The homeopaths respond to allegations of misdeeds by inciting a campaign of harrassment
Posted by gimpy on August 27, 2009
You may have noticed that last week the Voice of Young Science (VoYS), part of Sense About Science, managed to persuade the World Health Organisation (WHO) to issue a recommendation to the health ministers of all countries to combat the promotion of homeopathy for serious diseases. This excellent work has elicited a furious response from homeopaths who want to preserve their right to treat the terminally ill populations of developing countries as human guinea pigs. This following email and document is being passed around the homeopathic community and appears to call for a mass harassment of UN and WHO figures who have committed the sin of condemning the inappropriate use of homeopathy.
I think this illustrates the difficulties of attempting sensible debate with homeopaths and furthers arguments that they should be excluded from any discussions of healthcare provision. The mistaken reference to The Young Voices of Science rather than VoYS is just further proof they lack the capability to read things properly. They are morons.
More tomorrow, when I look at how the UK homeopathy organisations have responded.
HOMOEOPATHY ACTION ALERT -SERIOUS ATTACK ON HOMOEOPATHY
Dear Homeopathic Colleague -
Homeopathy has suffered a very serious attack. The Young Voices of Science, a UK based group dedicated to eliminating homeopathy, sent a letter to the World Health Organization asking WHO to condemn homoeopathy in developing countries, especially in the areas of influenza, childhood diarrhoea, malaria and AIDS. WHO replied last week with statements from various Departmental Heads saying there is no indication of effectiveness of homoeopathy in any of these areas. YVoS has now circulated the response of WHO to the media and have amplified the letter as if it is a public announcement from WHO, WHICH IT IS NOT. Additionally, YVoS has stated on its website that it will be contacting the Health Ministries of all countries in the world to let them know about the WHO response and press them to condemn homoeopathy in their country.
The BBC then spread this false item and has since admitted that is was hasty and mistaken in posting the article as an official statement, without checking the facts. But if we let this go it will be too late, people will believe this dirty trick campaign. Please send emails or letters to the BBC complaint department or to any other newspapers publishing the statement.Here is one of the BBC apologies. Sad they could not check the facts first!
Many thanks for your e-mail. We have since updated this report and it now includes two comments putting the case for homeopathy – one referring to treatment for diarrhoea – although we accept that it would have been desirable to have had these in the article earlier.It became clear from correspondence that some readers found the original headline – WHO warns against homeopathy use – ambiguous, and this has been altered to reflect the fact that people are being urged not to rely on homeopathy.Best wishes,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/handle.shtml
BBC News websiteWe are asking you to help launch a mass protest. We have prepared a rebuttal letter to send to WHO which is attached to this email. There are other homoeopathic organizations who are preparing protest statements as well. We think it is important that WHO hear from as MANY INDIVIDUALS AS POSSIBLE, and are appealing to you–Please read the attached letter. Please adapt it to your own wording, while keeping the main points.
It is best to have a variety of letters
· Please send it to one or more of the email address below.· Please do this immediately, as a response to WHO is needed quickly.
· Please forward this email with the attached letter to as many of
your colleagues and patients as possible and urge them to take action. USE BCC AND DELETE THE NAME OF THE PERSON WHO SENT IT TO YOU.· If you can send a written letter as well that would help.If you are living in the US or have no contact with developing countries, you may wonder why this is an important issue for you to act upon. In fact some suggest that no response be made and that we continue to focus our energies on our good work.
However, this attack is different—
1. This is a group (YVoS) that is aggressively dedicated to destroying homoeopathy. They have stated this on their website and in their letter to their members announcing the WHO letter. While located in the UK, they are reaching out to all countries. They have tried to influence India and right now they have specifically targeted several homoeopathy projects in Africa. They contact governmental, national health ministries, academic medical departments and other organizations in these countries and warn them against homoeopathy using distortion and half truths. They use every means at their disposal to disrupt or end the projects. They have only one goal and they are effective and dangerous to homoeopathy.2. Existing homoeopathy projects will suffer because of these attacks, hindering rising of funds and initiating research. We are a holistic healing community. When one of our practitioners or one location of our profession is attacked, it is an attack against all of us. Just as we would not turn our backs on treating patients with acute attacks of cholera or malaria, who without homeopathic treatment might die, we should not be complacent about this group. This is a serious acute attack and needs a like response.3. These attacks are coming because homoeopathy is gaining approval and popularity. We must be ready to stand firmly beside the good work that we are doing and be ready to assure that all people, especially those in developing countries, have access to this healing modality. If we do not respond this could affect each and every one of us.
