Since I no longer have input to the imbroglio on Ernst’s PULSE blog,
http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/comment-blogs/-/blogs/stop-the-teaching-of-pseudoscience
(well there seems to be some horrible technical problem) I wonder if whoever is commenting there, or who has access to the great man, could ask a simple question for me, as I don’t seem to be getting a satisfactory answer to it from the geniuses who have been posting commentary on my Youtube videos and blog.
The question is this:
If everything that is said against homeopathy is true, “it doesn’t work, “it’s a scam,” then why is it that its highly diluted remedies are being used in the U.S. at MD Anderson in Houston, the nation’s number one rated cancer clinic, to cure BRAIN GLIOMAS?
Here’s a link to the MD Anderson Cancer Clinic webpage about homeoapthy:
I see nothing there that says homeopaths are criminals, as has been claimed by James “the Amazing” Randi!
Here’s a study in which they report successful treatment:
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ONCOLOGY 23: 975-982, 2003
Ruta 6 selectively induces cell death in brain cancer cells but proliferation in normal peripheral blood lymphocytes: A novel treatment for human brain cancer (http://www.virtualtrials.com/pdf/ruta6.pdf)
If Ernst et al can’t answer the question, perhaps Professor Sir Dr. John Beddington, Professor Dr. David Colquhoun, Dr. Simon Singh, Amazing Randi, Dr. Ben Goldacre, MD. Professor Dr. Steven Novella, MD, or Professor Dr. PZ Myers, a real genius like one of those, could answer the question for me.
I want to know! How can this be?
How is it that we have a considerable group of talent here who have for years been saying that homeoapthy is a crime because it is a cruel fabrication, a monstrous hoax, that the substances it uses for “remedies” have no remedial action at all!
Professor Colquhoun! Amazing Randi! Simon Singh!
Good doctors!
Homeopathy detractors Paul Morgan, Simon Baker, David Briggs, Les Rose, Andrew Lewis, Paul Holloway, David Briggs, you have lain awake in your beds, with the covers to your chins, and you may have thought, and if not, tonight you will, “what should I do if I get brain cancer?”
You muse, “Well, there is a cancer clinic in TEXAS, that was rated by Newsweek magazine as the best the U.S. has to offer. Number one! If I have enough money I could go that clinic and be treated by all the doctors there, who are the “WORLD’s BEST”, with HOMEOPATHY!”
AMEN!?
PLEASE! ANSWER THE QUESTION!
Répétez s’il vous plaît: “If everything I’ve said about homeopathy is true, that it doesn’t work, that it’s a scam, things like that, then OH MY GOD! . . why is it that its being used in the U.S . . at the nation’s number one rated hospital, to CURE BRAIN CANCER?”
What are we supposed to do?
WTF! I could make a Youtube video of my answer, post it on Facebook and TWEET ALL MY FRIENDS!
THAT’S IT!
Hallejewya!
I’ll put the answer in my blog!
(Since we commoners don’t have direct access to these great peer minds, perhaps someone who does could pass the question along to them.)
Oh, here’s a bonus question for extra points, if you answer the first:
What do you think would happen if MD ANDERSON were to USE REAL HOMEOPATHY, the whole homeopathic materia medica . . use it classically. . for which it was designed\ . . i.e. symptomologically, by the totality of mental and physical symptoms, for anything that walks in the door?
As a simple country practitioner I do.
Why can’t they?
Why can’t you?
TEACH ME!
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The John Benneth Journal 
John,
Why do almost all your answers contain ad Hominem responses?
You have a number of people who have repeatedly explained why the study is poor, and why your conclusions can not be reasonably be obtained from them – yet, you consistently skip acknowledging any criticism and make irrelevant appeals without ever providing a solid answer?
Are you deliberately ignoring criticism?
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Dear Hue,
You know, it always starts out the same way. You guys say, “oh there’s no evidence for homeopathy. Homeopathy is a scam, it’s crap, its a placebo, it doesn’t work, you’re a horrible person. Show me one peer reviewed trial in a respected medical journal . . and you can’t do it.”
Then when I do, its always, “oh this is a poor study.” Really? Where’s your double blind RCT that proves its a placebo? And what’s a placebo? You can’t even form a reasonable question about it. isn’t the first question whether or not these substances have biologial effects? No, you’re too busy flinging ad hominems to ask ad rem questions. You’re too busy making up your own answers.
