It was suggested recently that the Evil Empire’s professor of not so complementary medicine at the University of Exeter Edzard Ernst must have hated his father.
If I was Edzard Ernst, I’d certainly hate my father too for having raised such a despicable son. What Edzard Ernst is doing is unconscionable, unprofessional and unethical. He has become nothing more than a stooge for the criminal interests of allopathy, he has furthered the interest of racketeers, and this series sets out to prove it.
If you think this is unwarranted, libelous and sensational, read on for the proof, because its true. It’s coming, and Ernst and Exeter both are going to get creamed for it.
It is clear Ernst is a mercenary who has sought to sabotage complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Name one good thing the man has had to say about CAM?
I haven’t heard it.
Edzard Ernst says that complementary medicine in Germany and Austria is mostly practiced by qualified physicians. He claims he began his medical career at a homeopathic hospital in Munich and has practiced homeopathy, but has never completed a course in it.
What?
The man is a fraud. Keep reading here and I’ll show you why.
He argues that “Complementary and Alternative Medicine” (“CAM”) is an almost nonsensical umbrella term, and yet he enjoys the distinction of being its first chair, the first in the world you say at the Peninsular Medical School at the University of Exeter. He does not perform clinical trials there to prove his “placebo hypothesis” for homeopathy. No! He complains of lack of funding, yet he is perfectly comfortable making the claim that homeopathy is a placebo, that that is what it is, while ignoring the pre-clincials that prove it wrong.
In April 2010 the German National Association of Homeopathic Physicians published an interview with Professor Edzard Ernst in its newsletter where he claimed he “acquired the prerequisites” to be able to add ‘homeopathy’ to his medical title “but never applied for the title.”
Oh really?
In Germany, where homeopathy is regulated, it is a prerequisite to have passed an exam by a governing medical council, which Ernst did not do.
GNAHP: “So is it correct that you did not acquire the additional medical title ‘Homeopathy’ but took further medical education courses in homeopathy? If yes, which ones?”
ERNST: “I never completed any courses.”
Began his career at a homeopathic HOSPITAL but never completed any courses in homeopathy in a country that regulates its use?
Practicing without a license the very medicine he now so conveniently despises?
And now he’s in England terrorizing the British?
The University of Exeter knew or should have known better. They are responsible for the inflammatory, anti-scientific and dangerous statements being issued by this man. What kind of “doctors” are they pumping out there? If they could fathom the critical thinking of homeopathy this would have never happened.
That school would be better off licensing butchers than turning out doctors. Or assassins.
I challenge anyone from the University of Exeter to exonerate their complicity with that degree mill in this obstructionism and their assault on human health. I challenge Professor Ernst, or any of his supporters, at the price of the Chair and compensation to me for having to bother with it, to back up Ernst’s prevarications against reputable medicine. This cesspool of “learning” is endangering the entire human race with their iatrogenesis. Exeter and its “Peninsular Medical School” must be taken to dire task for their complicity in this malfeasance. Either pony up the reputable science that confirms what Ernst is saying to be true, or be forfeit in reputation and pay for the consequences of the lies being told by Edzard Ernst.
I will meet Ernst, Exeter and the Evil Empire they esquire, science for science, study for study, that at the price of their placebo hypothesis proves homeopathy beyond the shadow of a doubt, and they will be unseated and they will pay. They will be unnerved and blasted, and the public will be shocked when they find out what the truth of the matter is.
Read here in subsequent blogs the gritty details of this challenge.
It’s time to take a blowtorch to this mess and end it once and for all.
UPDATE: Ernst is fired from Exeter after the Prince of Wales accuses Ernst of academic malfeasance . .
John BENNETH, PG Hom. – London (Hons.)
NEXT: I CHALLENGE EDZARD ERNST Part Two
COMING SOON: From John Benneth . . The World’s FIRST COMPLETE (& understandable) EXPLANATION for the PHYSICO-CHEMICAL MAKE UP of the HOMEOPATHIC REMEDY and HOW IT WORKS
The John Benneth Journal 
[…] https://johnbenneth.wordpress.com/2010/11/28/i-challenge-edzard-ernst-and-the-evil-empire-at-exeter/ […]
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i need an email addres of a homeo pathic doctor from germany
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http://www.dgkh-homoeopathie.de/Kontakte/kontakte.html
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Hello people.
I have just been reading the many hues of bile that are on this blog and comments page. Some of it is very hard to read as people obviously write with such fire in their eyes that they fail to spot their own typing errors. But, I get the jist. Guy and Nigel are trying to defend orthodox medicine and the pharmaceutical industry, while Kaviraj and John Benneth are supporters of homeopathy and against allopathy. I am in neither camp. I am a Medical Herbalist. I am a practitioner of the oldest form of medicine ever on the earth, dating from the time when we were instictive animals and new what was good for us, without requiring a rationale to make a choice. Of course it was an individual matter, not a profession originally, but simply the knowlege of what is good for us, something like animals in the wild still possess, without thinking. But that’s so far back in evolutionary time that it is now almost inconceivable to us educated, rational, civilised homo sapiens that life could ever have been thus. Nevertheless I reckon we can all appreciate that it was once so.
I would just like to join in some of the discussion as I too abhor the power and deceit of the pharmaceutical industry. Many millions of people are outrageously harmed by the drugs they sell through doctors and health services in all countries. They have so much money that they can buy most people, one way or another, professional or not.
