Comments on: A darker breed of homeopath

By: Erik

Erik — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 23:01:40 +0000

Ohh, I thought you’d like this picture, too:

Mosquito landed on a bottle of natural/homeopathic mosquito repellent :)

By: Erik

Erik — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 22:46:10 +0000

I really liked the article on homeopathy for malaria…thanks for the link. Great site, too! Some very good information and opinions, plus funny as hell! Thanks!

By: HMDS

HMDS — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 17:57:13 +0000

Cindy Crawford on the Oprah Show: It is VERY pleased that Cindy Crawford chose to HIGHLIGHT the fact that she calls herself a “big fan of homeopathy” and that she uses it to
treat a wide variety of ailments of her children and her animals. This is fabulous…and it adds just one more person who is smart and successful and who could choose to use ANY form of healing…but SHE chooses HOMEOPATHY.. .with good reason. The bottomline is that she emphasized that she doesn’t leave home without her homeopathic medicines. Fab again.

By: gimpy

gimpy — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 09:41:45 +0000

pv,

I’m sure it will right itself because we can’t “unknow” everything humanity has learnt.

Well we did “unknow” the work of the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans for a fair bit during the 7th-10th centuries. Perhaps we truly are entering an ‘age of endarkenment’.

By: Peter

Peter — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 22:08:10 +0000

great post - I thought April Fools Day had come early.

Getting homeopathy out of the NHS could be difficult initially - v unpopular to shut down a hospital.

I want to start off with getting government funding of homeopathy and acupuncture degrees stopped. This should be an easier target

By: pv

pv — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 20:57:17 +0000

I’m pretty much in agreement here with gimpy, but I do think that getting homeopathy out of the NHS would be a big step towards destroying what credibility it has among the legions of the credulous. Also I think a concerted effort at persuading Politicians that education rather than pandering to ignorance is morally the right way to go about things would pay off in the long run. Really, the Royal Society should be working their socks of towards this end.
Increasing the sum of human knowledge often seems like two steps forwards and one step back. Think of the current upsurge in fascination with woo and magical medicine as the latest step back. I’m sure it will right itself because we can’t “unknow” everything humanity has learnt. What the cost will be of the current step back in time to the middle ages, who knows? The only sure thing is today’s crop of magical morons won’t live for ever, just like us.
And perhaps schadenfreude might be a tad distasteful here, but it is well to consider that in matters of life and death believers in magic medicine are apt to hurt themselves - as evidenced by the recent death of a child whose homeopathist father decided he knew best. You can’t get more tragic or hurt than that.

By: jdc325

jdc325 — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 12:33:49 +0000

HSF believe that water can help with “intolerable pain from lacerations, deep wounds, stab and gunshot wounds”. I can only speak for myself, but I think I’d prefer (a) something to stop the bleeding and (b) some serious painkilling drugs.

I always think that homeopathy must be a little bit like something from one of those role-playing-games (I was always more of a football fan myself). “If an incapacitated or debilitated character is healed using magic then they immediately stop being incapacitated or debilitated and can act normally.” http://www.profounddecisions.co.uk/rules/rules.asp?NavID=84

By: Frank the SciencePunk

Frank the SciencePunk — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 10:39:18 +0000

Gimpy - in some respects I agree, but I think the best way to deal with all alternative therapies is tighter regulation. It’s one of the reasons I’ve never got on the back of faith healing - it doesn’t appropriate science and if it doesn’t guarantee efficacy then it’s fine by me.

If we could get homeopaths to admit that faith is the only power their placebos have, it could sit happily alongside astrology as indulgent nonsense.

By: Dougal

Dougal — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 23:17:34 +0000

I’ve always found it curious the way the back pain story is reported. Is it not the case that the trial subjects who were given conventional medicine had already been shown not to recover from it. In reality it was the placebo, since we already knew they wouldn’t get any better (modulo random effects).

By: Grant Gould

Grant Gould — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 21:14:22 +0000

I’ll sy this in defense of the magic-water peddlers: At least with cholera they picked a disease whose accepted treatment actually is water!