Homeopathy is Witchcraft

[Vertigo]

Originally Posted by Clansman

...I could exercise a lot more than I do, and I am trying to do better in that regard (the single biggest thing any of us can do to improve our health is exercise regularly)...

I used to work as a freelance commercial lecture for many years and colds were a bit of a phobia for me. Call in sick with a sore throat/lost voice and I was kissing goodbye to two grand . So I asked my doctor one time if there was anything at all he could reccommend to help avoid colds (not Flu as you so rightly observe - 99% of people who say they have flu just have bad colds - when you have flu you know it, I have had flu once in 53 years and that was enough). Anyway my doctor just looked me straight in the eye smiled and said "get fit" .

[dustinzgirl]

Homeopathy and herbalism are different but just barely. The main difference is that homeopathy takes an herbal-alcohol tincture or a form of infusion and dilutes it and then makes it into a pill. Herbalism also uses tinctures, infusions, ect, but does not generally dilute per se.

An infusion occurs when something is steeped--slowly boiled--with water, oils, and other things. Which is also important in modern medicine, having its own degree called Infusion Pharmacists who know how to mix stuff up.

I would state then that we are more herbalists, I know what the majority of herbs do and do not do and we use them accordingly.

In both herbalism and homeopathy an infusion IS the process of mixing, diluting, boiling, and repeating and the dropping the amount into pill form.

This is also how pharmaceutical companies make pills. Well except tablets they are made from compressions. Except that pharmaceutical companies most often mix a bunch of different synthetic chemicals together until they think they got it right, then try it on some people, then more people, then everyone, over several years.

[skeptical]

The key to all medicine is testing. Therapies that are not tested, or inadequately tested, should not even be made available. I am fully in favour of organisations like America's FDA, which decide on which drugs are OK for use by the public and which are not. Such decisions follow extensive testing.

The problem with alternative medicines is that they do not get that testing. The few that do, tend to fail. As I pointed out, homeopathy has been thoroughly tested and demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt to be equal to placebo.

Herbalism is different. Most herbs have not been adequately tested. Of the few that have, most have failed. Of the few that pass muster, there are two possible outcomes.

1. They get adopted and improved by the pharmaceutical industry, and we end up with superior products like aspirin, arteminisin, digitalis etc. Close on half of all pharmaceutical products were originally 'natural' products, but are now purified, modified, standardised and superior.

2. They do not get adopted by the pharmaceutical industry because they are insufficinetly potent. Ginger for nausea, and St. John's Wort for depression fit into this category. These herbs continue to be used by herbalists, and these herbs continue to perform less well than the equivalent drugs.

Echinacea has been very well tested and, apart from the placebo effect, failed miserably. If you are one who uses it and believes it works for you, then fine. You have just proved yourself to be one of the 30% of humanity who is highly suggestible.

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Test, test, test. You claim to be a science geek, Skeptical.


How often has "science" actually been wrong in the past, and how often do they overly assume? I'm not just talking the medical field here now. I'm talking about archaeology, natural history, physics, any branch of science.



And to still be willing to accept anything a governmental science branch tells you at face value.



There is one reason why people may take natural herbal remedies that actually have been proven to work over their synthetic counterparts: Less risk of side effects. Sure, St. John's Wort might not be quite as effective as Prozac, but people I've known to choose St. John's Wort over Prozac had no risks of suicidal thoughts or increased tendencies, while those I've known on Prozac, many have simply turned worse. I myself have taken Lexapro for depression, but I stopped taking that within a few weeks because it had absolutely no effect on me whatsoever.

Antibiotics are an issue as well. Synthetic antibiotics work by completely stopping cell division within whoever or whatever takes them. That includes not only the infectious microbes, but also that of beneficial microbes and the body's own cells.

For infected cuts or small punctures I've used poultices of goldenseal and echinacea powder and they work within just two or three days. I've also had infected cuts and punctures that had not had treatment, and they would last up to weeks. I've also taken antibiotics for infections, of course.

