The latest deceit from Jeremy Sherr
Posted by gimpy on May 8, 2009
Jeremy Sherr, the homeopath conducting unethical treatments in Tanzania, made the claim on his blog that:
When I was in South Africa 5 years ago, we had designed a very complex trial together with the Nelson Mandela hospital in Durban.
Well blogger Warhelmet, whose comments here are always appreciated, has contacted the Nelson Mandela hospital and obtained this reply:
Please note that Mr Jeremy Sherr has no association with the University of KwaZulu-Natal and that its Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine has not conducted any research with Mr Sherr.
Looks like another lie to add to the litany of Mr Sherr’s misdeeds. In summary Mr Sherr has:
- claimed the support of the Muhumbili University of Health Sciences in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. This is not true.
- claimed the support of the Department of Integrative Medicine at the University of Maryland, USA. This is not true.
- shown disregard for established notions of medical ethics.
- may be in breach of Tanzanian law
- caused the Society of Homeopaths (SoH) to lie on his behalf
The Homeopathic Action Trust (HAT), the SoH affiliated charity and Sherr’s funders, have had concerns about Mr Sherr put to them. They refused to take action.
Mr Sherr remains fairly blase about all the allegations raised against him, dismissing all concerns as the activities of “a close group of the bloggers’ friends swimming around in their own swill“.
It is worth remembering that Mr Sherr is a highly respected homeopath whose teaching are admired by many other homeopaths and whose Dynamis school teaches many students. In many ways Mr Sherr is one of the most respected members of his profession. No homeopath has criticised Mr Sherr on this blog, they endorse what he does. Mr Sherr’s failings are the failings of the homeopathic profession.
[BPSDB]
JQH said
Does Sherr even know when he is lying?
pv said
If he does, which is always a possibility since homeopathy is how he makes his living, then there are many words to describe him – vile, unscrupulous, despicable… in the manner of someone like Harold Shipman
However, do committed homeopaths really know that what they are peddling is unsupportable, fantastical nonsense? Does this belief in demonstrable nonsense (homeopathy) and the weaving of other fantasies to support it not indicate some some psychological problem?
Personally I think there are quite few “Harold Shipman” types among the woos.
yesalem said
Your preoccupation with such a liar is dubious, it raises questions about you!
However, do committed homeopaths really know that what they are peddling is unsupportable, fantastical nonsense? Does this belief in demonstrable nonsense (homeopathy) and the weaving of other fantasies to support it not indicate some some psychological problem?
Did you ever feel the impact of an insult, versus the impact of a drug, the impact of a scent, of a thought, of a dream, a nightmare , immaterial as a dream can be.
The remedies are immaterial but are embedded with a certain picture of a suffering, which proves true time and agai in clinical experience, there are many Doctors MD who have adopted homeopathy as their only discipline. You ignore the information. persons like Dr. Fisher and others who have treated the Queen and have carried on trials of homeopathy.
Any person that deals in a high level of homeopathy cannot be a liar, does not have the need to lie.
How can we take your word for granted if you deny the power of homeopathic remedies that we see action therof everyday in clinical experience. You do not have the decency to check yourself, let alone research such effective potential of healing.
yesalem said
The second para is a quote of the former reply.
yesalem said
The second para is a quote from the PV preceding post.
Warhelmet said
Yesalem – is the case then that Sherr is not dealing in a higher level of homeopathy? Many of the things that he has said are demonstrably untrue. And this is factual stuff, not doctrine or opinion.
Warhelmet said
It would not surprise me if it turns out that many of the other statements he has made regarding putative support for his activities turn out to be somewhat inaccurate. In this most recent communication he says things like:-
“I have opened a clinic with the ‘Kilimanjaro District AIDS Centre’. This clinic has unlimited AIDS patients and is very well staffed. They will be assessing the treatment formally with all necessary data collection including CD4, viral load and preliminary forms.”
There is NO ‘Kilimanjaro District AIDS Centre’ that I can find but Sherr is not good at the names of institutions – there is a hospital in the region that fits the bill – the Kilema District Hospital.
