind-medicine. Among the foremost virtues of homoeopathy is the exclusion of compounds from its pharmacy, and the attenuation of a drug up to the point of its disappearance as matter and its manifestation in effect as a thought, instead of a thing. (Miscellaneous Writings 270)
Homoeopathy mentalizes a drug with such repetition of thought-attenuations, that the drug becomes more like the human mind than the substratum of this so-called mind, which we call matter; and the drug's power of action is proportionately increased. (Science and Health 157)
It's a fascinating subject and one that as Eszences says is one that big Pharma would rather like to go away and disappear!
Judy
Over the years of practising, I've needed to develop a thick skin due to the constant onslaught of criticism from those wanting to put a stop to homeopathy. You have to ask, why are they so worked up??
Even if it wasn't funded at all through the NHS,(and despite fighting to keep it there, it is really a drop in the ocean), there will always be private homeopaths, so I doubt that it'll disappear! My dream though, would be to see it available to everyone regardless of ability to pay.
When as a homeopath, you see so many astounding results, (worldwide), it's hard to put it down to placebo, and it does irritate me when doctors say it must be. They always have so much to say about it, when frankly, they don't have the knowledge. Homeopaths train for 4 years- it's not something you can grasp in 5 minutes. It's true that it turns current science on its head but it wouldn't have been the first thing to do that, and maybe we're just not ready for it.
Whilst I'm having a moan, how come that so many people, including doctors, seem to love Arnica (gel, cream, pill etc.) when it's simply a homeopathic remedy. If that works, can they not see that many other remedies might work as well. Midwives also love referring pregnant ladies to homeopaths, for remedies to 'turn' the baby, or help with other problems. They approach us when it suits them.
I had better get off my soap box, before I become really boring!
All I can say is, I just keep my head down, try to stay positive, and keep practising- people keep coming- and the results are good. If there are those who want to sound off about it, I think it's them with the problem......Hom
This is a subject I feel quite strongly about.
I heard the programme (and listen to Radio 2 most of the time - when I'm not listening to re-runs on Radio 7), and thought Sarah Jarvis (the GP) came off badly - good.
I don't hold a candle for homeopathy particularly - what I feel strongly about is the "conventional medicine is always right - everything else is mumbo-jumbo" attitude.
There is a word iatrogenic which you can find in any decent dictionary. It means disease caused by doctors.
Many doctors are good and work for the patient. They are the ones likely to know when conventional medicine will not work, and who will refer on - for acupuncture (another treatment which was poo-poohed by conventional medicine until relatively recently), osteopathy, massage, counselling or homeopathy.
David:)
I heard that radio program too... thoroughly enjoyed it. The 'resident GP' got a good taste of her own medicine I thought - serves her right for such arrogance; with two classic examples of Homeopathy unquestionably working raised on the show - I was quite amazed that she still maintained her (by then) shaky position:)
Pity nobody mentioned the Royal Family and the late Queen Mother... three generations there have used Homeopathy... Who'd question them on its efficacy!
I remember a woman scientist in Dublin several yrs back finding by accident that Homeopathy worked and publishing something of it. I also remember then the establishment pouring tremendous scorn on the case and repeating tiresome tests which of course proved nothing... The key issues here were that when the woman originally conducted her trials she was indifferent and innocent to them - but when the 'medic army' attacked the subject with their own tests - they infused the whole area with their disbelief, doubt and cynicism... I now perceive that 'thought' plays an intrinsic part of all energy medicines and Homeopathy is among these. It's a pity that people generally pay so little attention to what and when they 'think'.
There's fruit therein...
A.
hi, i am very new to all of this homeopathy stuff i dont know much about it, but its the same with aromatherapy i feel, as my little girl ended up in hospital while i was at college studying complementary therapy. the doctor asked me why i was not with her when the accident happened i told him i was studying aromatherapy, he snorted at me said she could be discharged and to not to use aromatherapy on her, i was offended and downright annoyed at his comment, i welcomed the hospitals help with my daughter but it was as though he felt threatened by me, do orthodox practitioners feel if they let complementary/alternative therapies through the door that they will have less and less power. how did we survive before chemicals were made, is aspirin not a form of willow bark?
Layla xx
is aspirin not a form of willow bark?
Layla xx
I doubt whether many GP's would know this. IMHO it's a sad reflection of our current scientific reality that drugs and medicines are taken from plants and herbs and then copied in a lab to produce the mimic of nature. This is done to cut the costs right down so that drug companies can generate tremendous profits. It all comes down to money in the end. It's become 'how much revenue will this bring'? Whereas it once was 'how many people can have their health improved by this'? Greed... it will be one of the prerequisites for the downfall of man.
A.
