WIKILIARS: Wikipedia and the case against homeopathy

We’re looking at a real, proven cure for cancer and we’re going to let these kind of games interfere with our use of it?

John Benneth responds to Wikipedia lies about homeopathy.

EXPOSES WIKIPEDIA contradicting what its sources conclude.

“The collective weight of scientific evidence has found homeopathy to be no more effective than a placebo.”  –Wikipedia

Investigation of Wikipedia’s sources reveals the statement to be not true and follows a disturbing trend of omitting, attacking or transmogrifying positive studies, tests, trials of homeopathy while pro forma accepting negative opinion as fact.

Since I made my bold predictions and video on Wikipedia, their article has changed slightly. Instead of the footnote numero uno [1] going to an obscure dictionary definition of homeopathy, it now goes directly to the number one hatemonger for homeopathy, Professor Edzard Ernst, a bizarre old self-described homeopath, a Dr. Frankenstein making malice and lies, author of the pretended  über review of homeopathy “A Systematic Review of Systematic Reviews of Homeopathy.”

Of course it’s nothing of the sort.

OUTRAGEOUS

It’s just a collection of his own garbage obscuring the evidence: One third of his references are to his own articles, opinion and commentary about homeopathy. And yet it is this squattaling albatross the groveling open online encyclopedia Wikipedia cravens to.

“A Systematic Review of Systematic Reviews of Homeopathy,” the chief wellspring of hatecrime against homeopathy, is the headwater of lies about homeopathy.

Out of 224 footnotes on homeopathy in Wikipedia, Ernst is in 16 of them. Non-scientist, high school drop out James Randi, an entertainer, illusionist and debunker with an alleged million dollars to lose if homeopathy is proven to work, is in three of them, referring to articles entitled such as “Horizon’s homeopathic coup, Cuzco’s altitude, more funny sites, the clangers, overdue, Orbito nabbed in Padua, Randi a zombie?, Stellar guests at amazing meeting, and great new Shermer books!”

What’s amazing to me is that anyone with any kind of real knowledge about homeopathy, or even anyone with a lick of sense as to what makes a decent article, is going to let this kind of crap pass without raising hell about it. The Wikipedia article is an obvious piece of black propaganda, its sources peopled with pharmaceutical company shills.

No? You don’t believe it? Then let me ask you this: Does such an article as Wikipedia’s on homeopathy NOT serve to benefit competing interests in the health scare industry?

Whether or not you believe homeopathic remedies have any biochemical action, would you NOT agree that they pose a threat to conventional medicine?

What is it do you think these people who are antagonistic to homeopathy are doing? Who do you think serves NOT to gain by homeopathy’s demise?  Could it not be that the antagonism to this tenacious remedial study sprung first from its  implausibility, led into facing a difficult to understand doctrine, and finally morphed into embarrassment from a too-hasty judgment leading to the fools gallery?

Yes, of course. If they’re so irrational, than why are they omitting rational evidence?

Because it proves them WRONG!

It proves them to be the very thing they feared and subsequently condemned.

Is it because it is something that they condemned so hastily and so severely, leaping at the chance to bully something they thought they would make them look smart and tough minded, that when finally faced with the evidence they said didn’t exist, they can’t recant without doing real harm to their precious reputations and their belly scraping self-esteem?

Isn’t it amazing how men wear their fears so brazenly written on their sleeves when they’re pointing an accusatory finger? A man most often it seems will condemn in others what he fears hides within himself.

We’re looking at a real, proven cure for cancer and we’re going to let these kind of games interfere with our use of it?

Well, I guess I shouldn’t be so naive, should I? I guess it’s to be cynically understood, sub silentio, isn’t it?

In a brutal world led by self proclaimed heroes who would drag us into the use of radioactive weapons against civilians, such as was recently done against the insurgency in Iraq, a few lies, such as those being issued by Wikipedia regarding a traditionally proven system of disease prevention and cure, redoubts against a complex and powerful health scare system, might seem like nothing.

But I must confess, I don’t buy into the cynicism so easily. Cynicism is for men wh0 sleep in barrels in the park, for losers, cowards and comedians.

I say to you that here a few lies are everything. It’s a quarter of century on the average lifespan. The world’s richest man of all time, richest in the values of a dollar both then and now, was a homeopath. John D. Rockefeller lived to be 97 years old and died with his homeopath by his side.  He was so committed to homeopathy that he ordered $350,000 for its support and development, but due to his philanthropic advisor defiance, it was diverted to the development of allopathic pharmaceuticals instead.