However, some drugs are really really useful, and I would be concerned if they were not available. The development and work on such drugs as some of the anti biotics and of steroidal anti-inflammatories have been genuinely valuable. Good work chaps. Some replacement substances are extremely valuable too, such as thyroxine, vitamin B12, testosterone to name a few. However, the problem is that all of these are used far far too frequently, and thus become anti-health agents. For example, most thyroid disease is due to innapropriate diet, and therefore when it arises a dietary approach will correct it if only doctors knew to advise this. Only a small proportion of sufferers of hypothyroidism would need thyroxine replacement if known dietary adjustments were made in a timely fashion. In the case of hypothyroidism (though there are many factors to take into account in each case) a diet based on carbohydrates tends to be the cause, and the solution is to cut them out, almost entirely.
Anti-biotics, on the other hand, are occasionally life saving drugs, but usually perfectly effective herbs, foods and rest bring about a cure of the infection, depending on the individual case. I know that no-one will argue with me on this, or demand that I cite evidence, as we have all experienced the resolving of infections, bacterial, viral and fungal, as our bodies have evolved mechanisms to do so. As a Medical Herbalist I have dealt with infections, bacterial included, so many times I cannot count them, without recourse to drugs.
Cancers, and no doubt many other diseases, are probably due to the many kinds of pollution our valliant but benighted bodies are trying to deal with due to the vast array of synthetic chemicals contaminating our beautiful earth, as well as the dug up, isolated, refined and dispersed minerals that none of us can escape, e.g. alluminium, flouride and mercury. Clearly we have found huge benefits from the utilisation of naturally occuring elements and have used them, literally, on an industrial scale, but the costs are probably equal to the benefits, if only we could see straight and true. Disease is bound to be one of the costs.
Disease also happens naturally. It can’t be helped. Injuries also occur naturally. Some heal, some kill and some linger and destroy the quality of life. In the end each of us must die and it’s always due to illness or injury, you never die of perfect health. The place of medicine is to help the body in its attempts to get itself right again, whatever has befallen it. Plants have a massive range of substances that our physiology can profitably work with, as we have evolved side by side on the same small planet. No wonder it works and no wonder the incidence of side effects is so low. There are some highly toxic substances in some plants too, and even these can, if carefully applied, have therapeutic effects. But it is the body that heals itself, taking what it needs from food and herbs, and whilst sleeping, to do what it can to recover.
We did not evolve on a diet of isolated substances, and nor should our medicine be in the form of chemicals seperate from the other compounds with which they naturally occur and are eaten. For example willow bark when chewed or drunk (after being stewed in water to release its many compounds) does not cause stomach ulcers; but isolated, or even laboratory synthesised salicylic acid does, in the form of aspirin. The same is true of many many other herbs, and, as we know, they form the basis of modern pharmaceutical medicine. But we Medical Herbalist uses the sensible, effective yet gentle approach that respects, acknowledges and values nature, while applying the chemistry inherent in the plants we use.
Homeopathy is a branch of herbal medicine (I contend), and it also utilises mineral and animal substances, both of which have a vast history of use by our species, along with medicinal herbs. I have no doubt that it is sometimes effective, but I have to add that I have very often had patients for whom homeopathy proved completely useless. I believe it is hyped up way beyond its appropriate value, and has ‘believers’, which is never very helpful. No one needs to ‘believe’ in herbal medicine. We know it is real, it is not outside anyone’s reasonable understanding, and does not require faith or employ mumbo jumbo (not from me anyway!).
The drug industry is disgusting. I really hate it. A few sensible factories producing a few sensible drugs is all we need in any country. I don’t think that modern medicine is responsible for any of the improvements in health generally. They are ALL down to good old piped water, decent damp courses, fewer people per habitation, flushing indoor toilets, regular food supply, fewer work injuries (coal miners/canal diggers/factory workers/scythe wielders all had high risk jobs)and generally less tough lives. Yet even with all these advantages we human animals still get ill and still die. Ever was it thus, ever shall it be. The patterns of our lives have changed a bit, but not the fundemental truths of them. We, just like all other animals, must eat, sleep, defecate, breath, attempt to procreate, and die. No problem. Lets enjoy being part of the wondrous earth and not winge too much.
That’s all I have to say. I would welcome comments on what I have said. Ask anything you like. Afifah.
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When you speak of bile, I presume you mean Benneth’s rants? I am pretty sure he’d have needed to clean the spittle off his screen after writing this “article”.
If you think I’m defending the pharmaceutical industry then you absolutely do not understand. I am supporting the scientific method and honest tests.
Homeopathy and medicine both habitually use dishonest tests. The difference is that fair and honest tests will result in some medicines passing and others not, the same fair and honest tests result in the entire field of homeopathy failing, because it is a set of delusions based on refuted doctrines.
So the pharmaceutical industry can be fixed (e.g. by the All Trials initiative, driven by skeptics), whereas homeopathy has nothing salvageable, it is entirely without merit.
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Wow. I had to come here to read and see it for myself. This is like a trainwreck in slow motion. Why so much bile for Dr Ernst?
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He challenges the shibboleths of homeopaty. Since they are unable to refute his science, they feel the need to attack his person instead. It’s a standard example of the ad-hominem fallacy.
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Benneth – are you going to respond to the fact that, twice now, you have misrepresented Colquhoun and have failed to apologise. Are you hoping that your mistakes can be ignored.
It is quite simple. Are you a man of honour or not? I think most of us know the answer to that by now.
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John Virapen’s website
http://john-virapen.com/en/home.html
Confessions of Big Pharma reps.
