[Jim]

Delete as applicable: Nige is a liar/ idiot/ drugged up fool/ a man who saw a ghost. thought he saw a ghost

Sloper - pepper is good for you - FACT

[GCW]

Yeah and if you can state the three common law exceptions to the rule against hearsay I'll actually consider paying up.
 

A public document, ResGestae utterance or a Confession?
The law is an ass anyway, and this is rather off topic. 

[Sloper]

The MDU website must be better than I thought!

[Stubbs]

Mentioning herbal remedies alongside homoeopathy only does homoeopathy a favour.  One group contains potent plant based medicines, the other nothing but sugar pills or plain water.

Maybe the babies couldn't sleep because they had low blood sugar?

[slackline]

I'm not knocking "alternative" medicine as I do not believe there is such a thing, medication/treatments either work or they don't, FACT.

I know a few sets of parents who use homeopathic remedies on their infants and swear by them - despite being total sceptics at the start. How do you explain that? Presumably they are projecting the placebo effect onto their child? Either way, in some cases, it works, FACT. Whether or not that is backed up by a double-blind test on 1000+ folk is of no interest to a parent whose screaming child has just been magically silenced by some homeopathic magic beans. What is of interest is where you get more beans.

If these are soooo effective (FACT) then why haven't the pharma companies picked up on this, tested it and quantified objectively the effect that it can have and then marketed it back to the masses?  This is after all their business, and it would benefit the rest of the population who haven't discovered it yet?

Yes testing is expensive, and it takes a few years to go through all the loop holes, and as Sloper has pointed out the notion of "herbal" remedies doesn't really hold up because these companies are looking at lots of plant based extracts (i.e. herbal) for new drugs.

Pretty much most drugs have to go through the same amount of testing to ensure that they are safe to use in humans.  Some have to go through revisions, though because they fail at certain points so the development goes through a number of cycles which will in turn push the cost up, but another strongly influencing factor in how expensive a drug is is how hard it is to manufacture.  This is a not insignificant amount of time and effort put into producing drugs (I spent six months working on the refinement of a perfusion fermenter for Lonza Biologics and their budget was HUGE).  Compare this to the homeopathic approach of a small tiny amount of plant extract and some wood, leather and water and, well there is no comparison really.

You're right to be cynical about the motives of pharmaceutical companies, but I think its worth bearing in mind a point I made on the other thread.  Not all individuals respond to a given drug in the way they are supposed to and this is likely down to an individuals genetic make up (e.g. some may metabolise and break down active components faster than others so the drug doesn't reach its targets).  Companies are heavily involved in the process of working on pharmacogenomics whereby individuals who are most likely to respond to a given drug can be identified and those who are highly unlikely to respond (based on genetics) can be identified too.  The later group can then not be prescribed an expensive drug with nasty side effects on this basis.  In the long run this isn't going to profit the company making the drug as they'd rather sell it regardless of whether the recipient is going to respond.

gruff makes a good point.  There is a world of difference between getting a screaming baby to be quiet with a herbal remedy (relatively harmless) and a terminally ill patient pinning their hopes on said juju juice (down right wrong).

As I said before there's no such thing (IMO) as "alternative" medicines, just ones that work and one's that don't.

[Fiend]

Blind faith in unproven medicines VS blind faith in omnipotent SCIENCE (the accuracy of which has been proved time after time through scientific evolution  )...

Deluded belief that these things can work VS dogmatic insistence that they can't...


Hmmmm.



Feeling quite comfy on the fence 

[slackline]

Blind faith in unproven medicines VS blind faith in omnipotent SCIENCE (the accuracy of which has been proved time after time through scientific evolution  )...

Deluded belief that these things can work VS dogmatic insistence that they can't...


Hmmmm.



Feeling quite comfy on the fence 

How do you fly?  In a plane based on scientific engineering or on a witches broomstick?

[SA Chris]

Feeling quite comfy on the fence 

Quite

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

[dave]

Feeling quite comfy on the fence 

Is he still trying to get shut of them jim davidson DVDs?

