Dear Nigel,
With all due respect…you really dont know anything about great placements then, if you are unaware of Indian Institute Of Technology, Bombay ( or any of other 15 IITs in that case, apart from Mumbai in rest of India)

Nope. Doesn’t trip off the tongue.

Oxford, Cambridge, UCL, MIT, Caltech, IIT Bombay. Which one of these institutions is not like the others?

….Google it my friend!….

If your argument rests on the status of this institution, then your argument fails no matter how good the institution is. As I tried to explain, you are merely making an argument from authority, which is a logical fallacy. If the status of the institution matters so much to you, perhaps you could be bothered to share with the rest of us some of the top-flight research that takes place there. I certainly can’t be bothered to do it for you without a much better reason than the one you give.

And maybe you guys are kind of acting like stubborn against Homeopathy!…

Nope.

It’s reality that is being stubborn over homeopathy. And homeopaths are being stubborn right back at it. I know where I’d put my money.

Homeopathy has been shown in clinical trials not to work.
Homeopathy has no logical basis.
Homeopathy contradicts a great deal of what is already known about chemistry.
Homeopathy has no evidentiary support.

In short, homeopathy is tosh.

And I see no point of arguing this topic amongst us, it will fetch us no decisive reward whatsoever.

Typical troll. Can’t answer criticism, can’t support claims with any evidence, then claims the argument is at an impasse.

Uktarsh, in case it had escaped your notice, you have failed to make an argument.

An argument is a connected series of statements designed to set forth a proposition.

In my personal opinion…and I am not a homeopathic practitioner…if its true enough, it will survive.

Heh. “If it is true enough”, when it has already been shown to be false.

You are wrong here. What you should have said was that if homeopaths continue to be permitted to fleece the gullible, homeopathy will survive.

ADIOS!!

Bye, bye, troll.

It’s most common use is actually in opthalmology — atropine-laced eyedrops will cause the pupils to dialate, making examination of the retina much easier. This is actually the origin of the name belladonna (“lovely lady”); it was used as a cosmetic by ladies who wished to appear aroused by artificially dialating their pupils.

And that’s suffering for your art (as ’twere) because the eye drops sting like a – er – female dog.

I just want to be sure there is nothing more to homeopathy I’m missing. Is the entire emphasis of the “practice” on providing these remedies? Or might the treatment include more?

The most effective part of the homeopathic “treatment” is the amount of time and attention the practitioner gives to the customer. This, above all else, strongly activates the placebo effect.

As you probably already know, some homeopaths also apply other alt-med rubbish such as crystal healing or reiki, but you pretty much have the essence of homeopathy.

I understand the value of the time a practitioner might spend with a patient and how that and the placebo effect could make sick people feel better. I just want to be sure there is nothing more. Are there non-diluted remedies a practitioner might use in treatment?

Well, in principle, yes, but they are poisons. The principle of homeopathy is that you use a substance that causes the same effects as the condition you are trying to treat, but diluted beyond any recognition.

I wouldn’t be surprised if some practitioners use other forms of treatment, but would those be properly called homeopathy.

Not as such, no.

I ask this because I’m part of a group full of woo. There are people touting reiki, reflexology, the law of attraction as well as homeopathy. There are also some reasonable people. I hope to use this broadcast in response the next time I see the homeopathic woo. I want to be seen as an accurate source for information, or a source for accurate sources. If this is all there is, homeopathy is an easy one to debunk.

Yes, homeopathy is very easy to debunk. It has been tested in clinical trials, and shown to perform no better than a placebo.

Guys this a research paper written by IIT Bombay….I dont need to say anything about its supreme reputation

Actually, maybe you should. I’ve never encountered IIT Bombay, although I have interviewed job applicants who had Masters degrees from universities in India. I shan’t name any names – suffice it to say that I was not impressed with those universities.

However, irrespective of the reputation of the institution, nonsense is still nonsense.

A certain Nobel prizewinner became notorious in later life for supporting the hocus-pocus around Vitamin C “megadoses” as a cancer prophylactic (he died of cancer – go figure). You appear to be using the argument from authority logical fallacy. Wrong is still wrong, no matter who supports it, and no matter where they work.

There was (maybe is) a case of a ‘homeopathic’ nasal spray. It used an active ingredient, known to provide relief but cause serious side effects, like permanent damage to the sense of smell, at 10x in homeopathic terms. This is equivalent to 1%: a significant ingredient in real terms.