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Here is what your doctors and others say about “evidence-based medicine” as you guys all promote so thoughtlessly and for which you either must be paid to do so, or be so completely ignorant that noby can take you serious.
“There are more quacks in the orthodox profession than there are outside its ranks.” – Dr. J. P. Baldwin
“I am part of a profession that is systematically lying to people.” – Dr Mark Donohoe
“Medicine, the only profession that labors incessantly to destroy the reason for its existence.” – James Bryce
“The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.” – Thomas Edison
“I have endeavored to show that there is no real service of humanity in the profession [of medicine] and that it is injurious to mankind.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“Nature is the physician of man.” – Hippocrates, “the father of medicine”
“Instead of wishing to see more doctors made by women joining what there are, I wish to see as few doctors, either male or female, as possible.” – Florence Nightingale
“Everyone should know that the ‘war on cancer’ is largely a fraud.” – Two Time Nobel Prize Winner Linus Pauling
“Unless the doctor of today becomes the dietitian of tomorrow, the dietitian of today will become the doctor of tomorrow.” Dr. Alexis Carroll (Famous Biological Scientist and head of the Rockefellr Institute)
“Medicine being a compendium of the successive and contradictory mistakes of medical practitioners, when we summon the wisest of them to our aid, the chances are that we may be relying on a scientific truth the error of which will be recognized in a few years’ time.” – Marcel Proust
“We have not lost faith, but we have transferred it from God to the medical profession” – George Bernard Shaw
“He’s the best physician that knows the worthlessness of most medicines. God heals and the Doctor takes the fee.” – Benjamin Franklin
“The National Anti-Cancer Program is a bunch of shit” – James Watson, Nobel Laureate for Medicine in 1962 , joint discoverer of the double helix of DNA, and for two years a member of the US Joint Advisory Committee on Cancer
“Chemotherapy is an incredibly lucrative business for doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies…..The medical establishment wants everyone to follow the same exact protocol. They don’t want to see the chemotherapy industry go under, and that’s the number one obstacle to any progress in oncology.” – Dr Warner, M.D.
“Medicine is a great humbug:- doctors are merely quacks when they are not charlatans.” Dr. Magendie (The great French physician)
Well, are you satisfied that WE ARE QUACKS? In the eyes of those who are willing to forget the present prestige of medicine, such as it is, with all its dignity, its scientific jargon, its pratings of altruism, its great endowment, its well heralded “achievements,” we are most assuredly quacks, professing to do things we cannot do, and yes, taking money under this pretence.” – Dr. Paul M. Koonin, D.D.Sc.
“Modern medicine” may well be defined as “the experimental study of what happens when poisonous chemicals are placed into malnourished human bodies.” – A. Saul, Contributing Editor, Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine
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Nice example of quote mining, even if some of those you quote are just cranks expressing personal opinions.
The pertinent fact which you miss is that the acknowledged existence of some faults within conventional medicine does not invalidate the many parts which are manifestly not faulty. We have longer, healthier lifespans than at any other time in human history and we can and do routinely cure diseases that, in the past, wiped out whole populations. Several killer diseases have become all but extinct, albeit with some dangers due to the vaccine denialists.
My children are at virtually no risk of contracting diphtheria, poliomyelitis or smallpox. That’s conventional medicine for you. The only thing homeopaths eradicate is the thing they are supposed to be dosing you with!
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You are also just a person expressing your baseless opinion. So what makes you better than the quoted people. Nothing at all. Name calling those you disagree with as cranks says more about you as about them.
And for the sake of your kids I sure hope that the unproven vaccines protect them. There are no studies done with vaccines – no peer review of any of them has ever appeared in any paper.
They don’t undergo any RCTs and are nothing but experimental. That you subjected your children to such dangerous experiments is your prerogative.
My children have not been vaccinated at all. They are more beautiful, more intelligent and less sick than any of their peers in school. They also have never contracted any of the diseases you mention. They are also at no risk of contracting the mentioned diseases, because they follow proper hygiene, have a healthy organic diet, which is the real protector against diseases.
Vaccines have never protected any child, because the same percentage gets the disease in vaccinated and in non-vaccinated populations.
The only thing vaccines eradicate is the good health of the person who takes them.
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Did I claim any particular authority? I don’t think I did. I did, however, point out the incontrovertible fact that vaccination programmes have virtually eradicated some killer diseases and dramatically reduced the incidence of many others.
You sound a bit like John Cleese in Life of Brian: “Yes, but /apart/ from eradicating killer diseases, extending human lifespan, improving quality of life, controlling wound infection, reducing infant mortality and turning common illnesses and surgical incidents from fatal to undramatic, what has modern medicine ever done for us?”
I’ve yet to see an objectively provable population-level benefit form homeopathy. In fact, the places where it’s common seem to do rather less well in health outcomes.
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Guy, this really getting tedious. First, people are living longer now because of plumbers and homeopaths, not your vaccines or your doctors. It’s because we have indoor plumbing, indoor heating, there isn’t horse manure in the streets, food is kep[t in refrigerators. Hanemann lived to be 87 and left behind 100,000 case notes and a widow more than half his age. Let’s see you do that.
Jenner was the first to kill people with over vaccination from cow pus, and that was 200 years ago, and it certainly didn’t stop it there, and now we have other epidemics, like soft tissue cancer, which is now being attriuted to . . your vaccines! Meanwhile, the Cubans have cleaned your clock.