This is a startling assertion. The implications are worth thinking about. Is Sherr actually saying that the ‘Kilimanjaro District AIDS Centre’ are complicit in “assessing” his homeopathic activities? That sounds like a trial to me. Ouch.
“I have established contact with several hospitals and universities with the purpose of propagating homoeopathy and research.”
I suppose it depends on your definition of “contact”.
Dr Aust said
Just be careful you don’t use the word “bogus” in describing Jeremy’s reality-defying activities, Gimpy. You might have a lawsuit on your hands if you do…
Neuroskeptic said
Technically the two statements are compatible:
“When I was in South Africa 5 years ago, we had designed a very complex trial together with the Nelson Mandela hospital in Durban.”
and
“its Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine has not conducted any research with Mr Sherr.”
If the research was designed but not conducted. But that would beg the question of why it wasn’t conducted.
I suspect that if there is any truth in this at all, it is that Sherr entered into some kind of communication with someone who had some connection with the Nelson Mandela hospital, in which a trial was discussed, but it went no further than that. Which is extremely lame even if true.
Warhelmet said
Ah, and there’s the rub. Full quote from an earlier entry on Gimpy’s blog (can’t master the tags):-
“When I was in South Africa 5 years ago, we had designed a very complex trial together with the Nelson Mandela hospital in Durban. This trial had three arms; patients with homoeopathy and without ARV treatment, patients with homoeopathy and ARV treatment, and patients with ARVs alone (Placebo treatment is considered unethical in AIDS). It was a very comprehensive and well designed trial and it covered all the bases. And once the dean of the hospital resigned to go into the private sector, it was also a very dead trial. So I am happy to go for a simple trial initially, with one arm of AIDS patients with homoeopathy and no ARV. There are plenty of statistics on ARV treatment and patients with no treatment at all that we can compare to. If we can prove that homoeopathy has any positive effect at all, we can move on to bigger and better things.”
I can ask the University of KwaZulu-Natal a more pointed question. I don’t think it will make any difference. What I want to know is how far that trial design got down the approval process. I want to know what advice he got. I want to know whether he got poor advice (which is bad in ways that I can’t begin to describe) or whether his hubris was such that he could ignore the advice he got.
I’ve asked SA skeptics to check things out from their end but they are having problems with the sluggish response of government departments.
Dr Aust said
…though it would be rather par for the course for Dear Jeremy. Reading through Gimpy’s other posts on Sherr’s statements, it seems clear that his claims about the support of the Muhumbili University of Health Sciences arise from something similar – meet one person who possibly works there, talk to them, and then claim their institution is involved in your work. And furthermore, claim that another institution linked with the first institution (like the University of Maryland, which has actual real connections with Muhumbili), and which has also never heard of you, is supporting your great initiative too.
Such serial bullshit is, of course, fairly typical in the world of Alt Med. Some people buy fake degrees from diploma mills, others invent whole Universities of Yak Meditation, and others merely appropriate the names of real Univs. Still others site their clinic in the same town as a real Univ, and then call it something like “The Princeton Brain BioCenter”.
But still, let us remember that they do this in full and utter sincerity. Not to deceive. So we cannot possibly, ever,describe these claims as “bogus”.
Warhelmet said
Dr Aust – You can if you quote Bill & Ted. “Bogus” is the opposite of “Awesome”, dude.
draust said
Yes, I know the Bill and Ted etymology. If I do a post on the appalling Eady ruling in the
Singh case I was planning to call it “Truly much bogosity”.
Warhelmet said
Awesome, dude!
Robin said
I thought you delightful folk would like the latest news on the spread of homeopathy for Malaria and AIDS in Africa
http://www.naturalnews.com/026251.html
gimpy said
Yes, that is a matter of grave concern.
Warhelmet said
Ah, the awful shoe lady. Who understands only Amergish. There are more homeopaths in Africa than she mentions. Whoops. It would be unfair to do the point and shoot because some of those very well meaning folks could get into all sorts of trouble. Midnight Express.
