This week the parliamentary science and technology select committee looked into the evidence behind the MHRA’s decision to allow homeopathy sugar pill labels to make medical claims without evidence of efficacy, and the funding of homeopathy on the NHS. There were some comedy highlights, as you might expect from any serious enquiry into an industry where sugar pills have healing powers conferred upon them by being shaken with one drop of the ingredient which has been diluted, so extremely, that it equates to one molecule of the substance in a sphere of water whose diameter is roughly the distance from the earth to the sun.
The man from Boots said he had no evidence that homeopathy pills worked, but he sold them because people wanted to buy them. The man from the pill manufacturers association said negative trials about homeopathy were often small, with an average of 65 people in them, and “all statisticians” agree that you need 500 people for a proper trial. Not only is this untrue (it depends on the effect size, if you claimed your pill cured an incurable condition in every single case, then a dozen patients would be too many): he then joyfully careered on to cite, in his favour, a positive homeopathy trial with just 25 patients in it.
Full article at Bad Science
Are you saying homeopathy doesn’t work? I beg to differ. My mother has been taking homeopathy, and it has cured her of problems! She has had positive affects, and detoxes which has not been caused by anything else but the homeopathy, as she has not changed her diet. I do believe that homeopathy does have a positive affect on people, and does work.
- There is no scientific evidence backing up homeopathy claims. I don’t think your mothers individual case counts as a fair clinical trial either
– Phillis
I believe the placebo effect does have a positive effect on people, and does work.
Even with conventional medicine, there’s a huge grey zone where it’s unclear what proportion of mind and medicine are at play.
Being a cynic can be bad for your health.
Dave
changingminds.org
The fact that people on sugar pills can be completely cured, and even get serious side effects, would suggest the interesting story is not homoeopathy but how the body can “think” itself genuinely better or diagnostically worse just because it believes it will be!
I think the drugs that the money printing pharmaceutical companies and lazy arse doctors foist on us; the one dose fits all scenario is what’s way more sinister than a few ‘positive thinking’ pills. Let’s sort out that massive, massive problem before we hit on a spoonful of easy targets in the alternative category
With regards to titrations/dilution – they are not all as weak as stated. And even tiny amounts of naturally occuring chemicals make huge differences; 1-3 parts per million of ammonia in a fish tank is enough to burn and quickly kill a goldfish. Plus our bodies contain releasing agents which increase the action of certain chemicals, so it’s really not as simple as it seems.
We certainly need better trials and more rigorous licensing (of ALL chemicals), but let’s hammer with the big fish conmen first, eh?
I am sure many homoeopathy pills are a good safe placebo, so it makes sense to allow their use in any health service so long as they don’t contain any harmful quantities of toxic substances.
why shouldnt insurance companies want to pay for homeopathic drugs? they’re a whole lot cheaper!
People believe in religion, smoke fags and drink alcohol legally so why not just let them believe in sugar pills? Irrationality is now the norm in PCGB Plc. thanks to NuLab and their attacks on the freedom of speech that would otherwise have mocked homeopathy out of the public onsciousness
I believe homoeopathy is baloney but it seems a bit mean spirited to try and convince people they are wrong if their ignorance is making them well.
Is it better to be informed and feeling ill or ignorant but feeling better?
Perhaps the NHS should be making its own sugar pills as cheaply as it can and then providing them as ‘homoeopathy’ for those patients who wish to take them? If the patient shows improvement from a condition that couldn’t otherwise be treated surely everyone wins.
I sell them because people want to buy them … yeah, that’s commerce .. that’s people’s nature. People dont want to know the truth quite often. They buy hope and some time away from the truth inside. A romantic movie is not true either .. but hey … as so many other things. People actually do at times believe in that stuff. And you can’t blame them …
Books … lots of lies in them … self help books etc … but no-one is fighting them yet ..
Ofcourse .. there should be limits on what they put out as PR around homeopathic products .. that they wont cure cancer etc. Maybe use the same pr as with alcohol and such … ehehehe …
Homeopathy can work. My dad had been suffering from M.E for years. He took the pill to relieve some of the pain (only one half of it) and then, miraculously, it worked. Whilst there is no rational explanation for how the hell this could possibly happen, it was definately not the placebo effect seeing as he took the pill, being about 100% sure that it would not work.
However, i have taken simmilar pills and even with a positive attitude, they did not work at all, so there is definately something there, but it is inconsistent and usually a poor relacement to real medicine.
i’m sorry but homeopathy does work, i have used it and we even we treat our dogs with homeopathic pills, and it really works, and if its on a dog, how can it be a placebo effect?? one of our dogs had a prolapsed disc in his back, and could barely move, the regular vet said there wasnt much hope and they would try and operate, but couldn’t promise anything, so we turned to out homeopathic vet and he prescribed some pills and with in days he was a new dog, completely better!
I’m loving how derren has posted this story and people are saying homeopathy works. THEIR IS NOTHING IN THE PILLS OTHER THAN SUGAR. THESE PILLS DO NOT WORK. HOW CAN THEY?! The water that you drink probably has more chemicals in it than these! There is no way this works.
The same thing applies to lourdes. Everyone claims for miraculous healing water, IT DOESNT CURE ANYTHING there are just some cases where “things get better” and because this happens to some doesn’t mean the pills do anything!
People should really do some research before immediately replying to things.
my dog had a cyst on his paw and was given a remedy to fix it, it went in less than a day, and if i forgot to give him the pill for one day it would come back on that day, how can this be a placebo, he is a dog…and it cant ‘just get better on its own’ because the days i forgot to give him the pill it would come back! i know this is just one instance, but i know many people it has worked on, where it cant have been the placebo affect. people dismiss it because the dont understand it, or that it does not work on every one every time, but thats because it takes time to find the right remidy for the right person, and their specific ailment, rather than just masking the illness, like regular medecine, homeopathy helps get rid of it, like it has got rid of my dust allergy. i dont care how it works, all i know is that it does!
Firstly, I hope the people who think homeopathic remedies work aren’t Derren Brown fans. He would laugh in your faces. Why are you on his site?!
Secondly, you need to get your heads round the concept of SCIENCE. Scientists don’t say it’s useless because they feel like it. They say it because they’ve carried out multiple double-blinded clinical trials with proper samples of the population. Your individual anecdotal evidence means NOTHING, and if you think we should base medicine on what you’ve observed happening to your DOG, Christ help us all.
You’re either misinformed, ignorant or stupid. Pick one and work on rectifying it.