In the words of one blogger, “the Select Committee was biased - biased by the evidence.” Today the Science and Technology Select Committee delivered their verdict on homeopathy, and it was devastating. The committee have called for the complete withdrawal of NHS funding and MHRA licensing of homeopathy.
This should come as no surprise to anyone who witnessed the almost farcical nature of the proceedings, with the 'elite' of homeopathy mocked by their own ridiculous testimony. Peter Fisher, Director of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, spewed forth the sort of dialogue that wouldn't look out of place in a Terry Pratchett novel...
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My friend was in the hospital within the past six months and a nurse came in the room to help her and he was a male nurse from Germany. He told her that homeopathy is mostly used in Germany in hospitals, except if something else stronger is needed. Homeopathy has always helped me with my alergies and has no side effects. I love it. It also does not ruin the immune system and works with it. Homeopathy is not a suger pill. A little bit of the symptom is put into the pill to fight the problem. Like fighting fire with fire.
Natural selection can be so beautiful...
ok, Doris:
I do live in Germany. The above statement is not true.
"the systematic reviews and meta-analyses conclusively demonstrate that homeopathic products perform no better than placebos."
read. think. think some more. think again. hopefully get it. or you're a good troll...
History only repeats itself if one doesn't listen the first time.
Dear mus,
Don't forget to really think and not just parrot what you have heard before.
All the attacks by the followers of scientism/positivism (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism for the definition) such as yourself and the committee of UK MPs on homeopathy and other complementary medicines are based on the call for "evidenced-based medicine".
What you and your Right Honourable colleagues fail to think through is the unstated assumption behind this call, which is that healthcare can only deal with people as bio-chemical systems, conflating the impacts of other dimensions of being into only symptoms derived from the "cause" of bio-chemical processes in the body. Hence, the obsession of conventional medical scientism with pharmaceuticals and other physical interventions.
It is only the Newtonian "blind watchmaker" world view still alive and kicking in the 21st century.
Mus, I wish you all the best in moving on to a more (w)holistic world view.
Kind regards,
Paul
PS: I would think that name calling (e.g. trolls) would be beneath one with an intellect as incisive as you obviously possess.
I do wonder if homoeopathy in Germany is helped by actual over-the-counter medicines being so bloody expensive (grumbles the man with a cold).
Ok, me again.
First of all, Paul, I'd love to engage into hones dialogue here, or almost anywhere else, about science, evidence, and homeopathy, but this requires something from the other side: A willingness to discuss based on facts. all you offered in your post was some sort of meta-physical droning and stating of conceptual believes without any grounding in reality whatsoever. If something does not perform better than placebo, it is not a medicine, and neither is it ethical to dispense this thing as medicine to patients.
Also, you seem to think that "conventional" medicine automatically means treating any and all patients as automatons, giving chemical input to change behaviour/symptoms. Obviously, this isn't true, if you look at the writing of Martin here on the site, or of Ben Goldacre they're all about empowering the patients, and thinking long and hard about the ethics involved, and not just with dispensing pills - and what homeopathy and other woo-meisters are doing is the exact opposite. Quacks are the ones who peddle pills for any and all ailments, even if they aren't proven to work, or, even worse, if they are proven not to work. How's that for ethics and patient empowering? That many users of homeopathy actually think of these pills as something "natural" or containing herbs, etc just highlights the level of woo in play here.
How you drag the watchmaker-argument into this (also from the wrong side, I suppose), is beyond me.
Also, I've never gotten around as to why "holistic" for many people means "woo-compliant", rather than just "looking at every aspect". Sadly, many people who claim to follow a "holistic" approach only look at what they want to believe, and not at reality, thus making the whole point moot.
But thank you anyway, both for stating your beliefs (even though they aren't in accord with what I'd like to call "reality"), and for allowing me an "incisive intellect".
Secondly, Andrew: Yes, some over-the-counter stuff in Germany is expensive, having to do with all actual medicines only being sold through pharmacies, and not in drugstores, i.e. like Boots in Britain does. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as many chemists will not just dispense the stuff but actually tell you about risks, benefits, etc. Also, 1.26 € (about 1.10 GBP) for a pack of 20 x 500 mg paracetamol doesn't seem too expensive to me. The more likely explanation: Germany's sceptics don't have a profile as high as they have in the UK.
History only repeats itself if one doesn't listen the first time.
Have you read this article - stop making a fuss about nothing, guys!
I'm sorry for dragging things further off topic and realise your explanation is likely, but I wouldn't be moaning if I hadn't had to pay more than €13 for a pack of 20x500mg Aspirin Complex earlier this week. €1.26 sounds reasonable by comparison.
Paul,
Can you explain what's wrong with calls to spend only on evidence-based medicine? Why would you want the government to be spending public money on something that has been proven not to work? In any other area it would be described as wasting money.
Bless.
I would have thought your headline should read Pharmaceuticals: (In far too many cases) Useless, Dishonest and Unethical...
Why? because they are not trying to cure people but simply want to have you keep managing your symptoms. They need people to keep taking their potions (with their too common wonderful side effects) so they can keep making those wonderful profits.
Whilst, on the hand, homeopathy aims to and succeeds in curing the conditions they treat.
It is abundantly clear that you have had no experience of homeopathy otherwise you wouldn't be so sure of yourself. You are simply regurgitating other peoples false arguments.
As any good scientist will tell you, "never trust anyone who is absolutely sure they are right. They are almost certainly of a closed mind and, as scientific progress so often shows, more often than not, absolutely wrong".
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In order:
The problems of conventional medicines are not relevant to whether homeopathy works.
It hardly seems true that homeopathy aims at a cure instead of a symptom when it's based around dosing the patient with something that causes similar symptoms (in small or non-existent amounts).
Your personal experience of homeopathy means very little. Real evidence is about more than "I felt better after taking Arnica/Tamiflu/Prozac", partly because people often get better after they've been ill.
How is it that scientists and MPs - supported by the evidence produced in this review - are "of a closed mind" and yet homeopaths, who ignore 200 years of scientific progress proving them wrong, are not?