PLEASE TAKE ACTION NOW
STAND UP FOR HOMOEOPATHY
HOMOEOPATHY LIVES!
WHO contacts
Media Office of Director General Dr. Margaret ChanFadela chaib
Mr Etukudo at the Division of AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria at the World Health Organisation’s regional office in Africa
E-mail:
Contact: Mr. A. Etukudo, AO/ATM CongoDr Elisabeth Mason,
Director Department of Child & Adolescent Health Development,
World Health Organization
20 Avenue Appia
1211 Geneva 27
SwitzerlandDr Mario Raviglione, Director, Stop TB Department, no email found see press contact below
Dr Mukund Uplekar, TB Strategy and Health Systems,
Dr Teguest Guerma, Director Ad Interim, HIV/AIDS Department, (congratulated VoYS no email found see press contact below)
Dr Sergio Spinaci, Associate Director, Global Malaria Programme also
congratulated themWHO press contacts in Geneva:
Valeri Abramov
HIV/AIDS Department, Tel:Glenn Thomas
Stop TB Department,
Tel:
Email:
and here is the letter
We the undersigned are outraged at the way the World Health Organization has allowed itself to be coerced by the Sense About Science Voices of Young Science into condemning the use of homoeopathy in developing countries.
This condemnation comes after what appears to be blind acceptance by WHO of the contents of a single letter from ‘young scientists’ living in the UK in June. VoYS is an offshoot of Sense About Science an aggressive anti-homoeopathy lobby that have well documented funding connections to pharmaceutical companies. WHO appears to have made no efforts at all to establish the veracity of the claims of VoYS or to check with the homoeopaths in the named countries on what they are doing, their treatment policies or the results they are having in treating patients with a wide range of conditions.
There is an increasing body of evidence in favour of homoeopathy’s effectiveness. The respondents from WHO’s various departments, in their rush to fulfill the ‘Young Scientists’ request to condemn homoeopathy, apparently are not aware of, or have chosen to overlook, the positive results of many research studies. e.g
• A recent high quality trial by the prestigious, WHO qualified facility, the Finlay Institute in Cuba, involving two and a half million people, found homoeopathy to be extremely effective in the prevention of Leptospirosis (Dr. Concepción Campa Huergo report to Finlay Institute ‘Nosodes 2008 conference’ December 2008, to be published).
• A trial conducted by Quebec homoeopathy organization in partnership with McGill University in Honduras found homoeopathy effective in preventing and treating parasitic Chagas disease (Martine Jourde report to Finlay Institute ‘Nosode 2008 conference’ December 2008).
• Three studies that show homoeopathy is effective in the treatment of child hood diarrhea. Furthermore, counter to the uninformed claim of Joe Martines, on behalf of Dr Elizabeth Mason, Director, WHO Department of Child and Adolescent Health and Development, rehydration was included in the protocol of the trials (See below).
• A pilot study in Ghana showing homoeopathic treatment equal to and slightly more effective than chloroquine in the treatment of acute malaria (Br Homoeopath J 1996 Apr;85(2):66-70).
• The Stanford study treating tuberculosis in HIV patients resulted in significant improvement in patients receiving homeopathic immunotherapy (Stanford, Comm Br Hom Res Grp Dec 1992 22 30-9).
Furthermore, the WHO department directors have ignored the rich and well documented history of homoeopathy’s success in treating major worldwide epidemics of cholera, influenza (including the 1918 epidemic), yellow fever and many other serious epidemics. Homoeopathy has a well developed approach to epidemics which mean homoeopaths can respond rapidly to an epidemic infectious disease. In light of these and more studies of homoeopathy and the extreme challenge of emerging drug resistant epidemics in developing countries, it is cause for wonder why WHO itself has not sponsored research into homoeopathy treatment.