It fits homeopathic philosophy that palliation of disease symptoms, even with homeopathy, forces them into a different expression. Hahnemann predicted this , and its exactly what happened. So now we”re chasing symptoms around and the pharmacetuical compnies are loving it for all the money they can make. And as we routinely point out to you and you simply refuse to believe, homoepathics routinely outperform allopathi medicine in epidemics. It is true that vaccination may have reduced some diseases signifificantly, but there is a growing number of people that would like to have you by the throat for what pushing your crap has done to their kids, it hasn’t changed all that much since Jenner was experimenting with the small pox disease. You may hve wiped out variola in one formb ut it has appeared in thers, and its transmuted. Now we have other herpetic diseases. ANd people attirbute many of the probelms their children are having, like sudden death or retardatin to vacccination. You’re so happy with it take acloer look an see what its done to you. See what its doing to your kids. Parents insist that it started with the needle stick. They say that’s what caused it. You an say it didn’t, but how do YOU know? You wren’t there, you’re sjust speculating, you’re just clining to what you want to belive. we’ve already shown you you don’t have any science to bacck up your claims, when inf act we do. It keeps coming up with MD’s who are brave enough to say it, like wakefield, that these disease are iatrogenic, including, but not limited to, autism and soft tissue cancers, for which you have no known treatment. We do. Andd don’t think we’re just going to rollover on this so easily for it, because we’ve seen now what your type of thinking and the poison you push can do to people.
But listen, Guy, you were asked repeatedly to cite a claim YOU made, and nowall of a sudden you got amnesia. Let me reimind you again; You said fore very study that proves homeoapthy there’s one that isporves it, and we called your bluff. You didn’t do it because obviously you can’t, but you’re still arguing, still asserting other points. So until you can actually cite your claims, you’re not welcome here. You got your own stupid blog, and your own freedom of speech. Either go knock yourself out, or apolgie, come down off the high horse, be respecctful, call me Dr.Benneth, and I’ll do the best i can to answer your questions. But stop aruging with me, stop making false assertions. If yo0u want to prove a point, then use a dialectic. Otherwise,
GO AWAY.
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http://www.britishhomeopathic.org/research/homeopathic_hospitals/Bristol_study.html
Pubmed (National Library of Medicine) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi
British Medical Journal http://bmj.bmjjournals.com (search for ‘homeopathy’)
New Scientist http://www.newscientist.com (search for ‘homeopathy’)
Healthworld Online (Medline, Medical Research & Document Delivery)
www4.infotrieve.com/newmedline/summary.asp
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Guy and Nigel, those studies on plants have been done as you describe – they have been cited above. You have as usual not read any of the posts. They have been published in peer-reviewed journals, as also cited above. You just ignore it all. Making both of you ignorant. No matter what you both blab, you cannot refute the studies and seek to sidetrack the issues. You cannot answer and will side track further in your next ignorant replies. Pathetic, as usual.
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Kaviraj
You have thrown a lot of papers this way and cut and pasted a lot of information. It does not make for good debate. Perhaps, you would make yourself clearer if you made your point – succinctly – and then cited the appropriate research to back you up.
So, for example, can you cite a review in a peer reviewed journal of the evidence base for homeopathic action on plants? If the evidence is so compelling and mature, this should be easy.
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I have already done that, so you just need to read them. You simply refuse to read what I presented and then come with additional demands. I have no time for your childish games. Read the evidence yourself. Stop your childish denial. Be a man for a change and admit you have no legs to stand upon. I need not prove anything. You have been asked to provide proof it is placebo. You have done nothing of the sort. You are the ones always trying to steer the discussion elsewhere than what is demanded of you. You will not be able to distract.
Provide proof from a peer reviewed journal that it is placebo through a decent meta-analysis and not the discredited Shang.
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Kaviraj – evading simple requests again.
Either that or you do not know what a systematic review is. As far as I can see, you have not posted a review. If you have one, then give the link, or have the honesty to admit none exist.
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And to make myself clear – cite does not mean ‘cut and paste’.
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Homeopathy can prevent Japanese Encephalitis (JE) infection that infects 50,000 and kills 10,000 in South and Southeast Asia each year, report Indian researchers in the American Journal of Infectious Diseases.
A study by researchers at Kolkata’s School of Tropical Medicine and the Central Council for Research in Homoeopathy showed that the homeopathic medicine Belladonna prevented infection in chick embryos infected with the JE virus.
Caused by a virus that circulates in pigs and wading birds and gets transferred to humans through the bite of the Culex mosquito, JE causes symptoms of headache, sudden high fever, neck stiffness, disorientation, and seizures.
Deaths in India, which range between 1,000 and 2,000 each year, occur mainly in children under 15 years in the endemic states of Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Assam, and Bengal.
Belladonna—deadly nightshade—is used to treat complaints of sudden infections and fever. Other conditions treated include migraines and throbbing headaches in which the slightest eye movement intensifies the pain, boils, seizures, kidney inflammation, and restless sleep.
The study showed significant decrease in the viral load when treated with the homoeopathic medicine Belladonna in different potencies, in comparison to placebo, said principal investigator Dr. Bhaswati Bandopadhyay, assistant professor of virology, School of Tropical Medicine.
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Guy Chapman: Only THREE MPs voted in the so called Evidence Check conducted by the Science & Tech Committee. Three out of Fourteen!!! Yet, the headline went round the world ‘MPs call for ban on homeopathy’. Two of those three were in the pocket of Pharma. I attended both those ‘hearings’. More like the Inquisition with Harris as the Witchfinder General.