Pete said
The link to Naturalnews.com gave the following about Sherr.
‘The government of Tanzania has officially recognized homeopathy as a form of healing and are in support of this project.’
Can this be verified?
I am not sure that comments about Vioxx and vaccination are relavant to Sherr operating in Africa.
Warhelmet said
I think the awful shoe lady may have got it wrong and read too much into Sherr’s various statements. If Sherr has the explicit support of the Tanzanian government this is a new development and one that I would have expected Sherr to make plenty of pronouncements on.
It is important to remember that Sherr’s problems with detail mean that the above statement can not be taken at face value.
TheWorldisWatching said
OH YES GIMPY. “A MATTER OF GRAVE CONCERN”
This is very, VERY important. Very grave. Fifty thousand people are injured and killed by Vioxx in the US alone and one homeopath deserves your undivided attention for months because of potential problems that have not yet materialized. This is the story of the century! And its non-material like homeopathy! Even better!
(sockpuppet, also appears as RightSide, GoodaboutHomeopathy, YearsofClinicalMedicine & OpenSociety – gimpy)
gimpy said
This is a story about the failure of lay homeopaths to recognise their limitations and acknowledge proper ethical conduct. It is not a denunciation of one homeopath, it is a denunciation of all homeopaths who aided and abetted Sherr.
TheWorldisWatching said
To those other people you describe as me: get off that web site and stop hiding-your-ass you people!
You must be exhausted from all these trips to foreign countries Gimpy. Going to South Africa to get all your information, is similar to your photoshopped trip to Tanzania.
Oh yes, the ethics of all homeopaths are on the line here. Another big big story gimpy. And based on the logic of your attacks, I’m sure you would also agree that ALL medical researchers, medical doctors who prescribed Vioxx should be held accountable for the lack of ethics of Merck and the lack of ethics of researchers who killed and maimed over 100,000 people with that drug. Or could it be the whole system of vetting drugs that is the problem….a discussion too complex and close to home for you to cover.
The Sherr story fits your scope of imaginary problems with homeopathy. And you can all get some shits and giggles from bullying homeopaths who “aid and abet” him!
Aiding and abetting- I love it. You are such a self important prosecutor if you don’t say so yourself!
gimpy said
What? I’ve never been to South Africa or Tanzania.
theWorldisWatching said
So it is gimpy’s attempt at colonialism by blog is it?
Make that ugly gimpy reach to the colonies to stop them from using homeopathy! It is too bad you can’t stop the successes with homeopathy in Cuba- it is ruining all your bully fun and stopping you from getting everyone on the planet drug dependent!
yesalem said
Just like this column of comments shrinks so will shrink your denunciations. Soon the liar will be discovered. It is not Sherr.
Keep the cover up for peddling those vaccines that maim and kill, keep pedling drugs that harm and continue to attack a small fraction of the globe that will survive, in honor and bliss, not greed.
Neuroskeptic said
So which is worse, MMR or Vioxx? Numbers please Yesalem!
Warhelmet said
It’s not just one homeopath. There are various other homeopaths operating in Africa – Peter Chappell for example. And homeopathic remedies can be bought over the counter in many African countries. And there have been problems with people stopping taking ARVs because of disinformation.
AIDS denialism, as well. I don’t think that Sherr is an AIDS denier, but some of his supporters are. The damage that AIDS denialism has caused in Africa is real.
Robin said
Gimpy can I ask, why are you so silent about such travesties like Vioxx while soending so much time and energy on someone that hasnt harmed a soul?
Chris said
Because the issue with Vioxx was found out and it is now off the market.
Unlike homeopathy… which is still in the market even though it only works as a placebo.
Neuroskeptic said
Maybe someone should go into business selling personal panic alarms to homeopaths. Like those attack alarms that you push a button and they make a loud siren noise, except instead of a siren it shouts “VIOXX!”
Warhelmet said
No, not a panic alarm. What about a magic wand that that they can wave that labels everything that dedicated medics do as “allopathic nonsense” and conventional medications as “allopathic poison”?