If it had an active ingredient present at 1%, that’s only a “1C” dilution, which is not really homeopathic. I’ve never seen a homeopathic treatment claim a “10x” dilution.

And, yes, it was causing the serious side effects.

Heh! Because it contained something that was biologically active.

Though I was always a fan of the comedian Dara O’Briain, who says that the thing about herbal medicine is that we tested it, and some of it did indeed work. We gave the stuff that works a special name. We call it “medicine”. The rest is basically salad and Pot Pourri.

LOL! Very true.

“We don’t know how it works, it just does.” Unfalsifiable.

Well, the mechanism might be unfalsifiable, since there is none. But whether or not the stuff works is definitely falsifiable, and it has been shown to not work.

I’m dumbfounded by the way people claim the flu/cold treatment works. The proof? They got over their flu/cold in 3 to 10 days. It’s like people have completely forgotten that human bodies can in fact get over sickness on their own or heal after certain ailments/injuries. It’s ridiculous.

I swear that’s the leading reason this stuff keeps being sold. People seem to have this innate need to point at something specific and say THAT is why I feel better.

Yup. This is the post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy (roughly translates as “after this, therefore because of this”), and humans are amazingly prone to falling for it.

I see that I am not the first person to point this out in these comments, but it can’t be stressed enough.

Unfortunately, this blog can’t do much to stop this abominable practice. Between slamming the Wakefield followers and slamming homeopathy, I don’t think anyone reading this blog will ever fail to vaccinate their children. This blog just isn’t an effective medium for convincing people of that. Sure, this blog helps educate skeptics so that when they meet homeopathic-remedy-users and anti-vacciners, they can spread the word, but that just isn’t enough in a society where there are people who think it’s okay to be a carrier of a deadly disease. What we need to be doing is petitioning the government – in particular, we need a PSA campaign that clearly and compellingly conveys the truth: if you do not vaccinate your children, with conventional, non-homeopathic vaccines, you could be directly responsible for the deaths of other people’s babies. It only takes one child, having picked up a virus on vacation or something, to start an epidemic that could kill thousands of other unvaccinated children. It hasn’t happened since the invention of these vaccines, for good reason. Let’s not let it start to happen again.

Nic

It’s even more surprising to find out that over the French network, believers appear more numerous than on the Anglo counterpart.

Homeopathy is HUGE in France, which probably has something to do with it. Case in point: homeopathy got a major boost in the 80s thanks to the work of a French immunologist named Jacques Benveniste, who claimed to have scientifically proven that water has a memory. The work could not be duplicated, however, and was not properly blinded — in a rather famous incident involving James Randi, it was found that even using the original research team, the experiment could not be duplicate if a proper blind was used. Also, and rather more significantly, that’s where Boiron is headquartered. Boiron, mentioned in the video, is the world’s largest manufacturer of homeopathic nostrums, by a significant margin. They’re the Pfizer or Merck of alternative medicine, really.

Tom K. @ 8:

The biggest hurtle in telling people this is a con is the name. People I ask what they think about Homeopathy say it is just Grandma’s home remedies in a bottle. How could someone bad mouth Grandma.

Well, for one thing, because it’s not Grandma’s home remedies in a bottle. It’s a homeopath’s remedies. People tend to not know what homeopathy actually is. Most people think it’s some kind of herbal remedy or nutritional supplement, and names resembling botanicals or vitamins don’t help that impression.

Julia @ 20:

My mom is a retired nurse and said that even back in the 60′s Western medicine used belladonna for stomach pains for children.

Belladonna’s active ingredient is atropine, and it is widely used in Western medicine even today. Not often for stomach ache; there are usually safer alternatives these days. But it’s been used since antiquity and for a good reason: this one actually does work. It’s most common use is actually in opthalmology — atropine-laced eyedrops will cause the pupils to dialate, making examination of the retina much easier. This is actually the origin of the name belladonna (“lovely lady”); it was used as a cosmetic by ladies who wished to appear aroused by artificially dialating their pupils. It’s got many other uses as well — resuscitation of some cardiac arrest patients (depends on their specific situation), treatment of hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating/salivation/etc), treatment of certain types of poisoning, etc. It can be synthesized, or obtains from a number of plants, not just belladona — it’s also found in jimsonweed, henbane, and mandrake. It was widely used as a sedative in ancient times, assisting surgeons right up until the discovery of ether, and also as an instrument of murder in the form of mandrake wine.

Atropine would be effective in treating some kinds of stomach pains, but there are other remedies available now which do not have as many side effects. It inhibits the parasympathetic system, which may have something to do with why it was used for stomach pains — or it may simply be its sedative effect.

