Organic Homeopathy

[hughcumber]

Here's a letter in the latest issue of Organic Farming, the Soil Association's quarterly farming and growers magazine;

In the summer issue [OF#98]. Ross Paton asks why the Soil Association gives "such prominence to homeopathy". He asserts that "time and again it is shown to be little more than a placebo".

Well, I am afraid he is wrong! Time and again, over the 14 years I had over 500 dairy cattle here, they did not lie, nor have prejudice about the efficacy of the remedies we used. On thousands of occasions they responded positively. Equally, they were not dogmatic followers of any code of medicine God which he suggests as necessary for them to work.

Animals react according to our diagnosis of 'dis'-ease, and the selection of a homeopathic remedy or conventional drug by their human keepers. So do people in many cases - especially children who do not know other than to succumb to treatment offered.

Perhaps Dawkins and Humanism does not have the answers that Mr Paton needs? Maybe with suitable ingenuity, as he urges us to deploy, the answers would come to those who doubt. As for thinking it a "snake oil", please refer to others with decades of experience, not prejudice, many of whom have to contend with the after effects of antibiotic resistance!

Oliver Dowding
Shepton Farms, Somerset

So much ignorance, so little time...

I'd like to know what Mr Dowding regards as "responded positively"? Does he mean they didn't die? Or did they give a hoofs up to him after the "treatment"?

And why does he think that children "do not know other than to succumb to treatment offered"? I would imagine most children who feel poorly start to feel better if Mummy gives them some medicine and tells them it will make them better.

And as for the end of his letter, it seems that the solution to antibiotic resistance is to use "remedies" with nothing in them at all! Fantastic. Just you wait, Mr Dowding, until they start to build a resistance up to that H2O...

I'd like to know what (if any) other treatments he was giving his cows at the same time as the homeopathic remedies and if he attributes any success to these.

The Soil Association helps peddle homeopathic nonsense under the 'respectable' guise of organic farming. There's no nasty stuff in homeopathic remedies so it must be ok for organic farming seems to be their line - not whether it works or not.

[Blue Wode]

So much ignorance, so little time...

It looks like Mr Dowding could do with reading up on rational pieces like these…
http://www.skeptics.org.uk/article.php?dir=articles&article=it_works_in_anima ls.php

http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2008/03/vets-who-make-people-feel-better.html

http://aillas.blogspot.com/2008/08/does-apparent-effectiveness-of.html

whilst ignoring sites for the severely deluded like ‘Homeopathy at Wellie Level’ http://www.hawl.co.uk/

and dangerous articles such as this,

Handle lambs correctly to avoid catching orf
10/03/2009 09:14:00

An outbreak of orf in your lambs is bad enough but, when farmers and shepherds contract the disease, it's not only painful but is also extremely contagious.

And what's even more frustrating is that most doctors only seem able to prescribe antibiotics as a treatment.

But for those who handle sheep and contract to orf, help is at hand in the form of a homeopathic remedy - thuja occidentalis…

http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2009/03/10/114647/handle-lambs-correctly-to-avoid-catching-orf.html

and utter lunacy like this:

…Some producers are even turning out biodynamic wines — or Organic Plus as it is called informally. For this, homeopathic sprays are used and the cycle of the moon, the movement of the stars and Earth rhythms are employed in tending the vines.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/3342857/Organic-first-growths-are-enjoying-a-sales-boom.html

[chaggle]

Some producers are even turning out biodynamic wines — or Organic Plus as it is called informally. For this, homeopathic sprays are used and the cycle of the moon, the movement of the stars and Earth rhythms are employed in tending the vines.

Try this from the Guardian (found on the Bad Science Forum)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...o-supermarkets

The idea that the taste of wine changes with the lunar calendar is gaining credibility among the UK's major retailers, who believe the day, and even hour, on which wine is drunk alters its taste. Tesco and its rival Marks & Spencer, which sell about a third of all wine drunk in Britain, now invite critics to taste their ranges only at times when the biodynamic calendar suggests they will show at their best.

Many scientists have little time for biodynamic wine, pointing out that the movement's guru, Rudolf Steiner, claimed to have conceived the concept after consulting telepathically with spirits beyond the realm of the material world. Among his other works are claims that the human race is as old as the Earth and descended from creatures with jelly-like bodies, and a belief that men's passions seep into the Earth's interior, where they trigger earthquakes and volcanoes.

[Mojo]

There's no nasty stuff in homeopathic remedies so it must be ok for organic farming seems to be their line - not whether it works or not.

Animals treated with actual medicine can't be used for food production until the medicine has cleared from their bodies - the time specified for this is longer in organic farming than regular farming, hence the popularity of homoeopathy.

[Mojo]

and utter lunacy like this:

…Some producers are even turning out biodynamic wines — or Organic Plus as it is called informally. For this, homeopathic sprays are used and the cycle of the moon, the movement of the stars and Earth rhythms are employed in tending the vines.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/he...ales-boom.html

I beat you: I've got the Daily Telegraph, the phases of the moon and an actual homoeopathic vet, all in the same article: Vets link full moon to animal ailments.

John Hoare, a vet from Lyme Regis, Dorset, said yesterday: "I am not surprised that the moon affects animals - and people for that matter. After all, we are mostly made up of water and the moon affects the tides."

[Croydon Bob]

The Soil Association are a bunch of loonies. They are constantly quoted by the media as experts on GM foods when their objections to GM are clearly based on woo and irrational fear rather than an understanding of the subject.