Robin said
you two seem to find all the injury and death caused by the drug to be quite amusing. Warhelmet it wasnt homeopaths that labelled it allopathic poison, it was your bedfwllows. All too late though.
This is hilarious:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5331269/Arnica-registered-by-medicines-regulator.html
Neuroskeptic said
I don’t find the injury and death caused by Vioxx hilarious, but you have to admit that it’s quite funny that you think it has anything to do with Jeremy Sherr.
Just out of interest though, exactly how bad for you is Vioxx, whats the mechanism by which it causes harm? As you’re such an expert. No googling the answer please.
Derrik said
Robin; there is more than one bad thing in the world.
Pharma has made some ethically dubious decisions but it is the sceptic community not the homeopaths that are the credible opposition to them. Whist homeopaths immerse themselves in hysterical conspiracy theories sceptics have a shopping list of reforms. Perhaps the most important of these reforms would be a requirement that all pharmaceutical trials be registered before they were carried out. This would ensure that trials with unflattering results could not be hidden and that sub-group analysis and the early or late termination of trials could receive more scrutiny.
Such reforms are proposed from an understanding of scientific evidence, how it should be collected and how it can be manipulated by the unscrupulous. Homeopaths have no such practical understanding and appear to think sugar pills are a viable alternative to the entire infrastructure of modern medicine. This is pure lunacy.
From the story you linked to:
“Introduced in 2006, the scheme allows makers to detail what ailments the remedy is aimed at, but does not require companies to prove their product works or that it has been through clinical trials.”
This may indeed be hilarious. Tragedy and comedy are closely linked. Are you actually proud that people are being “treated” with a remedy that has been declared by both its manufacturer and a regulator to have no evidence to support its efficacy?
Turning to Sherr, if he has lied about the institutions with which he has collaborated then I’m afraid he has lost the most important thing anyone with academic pretensions must have, which is his integrity. With out that he is nothing. If he will lie about collaborations, perhaps he will lie about his results. If his results are false or massaged or cherry picked his work will be worthless.
If any of my teachers or mentors behaved like this I would be heart broken. I would feel betrayed. I see a total lack of concern about this behaviour from the homeopathic community and I wonder if you have any regard for the truth at all.
Neuroskeptic said
I’m a strong supporter of pre-registration of trials (in fact I’ve argued that it might even be a good idea to require some kinds of pre-clinical research to be registered too) and the person who convinced me was that notorious Big Pharma shill, Ben Goldacre.
yesalem said
Truth is that cuba’s a yearly post flood epidemic prevented with homeopathy only.
http://www.irishhomeopaths.com/homeopathy-cuba
Robin said
here is more for you ethics police to get your teeth into:
32 Girls have died from Gardasil the so-called “cervical cancer vaccine” check out this very short video http://tinyurl.com/r4xerw
Warhelmet said
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/vaers/FDA_and_CDC_Statement.htm
Or is that Big Pharma propoganda?
HCN said
Showing a deficit in real medicine is not a way to show that homeopathy works. Showing homeopathy works for a non-self-limiting disease like diabetes Type 1 or sepsis would show that homeopathy works.
And that should not be through a youtube video, but a well designed study that is written up in a journal I can access from my local medical school library.
Especially when the information on the vaccine you are posting is demonstratively wrong. First off it was 32 reports of deaths out of 23 million doses, percentage of about 0.0001% or about 1 out of over 700000. See:
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/vaers/gardasil.htm (VAERS is a self-reporting system, and anyone can post any kind of reaction. One parent in the UK, remember this is only for citizens/residents of the USA, reported that after a vaccine his daughter was turned into Wonder Woman! See http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/?p=342 )
Second off, on further research many of those deaths were not associated with the vaccine:
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/acip/downloads/mtg-slides-oct08/12-3-hpv.pdf
On the 19th page is a list of the causes of death of those that have been investigated (some are still being looked at):
•Viral illnesses (n=3): acute myocarditis, meningoencephalitis, influenza B viral sepsis
•Pulmonary embolism (n=2)
•Cardiac events (n=2): arrythmia due to cardiomyopathy, probable cardiac arrythmia –patient had a history of
•Diabetic ketoacidosis (n=1)
•Idiopathic seizure disorder and history of seizures (n=1)
•Atypical GBS vs Juvenile ALS (n=1)
•Drug overdose (n=2)
•Unknown cause (n=3) and limited information for further evaluation (n=4)
On the previous slide it showed that the reported death was reported 288 days after the vaccine.