Homoeopaths operate in a complementary way to conventional medicine, they do not recommend stopping any prescribed conventional medicines. Treatment results of patients in the developing countries where homoeopathy is used are impressive. Patients are happier and healthier and despite the constraints of lack of funding from established research foundations, studies are being undertaken and proving homoeopathy’s effectiveness.
In 2005 the World Health Organization proposed an extremely positive report on homoeopathy and its potential in the developing world noting that it is cost effective, has no side effects, and above all is positively health enhancing. It was only after pressure from critics of Complementary and Alternative medicine to revise it, that the report was held back and despite considerable revision it has still not been published.
The VoYS has issued a press release to the media that widely publicises the statements from the WHO Departmental Heads. VoYS has stated that they will be contacting the Health Ministries of every country to tell them of the opinion of WHO and discourage the use of homoeopathy in order to accomplish their mission to stopping the use of homoeopathy altogether. VoYS has presented the communication from WHO as a public announcement from WHO and as a way to pressure countries to alter their internal health policies. Is this the intention of WHO ? Does WHO condone other organizations speaking and acting on its behalf in such a way??
We have several questions for WHO.
• How can you allow your organisation to appear to condemn homoeopathy on the basis of one letter by an antagonistic lobby that receives funding from the pharmaceutical industry and without first checking the facts?
• How can you reverse your own previous recommendations without verification and dialogue?
• Why when all over the world doctors, scientists and patients are choosing homoeopathy because of their positive experience in regaining health, does WHO decide to condemn homoeopathy? How is the WHO statement and the subsequent contact by VoYS to be received by countries such as India, where homoeopathy doctors have a long and respected record of treating all diseases, including epidemics?
• Why when Ministries of Health in many developing countries have responded to the requests of their own citizens to make homoeopathy a registered medicine, does WHO choose to lend their authority to the dedicated campaign of an anti-homoeopathy group located in the UK?
The citizens of Switzerland recently voted in a national referendum to include homoeopathy as one of their medical choices. Should the poor sick of Ghana, Botswana, Swaziland, Tanzania, Brazil, Cuba, Thailand and other developing contries, living in rural areas with little or no access to other medicines, be deprived of this safe and affordable choice? How can WHO allow, through the contents of one arbitrary letter, removal of freedom of choice from the people who need it most? Is this not an issue of basic human rights?
The VoYS press release, which was further distorted by the BBC, has gone to the media throughout the world under the headline of “WHO Warns Developing Countries against Homoeopathy.” This is a deliberately inflammatory, malicious and false declaration that appears to have the backing of WHO. As a role model of good health and disease treatment to the world, we appeal to WHO not to let commercial powers and vested interests of a small vocal group influence your stated goal of bringing the “highest possible level of health” to all the people of the world.
We urge you to reverse your premature and apparently unconsidered condemnation of homoeopathy –a safe, effective and cost-effective therapeutic option for developing countries.
Please give health a chance!
Yours truly“Homoeopathy cures a larger percentage of cases than any other method of treatment and is beyond doubt safer and more economical and most complete medical science.” Mahatma Gandhi
3 Research studies childhood diarrhoea: Treatment of acute childhood diarrhoea in Nicaragua
This trial involved 81 children aged from 6 months to 5 years in a randomised, double-blind trial of intravenous fluids plus placebo versus intravenous fluids plus homoeopathic remedy individualised to the patient. The treatment group had a statistically significant decrease in duration of diarrhoea.
Jacobs J. Treatment of acute childhood diarrhoea with homoeopathic medicine: a randomized clinical trial in Nicaragua. Pediatrics 1994; 93: 719-725.
Treatment of acute childhood diarrhoea, repeated in Nepal
In a replication of a trial carried out in Nicaragua in 1994, 116 Nepalese children aged 6 months to 5 years suffering from diarrhoea were given an individualised homoeopathic medicine or placebo. Treatment by homoeopathy showed a significant improvement in the condition in comparison to placebo.
Jacobs J., Jimenez M., Malthouse S., Chapman E., Crothers D., Masuk M., Jonas W.B., Acute Childhood Diarrhoea- A Replication., Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 6, 2000, 131-139.