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Adn the headline was wrong. No ban. So that is what has riled up the opposition – in the pocket of Big Pharma, which are a bunch of racketeers, convicted criminals and assorted crooks. The skeptics do themselves a disservice, by lining up with convicted criminals. It is a little like being friends with the Mafia. Not good for the image, regardless all the PR. We shall continue to expose that for what it is.
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As usual you are spouting conspiracy theories on the basis of zero evidence. The committee is as critical of so-called “big pharma” as they are of “big homeopathy” (had you not spotted that homeopathy is also a multi-billion-dollar business deeply vested in proving its own products?)
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Guy, Colquhoun himself has said he gets paid by Big Pharma – openly so. No conspiracy needed. You are a liar if you say it is not so.
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And Guy, how much do they pay you for each drivel post?
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Kaviraj – my understanding is that Colquhoun is a researcher into single ion channels and has been awarded an FRS because of his groundbreaking work. His research has been fundamental science and it has never been funded by Big Pharma.
You are making a very serious allegation that this is not true. Can you post a link to prove otherwise? You claim Colquhoun has said that he has been paid. I say that is a made up lie. Prove me wrong by posting your evidence.
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Look on his website and read.
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Once again, Kaviraj you are evading the question and failing to substantiate your claim that Colquhoun is taking Big Pharma money.
Either have the intellectual honesty to admit you are wrong, or post the evidence. It is not up to me to find your evidence for you.
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“David Colquhoun has received research support from AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Merck Sharpe Dohme, Fornier Pharma, Solvay, Schering-Plough, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Abbott, Sanofi, and Boehringer Ingelheim. He has been on the speakers’ bureau of, received honoraria from, and served as a consultant for AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Merck Sharpe Dohme, Abbott, Servier, and Fornier Pharma.”
Letter by Colquhoun et al Regarding Article “Effect Size Estimates of Lifestyle and Dietary Changes on All-Cause Mortality in Coronary Artery Disease Patients: A Systematic Review”
David Colquhoun, MBBS; Karam Kostner, MD; Antonio Ferreira-Jardim, BA
http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/114/2/e40
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Kaviraj, as far as I can make out only one of us is doing this for money and it isn’t me.
If you’d like to contact disbursements@bigpharma.com and tell them what a grand job we’re doing of making you look silly I am sure they will rectify the situation, I could certainly use the extra cash in the run-up to the festive season.
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Ahhh. John Benneth thinks he has scored a goal.
You would not be the first person to confuse David Colquhoun MBBS, the Australian researcher into diet with professor David Colquhoun FRS, the researcher at University College London and staunch critic of academic pseudosciences such as homeopathy.
The raving anti-vax campaigner John Stone made the same mistake and had the good grace to apologise…
http://www.bmj.com/content/339/bmj.b3658/reply
The big question is will Benneth and Kaviraj be able to summon the same good grace?
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Oh please, Nigel, stop pretending to be so naive. You know perfectly well this is about competing interests. Colquhoun is a professor of phamacology and has admitted to sponsorship for presentations in the US. He tries to pawn it off as nothing more han pens and desk toys, then inadvetently slips in an admission of sponsorship. http://www.healthyskepticism.org/global/library/item/15699/.
The phamaceutical industry is the driving fiancial support of what is pawned off as modern medicine, and small time stooges like you are their shills to argue and harass anyone who comes up with an occassional remeinder tht the power beihind people like Colquhoun is the patented petro chemical synthesis pharmaceutincal industry, which has been convicted of racketeering. WHat keeps thme from being driven out of business by the competing interests of homeopathy is a disinformation campaign that seeks to make one basic point: It may be corrupt, it may be horrible and deadly, but like demoncracy ists the only system of medicine that we have that really works.
Your entire crooked cabal is in danger of crumbling because it can be shown by historical and modern data that homeopathy is superior to your crackpot witches brew stirred by convicted racketeers..
Kaviraj and I stand by our asseetions: Coloquhoun is both in the indirect and diret pay of the racketeers. He admits it. Read it for yourself.
PROFESSOR DAVID COLQUHOUN: “Like, I’ve accepted many years ago, a nice little picture of the hard arteries, I took the logo off, it just left that there. In the past I have accepted a pen, a plastic pen worth about a dollar. And yes, sponsorship to present American heart meetings, ticket over there.”
So he prefaces it with the little knicknacks trying to minimalize what he’s about to say, and then he coughs up the hairball, “sponsorship to present American heart meetings, ticket over there.”
Pfizer asks him to be a key note speaker, they’regoing to pay him for it. They ask him to present it, they’re goint to pay him more, aren’t they? He doesn’t say what he did for them or what they paid him, but he’s sure is quick to say how little the junk on his desk that omes from “them” cost. He goes into great details about the slum, the dollar pen, the picture where he picked off the logo, how little it is. But what kind of detail does he give about what it cost to present a meeting, and how much went into his pocket? Come on, the racketeers aren’t just paying him directly, they’re what keeps HIS employers paid off, they pay for the “research grants,” the books, the lcasssrooms, the desk allthat jun goes one, the shoes on his feet and his pipe tobacco. Everything. Sostop pretending to be a sucker. They are what made him and everything around him. He IS them, just as you are.
Do we need to show you the source for Pfizer’s support of SAS?
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So, Benneth. You do not have the honesty and courage to apologise, just as you did not apologise to Andy Lewis for calling him a liar.
And hilariously, you compound your mistake. Once again you link to a discussion with the Australian David Colquhoun at the University of Queensland.
It is so typical of your homeopathic mindset. You have decided what you want to believe, in this case that your critics are corrupt, and then fish for the slightest evidence to support your views and fail to check the robustness of that evidence. Even when your error is plainly pointed out to you, you continue making the same error. That is homeopathy all over.
