http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7173026.stm
While the article doesn't say so explicitly, I take it this group will be paid for with public money....
Either way, it seems that homeopathy will be ascribed yet more credibility.
Toad.
Yes, it'll get trotted out on every occasion to further fool the gullible! I am having a discussion with the Advertising Standards Authority over claims made by the Chinese 'medicine' chain Dr & Herbs and this came up in discussion. I'll post details about it in a more appropriate thread.Originally Posted by Toad
I'm off to see if there's an 'Introduction' thread...
Interesting news......
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7215470.stm
That's excellent news.
I'm not surprised at the confidence expressed in the quote given by one Peter Fisher, though, and can well imagine what his "various reasons" are.
Good news indeed
I was a little perturbed at this quote though as it seems to imply that there's still dissent*
and some scientists argue the solution is so diluted it does not contain any active ingredients at all.
*Homeopathic apologists not withstanding
Even the appologists agree that a 12C solution contains noe of the active ingedient. The waffle on about succussion, "quantum imprints", "water memory" or somesuch..
And they've included the usual argument that (presumably because it's comparatively cheap) it's "good value for money".I was a little perturbed at this quote though as it seems to imply that there's still dissent*
They haven't included this comment from Edzard Ernst in the Pulse story:There can be no cost-effectiveness without effectiveness
Yeah, for their sakes, let us hope they don't use any water that has been through the sewers then.
Ah but that's ok so long as it hasn't been succussed. Hitting it does something to the quantums apparently.
Hmmm, I don't know. I think I'd find it hard to forget if I'd been in close contact with fecal matter. Why should water be any different?
This discussion is totally absurd, so a bit like homeopathy then.
Because Hahnemann says so. The process of succussion or dynamization realeases the immaterial and spiritual powers of the substance. Hahnemann warned his fellow homeopaths against keeping potentized medicine in their waistcoat pockets lest they inadvertantly make them too powerfull.
It's ridiculous to use but we should remember that it makes perfect sense to the homeopaths. In the words of Edward De Bono
A myth is a fixed way of looking at the world which cannot be destroyed because, looked at through the myth, all evidence supports the myth.
Just another little nail in the coffin........
This article appeared in the Guardian on Wednesday January 30 2008 on p10 of the UK news section. It was last updated at 00:12 on January 30 2008.
Over a fifth of NHS hospital trusts have cancelled or reduced funding of homeopathy in the past two years, after a campaign by leading scientists to remove the alternative therapy from the NHS.
In two open letters to primary healthcare trust managers in May last year, the scientists lambasted homeopathic remedies because they lack a robust scientific basis: "We must consider the cultural and social damage of maintaining as a matter of principle expenditure on practices which are unsupported by evidence."
Homeopathy remedies involve diluting active substances so that there is not a single molecule of the original chemical left. Practitioners refer to a "memory" left in the water. But the signatories - which included a Nobel prize winner and six fellows of the Royal Society - say there is no convincing evidence that homeopathy works any better than a placebo. A survey by Pulse magazine has found that 22% of PCTs have reduced or cancelled spending on homeopathy in the last two years. The Royal London Homeopathic hospital is facing difficulties after eight trusts cancelled contracts over the past year and a further six reduced referrals.
Michael Baum, emeritus professor of surgery at University College London, who signed one of last year's letters, described homeopathy as "cheap and nasty medicine" and a "cruel deception".
He urged the 37% of PCTs which still had contracts for homeopathic services to cancel them. Peter Fisher, clinical director of the London Homeopathic hospital, said: "We are certainly having a difficult time... it's simply not true to say there's no evidence." Richard Hoey, deputy editor of Pulse, said: "If the NHS is now going to stop providing homeopathy, that needs to be a decision taken in the full glare of public debate, and not made in the committee rooms of cash-strapped trusts."
Earlier today the British Homeopathic Association issued this response to the Pulse article:
http://www.trusthomeopathy.org/csArticles/articles/000001/000147.htm
…blah, blah, blah.Professor Ernst’s comment that evidence fails to show that homeopathic treatment is better than placebo for any given condition is not upheld by examining the trial results. The majority of comprehensive reviews of randomised controlled trials in homeopathy suggest that homeopathy is more than the placebo effect and there have been positive meta-analyses for a number of specific clinical conditions including childhood diarrhoea, influenza, rheumatic diseases, hay fever and vertigo.
The Faculty of Homeopathy is committed to increasing the evidence base in homeopathy…
I am all for them 'increasing the evidence base'. The fact that the more robust, well designed trials demonstrate a negative result should be openly discussed and inform homeopathic prescribing (i.e. curtail it!).
I have yet to hear an even remotely plausible reason why homeopathy should work - there are no chemical receptors in the body that have been found and demonstrated to respond to invisible water 'memories', and in any case, the background noise of all the kidneys that the water has ever been filtered through over millenia would surely leave us severely overdosed and suffering from every disease imaginable!?
Never underestimate the ability of the believer to dismiss any negative results. I agree however, that the more negative trials out there, the better. It's just the practitioners always seem to find some way to make the claim that the trial was somehow promising oddly enough
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