In 1906 the nation’s most powerful woman was a homeopath, as was her son and her first husband. Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science, had also become one of the nation’s wealthiest women, and discusses cases she had treated in the church manual. Her greatest critic the dean of American letters, was also an advocate of homeopathy. Mark Twain wrote, “The introduction of homeopathy forced the old school doctor to stir around and learn something of a rational nature about his business. You may honestly feel grateful that homeopathy survived the attempts of allopaths (the orthodox physicians to destroy it.”

Mahatma Gandhi was an advocate of homeopathy. He says, “Homeopathy …. cures a larger percentage of cases than any other method of treatment and is beyond doubt safer and more economical and most complete medical science.”

So certainly even my harshest critics must honestly observe how it is that I can have a passion for this work when some of the greatest people of the twentieth century were its advocates.

Not one major meta analysis has been able to effectively conclude that the action of homeopathic remedies is due solely to the placebo effect. Not even Shang, the most popular homeopathy meta analysis among skeptics, was able to clearly conclude that the effect was from placebo. A review of the data by independent analysis of Shang determined that even in this most damning meta of homeopathy,  “Homeopathy had a significant effect beyond placebo.” Ludtke Rutten

Why aren’t we seeing that in the Edzard Ernst dominated article on homeopathy in Wikipedia? This guy’s sticky fingers get all over everything that has anything to do with homeopathy.

Now, I can’t run out into the street and effectively stop marches to war by grabbing guns or lying down in front of tanks, but I can say something about a carefully orchestrated corruption peddling deliberate lies, as is being done on Wikipedia.

‘Homeopathy ^{i/ˌhoʊmi‘ɒpəθi/} (also spelled homoeopathy[1] or homœopathy) is a form of alternative medicine in which practitioners claim to treat patients using highly diluted[2][3] preparations that are believed to cause healthy people to exhibit symptoms that are similar to those exhibited by the patient. The collective weight of scientific evidence has found homeopathy to be no more effective than a placebo.[2][3][4][5][6]

Let’s take a closer look at the footnote, go to the article and see what the author actually said.

[2] ERNST: “The existence of contradicting evidence is not unusual in therapeutics. One solution to resolve such contradictions is to conduct systematic reviews and meta-analyses of rigorous studies. In 1997, Linde et al did just that. The conclusions of this technically superb meta-analysis expressed the notion that homeopathic medicines more than mere placebos.” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1874503/

Oh, what was the conclusion of a technically superb meta-analysis is now just a notion? And really, isn’t Ernst leading us to thinking in misnomers? He says he’s a “trained homeopath.” Well, at what point in his training did he take such a skeptical view of it? Where did he get this training? From a textbook he wrote on it?

When he says that homeopathy is more than a mere placebo’s, what’s he referring to, exactly?

Finally theyf ound a man who’s really willing to completely betray himself, set aside all standards of science and attend to the highes ideals of equivocation.

But let me take a moment to be kind. Maybe he didn’t check the exact meaning of the word homeopathy? Does it not refer to similitude, not dilution? Is that what he’s talking about? Or is he whining about this long standing complaint that anything diluted 1 to 100 a few times can’t have any biological effects?

I don’t know. First of all, he must know about hormesis, the Arndt Schultz Law, that substances that will usually depress an organic system, will in very small amounts stimulate it.

He must be aware of the FACT that the action of similitude is credited with being the operative mechanism in providing the world with its greatest achievement, the small pox vaccine? Of course! What else would it be? Such is the mechanism for most vaccines. Hair of the dog that’s about to bite you. Prior to control of the deadly pox by homeopathic vaccination, variolation was the preferred method of immunization (technically isopathy) . . not like cures like, but same cures same. Homeo means similar. Homo means equal. There’s a huge difference missed by nuance. They used to use a knife blade to inject the serum from the infected into the uninfected by cutting it into the crease of your ass where the butt meets the thigh, so as to hide the ensuing ugly infection and ultimate scar, and in this way partially immunize against the disease. But then they found that the serum from a similar  disease in cattle provided better protection, and it was made famous by Jenner.

Hahnemann called it testimony and proof of homeopathy.

“Not one case receiving homeopathic care died, while the “old school” doctors lost twenty percent of their (smallpox) cases…..I gave about three hundred internal vaccinations, five to adults acting as practical nurses; to the man who installed the telephone and lights in the pest-house; to mothers who slept with their children while they had smallpox in its severest form. All of these people, exposed daily, were immune.”–W. L. Bonnell, MD [ http://www.whale.to/v/bonnell.html ]

Follow the link 0n that one and read about Bonnell’s trial amd the difference between vaccinoid and variolinoid. But are the anonymous editors at Wikipedia going to supply readers with links like these? Hell no, this is too much proof for homeopathy.