It is simple beyond your ken that Colquhoun might not be a industry funded stooge, but in fact be a publicly funded researcher into basic science that is disgusted at the influence of pseudoscience in various sectors of public life and is prepared to speak out about it. That indeed he is a man of integrity and he speaks because what he believes he feels is important and right. You simply cannot even go near that truth because it means that you might have to defend your own views properly rather than being abusive and rude to such people.
All this makes you look like an utter fool and a rather nasty one at that.
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And Benneth, I suggest it is worth asking if you have any competing interests you wish to declare? Have you ever received any funding, payments or gifts related to the practice of homeopathy? Have you ever been paid to talk about homeopathy or gained from prescribing homeopathic remedies?
Perhaps before falsely accusing others of having corrupting competing interests, you should undertake full disclosure of your own?
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Professor Ernst, are you going to tell us that Exeter University is so skinned for funds they cannot provide you with about 25 pounds?
For that is all you need to once and for all prove whether homoeopathy is placebo or whether your notions are as unfounded as your posts in which you slag off the discipline as humbug.
It is very simple. You get a few plastic trays, in which you germinate wheat seeds. For good measure, you buy Silicea 200C,liquid potency, so you can be sure there are no molcules left in there.
In one tray, you germinate the seeds without any remedy – plain water will do. This is your control.
In the next tray, you germinate the seeds with 10 drops of Silicea 200C to a litre, succussed 10 times. Thus you have a dilution rate of 10/50.000 drops, which should disabuse anyone of the notion you are trying to swindle anyone into believing there is any material in the solution. You give this water/remedy mixture on a daily basis, but not so much you drown the seeds. A pipette should do the trick for you.
After 10 days, you pull up the seeds and measure shoot and root length, as compared to the controls and you publish your findings – honestly of course, just as you were honest about not having any qualifications to pontificate on homoeopathy. Since this test can be done by any school kid of about 12 years old without having any qualifications either, a grown-up man like you, should have no difficulty.
This is my challenge to you and you should have impartial witnesses to assess you follow the above protocol. That means no James Randi, no Ben Goldacre, no Simon Singh, no Colquhoun, nor any other member of your quasi skeptic club. As I said, an independent witness and for good measure, I am ready to come or send another QUALIFIED person, to be an observer, to make sure an unqualified man like you does not stuff up the protocol.
So how about it? Are you ready to take up the challenge and subject homoeopathy to an objective test, without any change anyone can fool those seeds with placebo?
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The big question is Kaviraj – are you?
Could you do this experiment if you did not know which remedy was which? Can you devise a protocol that ensures you do not know which remedy you are using and publicly carry out the experiment? Since this is your claim that you can do this, why do you insist others do it.
Do it first yourself, under proper public experimental conditions and skeptics might take notice.
Otherwise, it just looks like the blabbering of a conspiracist.
Nigel.
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The valid test would require giving the experimenter three sets of apparatus, one with the expected dilution, one with a random dilution and one with pure water, all unlabelled. If the experimenter can repeat this test multiple times (probably 6 or 9) and in each case show a differential effect in favour of the remedy, then we can have a conversation. Until that set of criteria is fulfilled, this is just another homeopath engaging in just another confirmation biased proving.
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The blabbering is done by all of you. I have done this test many times. I need not satisfy you. You claim it is placebo, you PROVE it is placebo and you will fail miserably.
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Kaviraj – but could you do the test publicly – with an independent third party holding the code as to which pill is which – without you knowing?
If you can do that, then you have won. If not, then you are just fooling yourself.
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No Nigel, it has already been done. You make the claim it is placebo, it is up to you to prove your claims. We have substantiated our claims sufficiently. Don’t try to now turn the onus on us. The onus is on you. And as the cowards you are, you back out, and try to deflect it again.
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The claim that homeopathic remedies are placebos is not an extraordinary claim. Given the method of preparation, it is quite clear that no known active ingredient can possibly exist in the pill. The clinical evidence in full is consistent with it being a placebo. To claim otherwise is an extraordinary claim and requires the corresponding levels of evidence. Given that you also claim to treat sick people, the ethical imperative is to ensure that you have robust evidence for what you do – enough to satisfy dispassionate observers – not just yourself. Since knowledgeable dispassionate observers are nowhere near convinced about homeopathy then its is clear that you do not have enough evidence.
To deny that the onus is not on you is a moral failing.
It can be guaranteed that Mr Benneth’s so called complete explanation for homeopaths will be more full of holes than a colander and lack any sound empirical justification.
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Prof. Bastide explained that homeopathy and research models are based on the observation of “symptoms”. Asymptomatic pathologies exist that provoke “biological scars” as a proof of the self-treated organism without showing the illness symptoms (Charles Nicolle, Nobel Prize 1929, Life and Death of Illness). Symptoms and biological modifications are not the same and concern different levels in the body. The symptom may be an expression of the body when it cannot find any answer whatever the situation (infection, stress, strong emotion…).
Example: Rubella in a normal subject: no apparent sickness. Rubella in immuno-deficient subject: symptoms, apparent sickness.
For the allopathic research approach, the symptoms are pathognomonic, specific to the illness; they are used to diagnose the pathology. When the diagnosis of the pathology is performed, the treatment is chosen accordingly; classical therapy may be also targeted against symptoms.