Derrik said
Sceptics are often accused of being rather nasty. Well I’m going to tell you a children’s story.
Stone Soup (Puffin Pied Piper)
A big bad hungry wolf comes down the mountain looking for food and happens upon a chicken. “Don’t eat me” cries the chicken “I will make you some stone soup”. Of goes the chicken and starts boiling up a stone. Then the chicken adds various vegetables claiming it “brings out the flavour of the stone”. In the end the wolf is amazed by the flavour of the stone soup, eats his fill, steals the precious stone and runs back to the mountain.
I think the homeopaths have pulled the same trick as the hen. Off they went to Cuba with their inert pills (the stone). Handed it out whilst the government was engaged in a massive vaccination and public education campaign (the vegetables) then made out the pills (stone) had been the important factor.
The point is, this is a trick so transparent it is the basis for a comic plot in a picture book for 4 to 7 year olds. Did you not think we would see through it? Did you not see through it?
A proper study with control groups would have accounted for the confounding factors of the vaccination and public education campaign, then you would have some good evidence. The researchers appear to have chosen to do a study that could not provide good evidence. Why was that?
We are back to intellectual integrity again. Seeing the way you ignore the issues with Sherr I am increasingly of the opinion that you are dishonest rather than deluded.
Warhelmet said
Yesalem – sorry, it was my radionic broadcast wot done it.
Warhelmet said
Yesalem – more seriously… So you think that nosodes and homeoprophylaxis work? Many homeopaths would diagree with you. Nosodes are not classical.
Cuba is a funny place. They might be poor, but they are very effective in some health arenas – including public health. Leptospirosis (more familiar to us in the UK as Weil’s disease) is spread via urine. In developing countries, contamination of drinking water and foodstuffs are common vectors of infection. In the UK, canoeists swallow water with rat piss in.
If you seriously think that homeopathy prevented 2.5m cases of leptospirosis, which is what the article implies, you need to think again. Think about the statements that homeopaths make regarding vaccines and why the introduction of vaccines led to a far in the prevalence of certain disease.
yesalem said
VACCINES the allopathic way are responsible for so many diseases of modern times, from allergies to cancer, untreatable tuberculosis and aids. Here is a slideshow:
http://www.slideshare.net/drprabhatlkw/homeopathy-in-pandemics-epidemics
will show you what homeoprofilaxis as well as nosodes have been very successful in time of epidemica in the last 200 years.
Derrik said
I think your comment on TB provides a fascinating insight into the mindset of a homeopath. You cut out all the details and spin one of the greatest success stories of the last century as a failure. This is another fine example of your colective lack of intellectual integrity.
Over the last century antibiotics were a brilliant tool for fighting bacterial infection. Combined with the BCG vaccination they helped us to push TB right out of Europe.
Importantly it wasn’t just the antibiotics and the vaccine that drove TB out of Europe. The isolation and identification of the TB bacteria and studies of it’s biology enabled a suite of effective measures to be devised against TB such as isolation of infected people, appropriate hygiene, pasteurisation of milk, public information campaigns etc. Homeopathy with its silly theories of miasmas and similars is incapable of arriving at such a suite of measures.
It is true that in recent years TB strains have emerged which are resistant to most antibiotics. The mechanisms by which this resistance arises are well understood. For example one way bacteria become resistant to antibiotics is to modify proteins in the cell membrane to pump antibiotic molecules out of the cell.
It is unfortunate that such pathogens develop resistance but this is what happens in the real biological world. The fact that homeopathy can’t comprehend such details is an example of its utter failure as a theory of disease.