A meta-analysis of childhood diarrhoea trials
This meta-analysis of 242 children showed a highly significant result in the duration of childhood diarrhoea (P=0.008).
J. Jacobs, WB Jonas, M Jimenez-Perez, D Crothers, Homoeopathy for Childhood Diarrhea: Combined Results and Meta-analysis from Three Randomized, Controlled Clinical Trial, The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, 22 (3): 229-234, March 2003.Homeopathic treatment of patients with chronic sinusitis: A prospective observational study with 8 years follow-up 27th July 2009
Witt, Ludtke, Willich.http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6815/9/7
Homeopathic Individualized Q-potencies versus Fluoxetine for Moderate to Severe Depression: Double-blind, Randomized Non-inferiority Trial
U. C. Adler, N. M. P. Paiva, A. T. Cesar, M. S. Adler, A. Molina, A. E. Padula and H. M. Calil
eCAM Advance Access published online on August 17, 2009http://ecam.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/nep114v1
warhelmet said
I like the way that some homeopaths like to make the hole that they have fallen into even bigger. They don’t seem to understand the value of a strategic retreat. Opposition turns the heat up on something that might have been forgotten very quickly by all but a hard core of activists (hmm, yes, activists – never really thought of it that way, but it is true).
The motivation behind VoYS’s letter to WHO et al is irrelevant. What matters is that potentially serious public health issues have been highlighted. Weasel words and citing poor papers doesn’t change that.
What is particularly interesting is watching the likes of Dana Ullman try to defend the use of individualised remedies for the treatment of childhood diarrhoea and fail to grasp that they are not a practical solution to, say, problems in Africa.
I think that the email is unethical. Any UK homeopath that signs up to the instructions in the email will face formal complaint.
Frank said
Christ, if I received that letter I’d rightly put it down to some nutcase with serious issues.
Michael K Gray said
And you would be 100% correct.
Mike from Ottawa said
Now, Gimpy, you have to admit homeopathic remedies could be a great boon to many places where malaria and childhood diarrhoea are endemic. Homeopathic remedies are exactly what many such places need.
Without wasting time on researching their efficacy, homeopathic remedies should be made available to all in need. They should be delivered in bulk, in the millions of tons. Many third world countries are desperate need of clean, uncontaminated water and homeopathic remedies are generally entirely uncontaminated, and especially uncontaminated by anything that has any biological or biochemical effect other than that of pure water. I’m sure as selfless holistic healers, homeopaths would be willing to donate to bring this about.
BSM said
The mere fact that this letter continues to maintain claims to treat those serious diseases should confirm to any half-reasonable policy maker that VoYS were not exaggerating the dangers posed by homeopaths.
Chilly said
Is the evidence that’s cited in the letter any good?
Allo V Psycho said
If it were necessary to ‘fight’ homoeopathy, then exactly the ground that the rational medical community would choose is acute life threatening conditions with known rational cures, treatments and/or preventative methods. I would find it hard to bother attacking any alternative treatment for a diagnosed cyclic minor condition with no effective treatment. By responding in this way, they are doing exactly the worst thing possible for their own case.
rosa said
yes psycho, Allo V Psycho,
You are so right
“It is exactly the worst thing possible for their own case” as you said.
That is because big-farma are afraid that their hoax science will be revealed.
that is why.
Malaria was the very easy cure by homeopathy already 200 years ago, same disease today – same symptoms same mosquito, same cure.
warhelmet said
Mosquito? Feh. It’s the plasmodia that you need to worry about and, no, they are not the same as they were 200 years ago. They evolve rather rapidly.
Wendy Pearman said
Gimpy, could you tell me where I can find this for myself, please. I’d just like to confirm the source.
gimpy said
Hi Wendy, I received it from the zeusinfo service. You can also find discussion of it on the minutus and hpathy forums too. Do you know who wrote the original?
Janene said
I am not able to find a reference to this letter on zeusinformationservices, hpathy, minutus or anywhere else. Who wrote it? Where did it come from? Did it actually go anywhere?