What happened to the “no evidence” charge? Now it’s gone from “no evidence” to “bad evdience.” You can’t even get your terms straight much less explainhowit is that despite your ongoing resitance to it, it’s use is becoming widespread. The Cubans used it to stop a mass epidemic, people line up for it by the hundreds in India, it’s used to treat malaria an AIDS in Africa, and do you really think MD Anderson is the first to use it to treat cancer? Wrong, Einstein! It’s been used for over a century to treat cancer by people who haven’t bought into the line of poison you push. Can you tell us what the survival rate is for chemotherapy? Did you hear Bachman complain about Perry’s use of some phony “cancer vaccine.” Where was the testing for that, Mother Theresa?
Have you seen or read what Avastin does does to people? Where were the tests for that, Your Honor? Did you know that Pfizer, the world’s largest mfg. of phamaceuticals has been repeatedly convicted of fraud, bribery and racketeeering for pushing untested drugs that killed countless people? And you’re crying to me about what you want to believe is a poor study that supports the use of an economical and amazingly effective medicine that competes with the $100,000 a pop crap you buy?
What is wrong with you?
It’s very simple why you perceive almost all of my answers to contain ad hominems. The reason for this is because it’s an ad hominem argument to begin with. You’re not at a level of reasoning yet to implement ad rem, arguments to the point.
Allow me to make the study you’re referring to an illustration.
You say a number of people have explained why the study is poor. This isn’t necessarily true. Simply stating it to be so isn’t proof of it. You do nothing more than reference your own stupid opinion.
Dismissing the evidence on the basis of an anonymous opinion that simply says it’s poor, is not evidence that it’s poor. That’s an ad hominem argument. And this is typical of thinking that disguises itself as “skepticism.” It’s 99% pervasive among the skeptic “community.. It’s necessary to hold the opinions you hold.
In the scientific analysis, ad hominem is the ONLY argument left against homeopathy, and after the evidence for homeoapthy has been presented, ad hominem is the ONLY response left. I have never heard ANYONE ever apply global standards about the use of a hominem in the discussion of this subject. If you read through the comments I get here, even though I now weed out the completely ad hominem, most of them, every comment against homeopathy ALWAYS contains a tint of it, and I’ve had people write some incredibly mean things to me. I’ve been called a murderer, a con man, a dupe, a fool, a fraud, a snakeoil salesman, etc.
Randi says what I am doing is criminal. He has publicly called me “this idiot Benneth . .” while complaining about one of my videos. Ad hominem is all I GET from the anti homeopathy crowd, even arguments that appear as ad rem are always tinged with the “stupid crazy liar” motif. Yet I have NEVER heard any of you defenders of polite discussion ever stand up and say to your own, “hey, that’s ad hominem,” because as soon as you do, the delusion you’re harboring evaporates. Ad hominem is what keeps your delusion that homeopathy isn’t real, intact in your mind. As soon as you see the ad hominem in your argument, it falls apart.
The only way for the uninformed to engage in a discussion of a subject which they have only putative awareness of is to simply brand themselves “skeptics” and “critical thinkers” and start flinging insults.
These people, for the same reasons, are ALWAYS ATHEISTS. They always have to be labelled something in their own minds in order to participate, and the only way to talk about the subject is through ad hominem, to turn it into a character assassination of the reporter. Its a bad comment on atheism. But God lets it pass, because God prefers atheists.
You don’t seem to realize that top material scientists have destroyed the arguments against homeopathy and the amnesia of water. Read the work of Rustum Roy, read who he is and who he has worked with in the study of homeopathy.
I have repeatedly asked critics and crybabies, like yourself, to give me the global standards for these studies they are criticizing and NO ONE, in the hundreds of responses, has ever been able to do it, even though global standards exist, not only for science experimentation in general, not only for medical studies in general, but for studies of the action of the homeopathic substances in question . . high dilutes . . in particular.
For the umpteenth time, look at the Witt review for high dilutes “The in vitro evidence for an effect of high homeopathic potencies–a systematic review of the literature.” http://www.nationalcenterforhomeopathy.org/files/in-vitro-evidence-high-potency.pdf
Witt is an example of what I’m talking about. Witt names eight criteria for judging studies of the in vitro action of high dilutes . . test tube experiments. Nothing could be more objective than this. Yet I have NEVER read one of you critics EVER mention the Witt review without me first being bringing it to the table, because it sets global standards for judging homeopathic trials.