[Stu Littlefair]

Feeling quite comfy on the fence 

On the fence about what? Healthy skepticism is all well and good. And anyone who adopts an attitude that something simply can't be true because it contradicts the prevailing scientific wisdom is an arse, a poor scientist or both. After all, we still don't know why boiling water freezes faster than cool water, under certain conditions. It doesn't mean it isn't true.

Which is why you have to make an important distinction between accepting things which contradict current wisdom, and accepting this which have been experimentally shown to be codswallop. Once you start ignoring large bodies of experimental evidence you're on extremely shaky ground; effectively you're stating that you don't believe in reality.

So by all means, adopt an open mind attitude about, say, homeopathy. And don't let anyone tell you that it can't work because the dilution level is so high, or that the water-memory idea contradicts our scientific understanding. But it ought to grab your attention when people actually test something out, and find it doesn't work, plain and simple.

[Jaspersharpe]

How do you fly?

[Joepicalli]

I know a few sets of parents who use homeopathic remedies on their infants and swear by them - despite being total sceptics at the start. How do you explain that? Presumably they are projecting the placebo effect onto their child? Either way, in some cases, it works, FACT. Whether or not that is backed up by a double-blind test on 1000+ folk is of no interest to a parent whose screaming child has just been magically silenced by some homeopathic magic beans. What is of interest is where you get more beans.

What actually happens is that the kid gets better. Kids tend to do that. You are begging the very question we are asking here i.e. is the homeopathic remedy responsible for the child's getting better, and if we are being scientific about it: what is the pharmacological effect that the homeopathic remedy is having  that is making the child better? Giving little Tarquin a sugar pill  for his sniffly-whiffles and two days later Tarquinikins being miraculously cured ain't the apparition of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes. And as for "magically silencing" the child: if you ever see me crying, feed me sugar pills and I'll shut-up too: that's a promise

[account_inactive]

It's called regression to the mean

This reminds me about people banging on about UFOs being real. 

[slackline]

XKCD has a good spin on this...



(Boring bit : The graph is data from the COBE mission, which looked at the background microwave glow of the universe and found that it fit perfectly with the idea that the universe used to be really hot everywhere. This strongly reinforced the Big Bang theory and was one of the most dramatic examples of an experiment agreeing with a theory in history -- the data points fit perfectly, with error bars too small to draw on the graph. It's one of the most triumphant scientific results in history.)

And yes, the "SCIENTIFIC method" has undergone revision and refinement over the years, that is integral to the objectivity of the process itself.  You will end up with far more reliable understanding of the world around you than blindly "believing" something works.  Substitute "Religious Logic" for "Homeopathic Logic" in this cartoon...

[LucyB]

Even better than giving this stuff to kids, the big lad's sister is a homeopathic vet  .

She fully 'believes' in it, as do her patients. Yes, I think that you can 'transfer' the placebo effect - if you are convinced that your dog (or baby) is going to get better as a result then you will look out for signs that it is getting better. You don't fret so much, dog doesn't fret so much, regression to the mean means that it will indeed get better at some point. Lo and behold, isn't homeopathy amazing. 

[Johnny Brown]

anyone who adopts an attitude that something simply can't be true because it contradicts the prevailing scientific wisdom is an arse, a poor scientist or both.

Thanks Stu, good to hear a real scientist espousing proper scientific thinking.

To all, I am not a 'believer' in homeopathy, I am a cynic. I am well aware of the Randi prize and its conspicuous lack of claimants. But as I say, I've heard some interesting first hand reports, which I'm simply not prepared to dismiss entirely. I am quite prepared to believe that they are placebo or nocebo effects, although some don't fit with how I'd expect them to work (as I said, administered by cynics to infants).

This brings me to another point - as  Slackers pointed out, doctors know the power of placebo and unneccesary/ impotent drugs can be given to 'susceptible' patients with powerful effect. I don't see much harm in such fools being able to buy water from a homeopathy clinic instead and not waste the time of a real medic. Obviously it is a problem when folk need real treatment, but I think such behaviour is in the minority (all the hippies I know soon go to a doc when they are really ill) and in the extreme cases is not likely to be controlled by restricting the supply of alternative medicine. In short, I think the protest in the OP misguided and pointless.