TB has only acquired resistant to antibiotics however, if you think homeopathy is effective, perhaps this is your chance to demonstrate it.
Antibiotics also enable us to prevent people from dying of acute bacterial infections such as might result from injury. See what happens when someone rejects such treatment in favour of homeopathy:
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?Healer_dies_after_letting_cut_foot_rot&in_article_id=405720&in_page_id=34
phayes said
What should you do if your homeopath skydiver friend discovers that parachutes are responsible for most skydiving injuries?
Give him some homeopathic aviation fuel of course!
Honestly! There must be such a thing as a guardian angel. People this stupid just couldn’t survive more than a few minutes without supernatural assistance.
ez said
This is in Reply to Derrik’s comment
A quote from your link:
“Mr Jenkins, who ran the Quiet Mind Centre from his home in Southsea, Hampshire, injured his foot in December 2006 and developed an 2cm-long ulcer.
In April 2007, Mr Jenkins, a diabetic, sought alternative advice from homeopath Susan Finn, who suggested he treat it with Manuka honey. ”
Are you suggesting that Manuka Honey is a homeopathic medicine?
gimpy said
Ez the point is that the homeopath somehow deluded themselves into thinking they were capable of diagnosing and recommending treatment for a serious medical condition.
Derrik said
@Ez
Gimpy’s right of course but you bring up an interesting point. Slavering honey on an infected wound is not “classical homeopathy” as I understand it but the story does say that a homeopath recommended this treatment. It’s possible of course that the journalist got it wrong. If not perhaps this person is purveying their own mash up of homeopathy, naturopathy, crystal therapy, moonshine and fairy dust. This seems quite common on the internet and the high street.
The problem is that most of these CAM modalities are identically ineffective, which means you can’t implement quality control or look for best practice without revealing this inefficacy. You’re left with a whole host of people practicing medicine in the name of homeopathy, engaging in a whole range of stupid, from “classical” pills through machines to write energy signatures straight onto pills, right through to mp3 files claimed to cure AIDs. This fussiness extends to people you might expect to know better. A recent Cochrane review of evidence for homeopathy reliving the side effects of cancer treatment by the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital actually reviewed quite concentrated herbal concoctions rather than your classical pills.
If the SoH can endorse a man selling homeopathic mp3 files to cure cancer and the RLHH can class herbal remedies as homeopathic perhaps both myself and the CAMster in the story can be forgiven for accepting this weird honey thing as homeopathic.
ez said
I’m not quite sure what Derrik wanted to say in his response, but I realise that the point of the first post is probably the idea formulated by Gimpy.
Well, I hate to tell you but my own aunt was diabetic and got a gangrene in her foot in a similar way as this gentleman. Her husband was a military person so she was under the best medical care in a military hospital from the start – but with the same result, and about in the same time frame, she only lasted about 3 months. They could not save her, although they tried everything including surgery from early on. What’s your take on this? My thought is that being able to diagnose a disease and to treat it effectively are two things that are not quite well correlated…But in this particular case there is clearly by far not enough information about the case to make any coherent conclusion, as the person who wrote might as well be cherry picking whatever information to present his point, which I guess is the same as stated by Gimpy.
Warhelmet said
Ez – this article is better http://www.layscience.net/node/295. Particularly telling is the narrative verdict from the coroner. But The Metro report is also useful in that it gives dates. Injured in December 2006, dead in April 2007. Plenty of opportunity to seek medical attention. No, but Jenkins’ “inner being” would not allow it.
Sigh. He could have tried maggot therapy. And then leeches to promote re-vascularisation.
Warhelmet said
Untreatable tuberculosis? No such thing. MDR-TB and XDR-TB are treatable. Vaccines responsible for cancer, AIDS? Oh dear.
This sort of poisonous lie is very dangerous.
Jayney Goddard? Sheesh.
