Saturday, August 21, 2010

Homeopathy

At the risk of being forced to take this posting down, I reprint the whole of an editorial by Michael Baum, the breast cancer specialist, in today's Lancet. I see no reason why it should be hidden behind a paywall.

Homeopath Waives the Rules.

Evidence-free politics was recently on display when the UK's Department of Health rejected a call by the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee to stop funding the use of homoeopathy in the National Health Service (NHS). This it is claimed will emancipate patients to indulge in choice, even though “His [the Secretary of State for Health] position remains that the evidence of efficacy and the scientific basis of homeopathy is highly questionable”.

Using this kind of logic, why not offer astrology on the NHS to help women decide when to induce labour? It beggars belief that a modern NHS that prides itself on evidence-based medicine should fly in the face of the Science and Technology Committee, which concluded that homoeopathy is nothing other than an elaborate placebo and “involves deceiving the patient every time it is prescribed”. Responding to the Committee, Health Minister Anne Milton said: “We believe in patients being able to make informed choices about their treatment, which includes complementary or alternative treatments such as homeopathy”.

So there you have it: the UK Government supports alternative medicine that by its very nature is nearly all an evidence-free zone. So at a time of financial crisis, Health Minister Andrew Lansley has pledged to continue spending more than £4 million a year to capture the support of a vocal minority. My group has just described a new technique for delivering intraoperative radiotherapy for breast cancer that will save women the 6 weeks of traipsing back and forward to the radiotherapy centre. The sum of money to be spent on homoeopathy over a couple of years could open up this service to all the women in England and Wales who need it, while eventually saving the exchequer about £15 million a year. What's the betting that the introduction of this service will have to wait the approval of the UK's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) while homoeopathy continues to be allowed to creep under that hurdle? As it transpires the Department of Health refuses to ask NICE to investigate homoeopathy. Shame on you, Health Minister.

8 comments:

  1. My Dad, age 97, never went to a Doctor other than a homeopathic one until he joined the Navy in the second world war. His family couldn't afford the other doctor - that was for more middle class families. It seems to have worked quite well for him! He says the homeopathic doctors are much better at listening because they give it time and that is why it works....

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  2. It's certainly true that doing nothing is often the right treatment

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  3. I've been noticing that drugstores in the US have been selling homeopathic "remedies" without labeling them as such.
    For example, a label might say it's a remedy for sinusitis, and you turn it over and see in the list of contents the telltale latin-sounding name followed by 10x, 3x, and so on: homeopathic formula!
    I'm sure 99% of the people don't know they're buying nothing more than an expensive placebo!

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  4. Dear Terry,

    It would be such a privilege to get your expert opinion on the following post which was sent into the Water Fasting Forum on curezone.com by it's moderator a fasting health care practitioner.

    Is what he and many hygienists teach true?

    Only in your good time of course and only if it interests you to comment.

    Wishing you a speedy recovery.

    Skye

    Chris Beckett wrote:

    "In the experience of Natural Hygiene, Cancer is the end product of the profound toxemia of the body, and the accumulation of both exogenous and endogenous toxins over a shorter to longer period of time via the Physiological Law of Vital Accommodation.
    This Law accounts for the fact that we may tolerate the abuse of poisonous input of our bodies for many years before that toleration reaches a peak and the body breaks down.
    Cigarette smoking is one example of this.

    Your DNA has nothing to do with the formation and development of cancer, and where the same can be said for your Genes as being "causative".
    This is Pseudo-Science and has no basis in Physiology and the Laws of Life.

    Dr Max Gerson MD. supported the idea that cancer and most other degenerative diseases have three major causes........
    #1. Bodily Toxemia.
    #2. Nutritional Deficiency.
    #3. Prolonged and undue stress.

    This agrees with the successful outcome of the treatment and avoidance of cancer-causes within Natural Hygiene, and where I am a living testimony to those principles and ideals.
    I suggest you read this as the true cause of cancer..........
    http://www.curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=1491699#i



    Fasting will remove cancerous and pre-cancerous cells via autolysis if carried thru for a sufficiently long enough period of time, and where living habits thereafter will prevent its re-occurrence.

    If you also read under this heading..............
    THE AUTOLYTIC DISINTEGRATION OF TUMORS
    http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020127shelton.III/020127.ch5.htm


    Chrisb1.

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  5. This is the worst kind of pseudo-scientific gibberish.

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  6. This is exactly what I thought too! Thank you Terry!

    He posted it in straight after I wrote (to another member) that the prostate glycolipid he thought might be consumed by fasting would not necessarily end the DNA glitch inside the cancerous prostate cell. And that even if fasting could consume them the glycolipids would just re-appear on the cancerous prostate cell after the fast.

    here is our running thread.

    http://curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=1676628#i

    I am 'actualhealth' and the moderator is 'chrisb1'

    (excuse my layman's description of mAbs)

    Gosh Terry, I so wish I knew how to come back at this. So many people are not eating for 40 days urged on by this kind of blind devotion to fasting. One man even damaged his heart exercising too soon after a 30 day fast that Chris had advised. Hygienists believe that fasting is not what cures the cancer but that fasting strengthens the immune system so that it can then cure the cancer ...and everything else that ails the body...

    When I ask for facts he says there are thousands of years of experiential evidence and send me to Sheldon and then becomes offended for doubting his 'word'(?). I don't know, honestly.

    The net must be a quagmire of these unsubstantiated claims to you Terry.

    Please keep us up to date with whats happening to your health.

    Kindest regards
    Skye

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  7. There is no point in arguing with these people. I remember a story of a man who went to a psychiatrist complaining that he was dead. The psychiatrist tried to convince him that he wasn't, but he was having none of it. Eventually the psychiatrist got him to agree that dead men don't bleed. He then took a knife and sliced open the patient's hand. As he watched the blood welling up, the patient said, "Well I never! Dead men do bleed after all!"

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  8. LAUGH OUT LOUD!

    :-)))

    Mmm maybe I'll send that in ;-)

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