Pharmacogenomics is an encouraging direction for the future of medicine. Such 'individual' treatment is a mainstay of 'alternative' medicine and it would be good to have more proven mainstream version. Though it also throws up the potential of miraculous results on individuals that cannot be repeated in the majority... folk win the lottery every day after all.

[Sloper]

Indeed, I can recall the knee specialist who cut out the growth telling me about 'placebo' arthroscopies and how the fact that you've under gone an operation 'cures' the problem even though they haven't actually done anything.

Placebo is I am sure, a very difficult thing to establish as it probably works in different ways with different people.

I also doubt that people dismiss it because it conflicts with accepted 'wisdom' but that because the propositions made to suggest how it can work have failed at the first independent test. 

After all something can work, but your explanation of why it works may be flawed (eg gravity), you can have a sound theory as to why something should work but in practice it does not, homeopathy however falls either to work or to advance a sound theory as to why it should.

Anyway the problem is that alt. treatments do harm the nhs both in direct costs, indirect costs 'opportunity cost' and by raising patient expectations; for example after a long day of dealing with death and destruction I used to feel tired, low and generally unwell, after the administration of some good burgundy all my symptoms would resolve; could I get some St Aubin on the NHS?  Could I 

[dave]

This thread has got me thinking, and I'm going to start my own branch of alternative medicine. What I'm going to do is every time my 11 month old son cries or appears to be unwell I'm going to the gold-plated 3.5mm-6mm stereo jack adapter that's sat on my desk here and rub it on one of the young 'uns unwashed bibs from the washing pile. Probably for an exact number of times, ets say a dozen. I will then leave the stereo jack hidden somewhere in his room overnight. And I'm then going to see if he gets better.

This way I will then build up a number of "first hand reports", backed up by "FACT" to corroborate the effectiveness of this treatment.

You see why this is bullshit yet?

[slackline]

Topical Horizon tonight @ 21:00 on BBC2

Pill Poppers

[Sloper]

This thread has got me thinking, and I'm going to start my own branch of alternative medicine. What I'm going to do is every time my 11 month old son cries or appears to be unwell I'm going to the gold-plated 3.5mm-6mm stereo jack adapter that's sat on my desk here and rub it on one of the young 'uns unwashed bibs from the washing pile. Probably for an exact number of times, ets say a dozen. I will then leave the stereo jack hidden somewhere in his room overnight. And I'm then going to see if he gets better.

This way I will then build up a number of "first hand reports", backed up by "FACT" to corroborate the effectiveness of this treatment.

You see why this is bullshit yet?

yeah 'cos your stereo is wi fi init?

[drdeath]

[Jim]

But as I say, I've heard some interesting first hand reports, which I'm simply not prepared to dismiss entirely. I am quite prepared to believe that they are placebo or nocebo effects, although some don't fit with how I'd expect them to work (as I said, administered by cynics to infants).

Are you dismissing the fact that they may be pure coincidences then?

[Fiend]

Fiend, if you're sat on the fence why cast aspersions upon the people either side of you?

Because the side leading this "debate" accuses me of "talking bollocks" - which doesn't make me that well-disposed to them. And as I said, both extremes of fanaticism are tedious, and as guilty as each other in attitudes (as a contrast, Stu posted a good post I thought).

[slackline]

Fiend, if you're sat on the fence why cast aspersions upon the people either side of you?

Because the side leading this "debate" accuses me of "talking bollocks" - which doesn't make me that well-disposed to them. And as I said, both extremes of fanaticism are tedious, and as guilty as each other in attitudes (as a contrast, Stu posted a good post I thought).

There's no sides here, just individuals who happen to share the same opinion.  We've not formed a coalition and decided to accuse you of bollocks.

I've explained why I disagree with your original post in this thread and subsequently asked (in a direct and a slightly occluded manner) whether, when it comes down to treating yourself, you opt for SCIENCE or homeopathy.

[saltbeef]

Blind faith in unproven medicines VS blind faith in omnipotent SCIENCE (the accuracy of which has been proved time after time through scientific evolution  )...

Deluded belief that these things can work VS dogmatic insistence that they can't...


Hmmmm.



Feeling quite comfy on the fence 

that fence keeping those blood vessels occluded?