And then there's the issue of getting Acidophilus back into one's body.


And what of Aloe Vera's ability to help treat minor wounds and cuts without buying expensive lotions or pills that are actually no more effective and filled with non-useful ingredients?

[skeptical]

Karn

You are insufficiently sceptical about 'natural' treatments.

The general principle is that potent treatments have potent side effects. That is why things such as antibiotics can have side effects. They work really well and the side effects can be serious.

Non potent treatments have fewer side effects. Homeopathy is the ultimate. Potency equals zero. Side effects are zero. It does not work, apart from placebo, and does not cause side effects.

Herbs often do work and often have side effects. The two go together. St. John's Wort, for example, works, though not well. It has very nasty side effects.
1. It is photosensitising. Anyone on St. John's Wort should wear sunglasses for every time they go outdoors. You can damage your retina badly through being in the sun, using St. John's Wort, and not wearing sunglasses. Fair skinned people on this herb can also get badly sunburned.
2. It interferes with drugs. Anyone on St. John's Wort must tell their doctor. If another drug is in use, it may not work. Amusingly, this applies to the oral contraceptive pill. A woman may get pregnant from using this herb.
3. A range of other side effects. See the reference below.
St. John's Wort Side Effects, Interactions and Warnings

Frankly, my view is that it is probably safer to use Prozac.

For infected cuts and scrapes, the best treatment is topical antibiotics. If you choose to use an alternative therapy, the best is a honey poultice, and especially manuka honey. This has been proven by scientific testing to work, while echinacea etc work no better than poultices that do not contain those herbs.

You are sceptical of science. Fine. It is good to be sceptical of everything. However, it is worth remembering that science, more than anything else, consists of extremely rigorous testing. Non science does not involve that level of testing. Therefore, that which is subject to the scientific process is much more likely to be effective.

Re echinacea

There have been a number of studies of this herb. It is good to look at properly carried out studies. Mere anecdotes and personal case histories have been proven to be highly misleading. The gold standard is the double blind, randomised, placebo controlled clinical trial. Several have been done to see if echinacea can help the common cold. Results to date show it is not better than placebo.
http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/con...ct/164/11/1237

The conclusion of this study was :
"One hundred twenty-eight patients were enrolled within 24 hours of cold symptom onset. Group demographic distribution was comparable for sex, age, time from symptom onset to enrollment in the study, average number of colds per year, and smoking history. No statistically significant difference was observed between treatment groups for either total symptom scores (P range, .29-.90) or mean individual symptom scores (P range, .09-.93). The time to resolution of symptoms was not statistically different (P = .73). "

[Vertigo]

Of course science has been wrong in the past, we are always learning and progressing our knowledge. But are you trying to tell me that there has never been a wrong herbal remedy in the past. For goodness sake, one old traditional remedy for almost anything was letting blood. Modern medicine is an extension of herbalism; all of its roots lie in herbalism. As the scientific method has developed over the last 5 or 6 centuries the original herbal remedies have been developed and refined. That is an on going process that is now enhanced by synthetic medicines and genetics.

We now build building from bricks, concrete and metal but those techniques have developed from building with wattle and daub, turf etc. No one is advocating that we should give up modern building techniques and return to iron age building. And yet that is exactly what is being prescribed by herbalism. It strikes me as silly to decide to use medicine that is hundreds of years out of date when we have spent so much effort in improving and bettering those medicines.

Most of us on Chrons live incredibly sheltered lives. We have more than adequate food from birth, meaning that we grow up healthy to start with. We have sanitation provided and take it for granted. We have clean water and take it for granted. Because of these clean, safe living conditions our real need for medicine is immeasurably less than the majority of the population of this planet, who end up relying on herbalism, shamanism, witch-doctors etc. They do their best but the truth is all cultures relying upon such medicines live much shorter lives than us, suffer from dreadful illnesses that we can cure quite easily with modern medicine, have horrendous infant mortality... I could go on. These people are largely relying on herbalism it is their only choice and they suffer. They would give anything to have the modern medicines we are so ready to scorn because one in a thousand suffers some side effect.

