Really. Stupid. People.

Sometimes I wonder about how stupid people can be. I mean there are stupid people, there’s a lot of them, I don‘t suppose they‘d be stupid if they weren‘t people.
I wonder if that choice is made in Heaven. Guy says, “God, I want to live this next reincarnation as a really stupid person. I mean anot just dumb, but a real idiot. The kind of person that acts like he knows something, but doesn‘t really. Arrogant, full of assertions, the kind of jerk who makes up his mind not to see the evidence. The kind of guy who takes a job as a night watchman in a day camp. He’s so stupid he’ll ask what wine goes best with Alpo. If I do that I’ll bring joy into the world by making other people laugh at me.”

Here’s a statement I got from someone calling himself ISayISaw. Now I’m not saying that he’s dumb or drunk necessarily, but something tells me that if he had a brain concussion it would probably classify as a minor injury. He starts out by quoting me. (Boy, is that ever a dumb thing to do):

“Kaviraj and I have given them more than enough time to respond to our challenge. All we have asked of the critics of homeopathy, like Edzard Ernst, John Beddington, Ben Goldacre, Andy Lewis and their dopey proxies, is to please show us the evidence that homeopathic remedies are “placebos.”

Show us just one scientific study that proves it.

Please.

Just one.

That’s all.

It’s not too much to ask . .

Here we are, empty handed. After all this complaining from self-made, tall-talking, wide-walking homeopathy bashers about how homeopathic remedies are nothing more than “placebos” as if they know what a placebo really is, we ask for little evidence of that and they all go quiet on us.

These are the kind of people who fail to check to see if the guns are loaded before putting them to their heads and pulling the trigger.

And then he does. Show us a “study,” that is.

And then he surly says: “You’re not empty-handed but you don’t only seem to pay attention of the poorest quality evidence and the unsupported claims of homeopathy’s fanboys.”

Okay, the nasty remarks aside, this is good. I SayISaw actually coughed up what purports to be a real “scientific” trial here , even if it is just one, and out of hundreds of trials of homeopathy the only one, it’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen, written by the kind of people who are so dim they’d light a match to read a sundial. But look, it’s a hundred times better than the bluff and bluster we get from everybody else.

And published nowhere.
This particular study by Sarah Brien, Laurie Lachance, Phil Prescott, Clare McDermott and George Lewith implies in its title that the effect of homeopathy is a placebo that come from the homeopathic consultation. And I bet they used to save their burned out light bulbs for their darkroom, too. A dark room is the place where these people used to go to retrieve the contents of their photographic memories, but they gave it up because nothing ever developed.
Well, ISayISaw should be congratulated nonetheless for bringing this up. So let’s give a good hand for ISayISaw on the computer keyboard. Let’s give him another good. Actually he needs more than two good hands on the computer keyboard. Maybe he could take his foot out of his mouth and use that.

Title of the study that presumably “proves” homeopathy is a “placebo” is: “Homeopathy has clinical benefits in rheumatoid arthritis patients that are attributable to the consultation process but not the homeopathic remedy: a randomized controlled clinical trial”

Click to access rheumatology.keq234.full.pdf

You can read it yourself, but make sure you’re not operating any heavy equipment if you do because there’s a chance that you might fall over laughing, or start beating your head against the steering wheel.
The objective of this mess was, “To assess whether any benefits from adjunctive homeopathic intervention in patients with RA are due to the homeopathic consultation, homeopathic remedies or both.”
Okay, stop right there. Note the word adjunctive. Adjunct means “something added to another thing but not an essential part of it.”
So now we have to ask an essential part of what? What else is going on in this study they aren’t mentioning here?
The report says this was an exploratory double-blind, randomized placebo-controlled trial conducted from January 2008 to July 2008, in patients with active stable rheumatoid arthritis (RA) receiving conventional therapy.
So in other words, these people were being treated for rheumatoid arthritis using “conventional drugs.”
Just what drugs might those be?
Celebrex? (Pfizer) Yeah, Celebrex. That’s the one advertised on TV showing a smiling young woman flying a kite on the beach, supposedly having a good time.
Here’s the side effects from Celebrex when she gets back from the beach:
“Increased risk of cardiovascular incidents including blood clotting, heart attack and stroke, kidney problems, fluid retention, liver damage, potentially lethal stomach bleeding.”
There’s that young woman again, on her knees in front of the toilet, spitting up blood from lethal stomach bleeding.
Lawsuit!
Or maybe it was Vioxx.
VIOXX BREAKING NEWS:
“Merck & Co., Inc. has agreed to pay $4.85 billion to resolve Vioxx-related claims in which a claimant has suffered a heart attack, sudden cardiac death, or stroke.”
http://www.levinlaw.com/practice-areas/vioxx-information

They’d be better off with a bottle of whiskey and a couple of tickets to a good cage fight. Get ’em on their feet to go somewhere other than the doctor’s office. Maybe what this study was all about was to look for something else to blame it on.

The people who wrote this study are the kind of people who would hand a drowning man a glass of water. I think their last study was to see if people swallowed firecrackers their hair would grow out in bangs.

I mean, do I need to explain this to anybody except for the really, really stupid? I’m surprised this guy ISayISaw can read. He probably has a kid read it to him.
And who did the authors explain this to in order to get it all typed up so nicely? That person deserves the Nobel prize for patience.

This isn’t a test for placebo. I’m not sure what it’s a test for.  Maybe its a secret IQ test. They sure as hell don’t say. Here’s what they did:

Patients were randomized into five groups. Of the five groups, three received a homeopathic consultation (Groups 1 – 3) and two (Groups 4 and 5) did not. The consultation groups were further randomized to individualized treatment (Group 1), a homeopathic complex for RA (Group 2) or placebo (Group 3).
Non-consultation participants were allocated complex (Group 4) or placebo (Group 5); individualized homeopathy can only be prescribed through a consultation.
This study has not disclosed the homeopathic remedies given to Group 1 patients. it says nothing about (group 6) the pill pushers who organized this debacle.

Or (Group 7) the homeoapths. So here comes the homeopath who’s been asked to participate in a study on the effectiveness of homeopathy, and he finds that every one of these people are on racketeceuticals, and they’re having problems with blood clotting, they’re having heart attacks and strokes, kidney problems, they’re puffy from fluid retention, liver damage, and some are having potentially lethal stomach bleeding.

Did the individual consultations focus on totality of symptoms as presented by the patient or the clinical diagnosis as presented by Group 1, or the clinical daignosis as presented by Group 6? Just what was Group 1 given as a result of consulation? A bottle of whiskey and a couple of tickets to a good cage fight. Or how about a carefully folded note that says, “Run for your life.”

Statistically tt appears that Group 6 had a regression to the mean . . mean spirited that is.
So the challenge to Ernst and the Evil Empire still remains after all this time. Provide one trial that proves homeopathy is a “placebo.”
In the meantime, next time you get rheumatoid arthritis, go to a homeopath before the Vioxx pushers get their hands on you, or you might end up in a study like the one ISayISaw regurgitated here. Unless of course you want your heirs to collect on the settlement.

It might save yo a lot of money, time, pain and an early grave.

You know, I bet the people who wrote the Brien “human science experiment” take rulers to bed with them to see how long they sleep. I bet the real facts in this report could have been written on a piece of confetti. I bet they’re so stupid that if we gave them a goldmedal for it they’d have it bronzed.

They’re so stupid that if . . your thoughts go here:__.