I did find the official press release from The Society of Homoeopaths here:
http://www.homeopathy-soh.org/whats-new/press-releases.aspx
Chilly said
Hello sciency people, I’m a lay-person. That’s exactly the kind of person who, if it weren’t for the good work of Ben Goldacre, SciencePunk, Gimpy et al, would still be taken in by the anecdotes and grand claims of CAM exponents. Now it’s goodbye acupuncture and ear candles, hello randomised trials and relative risk; I’m trying to get better at seeing through the bullshit. Now that’s easily done when presented with wifty-wafty pseudo-evidence in the form of anecdotes and Gandhi quotes but in the letter above there’s reference to large scale, randomised, double blind trials. As far as I can see, only Warhelmet makes reference to these and then only to dismiss them as “poor papers”.
If, by asking what’s wrong with the papers when the answer should be obvious, there’s a danger of dumbing down the debate here then please say so; I won’t be offended and I’ll come back when I’m a bit more up to speed with how to tell a good paper from a poor one. But if there’s any value in it then I appeal to you with the whiniest tones and most puppy-dogged eyes that I can muster to cast some light on the relative strengths of the cited papers. Thank you.
John R said
Taking the final five citations, the three about diarrhea as desribed all feature the same author – J. Jacobs – which would generally give pause for thought under any circumstances.
In fact, they feature several of the same authors and the citations for that first study given in the email are wrong. The Nicaragua study was by Jacobs J, as well as: Jiménez LM, Gloyd SS, Gale JL and Crothers D. The Nepalese “repeat” (though their methodology changed, or at least they don’t mention giving standard rehydration as well) also featured three of those authors.
Three of the four authors of the meta-analysis worked on either or both of the previous two studies. The abstract of the meta-analysis doesn’t say which studies it used, but from its description of similar methodology, I can’t imagine the Nepalese one wasn’t in there and I strongly suspect the Nicaraguan one was as well.
Effectively, the same group of people, led (it seems) by the same primary authors, repeated and re-analysed their own work, and if there were any methodological or analytical flaws – without having the full thing, it’s impossible to say if there were or not – it’s unlikely that they’d be the ones to spot them. In addition to which, the second study was published in a CAM journal, which
renders it (in all probability) useless for serious consideration.
The fourth of the five is merely an uncontrolled observational study of patients actively seeking out homeopathy (and which concluded that it was impossible to say what improvements were down to the placebo effect).
The fifth study had an attrition rate of around 40% and while it compared homeopathy to fluoxetine and found no significant difference in effect between the two, it should also be remembered the recently-revealed poor state of evidence suggesting SSRIs do much more than placebo. It’s also largely irrelevant to the main thrust of the WHO campaign, since I doubt there’s a lot going on in depression treatment in Third World countries riddled with AIDS, malaria et al.
They’re also lone studies, plucked from the literature like glistening fruit and ignoring the hundred other ones suggesting that homeopathy is bunk.
As to their earlier ones, two are unpublished conference presentations, one is in a CAM journal and one, if I’m reading the abbreviation right, is in the internal newsletter of a homeopathy research group. None of those are the sort of thing to instill a great deal of confidence.
All of those are just on brief reading and I’ll happily stand corrected, of course.
BSM said
Chilly, here is a link to a series of blogs (Homeocracy to Homeocracy IV) examining Jacobs’ papers.
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=460
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=472
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=495
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=508
It’s quite a long read. Basically the papers are rubbish, but what is really interesting is to look at how they are exploited by homeopathy’s apologists like Dana Ullman.
Have fun.
davidp said
G’day Chilly,
I have no specific expertise, but from reading various blogs, I can briefly comment on some of these papers.
The Cuban Leptospirosis “trial” see http://www.quackometer.net/blog/labels/cuba.html is a conference paper, uncontrolled, and for all its 2.5 million doses, it is picking a single data point on a variable disease incidence curve while the Cuban government is working hard on the disease, and claiming causality for the homeopathic intervention.
Chagas disease in Hounduras – I am not aware of this conference paper.
“Three studies that show homoeopathy is effective in the treatment of child hood diarrhea” see
http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2009/08/society-of-homeopaths-are-shambles-and.html
All three studies are by the same lead author, are statistically marginal and the author’s fourth, larger, study showed no benefit.