Global standards are always the enemy of pseudoskeptics like yourself, who in solipsism judge the world by local standards. Knowing what the outcome is you’re seeking, you have to ignore the evidence that is contrary to it, eventually leaving you with nothing to attack but the reporter.
The Witt review is only one example of the ad rem proofs for homeopathy. Read what some of the world’s top material scientists have to say about it, people like Chaplin, Roy, Tiller, Montagnier, Josephson, Benveniste, all highly respected scientists, at least they WERE respected until they suddenly started asking questions that didn’t fit into your box.
Now, instead of projecting your own ignorance of this subject on to others, I suggest you sit down and have a little talk with yourself about what it is you’re really doing, and then come back here and say, “John Benneth, I’m really sorry for having thought this way about you and homeopathy. Please tell me what I can do to help bring this amazing form of medicine to more people.”
John Benneth, Homeopath
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Dear John,
Your ‘Ruta 6’ ‘killshot’ paper isn’t proper homeopathy now is is? There is after all a chance that there is some Rutin in there. More like herbal medicine or naturopathy really.
Even if we ignore the ever-so-inconvenient fact that the control was “no treatment”, rather than a more appropriate “blank vehicle” (which would be 99% absolute ethanol – and even low doses of ethanol can have significant effects on cell division and proliferation) we have a paper where they are treating cells with an actual compound (not the memory of a compound) which is chemically very similar to nucleotides and is thus a plausible inhibitor of enzymes which may interact with DNA.
As killshots go this is a very damp squib.
Cheers,
David “so good they mentioned him twice” Briggs.
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Dear David,
I thought you said you couldn’t prove a negative. So why are you trying to here? Yours is nothing more than hand waving. It certainly didn’t stop MD Anderson from giving it a go, at the risk of giving people false hope. There’s more to this story than you think. Now they have real hope. There are other “killshots” waiting in the wings for the vampire of allpathic medicine when he tries to arise again.
I’m saving the best for last.
And what a loon you are to think that you could ethically use inert treatments intentionally as controls for life threatening diseases. Of course its all jsust a game to you. You don’;tactually think that someone is in a panic, deserately wnating treatment. It can’t bedone legally. Homeopathics are FDA regulated medicines. Just because you can’t udnerstand them doesn’t mean we can’t use them.
I bet you’ll spend some time in Hell for this, for your role in obfuscating effective medicine. know it. Believe it. You’ve lost in your little campaign tokeep people away from the truth..
Cheers back atcha,
John Benneth
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John,
Not sure where I was trying to prove a negative – just pointing out that the ‘killshot’ paper you tout isn’t nearly as bulletproof as you suggest. And also remind readers that Rutin is an active ingredient (as alluded to in the paper – ) and not the memory of one.
“And what a loon you are to think that you could ethically use inert treatments intentionally as controls for life threatening diseases.” — erm, I was referring to experiments on cells in culture dishes. But to take your point further, you seem to be suggesting that any sort of control group for any sort of clinical trial is unethical… and interesting viewpoint, to be sure, and another one where your own thinking would appear to be at odds with the majority of medical science. It also suggests that you are assuming that Rutin is an effective treatment before it has actually been shown. Real scientists would keep an open mind about these things, John.
Cheers,
D
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Dave,
Just read what you wrote as if you didn’t write it, and pretend for a moment as if what was written was by someone you KNOW to be an ignoramus and all the statements you know are simply repetitions of what this particular ignoramus heard someone else say, or are presumptions that he made out of what he was told to believe. wouldn’t you question every word of it? You wouldn’t even have to have any special knowledge in order to see the obvious fallacies if you knew what an idiot the person was who wrote it, beauce you wouldn’t be simply putting thinking aside because what you’re reading has the stamp of creentials put on it.
Let me give you an eample of what YOU WROTE, which you assumed on your authority was wise; “you are assuming that Rutin is an effective treatment before it has actually been shown.”
How do you know, first, that there is no difference in the action of crude moleular Rutin and supramolecular Ruta graveolas, and how do you know that either has not been subjected to provings clinically.