For the homeopathic research approach, considered symptoms are idiosyncratic; specific to the patient. They are the personal expression of the sickness by the patient. They are used to choose the specific remedy according to the similarity of the symptoms observed by “proving” in a healthy subject. The living body is in a lasting and irreversible learning process; it communicates at every level with its environment. It is able to receive and treat semantic and corporeal information; it is not an inert object.
The paradigm of corporeal signifiers (Bastide M., Lagache A. Revue Intern. Systémique 1995; 9: 237-249 and Altern Ther Health Med. 1997; 3: 35-9).
Three principles define homeopathy, based on clinical and experimental analysis: the similia and whole person principles, and the use of very high dilutions. The effects of high dilutions cannot be explained by a simple molecule-receptor interaction (mechanistic paradigm), the “well established theory” of modern science. Prof. Bastide & Lagache propose an epistemological approach to homeopathy based on body information processes received and interpreted by the living organism; this follows the rules of information exchange. Exchange of objects between a giver and a receiver is very simple: one loses, the other gains, and the sum is constant. On the other hand, information is not an object but the trace of an object – mediation between object and receiver is required for a signal to be transmitted.
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Professor Jean Cambar introduced the theme by asking what are the contributions of the different spectroscopies (Raman, Ultraviolet, X-ray or Magnetic Nuclear Resonance) in revealing the structure of water and solvents in high dilutions? What is the real relevance of Avogadro’s number in evaluating the precise pattern of molecules? Can a dilution work without any molecule? One of the most innovative perspectives in this last decade was the demonstration that high dilutions have as much activity and effectiveness in an organized structured solvent without any solute molecule as they do when molecules are present (even only some molecules).
Professor Louis Rey, Doctor of Sciences, Lausanne, a specialist in low temperature thermoluminescence, has published on this topic in the international journals Nature (1988; 391: 418) and C.R.Physique (2000; 1: 107-110). He presented the latest results of the experiments he carried out together with Dr. Philippe Belon on the thermoluminescence of ultra-high dilutions of lithium chloride and sodium chloride. Ultra-high dilutions of lithium chloride and sodium chloride (10-30 g cm-3) were irradiated by X- and gamma-rays at 77K, then progressively re-warmed to room temperature. During that phase, their thermoluminescence was studied and it was found that, despite their dilution beyond the Avogadro number, the emitted light was specific of the original salts dissolved initially. Much to the authors’ surprise, the experimental results showed, without ambiguity, the specificity of the contained information. The findings proved to be reproducible in the course of many different identical experiments. As a working hypothesis, the researchers propose that this phenomenon results from a marked structural change in the hydrogen bond network initiated at the onset by the presence of the dissolved ions and maintained in the course of the dilution process, and probably due to the successive vigorous mechanical stirrings. (Physica 2003; A323: 67-74).
Professor Guadalupe Ruiz-Vega, Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, Morelia, Mexico, presented her most recent publications in the field of thermodynamics. She was able to demonstrate the biological effect of two ultra-low dose compounds. (Publication in process.)
The use of modern techniques in the hands of specialists is the best way to show sceptics that the experimental facts are well grounded and confirmed by reproducible experiments. Even in ultra-molecular homeopathic dilutions, specific information of the prime dissolved substance still remains in the preparation and can be detected experimentally.
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The longest-used model, published frequently all over the world, is the toxicological model (Arsenic, Phosphorus, Mercury, Cadmium, Cisplatina, Glutamate, Cuprum sulphate, etc). It can be applied to vegetable, animal, cell culture material or even clinical studies. This model is still used and indeed is the theme for a collaboration between the Universities of Bern and Bologna, testing homeopathic arsenic trioxide treatments by plant-based bioassays. The working variables are the germinated seeds or the stem length on the seventh day. At least 6 recent experiments by this team are published (Dr Lucietta Betti. DISTA-Department of Agro environmental Science and Technology, University of Bologna.).
Experiments are well conducted, in controlled conditions, with a sufficient number of plants, animals or cells, and with a fair statistical treatment. The facts are indisputable, statistically significant and reproducible, even if they cannot be explained using the molecular paradigm.
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It has taken much more time for another model to be accepted by the scientific community. The first publications appeared in 1991 but it is only in 2004, after an international cooperation, that the results have finally been accepted in a high-standard peer-reviewed journal, Inflammation Research. This model is different from the Benveniste model; he used the same control but not the same activator.
Professors Marcel Roberfroid and Jean Cumps of the Institute of Pharmacy at the University of Louvain, who respectively coordinated the European multi-centre (4 centres) trial and performed the statistical analysis, explained the protocols and discussed the results. The work demonstrates a significant inhibition of human basophil degranulation, as measured by alcian blue staining, by high dilutions of histamine (10-30 – 10-38 M). This multi-centre research has subsequently been confirmed in three laboratories by applying flow cytometry analysis and in one laboratory by measuring histamine release. Even if, at present, the molecular theory cannot explain these findings, the facts remain indisputable as recognized by the editor of Inflammation Research. (Belon P, Cumps J, Ennis M, Mannaioni PF, Roberfroid M, Sainte-Laudy J, Wiegant FAC. Histamine dilutions modulate basophil activation. Inflamm. Res. 2004; 53: 181-188.)
C/ Research on high dilutions has existed since the 1950s, but the number and quality of publications has increased in the last decade. Reviews and meta-analyses have even been performed but often ignored or even denied (see COST B4 supplement report EUR 19110 ISBN 92-828-7434-6). This research is not encouraged and even deemed inadvisable by academic authorities.
Professor Jean Cambar, Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Bordeaux, described the most important models that have been published previously in international journals, confirming the effects of very highly diluted homeopathic preparations.