Derrik said
It’s probably worth linking to this excellent Quackometer blog entry on Jayney’s CV.
http://www.quackometer.net/blog/labels/Jayney%20Goddard.html
Which takes us back to the endemic untruthfulness of senior homeopaths. Fancy claiming to have studied homeopathy at Imperial College London when in reality you studied homeopathy with a private organisation which in turn hired out rooms from the University!
It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.
Warhelmet said
UKZN have been in touch again. They have no record of a trial design. They have no links to any “Nelson Mandela Hospital”. Oh dear…
gimpy said
Oh dear indeed, nice work.
Robin said
another organstaion for you to lambast:
http://www.homeoinst.org/Whoarewe.htm
Derrik said
So I’m guessing this is another attempt to portray homoeopathy as a developed and respectable form of medicine. Look there is a research institute devoted to studying it! Think of all those white coated boffins running about doing quality research moving homeopathy forward, carrying out provings, finding better ways of potentising remidies!
Well the institute doesn’t give you an address, but they do want your money so they give you an address to send checks to. Through the magic of google street view you can view their premises (115 Brookwood Rd London). It is almost obscured by a tree, but appears to be a single floor flat in a terraced house. Now it is a rather nice house and in a plum location but it’s hardly a research institute.
Sherr pretends to collaborate with real research institutes; Milgrom and the British homeopaths have to make up their own. It’s the same story, all surface appearance and no substance.
Amusingly even the surface isn’t very polished in this case, click the membership tag!
gimpy said
the HRI are boring, ineffective, and don’t seem to do anything. I’ve tried to take an interest in the past, but there’s nothing about them that excites me.
Vanity project of no consequence for deluded academics.
Nash said
“Project No 2: The Homeopathy Data Collection Project
Summary:: The aim is to obtain data about patients who consult homeopaths for treatment: age, sex, presenting symptoms, conventional diagnosis so that we can describe the profile of patients of homeopaths. Knowing this will be useful in terms of PR, identifying and justifying future avenues of research. Principal investigator: Clare Relton MSc
Status: in preparation ”
Market research. In other words, how can we get patients to keep coming back.
Warhelmet said
I don’t really understand what the HRI do. I mean, don’t all the members have day jobs?
Robin said
organisation
Nash said
organization
Neuroskeptic said
both wrong it’s spelled “quack outfit”
Warhelmet said
Oh, I know about them. A limited company that pretends to be a charity. And productive they are not. I do like the quote from their latest newsletter -
With the increase in evidence-based policy making, there is the ever-present danger that health care managers, equating lack of evidence with lack of effectivenessm will use the former asa rationale for reducing services.
Duh.
notspock said
Wonderful.
Without evidence what criteria do you use? Whether they seem like a nice person? Whether they seem like they know what they’re on about?
ah yes. i see.
Derrik said
Try to be more explicit about what you mean. It will make it easier to respond.
If you look at the website you will see these people have three (3!) publications. One is a pilot study published in “Homeopathy” from 2007. Where is the full study following the pilot? Another is Milgrom’s comedy speculations about links between homoeopathy and quantum mechanics published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.
The last is an audit of outcomes from homoeopathic treatment of menopause symptoms, it is publish in a reasonable looking journal, though I can’t access it but I can read the abstract. All this short report tells us is that women with menopausal symptoms get better with time if you give them homoeopathic treatment. We know that menopausal symptoms get better with time weather you treat them or not so such a report is not much use. Comparing out comes for women given real and fake homoeopathic treatment for menopausal symptoms would have been a better use for funding, though it would have been negative for homoeopathy I fear.
So that’s the total published output of the Homoeopathic Research Institute reviewed in two paragraphs!
In a pleasing symmetry they have three (3!) projects. One of which has no details, another is as much about PR as the science and the last is yet another feasibility study. Weirdly this last is hidden inside a study looking at compliance in hormone thereby in women recovering form breast cancer. They appear from the website to have no funding for any for any of these studies yet.
So that’s all the Homeopathic Research Institutes projects summarised in 1 paragraph.
That seems to me to be enough evidence that they are quite unproductive.
may I said
The Lancet is good enough for you?