I'm sorry, but if some poor villager suffering from malaria somewhere or dying of cholera or watching their child die from septicemia from a simple infected cut could hear this conversation they would tear their hair out with frustration. And before anyone chimes in, yes I know we can't cure malaria but we can treat the symptons and alleviate the suffering.

Those of us that have modern medicine available to us are massively privileged to have so and to scorn it is IMHO crass. I don't have a problem with people using herbal remedies for minor ailments; if they work they will possibly be gentler in doing so. But please don't try and tell me that they are better than modern medicine. And please don't mock modern medicine because it still hasn't managed to achieved perfection in every single case presented to it. It is improving all the time and perfection is probably always going to be an unobtainable goal.

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

This is about the argument I had with skeptical the last time I was here...

I'm not saying that there weren't wrong non-pharmaceutical treatments in the past. You're right in that bloodletting is one of the worst treatments that can be provided to a person.



But I also think that a person shouldn't go to the doctor for every sniffle they have, either. Even if you have a nasty cold, or a mild case of flu, I would much rather wait it out and have my own body defend itself, maybe with some certain remedies, than to let a doctor shove pills down my throat that cost $100 and a lot of the time not even work. When I do suggest an antibiotic, I usually go for the mid-powered Amoxicillin. That kind has been far more beneficial to me in the past than the three-pill treatment, so-called "power" broad-spectrum antibiotics.


If you have a broken bone, or a serious puncture or cut wound, or if you are infected with a serious disease, yes, go to the doctor if you can.

But I don't rule out the possible benefits of general plants, either. The trouble is, I do believe that nature, when left to her own devices, will provide for all the animal species on this planet, but she is never left to her own devices. You have to admit that there's plenty that science has brought this world that we could actually do better off without and that there are benefits to nature herself.

[Vertigo]

I agree with all your points one hundred percent there Karn.

I guess the trouble is that we have gone a little beyond nature now. Our population is way higher than a nature would naturally permit a creature of our... ummm... nature . We live in population densities way higher than is normal for any omnivores. We live way beyond the warranty date that evolution has set for our bodies. So it's not really surprising that we have to supplement nature somewhat to maintain that state of affairs.

As I say I'm not knocking herbalism for minor ailments and I agree we shouldn't be reaching for the doctor or even just the medicine cabinet at every slight ill. Our bodies are generally pretty good at fixing themselves with perhaps just a little discomfort to be survived on the way. On the other hand I did have septicemia once in my teens. A tiny (really tiny) cut from a piece of pork bone. A week later I had this funny red line (or was it white I can't remember now it was so long ago) running all the way up my arm from my wrist to armpit and the arm itself was very painful. The doctor took great glee in telling me that 30 years earlier I would have been dead in a few days! With modern medicine I was right as rain (and back at work in the abattoir ) in a couple of days.

I've been a veggie now for the last 35 years; not sure if the two are related!

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Are you sure it wasn't MRSA you had?

My stepfather got MRSA once and had that kind of red line running up his own arm. It actually can kill within days if you don't get medical treatment. That is the kind of infection I talk about when antibiotics-effective ones, of course-actually are needed. I don't always knock the medical profession-indeed, the doctor who worked on my leg with not only my break, but also my tumor did wonders for me. It's thanks to him I can walk at all today.

But, sniffles don't require a sterilization room.

[Vertigo]

I was about to say "No, long before nature popped that one on us" but just googled it and MRSA first appeared around 1961 and this was around '74. But no the doctor was spcecific about it and it didn't even need a stong anti-biotic - I'm pretty sure it was just good old penicillin that I got for it.

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Well, it could have been a weak strain of MRSA. It's more resilient now but, could have been it wasn't so much then.


Then again, the MR part means Methicillin-resistant....