You haven’t studied the materia medica with its 75,000 symptoms associated with approximately 200 biologially reactive materials, compiled by countless medical doctors over the space of the last two centuries. I doubt you have even read a word of it. So you don’t know what you’re even talking about. SO how can you effectively argue it? This is why you always lose in court when you try to sue homeopaths. If it waasn’t true we wouldn’t be ahving thsi echange becasue it wouldn’t be allowed to exist.
You don’t know anything about the symptmology of ruta graveolas or other materials used by homeopaths, either at MD Anderson in Texas, the Banerji and Chatterjee clinics in India or by anyone anywhere in any part of the world.
You’re arguing from nothing more than presumption.
There are more than 2500 symptoms indicated by ruta alone. Yet the only cancer indicated by Ruta is the cancer of the rectum. So why, out of more than 1,000 most used remedies in the materia medica, why would MD Anderson choose Ruta if it isn’t clinically indicated for brain cancer, especially when Plumbum metallicum is?
Homeopathic remedies are chosen by the process of similia, not by their clinical labels.
For example, in head symptoms, Ruta is indicated by what would be the symptoms of glioma: Head bewildered, as from too little sleep.─Whirling vertigo, which causes falling when rising in morning, also when seated, and when walking in open air.─When sitting, sudden vertigo: all turned round him in a circle; thereafter glowing cheeks.─Headache as from stunning pressure on whole brain, with great inquietude.─Headache as if a nail were driven into head.─Headache after excessive use of intoxicating drinks.─Throbbing or tearing pain in forehead, with confusion in head, in evening before lying down, and in morning on waking.─Heat in head (with much restlessness).─Intermittent boring stitches in r. side of forehead.─Shooting, drawing pain from frontal to temporal bone:─From temporal bones to occiput, in the periosteum, pain as from a fall.─(Occipital headache < during menses, with pains in backs of eyes (< in l. eyeball), with dyspepsia; cannot bear a bright light, eyes tire, ache and prick and turn bloodshot when she uses glasses─R. T. C.).─Tensive drawing or lancinating pains in exterior of head, as from a blow or contusion, esp. in periosteum.─Gnawing itching in scalp.─Nodes and abscesses on scalp, with pain as from excoriation when touched, formed after a tearing pain had been felt in the part which they occupy.─Biting itching (ulcers) on scalp.─Small ulcers and running sores on scalp. (Clarke)
The India homeopaths consulting at MD Anderson have treated thousands for cancers of all kinds. There's nothing symptomologically that homeoapthy can't address.
But you say you know that Ruta hasn't been tested? And Avastin has been? Have you seen the effects of Avastin on people being treated for brain gliiomas? It can cause internal bleeding, it can rip your guts apart and you can die a horribly painful death from it. In December 2010, the FDA warned of the risk of developing perforations in the body, including in the nose, stomach, and intestines inthe use of Avastin. It is reporrted that almost all Avastin patients initially get colostomies. And you and your little gang of homeopathy haters are telling me you're more involve in making a case against homeopathic treatment is effective than you are about deaths by Avastin?
Genentech makes billions off of Avastin. Even medical octors have complained about the high cost of a drug that doesn't cure cancer but only prolongs life. How much are they paying you to suppress superior, safe, curative treatment?
You David Briggs are just another example of someone arguing over something you know nothing about for no other purpose than self promotion.
You have no idea the damage you do with your ignorance . . or maybe you actually don't care as long as it lines your pockets.
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Saying that a scientist cannot know basic science because he hasn’t studied homeopathy is like saying a veterinary surgeon cannot know basic bovine anatomy because he hasn’t studied unicorns.
For all your bluster, John, you are nothing more than another adherent to a religion. Your religion is homeopathy, your bible the materia medica – an unconfirmed, unproven set of anecdotes which do nothing except reinforce the delusions of the faithful.
And for what it’s worth, John, my income will not change one iota whether homeopathy is completely validated or completely disproven tomorrow. The only one of us with a vested financial interest here is you. As always, you fall back on fallacious the ‘big pharma shill’ gambit and try and bore debaters into submission with endless prolix and nonsensical homeopathic jargon.
ttfn,
Dave
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So what if it is? The same could be said of St. Reverend David Briggs and his priests , that his Bible is the Merck Manual and all the promotional literature for the latest brand of poison he’s peddling on the public he panders to with his nonsenscal allopathic jargon, that it is nothing but quackery, and that he always bores debaters with his “shills for Christ Hahnemann” gambit.