The efficacy of very high homeopathic dilutions of human or animal natural molecules (also called endogen molecules) has been published several times in prestigious journals. Examples include the following:
Int J Immunotherapy 1987; 3: 191-200 (Thymulin in mice. Bastide M);
Int J Immunopharm 1990; 6: 211-214 (alpha/beta interferon, Carriere V);
J Vet Human Toxicol 1995; 37(3): 259-260 (Thyroxine, Endler PC);
Int J Immunopathol Pharmacol 1996; 9: 43-51 (Bursin, Youbicier-Simo BL).
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You are quite funny. “Molecular theory”, “molecular paradigm” – these are not theories any more they are observed facts with rather a lot of data to back them up.
As with stage conjurers, the test is for someone who is not a true believer to reproduce the results.
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Well I may be quite funny, but if you truly read the piece you would not even think about trying to deflect the attention away from the tenet of the piece that states that the molecular paradigm, in which you all are stuck – i.o.w. in the forelast century or earlier – does not cover homoeopathy, which I conclusively proved in that piece. Obviously, it is way above your head.
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Stage conjurers? Like that fool Randi? LOL.
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You do seem to be quite big on this business of assuming that no interpretation other than yours is possible. Have you considered that maybe I read them and interpreted them in context with the balance of my knowledge? After all, you seem to be doing exactly the same in respect of the Science & Technology Committee and Brien et. al.
It is not enough, in this day and age, to say “this small part can be justified with this particular substance at these particular dilutions” and from that assert that the entire edifice is scientifically sound. That is rather like calculating that your laces have sufficient tensile strength therefore you can pull yourself up by them.
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The balance of your “knowledge” does not amount to much then, if you think it is the final arbiter.
It is not enough in this day and age to just deny the scientific reports from reputable scientists from reputable universities published in reputable peer-reviewed scientific journals. It is a bit like saying that your thong is enough to cover your whole body. Yet you still stand there with a bare @ss.
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I am not the final arbiter, but rest assured that of a final arbiter is ever appointed it will look a lot more like the Science & Technology Committee than a homeopathic proving. As I have said before, the scientific method has prevailed because it develops understanding in a way that is increasingly consistent across disciplines. Homeopathy is way off there in the long grass and you have some serious explaining to do before the fundamentals of your field draw more than a LOLWUT? from the scientific mainstream. You’ve chosen to call yourselves “Doctor”, you’ve chosen to use medicine-like labelling, you’ve chosen to sell through pharmacies and to use the trappings of a scientific discipline. You have chosen the field on which you wish to play. You cannot now change the rules to suit you. The rules on this playing field are the rules of the scientific method, with at least a 300 year tradition of sceptical inquiry. If you did not know that before you started then it’s your fault for skimping on your research!
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I have followed all the rules, you only deny them. I have posted sudies done at UNIVERSITIES BY SCIENTISTS. You simply have not read them. They have been published in peer-reviewed journals. That is all I have posted here. I abide by the rules – you don’t. You are not impartial and thus no scientist. Don’t make me laugh. You have not been able to refute any of the papers. You are pathetic as usual.
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The experimental model that is cheapest, most reproducible and also the most easily researched is probably the “acetylcholine-induced contraction of the rat ileum”. It is a wellrecognized scientific model (Chang FY, Lee SD, et al. Rat gastrointestinal motor responses mediated via activation of neurokinin receptors. J.Gastroenterol Hepatol 1999; 14: 39-45).
This model has been devised for the verification of very high dilutions of Belladonna by A. Cristea, a Romanian researcher; results have already been published (Bastide M (ed). Signals and Images. Kluwer Academic Publishers 1997: 161-170).
Professor Wolfgang Suess, Institute of Pharmacy at the University of Leipzig, has used this model to test the transfer of the activity of a homeopathic remedy (in this case Atropinum sulphuricum D60) from the original liquid form to the homeopathic tablet. As usual, several controls were performed. Alpha-lactose monohydrate tablets impregnated with the highly diluted Atropinum had systematically efficacy, on the contrary with anhydrous alpha-lactose tablets no effect can be ascertained. Thus, the quality of homeopathic tablets can be tested before daily use in pharmacy (constant reproducibility). This very simple model therefore has the potential to remove doubts about the activity of very highly diluted homeopathic remedies (Schmidt F, Suess WG, Nieber K. In-vitro Testung von homöopathischen Verduennungen. Biol.Med./Heft 1/February 2004;32-37).
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Excellent, John! About time this fraud is exposed. While we are at it, let us not forget the rest of this criminal cabal, such as Colquhoun, who accepts stolen money from convicted criminals and consorts with them too. That turkey receives money from Pfizer, GSK and Aventis/Pasteur, to peddle his lies about CAM. Those 3 Pharmeceutical companies have been indicted not just once, but several times already, of defrauding the NHS, the patients and the government. Yet that same government and the NHS keep paying them more, for poisoning the population with their iatrogenic drugs. They call it evidence-based medicine and the evidence for it has been shot out of the water by JAMA and BMJ as being non-existent. This swindle is costing the taxpayer more in compensation than the entire homoeopathic budget, yet Ernst and Colquhoun want homoeopathy to be excluded, although it has the greatest safety record. These stooges want the public to think that their EBM is better, although it kills a million people in the USA alone! The evidence is stacked against it and for some lousy Judas pennies, these two liars are ready to defame an entire profession as swindlers, frauds and demand we should be jailed for it too! The audacity!
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