Pilot malaria study in Ghana in 1996 comparing to chloroquine – if it is a positive result, why is it still only a pilot after 13 more years ? Was the malaria chloroquine resistant ? (The BCA cites a paper finding Chiropractic as effective for colic as a known ineffective over the counter drug)
Tuberculosis in HIV patients – I am not aware of this paper. “Communications of the British Homeopathy Research Group” does not sound like a publication that would apply rigorous standards to papers claiming homeopathic effectiveness.
The first two are conference presentations at the ‘Nosode 2008 conference’ in Havana – no critical review is involved. The presenter of the first was conference president.
Derrik said
I think the more the homoeopathic community can be encouraged to make its position clear to policy makers and the general public the better. We’ve seen the wonderful, typo laden, misspelt, conspiracy theory ridden rants that appear on this blog and in the various forums like Hpathy. What could do the cause of homeopathy more harm than flooding institutions like the WHO with such material?
warhelmet said
Carol Boyce?
gimpy said
No idea.
warhelmet said
q.v. this particular thingy – http://www.csoh.ca/PA_Int%27l_RLHH_2007.htm. And I’ve seen the “Dear homeopathic colleague” bit from other Canadian stuff as well.
Don’t read too much into this. I am just intrigued by the parallels.
Don Cox said
“What could do the cause of homeopathy more harm than flooding institutions like the WHO with such material?”
Unfortunately, such material can be quite effective, as you can see from the BBC apology. People in offices want to avoid trouble.
It is likely to end with a representative of the Homeopathy Community on a committee, to be “fair”.
Derrik said
You may be right about the WHO. I suspect they will come under pressure from countries like India where homoeopathy is widespread.
The BBC did get it wrong though didn’t they. They implied that the WHO has issued an official statement condemning homeopathy when actually a load of activists from the UK wheedled the opinions out of people who work for the WHO. Part of that seems to have been because VoYS slightly over egged the pudding in their press release. You can’t make mistakes like that, even if your right.
warhelmet said
Nancy Malik calls for mass action – http://www.hpathy.com/homeopathyforums/forum_posts.asp?TID=10149&PN=2.
hey, look, they are talking about us and this blog post!
ordinary said
The ignorance here is very clear. Do you not have anything better to do than harm? The only critics of Homeopathy I’ve EVER met are the ones that have never used it. What a joke. With a possible flu pandemic coming I would expect people to be a little smarter, silly me. Look at history, if you are not afraid. During the 1918 flu pandemic there were Homeopathic Hospitals in the US. Those hospitals had a small 1% death rate from the flu while your drug pushing western medical hospitals had a 28% death rate. Go ahead, get your vaccine and head to you local hospital. Have fun.
Nancy said
Real (homeopathic) medicine cures even when Conventional Allopathic Medicine (CAM) fails
Nash said
Nancy.
No it doesn’t
jaycueaitch said
No point responding to Nancy. She periodically spams blogs with the above post and does not respond to any comments made. I actually think she’s a spambot not a human being.
Ricardo Lopes said
Hi
Well, I suppose that by saying that Homeopathy doen’t work you’ve passed that experience, right?
You need evidence for something to work. You’ll need also to say that something doesn’t. Or for “science”, guess is the correct way?
Wendy Hewland said
Oxford University Press study 7/09 shows individualized homeopathy as effective and safer than Prozac http://url.ie/2d2j
BSM said
Yeah, Wendy, two things that don’t work are equivalent. What is it with you people that you think you can pull a cherry out of the pile of stupid? Homeopathy only works as well as things that don’t, we know this and you are not being clever by citing a study that we’ve all seen before as if you had something original to contribute. You don’t and you haven’t.