In 1991, and 1997 it published studies of positive effects of homeopathy.
In 2005 the Lancet was bought up by big pharma to FORGET AND DENY what they previously published with very poor trials and analysis, both homeopathic and medical.
We, homeopaths and a very large percentage of our patients are very convinced that homeopathy works, and there are some that do not know, like animals, babies, and plants, and people who have woken up from a coma in the second that homeopathy was put on their tongue.
The mind is disgusted by the unscientific way homeopathy is treated nowadays for reasons of avarice and cruelty, robbing the public of its right to know better, and choose.
Ffollowing are some reference to additional studies
http://www.carstens-stiftung.de/wissen/hom/pdf/klin_wilkens_jb5.pdf
http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/acm.1999.5.119
http://www.homeopathysouthafrica.co.za/case_notplacebo.htm
Derrik said
Please could you provide links or references to the lancet papers you refer to.
draust said
Are these homeopathological “comment loons” you get real, Gimpy?
Sometimes they exemplify the bulging-eye fanaticism and delusional mind-set so perfectly that I begin to think they must be the inventions of some waggish sceptic.
…And then I remember that Jeremy S is a guru to these folk and realise they are probably genuine.
Robin said
Gimpy and co have you managed to rubbbish this one yet?:
http://ecam.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/6/2/257?etoc
Robin said
can someone please reassure me that this study is not worth the paper it is written on and explain in layman’s terms why?
Chris said
People are more complicated than petri dishes.
ez said
Right, what about placebo effect in Petri dishes? Is it so typical?
Let’s make clear this point first.
notspock said
In petri dishes, its wishful thinking, not a placebo effect.
A lecturer of mine (now a prof) used to say “if you need statistics your experiment hasn’t worked” (and this was one or two steps detached from what one would call medical research).
What I find most disturbing about the beneviste/Randi thing is that it just shows how people can believe they are seeing interesting experimental results when there aren’t any. Note that a publish experiment with a real result will be repeated and expanded upon if one person sees and publishes an interesting result – whether its cold fusion or something obscure and mundane.
Wakeupplease said
Ez and Robin,
Surely you should have realised by now that everything homeopathic has been completely disproven already. Just read read through all the threads on this and every other skeptic site and surely you will understand the need to bow down to the intellectual and unbiased arguments. There is no need to show any evidence that might not concure with what is here because it must be wrong. The unviverse is a material place where the only way to sucessfully treat the sufferings of humanity is through the use of the totally scientific and evidence based medicines which are produced by the altruistic and caring drug companies who never put the interests of their shareholders before those very same sick people.
tazzage said
Wakeupplease,
I know that you are being sarcastic, but it confuses whatever point you are trying to make. I agree with almost all of your post, but presumably you don’t…
Just a note about your false dichotomy of homeopathy vs bi farma: I’m sure that shareholders of companies making magic water are very happy too. Just think of the markup!
Robin said
still waiting to be helped to understand how this study confirms Gimpy et al’s beliefs.
gimpy said
It doesn’t confirm my belief, it is a dubious cell culture experiment, that as Notspock points out, relies on low levels of statistical significance to draw its conclusions. What is more likely that this paper overturns decades of scientific research, revolutionises our understanding of molecular interactions and uproots established fields of chemistry and physics or that the researchers have cherry picked data, made errors and reported noise as patterns?
My opinions are the same as Notspock’s lecturer “if you need statistics your experiment hasn’t worked” – what this means that if your results (leaving the field of epidemiology aside) rely on elaborate statistical tests to detect then they probably aren’t very interesting.
Warhelmet said
If it delivers the paradigm-smashing results that the researchers claim, then we go to the reproduction/repetition argument. Once is not enough. I would qv cold fusion at this point.
It’s a piss-poor experimental design anyway. Too many variables. It’s research that does too much in one go and as a result introduces too much variation. One remedy, one dilution at a time please…
And is this really peer-reviewed? eCAM, yes, but, no, but.
Liz said
I’ve been bumping into Sherr’s work for years, never liked him
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