Robert @ 43:

Edit: Manged to find a search to locate it. It’s name was Zicam, and it used Zinc. Apparently, ‘natural’ nasal remedies using zinc are an ongoing problem.

I hope the product is off the market by now.

No such luck: not only is it back on the market, but they’ve come out with many new formulations and spinoffs. It’s very popular. The FDA had them dead to rights when they found zinc in the stuff, since that meant it wasn’t homeopathic. But they found a way around that — the FDA cannot require efficacy testing of anything homeopathic, and as far as the law is concerned, that means “stuff that’s on the homeopathic pharmacopoeia”. So the makers of Zicam just persuaded their buddies to add “2x zinc” to the list. 2x basically means the “mother tincture” has been diluted twice, which brings it to 1 part in 100, or 1%. With that “fix” made, the Zicam people got right back into business, with the general public often unaware it had ever been banned in the first place, much less why.

“From what I’ve been told, many times before, most headaches are the cause of dehydration so homeopathic remedies are actually extremely effective at curing them.”

A complex and expensive method for simply drinking a glass of water. I wonder what my tap water “remembers,” and why, if it’s arsenic, for instance, or chlorine, it doesn’t kill me after the overwhelming majority of it is filtered out. I wish they would take the flourine out of my water, so that the trace amounts left on the interior surface of the pipes would cause it to be truly effective!

Although, thanks to homeopathy, I no longer have to eat fruits or vegetables. I just gently blow on a carrot or a banana over my water glass, stir it vigorously, and get all the memories of nutrients I need!

The witch doctor analogy is actually close to the mark. Every doctor knows that patients are subject to the ‘placebo’ effect, whereby giving them a simple sugar pill and telling them that it will make them get better will often actually make them get better. This effect is so pronounced that trials of drugs have to be double blind (neither doctors nor patients know if the medication is the drug being tested or if it an inert pill) in order to eliminate or compensate for the placebo effect.

Actually, no. Double blind trials are not to compensate or eliminate the placebo effect. They do trials double-blind to eliminate bias. Patients or doctors may consciously or unconsciously skew their statements or evaluations based on what they expect to happen based if given the drug, or a sugar pill.

The placebo effect is instead what the compare against. The people in the placebo group almost always experience or at least report some degree of benefit. This is the placebo effect in action. The active group must perform better at a statistically significant level for the drug or treatment in question to be considered effective.

It is this step that homeopathy has never succeeded at. And there is no indication whatsoever that choosing “the exact kind of placebo effect that the patient needs” does anything to boost homeopathy above the plain-ol’ placebo effect attained by handing someone a sugar pill.

For the sake of argument I can accept the idea of actual MDs using the placebo effect to provide some benefit to someone for whom there is no real treatment. It should only be done in that case, and should cost as much as sugar pills cost.

It’s completely unacceptable to tolerate or defend hucksters using the same techniques as astrologers and psychics to scam people into paying large amounts of money for pills with nothing in them. These people obviously have no concerns for the well-being of their patients since they try to scam them into buying homeopathic preparations even when there are effective, affordable, real treatments available. So whatever the hypothetical benefit of the placebo effect could be, that reasoning simply doesn’t apply to these frauds.

There is more than just “one” placebo effect. It is in fact a combination of many different and overlapping mechanisms, and what we measure in most trials is the summed effect of all the ones that apply to that particular situation, unless of course the trial was designed to ferret out the individual components.

But all that is inclusive to my point in #41. We always talk about the “art and science of medicine,” and the “art” part more or less boils down to skillfully activating placebo effects of all kinds.

Sometimes you hear the claim that alternative medicine is somehow “more effective” at activating the placebo effect than science-based medicine. It is not. The placebo effect has been a major and important part of real medical practice for as long as there has been a profession of medicine, and a good doctor should be a well trained master at using them.

It’s just that sometimes real doctors can get away with being less proficient in their ability to use placebo effects than ideally they should be because they have other effective options to fall back on, while alternative medicine has nothing but placebo effects, so the only ones you hear about are the cases where the practitioner is good at using placebo effects.

“Every skilled and properly trained physician knows how to activate it.”

Actually, recent research into the mechanism of the placebo effect has found it works even if you know what you’re taking isn’t real medicine. It’s the action of ingesting SOMETHING that apparently triggers an endorphin release, which is what makes us feel better. It also works for non-sentient animals,,,

Gary 7