Homeopathy has only really come to my attention recently, and actually think the contention may lie in the way some who are open to complementary therapies present their evidence to the sciencey doctors. if all the docs see is someone in flip flops with flowers in her hair announce that a drop of pure water which some many many dilutions back was in contact with a piece of sulphur cured her of a long term health issue, then they must feel quite justified in dismissing it.
Had "we" gone to them and presented the growing amount of research and evidence, and acknowledged its scientific weakness but explained the inherant problems with producing scientific research which validates or disproves therapies such as this, and said, "look, the research is not complete yet but surely you can see there is something worth exploring further here?" we may have met with more open ears.
On a recent Bach flowers course we discussed western medicine compared to holistic approaches which treat dis-ease in the mind, and it occurred to me that we shouldn't be guilty of dismissing everything our current health system has to offer: its too good, too important for the negatives to outweigh the positives, and does nothing to improve the "them and us" phillosophy which is currently getting us nowhere.
Better to befriend the giant, to learn from him and educate him back, than to sit in the opposite corner and sulk. 🙂
Homeopathy has only really come to my attention recently, and actually think the contention may lie in the way some who are open to complementary therapies present their evidence to the sciencey doctors. if all the docs see is someone in flip flops with flowers in her hair announce that a drop of pure water which some many many dilutions back was in contact with a piece of sulphur cured her of a long term health issue, then they must feel quite justified in dismissing it.
Had "we" gone to them and presented the growing amount of research and evidence, and acknowledged its scientific weakness but explained the inherant problems with producing scientific research which validates or disproves therapies such as this, and said, "look, the research is not complete yet but surely you can see there is something worth exploring further here?" we may have met with more open ears.
On a recent Bach flowers course we discussed western medicine compared to holistic approaches which treat dis-ease in the mind, and it occurred to me that we shouldn't be guilty of dismissing everything our current health system has to offer: its too good, too important for the negatives to outweigh the positives, and does nothing to improve the "them and us" phillosophy which is currently getting us nowhere.
Better to befriend the giant, to learn from him and educate him back, than to sit in the opposite corner and sulk. 🙂
Here Here :hippy: 😀
Can anyone direct me to a double blinded trial that shows homeopathy to be effective?
Hi, I hate to disillusion you but those people comprising the society of homeopaths (who regulate the majority of homeopaths in the uk)- and myself come to that, look and act nothing like 'flowers in the hair' hippies! There is also much evidence presented to the government and the medical profession, in a thoroughly professional manner, and in great depth, that supports the efficacy of homeopathy, but it is still largely ignored.
You can postulate as to why that is but I think one issue is that there is too much to lose by rocking the boat with the possibility of an effective health system that not least, wouldn't line the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry.
Also, sadly, many in the medical profession seem too busy defending their own positions and really have tunnel vision when it comes to anything else (aromatherapy as mentioned earlier, homeopathy or any other therapy) possibly being worthwhile.
It's very sad because the result is that many people don't benefit from alternatives when conventional medicine (which I acknowledge does a lot of good sometimes) can't help them. Hom
One evidence source is to look on the society of homeopaths website. They refer to various amounts of research with links etc. Hom
Hi, I hate to disillusion you but those people comprising the society of homeopaths (who regulate the majority of homeopaths in the uk)- and myself come to that, look and act nothing like 'flowers in the hair' hippies! There is also much evidence presented to the government and the medical profession, in a thoroughly professional manner, and in great depth, that supports the efficacy of homeopathy, but it is still largely ignored.
You can postulate as to why that is but I think one issue is that there is too much to lose by rocking the boat with the possibility of an effective health system that not least, wouldn't line the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry.
Also, sadly, many in the medical profession seem too busy defending their own positions and really have tunnel vision when it comes to anything else (aromatherapy as mentioned earlier, homeopathy or any other therapy) possibly being worthwhile.
It's very sad because the result is that many people don't benefit from alternatives when conventional medicine (which I acknowledge does a lot of good sometimes) can't help them. Hom
I do agree with all you say and might add that nutritional therapy has a similar uphill battle even though there are many studies that prove the efficacy of it and the use of vitamins and minerals can make a difference. Orthmolecular and Functional Medicine, based on biochemistry, are considered outside the box - and yet they have their place.
I agree Caroline. (And I love your quote by the way!). It's time that the validity of many alternative or complementary therapies is acknowledged. Just because something's different -or not widely understood-or appealing only to a minority- doesn't make it wrong. And those that shout the loudest, aren't always right. Hom
Firstly I missed the discussion :(. But I have got the gist of the usual "if we don't understand it lets trash it brigade" who seemed to be on the show. I am traing to become a homeopath at the moment and you couldn't meet a less likely "flowers in in hair hippee" type if you tried 🙂 I just found that comment so funny.
But I think is what people don't understand makes them frightened hence the attitude to any complementry medicine some Drs like me some don't because I sometimes know more than they would like.