Now, allow me to repeat the question. Who made this man Ernst a homeopath?

Does he know about anti venom? Isn’t that an example of homeopathy in the crude form?

Like cures like.

Adderall and Ritalin are ADHD “medications” that operate on the principle of homeopathy, being nothing more than methamphetamine salts.

Homoeopathy.

In fact, I might be compelled to say that I suspect just about every action has a homeopathic-like component in the response. There are other examples of homeopathy. In chemistry, like dissolves like in the action of solvents. In electromagnetics, like repels like in the action of magnets. And of course every bit of matter, living and not, has an electromagnetic component to it. What is it that holds the Moon in orbit so that it neither crashes into the Earth nor flies away from it?

Magnetism

Elucidating magnetism  is no different than the explanations  of Hahnemann, reciting what is at the heart of the homeopathic effect.

You know, I really don’t know how it is that a guy like Ernst can’t feel some shame or anxiety when reading an article like this.

And he says he’s a homeopath? How does a man like that sleep at night?

I wrote to Ernst once and asked him if he was still offering $10,000 for proof of homeopathy. He wrote back and said that he had pulled the offer. Just like any grease pole contest. When somebody with spikes on his boots shows up, the on man pulls the offer and heads for a new ounty before the sheriff arrives.

Could it be that Ernst thinks he received his education from me?

LINDE:  “The results of our meta-analysis are not compatible with the hypothesis that the clinical effects of homeopathy are completely due to placebo.” Linde, Are the clinical effects of homeopathy placebo effects? A meta-analysis of placebo-controlled trials. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9310601

Linde also says, “However, we found insufficient evidence from these studies that homeopathy is clearly efficacious for any single clinical condition.”

The reason for Linde’s statement that there is insufficient evidence for any single clinical condition” is self evident. The Linde review is a meta analysis of the literature asking the question whether or not homeopathy is a placebo. Efficacy for any single clinical condition can’t be answered in such a review, and that’s why they had to put in that caveat. But Ernst takes this caveat and turns it into the meaning he wants. In his really not so systematic review he reworks Linde to say, “The authors also stated that no indication was identified in which homeopathy is clearly superior to placebo.”

As anyone can see, they did NOT state that.

Ernst says, “In conclusion, the hypothesis that any given homeopathic remedy leads to clinical effects that are relevantly different from placebo or superior to other control interventions for any medical condition, is not supported by evidence from systematic reviews. Until more compelling results are available, homeopathy cannot be viewed as an evidence-based form of therapy.”

From this the anonymous authors of Wikipedia allege, “The collective weight of scientific evidence has found homeopathy to be no more effective than a placebo.”

Even Ernst can’t say that.

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CAN SCIENCE PROVE HOMEOPATHY? Similia

A Journal commentator who goes by the name Madgav writes:

It does sound as though you’re suggesting that, because science does not explain everything, we should act as though it explains nothing.

“Like produces like. Dogs come from dogs, humans from humans, etc.
Like attracts like. We don’t see that humans are attracted to monkeys, apart from a few exceptions and that in a very limited way.
Like imitates like. We don’t see the donkey playing lion.
Like cures like, as homoeopathy always proves.
Like neutralises like. The antidote will always neutralise the effect of the previous remedy.”

This was a particularly interesting series of assertions:

To clarify then, your ‘like comes from like’ comment would seem at odds with evolution (dolphins coming from terrestrial mammals etc). ‘Like attracts like’ you already debunked… ‘like imitates like’ denies mimicry and ‘like neutralises like’ seems to ignore the basic principles of chemistry (for example, acid neutralising base).

Obviously ‘like cures like’ is a central tenet of homeopathy. But I have yet to see anyone with vomiting respond better with ipecac than they do with metoclopramide.

Could you perhaps expand on your thoughts here? Your post did read like a ‘stream of consciousness’ and a little clarification would perhaps aid comprehension.

John Benneth responds

Dear Madgav,

Actually, what I’ev been saying to both the ske[ptic andhomeoapth alike is that homeopathy can be explained in terms of classical science. Not quantum, but nuts and bolts material science, and that if you look for it, you can find examples that simply haven’t been hooked up to homeopathy yet. 

It is the prevailing assumption of those who oppose homeopathy, and most homeopaths have unfortuantely believed them.

I have rule: Don’t believe the opposition. Not a word. They’re either stupid or flat out lying, the second includes the first. That it is idiopathic, that its principles cannot be found outside of it in classical science, is a lie that has been racing around now for decades.