A. Gärtner said
Please have a look at:
http://ccrhindia.org/epidemic.asp
thanks
BSM said
Chilly, try these links;
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=460
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=472
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=495
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=508
Jacobs’ studies are just self-referential rubbish, until she did one that showed homeopathy didn’t work. This is objected to by DUllman on the grounds of lack of individualisation, despite the fact that he sells just those kinds of products himself. His standards are nothing if not flexible.
flim flam said
wendy, having a cup of tea and a biscuit is probably as safe and effective as prozac, would it be ethical for me to set up a clinic offering treatment for various self limiting illnesses using the ancient therapeutic modality of cuppatea-biccieopathy? ( individualized of course, i’d offer a variety of diffent teas, matched with various therapeutic biscuits based on the theories espoused by my nana)
There’s no evidence you say?.. bit like homeopathy then…and at least cuppatea-biccieopathy has some active ingredients (it rehydrates and provides anti-oxidants along with the nutritional benefits of natural sugary goodness) in your face homeopathy!!! cuppatea-biccieopathy is the future of alternative medicine! or something……
Joe Jordan said
Looking forward to your comments on the Pfizer affair Gimpy. They have just paid out $2.4 Billion in fines and payments after admitting to fraudulant marketing practices etc etc.
Pfizer has agreed to pay $1 billion to resolve allegations under the civil False Claims Act that the company illegally promoted four drugs — Bextra; Geodon, an anti-psychotic drug; Zyvox, an antibiotic; and Lyrica, an anti-epileptic drug — and caused false claims to be submitted to government health care programs for uses that were not medically accepted indications and therefore not covered by those programs. The civil settlement also resolves allegations that Pfizer paid kickbacks to health care providers to induce them to prescribe these, as well as other, drugs. The federal share of the civil settlement is $668,514,830 and the state Medicaid share of the civil settlement is $331,485,170. This is the largest civil fraud settlement in history against a pharmaceutical company.
Makes homeopathy seem like small potatoes really.
notspock said
I shall take small potatoes next time I’ve got a bit of a cold.
gimpy said
Joe Jordan, what has this got to do with homeopathy? Is this the argument that big pharma companies do bad things therefore homeopathy works? Or is it the one that says big pharma companies do unethical things therefore homeopaths don’t?
ez said
No, it only makes one wonder why you do not choose to discuss obvious wrong doers that cause direct harm to people and instead prefer to concentrate on a group of “honestly deluded” (as you claim you view them, well, not the direct wording you use, or was it Andy Lewis?) but otherwise harmless (at least in the sense of direct harm – you like to stress that “it’s plain water/sugar”,- not the type of “harm caused by persuading people to avoid real medication”) people (I’m talking about homeopaths here), whose activity does not involve the exorbitant sums of money as mentioned for Pfizer… Just an observation. Does not look too adequate – ignore big harm and focus on minor (even if one takes your point of view) issues? (Maybe Joe Jordan will have a different answer, though.)
BSM said
“More tomorrow, when I look at how the UK homeopathy organisations have responded.”
Any update yet, Gimpy?
gimpy said
ahem, did I write that?
Err, tomorrow? Sorry work and other stuff had to take priority. Big pharma really need to pay me more so I don’t have to do the day job.
BSM said
I thought it was you, looked like you- 5 foot 3, curly ginger hair, prosthetic left ear. May have been your twin brother.
draust said
The starkest danger of homeopathy and other Alt.Reality therapies, as repeated many, many times here and elsewhere, is that they tempt people to think that magic water, or silly diets, or laying on of hands, can cure serious and even deadly things that are actually curable with conventional therapies.
Every now and then a story comes along which makes this point eloquently. I just saw another tragic example, to do with a treatable cancer, recounted by an ER / A&E doc here (via Orac’s Respectful Insolence).
As the anonymous ER doc writes:
warhelmet said
I’ve seen mention the email might have come from Carol Boyce on one of the homeopathy websites. Carol Boyce? http://www.savingalostgeneration.com/
I’m not sure.
rosa said
“WHO decided to condemn homeopathy”
Who is WHO is the question!
As from January onwards there is only benefits to the treatments of Jeremy Sherr and co. We have seen him in Israel. We believe what he said. If his and the members of his crew were failing we would have known.
Right now what the WHO does is trying to police the politics of its partners WTO – UN – WB and big farma.
PFIZER in Nigeria, that what you, Gimpy should have concentrated upon not the gentle healing of homeopathy.
warhelmet said
I know that many things said by Jeremy Sherr have proved to be false.