A study just published in the International Journal of Oncology has just found that ultra-diluted remedies (Carcinosin, Thuja, Conium and Phytolacca) have a cytotoxic effect on breast cancer cells.

 I suppose that was placebo also?

To view the study please click here
 
 
Evan Harris MP who is on the Science and Technology Committee "evidence check" for homeopathy has been captured on video showing blatant bias against homeopathy. Is this acceptable from a member of the committee? Have a look at this video and decide for yourself.

 
 
There is just one day left until the denialists of homeopathy are going to launch their campaign. They are going to start it with a "mass homeopathic overdose." I have seen from their website that 300 people plan to take part in this foolish publicity stunt. For all the noise they make you would think that they could muster up more than a measly 300 people but no it seems that they are indeed in a very small minority. Their stunt is foolish because it will prove nothing as I have described in my previous post.


Their ill-thought idea has already attracted criticism from their own ranks with some calling it a bad idea. India Knight in the Times also criticised it asking what is the point of this stunt, what is it going to prove and who cares?


One thing it has highlighted is that the denialists are actually a small bunch of people who make a lot of noise. They have got just 300 people to turn out tomorrow, yet these 300 people are served most by the mainstream newspapers. Rarely will you find a well-balanced article relating to homeopathy in the mainstream press rather you usually find badly researched and biased diatribes by people who know nothing about it. But then again isn't that what most of our mainstream papers do to all of their stories? The quality of journalism is at an all time low and is only matched by their plummeting sales figures.


One must ask why the mainstream press is so anti-homeopathy when in fact more people support homeopathy than are against it. This planned publicity stunt has shown that the denialists are in very small numbers, so why do they dominate the press? Maybe if newspapers knew that their readers were actually pro-homeopathy they would publish better articles on homeopathy. 


I thank the organisers of the "overdose" because they are going to show so succinctly that they are in fact a bunch of narrow-minded extremists who are stuck in their old ways, and do not want to see the world develop. History is littered with such people, and they no doubt perform a valuable role but science does move on despite them. I thank them for showing to the world that they are also a very small group of people who are "out of touch" with the times.


A recent study (link) by Mintel shows that sales in complementary and alternative medicines continue to soar despite the economic downturn and are predicted to increase greatly over the coming years. This shows that the public are shunning the likes of the denialists and are voting with their feet for the treatments they want. Will a group of people stuck in yesteryear stop this? I doubt it.
 
 
The denialists (who call themselves sceptics - see this blog post to find out why they cannot be considered sceptics) are planning a "mass homeopathic overdose" which is a clearly a badly thought-out publicity stunt. They are going to "prove" that there is nothing in homeopathy by "taking a whole bottle of homeopathic pills" (very scientific eh). This will once and for all prove there is nothing in homeopathic remedies...or is it?

Only a mis-informed denialist could conceive of such a plan, for if they had any knowledge of homeopathy they would know that what they are planning is flawed from the outset. They are trying to show that you can take a whole bottle of a homeopathic remedy and not be "overdosed" thus in their twisted logic it would prove that there is nothing in homeopathic medicines. To the mis-informed this may seem like an ingenious ploy but to those educated in just the basic principles of homeopathic medicine it can be seen as a ill-conceieved to say the least. I shall explain why...


1. Homeopathic remedies will only have an effect if you are susceptible to them (in other words your body must be pre-senisitsed to the substance). If you are not susceptible to it, the remedy will not act upon you. This is a basic principle of homeopathy, and what makes it so individualised to the person so that we must select a remedy that matches the dis-ease within the person, thus the term homeopathic ("like cures like"). What the denialists are trying to do is get everyone to take the same remedy to prove it has no effect, what we don't know is anything about the susceptibility of the people involved. The likelihood is that some will be susceptible and some will not.


2. Taking one remedy at a time is the same as taking a whole bottle (with potencies beyond 12C). Of course the denialists know this point, and that's why they know they will be safe in taking the whole bottle as it is the same as taking one pill. Why is this the case? Well this is what homeopaths have found through 200 years worth of experience.


Now if you were to take a homeopathic remedy repeatedly over a given duration then you have the chance of producing a "proving" which is also known as a Human Pathogenetic Trial.


The basis of a proving


If the denialists were to to truly test whether homeopathic remedies can have an effect they would need to carry out a proving and follow a strict set of protocols. They would also need to have a co-ordinator and some supervisors to oversee the running of the proving.


A proving (from the German word "prüfung") is one of the ways homeopaths test to see what medicinal qualities a substance may have. So if we take the Belladonna plant as an example.


Firstly the co-ordinator of the proving needs to decide what substance to prove, in this case Belladonna, but usually it would be a substance that has never been proved before. Then out of the group of people who have volunteered to be provers 10% would be given placebo and the rest would be given the Belladonna. This would be done in a double-blind fashion so that neither the supervisors, coordinators nor provers would know who is given placebo or who is being given the Belladonna.


The provers would then proceed to take the remedy (different provers would be given different potencies) to a maximum of six doses over two days. These doses have to be taken at different times of the day, as has been previously discussed taking 100 pills at once is the same as taking 1 pill (with the 12C and beyond potencies). Supervisors would monitor the provers over the coming weeks to see what symptoms are shown in each prover (there would also have been a meeting with the supervisor beforehand to ascertain their level of health). Whatever symptoms come up for the provers (physical, mental or emotional) will be recorded. At the end of the given time the supervisors and co-ordinator will collate all of the information. This gives us the proving "picture." The co-ordinator will need to assess which symptoms are of importance and relevance and should be included in publication.


In the example of Belladonna you would expect to see provers with symptoms of fever, delirium, anger amongst many others. This is why a proving must be well monitored in order to monitor the health of the individual. A proving will usually produce symptoms in a more gentle way than would be the case if the crude substance was taken.


A proving helps homeopaths because we work on the basis that what can cause illness can also cure it. So by knowing through a proving what a substance can cause we will in turn know what it's medicinal uses may be.


So in returning to the denialists they will prove nothing of the efficacy of homeopathy but to show its safety. If they would really like to test homeopathy's efficacy they should conduct a proving or a randomised controlled trial. Of course to the untrained, unscientific mind (not all scientists are scientific in their approach) this would prove (excuse the pun!) a little too difficult to manage, so instead they resort to their usual unscientific nonsense. It may fool some people but it won't fool many as most people can see through this shallow "stunt."
 
 
Naturalnews.com has published an interesting article on treating gout with homeopathic remedies. View it here.
 
 
A paper published yesterday (15/1/10) in the peer-reviewed journal Homeopathy by Camerlink et al (2010) found that the homeopathic remedy Coli 30K was highly significantly (p< 0.0001) more effective than placebo in a placebo-controlled, observer blind RCT on the treatment of diarrhoea in neo-natal pigs.

52 sows of pigs form a commercial farm who were in their last month of gestation and had never been vaccinated against E.coliwere randomly assigned to either a placebo group or treatment group. This included 300 pigs.

Both groups would receive either the homeopathic remedy Coli 30k or placebo twice a week in their last four weeks pre-partum.

It was found that the treatment group had significantly less E.coli diarrhoea than the placebo group (P <0.0001). Furthermore in the homeopathic treatment group the diarrhoea was less severe, there was less transmission and duration appeared shorter.

Camerlink I, Ellinger L, Bakker EJ and Lantinga EA (2010) Homeopathy as replacement to antibiotics in the case of Escherichia Coli diarrhoea in neonatal pigs, Homeopathy, Vol.99 (57-62)

Courtesy of http://homeopathyblogs.blogspot.com/
 

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