And its proven everyday in courts of law, as his religion gets sued for racketeering, for selling untested substances to an unwitting public, in other words, for the very thing St. David Briggs is UNSUCCESSFULLY prosecuting homeopathy for!
Is St. David Briggs all up in arms over Pfizer’s raceeteering convicvtions? Is he tearing at his hair over the deaths of millions from IATROGENSIS the number one cause of death on the planet? No! Is he setting himself on fire out in the middle of Piccadilly Square because of pharma’s use of African children to test the mumps vaccines? Do we hear him say anything about the FACT that the vacccines stuck in children’s arms are PROVEN to cause autism, blindness and death, are also untested?
“St. David Briggs of the Church of Merck, name one vaccine now commonly used that was tested BEORE it was put into mass use.”
No . . St. David Briggss secretary says he is not available. He’s too busy trying to create a diversion! He organizing his secret police. He’s making up a thousand phony Internet names, sock puppets to spread his message of hatred and disease on a million websites. He’s mailing out ads for Avastin, for Accutane, for Vioxx and Oxycontin.
What’s funny is what a flaming hypocrite St. Father Reverend David Briggs is, the High Priest of Alcohol. And this is why homeoapthy hasn’t gone away after two centuries of the same old stupid arguments against it by the same old stupid people. High Priest Randi struts around on stage and says “You can’t prove a negative” and then pats himself on the back for having tried to do exactly that, which is what Father David Briggs and all his underage followers are trying to do.
They’re trying to prove a negative.
Father David Briggs says it “doesn’t work, it shouldn’t work, so it can’t work, it doen’t exist, there’s not one molecule of anything in it, an Olympic sized swimming pool, from which one drop has been put . . in a globe of water the size fo the Universe a million times! “It can’t be this, it can’t be that, it’s scam!” and that’s the only positiive argument Father David Briggs can make, that “its a scam” but the one posit Father David Birggs has he can ‘t prove either, it keeps getting thrown out of court costing him hundreds of thousands of dollars everry time he tries try to sue a homeoapth. (Briggs vs. Hahnemann)
So the only way left for David Briggs to make people doubt it is by ridicule and obloquy, “science” turns away from it, or at least so he wants everyone to believe, but because he hasn’t really proved anything it shows up again and it goes through another cycle. Pretty soon its all over the store shelves, they’re using is at a top cancer clinic, people are juming up out of their beds and ather Briggs is tearing his hair out and being fitted for a straight jacket.
Hey, Father David, you should have tried homeopathy instead of relying on your phony religion.”.
What he and the teeming millions of worshippers don’t seem to want to believe is that all of us who have seen the manufacture of these things have a hard time accepting it too, but its just someething we have to get over.
The null hypothesis for homeopathy just doesn’t stand up against the empircal references for it, what Father David Briggs calls the Satanic Bible of Hahnemann. If its a delusion, its a grand one that has sucked in millions, including Nobel prize winning scientists.
Meanwhile, the good and Honourable right Reverend St. Father David Briggs, writhing against his restraints, is left alone in his bed, trying to prove a negative.
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Heh, St. John the homeopathic baptist,
FWIW, I don’t work for a pharmaceutical company. I work at a university, my research funded by a charity. But you go ahead and assume what ever fits your immutable world view.
The difference between you and I John is that I will change my mind if suitably robust and compelling evidence is produced that homeopathy works. Your blind faith will never let you accept the possibility that it won’t.
Anyway, the bottom line is that your laughable ‘killshot’ is nothing of the sort. Your arguments fallacious and your grasp on reality tenuous at best.
ttfn
Dave
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And I could say exactly the same crap about you, that I will change my mind if suitably robust and compelling evidence is produced that allopathy works, which is tepid compared to what i atually think about allopathy, that allopathy is non curative, that it’s deadly and does more harm than good, and my accusations have more than just the ring of truth to them. My accusations stick, and they stick in courts of law.
Let me ask you this. Who do you think is more qualiied to make broad conclusive remarks about your business? You or somebody who knows nothing about it?You do, right? So how can you have a reasonable opinion about homeoapthy if you’ve never really properly experienced it and you’ve never properly studied it? The only thing you know about it iss that its SUPPOSED to be be impossible.