Well am just off to polish my Jesus sandals lol 🙂
Auriel
Well they would say that. As a trained Homeopath I too have developed a thick skin to the constant onslaught against it. In India or Germany, Homeopathy is a respected and recognised medicine which works alongside the other forms of medicine: allopathic, ayurvedic and patients are given the choice. In fact only a couple of hundred years ago Homeopathy and allopathic medicine were equally respected in this country.
The fact that 'science' cannot prove that it works, really illustrates either their bias or their incapability to study it effectively. It is obvious that the trials that have been done are seriously flawed and do not consider any of the principals of Homeopathy in their application - therefore finding that Homeopathy 'does not work/placebo' - and congratulate themselves on their pharma-sponsored trials for finding what they want to find as per usual.
Thankfully there are plenty of people out there that can make their own minds up.
Hi Maya,
I always keep an eye on the homeopathy threads. This is an old one- started in 2010 I think but interesting isn't it that in 2012 there's still publicity about the pros and cons of homeopathy. No change there then! Will they never tire of it?! I'm amazed for example that Brian Cox (who's hailed as being so intelligent and open minded .....loving the mysteries of science and acknowledging that there's so much we don't know etc. etc.....) can speak so negatively of homeopathy. Just because he doesn't understand it? He- and many others should in my view, be more humble...
And if you are a homeopath, really all you can do is ignore most of it and carry on as usual....I'm still in practice although the economic climate is making it a little harder- as it probably is for many private therapists. At least if/when I retire, I'll know that I've really been able to make a difference for the better to some people's lives.. Hom
I'm amazed for example that Brian Cox (who's hailed as being so intelligent and open minded .....loving the mysteries of science and acknowledging that there's so much we don't know etc. etc.....) can speak so negatively of homeopathy. Just because he doesn't understand it? He- and many others should in my view, be more humble...
Agreed. When Brian Cox first graced our tv screens, his programs were informative and interesting in relation to scientific principles. Just lately though, he seems to be more and more making unnecessary comments about things that clearly he hasn't bothered to look into. I watched his program around Christmas, that was like the celebrity christmas lectures, about quantum physics. He came out with a comment about quantum physics not proving anything about 'mystical healing' and that that was just a load of rubbish (can't remember his exact words), but then he went on to describe the quantum principles that explain exactly why such healing can be done based on such principles, such as how observation can change the nature of quantum particles and how quantum nonlocality (or 'spook action at a distance' as Einstein called it) exists. He's gone downhill in my view.
There's us all trying to work with mainstream healthcare (hence why we are 'complementary' and not 'alternative') whilst such highly revered and so called scientists seem to want to reside inside their little box and not investigate outside it. It's sad really that they choose to limit themselves so.
All Love and Reiki Hugs
Giles- so happy to read your comments. Sometimes, I feel that I'm going completely mad, being clearly in the minority with the way I see the world! Even reading just one person's comments that express what I've also been thinking, is so heartening. You've cheered up my day, thank you! Hom
Article in the Telegraph says Homeopathy is witchcraft:
I doubt that they know much about witchcraft, either.
I felt the doctor, Sarah ? was on very shaky ground. Someone had rung in saying their child was cured of epileptic fits thanks to homeopathy and yet she just tried to dismiss it because it didn't fit in with her own parameters. Has it never occurred to her that the effect of allopathic drugs might also be dependent on the placebo effect - that it is people's faith in the drugs, the doctors and the medical organisations and pharmaceutical industries which gives drugs their power?
In any case, I have a huge respect for the placebo effect.
Well, modern medicine is to my opinion a cheap imitation of what nature has done for us from the beginning of times. Why imitation? Because it has used nature to extract all the amazing healing properties from fruits, veggies, herbs and so on.Why cheap? Because it doesn't have the ability to mimic nature's true powers and surpass it in any ways. This is why we see all these synthetic drugs and medication that has nothing to do with nature, and still it longs to a part of.
This is my opinion. :p
I'm not a therapist of any kind but try to use natural therapies/products where possible.
I'm not a witch/wiccan either, but I've read lots of books on the subject and found it very interesting.
Maybe it's fear of the unknown? But if only they would give it a try. There's so much information available now, and surely 'chemical free' is better for your health :nature-smiley-008:
Blessings Iolanthe X
'chemical free'
What do you mean by 'chemical free'?
I would assume 'chemical free' is meant in the context of naturally produced, rather than man made chemicals (synthetically produced)... as it would obviously be wrong to assume the term literally, what with everything being based on chemicals. 🙂
All Love and Reiki Hugs
Yeah sorry I meant synthetic. Didn't have my brain in gear :confused:
I can see both sides of the argument, but I personally believe that homeopathic doesn't actually work, and you should rely on man-made medicines too. Often there are people who shun vaccinations when it's very much necessary to keep you healthy.
is pretty fun though.