Your quote “WDDTY is frequented by many CAM practitioners who will gain their information from it and pass it on to their customers.” is superficial. I would like to know how you obtain this sort of information.

Regards,
J

Bearing in mind your appeal above, what is your opinion of Steve Scrutton’s comments?

Both parties take an oath to ‘do no harm’
Both parties should work together for the sake of the patient.
Both parties have a lot to offer.
It’s time for the childish name calling to cease!
It’s time to start working together for the good of patients!
It’s time to stop the stupidity!
It’s time to realise that both parties are here to stay
It’s time to grow
It’s time to accept
It’s time to heal
It’s time to stop having private little clubs that only certain people can join
For the sake of Humanity lets stop this stupidity, and start to make some sense, lets work together !!!!!!

Just like the Queen when we travel abroad I take my little box of remedies which deals with all those nasty bugs like Hep A and diseases like Malaria. If it is good enough for HRH it is good enough for me.

For all the skeptics out there have a look at the figures for the cholera epidemic in London in the mid 1800s when hundreds and hundreds of people died in the conventional hospitals compared to the homeopathic hospital where the death rate was next to none. What more proof do you need????

I will stick with my homeopathy thank you and stay drug free unlike the rest of my pensioner friends who take a cocktail of drugs for their aches and pains, diabetes, high blood pressure etc., etc.,

For those of you who want drugs and all their side effects good luck to you, you have the freedom to chose that path if you really want to, that is your choice. I am sure you will agree that the important thing is that we all have freedom of choice on how we wish to look after our health.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=103 - On being certain: believing you’re right even when you’re not

“Burton discusses how certainty interferes with science. “Integrative medicine” guru Andrew Weil set up tests of osteopathic manipulation for ear infections, and when the experiments showed no effect, he said, “I’m sure there’s an effect there. We couldn’t capture it in the way we set up the experiment.” This kind of thinking is rampant in alternative medicine. Burton thinks that if Dr. Weil recommends osteopathy for an ear infection, he should inform the patient that the recommendation is based on an unconfirmed belief…”

The reviewer also includes a quote from Richard Feynman, which those who would accuse modern scientists of arrogantly believing they have all the answers would do well to reflect upon:

“I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things… It doesn’t frighten me.”

But to suggest that people with fatal illnesses such as Cholera should forgo proper medical treatment beggers belief. Anyone suggesting that has to be either completely ignorant or cynical enough to knowingly give medical advice that could lead to someone’s death.

I doubt very much the doctor was concerned about a minor ear infection - they only give out antibiotics to shut people up - they are well aware that most ear infections will not respond to antibiotics.

Can I also echo John R’s points about ‘Western Science’/

Bonnie there is no such thing as ‘Western Science’, and I think many scientists in India, China and Japan would be quite offended by these borderline racist statements made by the CAM community. The scientific community is a global one, and lets not forget Homeopathy originated in Germany.

I’m glad that on the occasions you have given your children homeopathic remedies they have been able to sleep well. However when this is repeated in a controlled manner there is no evidence that it is of any benefit. Nobody doubts that there is still a lot we don’t know about the human body, hence on going research, but this is a straw man against which homeopaths continually beat. Homeopathy isn’t thought useless because of it’s apparent implausibility, but because there’s no evidence for it.

I could give you example after example from my own life of occasions when doctors have thrown drugs at me that ended up not being appropriate or that actually harmed me with their side effects.

As for homeopathy. Never mind the big horrible diseases. Let’s talk about the little things that really affect your quality of life. For a parent, that means colds, flus, ear infections. My daughter developed a terrible ear infection one day. She was screaming in pain. I took her to the doctor, who prescribed an antibiotic, and alternating doses of Tylenol and Motrin (she assumed the pain would be so bad that my kid should be on Tylenol and Motrin simultaneously to deal with it). While standing in line to get the antibiotic, I phoned our chiropractor. He said, “Don’t give her an antibiotic. Most ear infections are viral anyway. But do give her some Tylenol for the pain right away [I already had]. Then go to the health food store and get a homeopathic remedy called Earache, and also get her an herbal tincture of nettles.” Well, the HFS was all out of nettles (which I later discovered is a wonderful herbal decongestant), so we made do with the Earache alone. Never had to give her the antibiotic. Never had to give her a second dose of the Tylenol. She was completely cured within hours. This was for an ear infection that the doctor had been terribly concerned about.

I switched to using homeopathic remedies whenever we get colds. Guess what, the remedies work better than over-the-counter cold medicines. As a parent, I can tell you, my kids don’t know whether I’m giving them western medicine or homeopathic medicine. But I can observe the difference. And the homeopathic medicine is the one that means I get to sleep that night. The OTC western medicine is the one that means I get to sit up all night holding a child who can’t breathe if she’s lying down.

So you can knock homeopaths all you want, but I’m sticking with what works. I believe in science — and I believe someday science will catch up and explain this. Western science is still in its infancy. There’s a lot we don’t yet understand about how the body works.

My suggestion is, try a remedy for yourself and see if you remain skeptical.