What’s more, you’ll never change your mind because you don’t have the power to change your mind. You’ll never admit the evidence to be “robust” until the owner of the boot heel on your neck tells you to admit it, and that will never happen. You”ll always be told not to admit it, that’s the strict policy of allopathic fundamentalism. That’s the way you’ve been trained to think, which is not to think, and that’s the way you’ll always think, isn’t it? :LOL!
Ii’s pathological. I know this to be true beause what you’re saying is symptomatic of your remedy picture. Isee it again andd again an they always have the same world view, fundamental scientism.
For instance, without you telling me I already know you’re an atheist. I have never found anyone who argues against homeopathy to not be an atheist. WHy that is I’m not sure. I could put in a countless number of names here in place of yours, and I wouldn’t have to change a word in response. And listen, the reason for your atheism has nothing to do with whether God exists or not, or personal feelings about it (I think God prefers atheists) the reason you’re an atheist is probably a way to defer to the authority to the allopathic establishment and curry favor with it. Or maye you’re just agumentative, I don’t know. Maybe if you admit you believe in an authority higher than the “Allopathic Society of Scientism,” you’re proscribed and you lose your job with the phony charity you work for.
It’s as simple as that. Any normal, free thinking person isn’t going to wait for “robust evidence” to come along and bite him in the rear end before he explores something new. He’s going to try it for himself, he’s going to put it to a proper test.
And you’re not going to accept evidence from me and you’re not going to get it from your betters. So what you’re saying is that you don’t trust your own senses. I think you know you’re harboring a delusion about this. You can’t maintain a delusion and accept evidence that contradicts the delusion. David, do you see where this is going? Do you see what I’m doing?
A few of us, despite everything we’ve been told, have tried it and found that it works, and that it works amazingly well.
You should try it too . . put it to a proper test and let me get back to my work of helping people heal.
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All this waffling is irrelevant, as the very foundation of your “killshot” is flawed. The hospital you’re talking about does not routinely use homeopathy to treat brain tumours. They’ve put out one (poor) study involving a small number of volunteers. That’s it.
The study itself is so methodologically poor that we can’t tell whether or not the intervention worked. It doesn’t prove it DIDN’T work, it just doesn’t tell us anything useful either way.
But here’s a question I’ve yet to see a homeopath answer satisfactorily: could you, by any means you considered appropriate, distinguish a homeopathic preparation of your choice from a series of unpotentised controls of identical appearance. You can use their effect on patients, chemical or physical analysis, anything at all that you want. How would you do it? And would you be willing to attempt the experiment (YOU choose the remedy – 10C or higher)?
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Thank you for commenting. Can I ask you what the source is for your information about MD Anderson? And what global standards and criteria are you using to judge Pathak, and what your credentials are to comment on its quality?
It would be helpful if you could be more specific in your critque.
To answer your question, homeoapths see distingushing responses in their patients all the time in double blind provings to test new remedies. There are iolgoical ways to idnetify the action of high dilutes.
To answer the second part of your question, I have found 10 physical tests to distinguish homeopathic remedies, anmost of these can be reviewed in the Becker Witt review of physical testing. See the PDF for Becker-Witt C, Weibhuhn TER, Ludtke R, Willich SN. Quality assessment of physical research in homeopathy. J Alternative Complementary Med. 2003;9:113–32.
Let me know if you have trouble finding it.
John Benneth, Homeopath
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Your above statement displays your utter ignorance about the principles of homeopathy. The “smallest dose” principle in homeopathy does not mean but rather means . This principle was discovered or created in order to reduce the possibility of side-effects and toxicity of harsh treatment. Even the smallest study in the philosophy of homeopathy would tell an intelligent reader that. The information is readily available.
In other words, instead of bombarding the body with poisonous chemicals and radiation that “may cure a disease but kill the patient” (with toxicity), a homeopathic dose could be anything from a pinch of substance (this would be a large dose) to a tincture (drop doses) to a low potency in 3 or 6 to a high potency (1M or more). It’s Skeptics that made up the “not a single molecule” argument, not homeopaths. It is a argument based on ignorance.
In reasoned debate, it is far better to STUDY the subject before making a fool of yourself.
As for the unethical suggestion of giving so-called placebo in life-threatening diseases, it would be the height of unscrupulous behaviour that any right-minded hospital wouldn’t dare engage in.