Reception follows not without knock: Whether or not homeopathy can be explained by the material sciences is one of the world’s most important questions, for if such elegance, surviving the relentless attack of allopathy, can at last be described in the language of classical science, then the stage is set for a massive shift in the practice of  internal medicine. The only way to know is to ask. Is there a classic analog to similia similibus curentur? The door opens. There is.  The action of llike cures like can be seen chemically and energetically, as well as biologically.
Madgav here, for example has already stuck his neck out about it. He assumes there isn’t anything in the normal view of it that could  explain the Hahnemannian hypothesis that like cures like, even though he’s unoubtedly heard that y0u can fight fire with fire, and he’s probably been told numerous times to pick on somebody his own size, because if he would, he’d get his clock cleaned, as I’m about to do.

Water is the universal solvent, technically a polar protic solvent. In chemistry, observing the aciton of solvents we see that like dissolves like. In that more people who want to argue the paradox of homeopathic medicine aren’t aware of these principles or simply haven’t applied what they know from observing and experiencing it, shows a basic error in allopathic thinking, that errors must always be corrected by the mass action of opposing forces.

Protic means that it is capable of donating a hydrogen ion. Polar means that it is has magnetically opposing poles, the hydrogen end of the water molecule having two positives, the opposite end two negative ones. We also know that the simillimum principle in homeopathy of like cures like also has an analog in the magnetic law that says opposites attract, while like repels like.

Vaccines are a prime examples of the use of non-dynamized type of homeopathy, although it would tehcnically be called isopathy, treating disease with an indetical agent.  which in the dynamic form is sometime used by homeoapths to open a case. isopahty works, but poorly compared to homeopathy. (Hahnemann, Hering)
The action of similia, in biology, is seen as a phenomenon called hormesis, also expressed as the Arndt Schultz law. Poisons that kill in large amounts have been found to stimulate in small amounts, which is exactly what Hahnemann discovered after cutting down material dosages of the substances used as medicines during his day
It was due to the abuses of the allopathic approach, which tries to correct problems by overwhelming them with substances that produce opposite symptoms, that led Hahnemann, an accomplished allopathic physician and chemist, to start cutting back dosages to his patients. This was after had  left the practice of medicine entirely,  in disgust, after seeing what the allopathic approach did to his patients.  But love of his children, and demand for his services is what led him back to medicine to begin experimenting with lighter dosages.
What he discovered was that even when by drastic dilution he had cut the dosage back to practically nothing, people were still reacting to it. Even when adminstering remedies that were well above the molecular limit, Hahnemann was disturbed to see people still aggravated by them. Only in the last years of his career in the developement of the fifty millesimal scale did he find a posology that appeared to be consistent with his oath to do no harm.

Early on Hahnemann  discovered that dilution of substances, which in their whole material form we’re medically inert, when made into crytallized extractions  by succussion and dilution became effective drugs with properties unsupected in their gross material form.
Lycopodium, made from the spores of the club moss, is a good example of dynamic caenogenesis, the creation of new symptomology from an inert substance by potentization. When dynamized, Lycopodium causes symptoms unknown in its gross form.  Dynamized Lycopodium, by the way, is what I see as the cyberskeptic’s remedy. The issues for cyberskeptics are bullying, cowardice and impotence, symptomology Lycopodium addresses, and is one of the Western world’s most common remedy patterns. Politicans, scientists, managers, American males have a great  number of Lycopodium types among them. According to Philip Bailey, MD, author of “Homeopathic Psychology,” you can walk into a science classroom and every one of them will be a Lycopodium. I have seen something similar, as has Kaviraj. I suspect, however, that genius level scientists are not Lycopodium, and I think BDJ is a prime example. 

Perhaps whoever is doing the chemtrail operation could be induced to add in a little . . oh,  never mind.  I myself have been characterized as a Lycopodium, although I have found Sulphur to have more dramatic relief. In review of my videos, one homeopath, noting drastic character changes in  presentation, said my simillimum appears to be molybdenum . . I have found that to be very insightful. Some of these homeopaths, like Kaviraj or Dr. Shashi Sharma of Hahnemann College in London, are so experienced they can see a person’s simillimum within moments of meeting them.
So now you have three natural orthodox corollaries of the central medical theme of homeopathy, one that is chemical and the other electromagnetic, and seen some examples of it.
Similia can be applied with having to use homeopathic remedies. Cooks know that when burned, if they hold the burn back over the heat briefly, it will help it to stop hurting quicker. If you have a cough, try a smoking a little tobacco. If you’re cold, try taking a cold shower . . or if hot, a hot one.
Similia suggests a whole new way of dealing with the world. Pushing the paradigm a little further is a good way to get it to correct itself.