And… even if your arguments were by some stretch of imagination correct … who cares!?! Wouldn’t it be marvelous if its found that a few harmless molecules of a herb prepared in homeopathic manner with some cell-killing alcohol can effect a cure without endangering the patient’s life and well-being? In that case, let’s celebrate!! Why go all “sour grapes” over the discovery??
As attempts in counter-debate, Briggs, yours was certainly a kill-shot of illogic and irrationality.
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CORRECTION above typo: The “smallest dose” principle in homeopathy does not mean “the smallest dose possible” but rather means “the smallest dose to effect a cure.
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Actually I have emailed Simon Singh and Professor Ernst several times and their replies have been interesting, helpful and curteous.
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Here’s my response. http://darryl-cunningham.blogspot.com/2010/06/homeopathy.html
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Dear Dr. Cunningham,
What an honor it is to have such a distinguished cartoonist, physician and supreme court judge as yourself raise his head above the battlements to comment here on this scrap heap. Since you seem to present yourself as an authority in the cause of death of Penelope Dingle, ascribing it to homeopathy, I as a homeoapth relish the opportunity to get more information about this case, and since your conclusions seem to not fully agree with those of the coroner, I respectfully beg you to provide us with more details of her homeopathic treatment, specifically to tell us what symptoms indicated the homeopathic remedies for her condition, which of them she took, what they were, in what potency, how often, and over what period of time?
I also have another question for you, as you seem to be distrubed that Penelope Dingle did not receive what you consider to be proper care, that being what is most commonly offered to the public in the treament of cancer.
What is the suvival rate for allopathic, or “conventional’ chemotherapy? if you cold give us a figure i woul areciate it, and quote your source, refernce or citation for that figure.
Oh,and oneother question. Could you tell us how many times the biochemical test Jacques Benveniste did for Randi has been done by other investigators, what the results and criteria for judging theirmethodology were, how these other tests scored and how Benvenite (Davenas) fared by comparison?
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For one thing, the Ruta6 study is very, very poor. No blinding, no controls, in the patient part of the experiment. We can’t draw conclusions from this data.
Also, if you look at the MD Anderson Center full assessment of homeopathy (http://www.mdanderson.org/education-and-research/resources-for-professionals/clinical-tools-and-resources/cimer/therapies/alternative-medical-systems/homeopathy-scientific.html), it’s not particularly supportive. It’s vaguely positive, yes, but far from emphatically so. It says the most positive data was to do with alleviation of chemo side effects (i.e. NOT curing cancer) and even then it must be borne in mind that the studies used only small groups.
So, the answer to your rambling question is, pretty much, “nothing to see here”.
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Perrhaps a better way of putting it would be to say there’;s nothing you WANT to see her. The MD Anderson reports, as consevaive as they may be, represent a real conundrum to anyone who in the past has insisted that what theoretically shouldn’t work, can’t work. Now when eople seeing it work . . like this . . you rush forward, arms outstretched, as if to catch a delicate vase falling from the mantle . . you scream: “My theory!” . . Avogadro, the theory you spoke so proudly of to others, to show how smart you are, is being dashed to smithereens!
“Noooo!”
I’m sorry. After all the abuse forbeing a poor homeopath, you can’t imagine how sweet this is to read your bumbling, stumbling, stammering, chin chuntering explanations and excuses, espcially after seeing the results of your poisons . .
If there weren’t the amazing results for homeoapthy obtained by a cancer hospital such as this, where they are indeed reporting cures of brain gliomas using high dilutes, then they wouldn’t be touching this with a ten foot pole, much less talking about it, studying it, doing in vitro tests onit, testing it on people, and working with Indian clinics that are treating thousands for all types of cancer, giving people false hope!
Before we were hearing from the usual subjects how it is the snake oil of charlatans. Now we’re hearing admissions from you that whereas its not “particualry” supportive, it is “vaguely” positive.
LOL! It’s a downhill slide. Ten years ago they wouldn’t have even considered mentioning it at MD ANDERSON. Now they’re giving it to people for cancer! The proof is in the pudding!
You’re argument is going throught the five stage of death. Soon you’ll be saying that you knew it was effective all along, and you”ll be lecturing high shool kids on how it works.
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well…. lets try reading the page on the CAM BRANCH of MD Anderson you are linking to so proudly.
“inclusion of an agent, therapy or resource on this CIMER Web site does not imply endorsement by MD Anderson Cancer Center”
Whoopsi… before they even said a word they are already denying that they endorse it (as you claim).
“Substituting homeopathy for conventional treatment of cancer has been associated with progression of cancer for some people”
Well, this does not surprise anyone really, does it? using something that can not work instead of something that would probably work could make your disease worse. not a huge shock there. not a very strong endorsement of homeopathy either.
Now, regarding the paper you attached, have you read it? Beyond everything else that is poor about this paper, I find it incredibly dishonest to present work “on homeopathy” that doesn’t use true homeopathic dilutions. If they really believe homeopathic principles (more dilute=more potent) why didn’t they use it as such (or maybe they did and it did not give a publishable result). the dilutions used here are still allow for active ingredient to be there, which is far less likely for the more common homeopathic dilution of 30C or even 200C, and IS NOT HOMEOPATHY.
not quite the killshot your headline suggested… is it?
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You call yourself “Apoptosis?” Sounds like a name you made up specifically for this blog entry. Don’t you think your opinion would have more bearing if it wasn ‘t anonymous? or were you ommelled to ay something but were afraid you might look foolish? TYpical coawardice andlack of integrity on the part of the pseudoskeptic.
But I’d like to let it pass anyway despite the chance that, after reflection, many readers will wonder if I didn’t write the “Apoptosis” comment as a way to stir up controversey and interest in my blog, and the reason for this is that it represents the poor reaction to this information. It demonstrates how flimsy and desperate the anti-homeopathy argument really is.
You ask if this is really the killshot it purports to be after posting what seems to assume a level of ignorance here equal to your own. The material sciences have tackle the question as to how it is that dilution can have biolgoical action. I suggest you listen to the Rustum Roy lecture on the subject, “Structure of Liqui Water.”
Now, moredirectly to the question, even though its a bitovious, if you stop and think about it, it is unlikely that a prestigious cancer clinic would be running a web page on homeopathy and reporting postiive results in biochemical tests if there wasn’t actually a reason to do so. I imagine they’regetting all kinds of heat over it, although I believe that the arguments against homeopathy have to eventually die of their own dead weight.
The Ruta 6 investigation, despite whatever you may anonymously say about the quality of testing, (which is laughable since the poisonous crap homeopathy is replacing is getting sued . . if it had been held to some standards it wouldn’t have ever been used in the first place. . what are YOUR global criteria for testing of medicine, btw?) the mere fact that both pre-clinical and clinical tests showed positive results is indeed a killshot on allopathic medicine. They’re certainly not condemning it as you woul epet them to o with your aulty reasoning.
ALthough they deny endorsement, they specifically say:
“Side effects are expected to be minimal due to the extreme dilution of these substances.
Nevertheless, toxic substances such as tumors, carcinogens, aristolochic acid, belladonna and snake venom are sometimes prescribed. Accordingly, users should always be aware of any unexpected reactions and let their primary physician and/or oncologist know when taking any homeopathic substances.”
If these susbtances were proven to be inert or ineffeive, then why would they bother puttting up a web page explaining what the side effects might be?
Whereas the use of materials inthe Ruta 6 report does not appear to conform to indivualiation and totality of symptoms as used in classical homeopathy, the materials themselves are indeed commonly used in classical homeopathy, and to try to discount them for being low dilutions is nothing more than squirming on your part, trying to get out ot he trap you’re now in. A sixth centissimal dilution of Ruta graveolas is one part in six million of rutin. If this is deing administered in sugar pellets, then how do you explain such dramatic results from so little molecular content? In the amount administered in dry form, there still is not enough to confrom to the limitations of your hi skool chemstry set theory of mass action . . if it is the orignial form of the intended or heterogeneous molecule that is performing the medicinal action, then why so infinitessimally little? Why not admin a heavier dose? If this isn’t homepoathy, then why are they calling it that . . unless it is the closest approximatiion they can find to explain wha they’re doing?
The explanation is that this is supramolecular molecular. As the material sceinces are now telling us, it demolishes the anti homeopathy theory that biological action is controlled soley by composition and mass.
Study polymorphism and allotropy, and read Roy’s paper. Read some of the other responses here. You may suddenly realize how dreadfully wrong you’ve been.
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