See also ‘pain reliving gel’. There’s no evidence to suggest that Ibuprofen can be absorbed through the skin, all you’re doing is giving the area an expensive massage.

I’ve found some benefit from them. While I’m quite prepared to believe it’s the placebo effect, rubbing, getting better anyway etc I’ve also seen comments that ibuprofen gels have some effect.

Lead researcher Dr Andrew Moore, of the Nuffield Department of Anaesthetics at the University of Oxford, said

“What we know does work is topical non-steroidal anti-inflammatory gels like ibuprofen. There is pretty good evidence that they work well and are pretty safe.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8138567.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8138567.stm

So what we need is a well funded and discrete placebotherapy department in the NHS prescribing sugar pills under various fancy names. Sounds like a surefire moneyspinner.

what are they going to do with the stocks of homepathic “medicine” surely pouring it away will only make it stronger?

If we say that it’s OK to prescribe things that are not proven more effective than placebo, then that opens up crazy corollaries. Imagine if a big pharma company was found to have been successfully selling (and profiting from) a ‘drug’ that actually did nothing more than placebo. Imagine the (appropriate) outcry and claims of evil. Them saying “yes, OK, we kind of cheated, but look – people felt better!” would not help or make it OK.

You should read ‘Anatomy of an Epidemic’ by Robert Whitaker – he points out that a lot of psychiatric drugs do nothing more than a placebo. When you read about that some of the pharma corporations get up to it’s quite scary really.

Back to the topic in hand though, what one must remember is that there’s a awful lot of people who do not actually have anything wrong with them, they just present symptoms to which the doctor can find no cause i.e. its all in their head!

It seems to me that if someone is exhibiting psychosomatic symptoms then a homeopathic cure might be right up their street. Not to mention all the nutters that present at the surgery every other month with a new problem.

Also, I’d have though that all the people currently getting treated with homeopathic medicine will have to be given the real McCoy if it’s banned. That’s only going to cost more and give big pharma even more of a monopoly that it already has.

So what we need is a well funded and discrete placebotherapy department in the NHS prescribing sugar pills under various fancy names. Sounds like a surefire moneyspinner.

Maybe they already do it, but if they told everyone then it wouldn’t work, would it? 😉

Same as Trident, it’s only ever a deterrent so just make everyone think you’ve bought a load of subs and missiles, and you get to pocket a few hundred billion for coke and hookers.

Funny thing is, you can tell someone they are been givien a placebo, labelled placebo, and it can still work. Wonderful thing the human mind.

See also ‘pain reliving gel’. There’s no evidence to suggest that Ibuprofen can be absorbed through the skin, all you’re doing is giving the area an expensive massage.

Sorry TINAS but that is nonsense, the dose-adjusted bioavailablity of ibuprofen is 22% compared with tablets. The gels include special skin permeability agents to help absorption into tissue and are tested in placebo-controlled trials before licensing.

As for the placebo response, about half of all psychiatric trials will have a placebo response that is sufficient to obscure any signal for an efficacious treatment. That doesn’t mean that the drug doesn’t work, it means the trial is not capable of showing it works. The action of entering a trial changes the patient disposition.

Now back to water… Oh yes, homeopathic overdosing.

So what we need is a well funded and discrete placebotherapy department in the NHS prescribing sugar pills under various fancy names.

Maybe there is, but for it to work we’d need to be unaware that there is. Even the doctors would need to be kept in the dark for it to work really well.

and you get to pocket a few hundred billion for coke and hookers.

Well, you’ll think its coke but how will you really know- you and the dealer could both be part of a randomised double blind narcotics trial – in that trial it may turn out that someone can be just as much tiresome, self congratulatory arsehole when the snort the placebo. 🙂

Sorry TINAS but that is nonsense, the dose-adjusted bioavailablity of ibuprofen is 22% compared with tablets. The gels include special skin permeability agents to help absorption into tissue and are tested in placebo-controlled trials before licensing.[/quote]

Thank you for that – I’ve always believed it had a benefit, and TINAS nearly spoiled it 😉

As for homoeopathy, as a scientist I have similar views to most on this thread about the promotion of it. However there’s a but, a big but…

The thing is, being given a placebo and being lied to isn’t a fake cure – it’s clinically proven to be effective for certain things. More effective than all your pain management clinics, support groups etc. Effective for things which are quite real conditions, not just all in the mind.

What’s more, whilst the placebo effect is effective even if you know you’re getting a placebo, it’s also been clinically proven to be a lot more effective if you really believe in it, which is where the woo comes in. Of course in double blind trials homoeopathy has been proven to be no more effective than placebo (I would be very concerned if there were different results), that’s placebo where people think they are getting homoeopathy.

So yes I am very uncomfortable with the promotion of the homoeopathy lie (apart from anything else it legitimises delusionists / con artists like Dr Helen Beaumont who ought to be struck off), but the trouble is, stopping homoeopathic treatment is likely to result in those people who do benefit from placebo being worse off as there isn’t a suitable alternative with a similarly strong belief system.

What really winds me up though is the need for the BBC to have a “balanced article” with equal space given to those who represent 0.1% of the scientific community as those who represent 99.9%.

Same as Trident, it’s only ever a deterrent so just make everyone think you’ve bought a load of subs and missiles, and you get to pocket a few hundred billion for coke and hookers.

I am fully on this page – although i’d rather they spent it on nurses and schools

Maybe just 5% of a trident program? Or some fireworks that spell out “oh – fecksticks”

In fact can you apply homeopathty to nuclear deterrents?

There have already been placebo based trials. Ben goldacres book bad science has a chapter on placebo (and nice I!) which is a great introduction.

They are shown in trials to work when:

Neither the Dr or patient knows.

When the Dr does know but the patient doesn’t.

And when the Dr explains to the patient

Varying levels of efficacy which I can’t recall but the idea that a medic can tell some one that the tablet is inert and it will still ‘work’ is incredible really. Also consider the colours/sizes of tablets. There’s studies on that too.

all of the above arguments have their place but lets face it…..

the homeopathic treatments do not work, they cost money

Actually yes they do.

A relative of mine just posted this on FB. Apparently only 13% of NHS treatments are of proven benefit.

Load of made up pish.

A relative of mine just posted this on FB. Apparently only 13% of NHS treatments are of proven benefit.

Load of made up pish.

In what way exactly is that a load of made up pish?

I’ve got to the end of the first page and so far all I’ve encountered is referenced facts.

Are you a sheep with ideas above its station or are you being deliberately idiotic?

Your quite right. It isn’t made up it’s just misrepresentative and poorly argued.

See what happens if you try to debate wth them

Its a set of highly one sides misrepresented starts selected only to demonstrate that that normal medicine is shit and homeopathy is awesome

Its not actual a summary of the true actual picture its a polemic

Its a referenced example of confirmation bias and nothing more

Not one mention of all the countless studies and the view of the cochrane collaboration on the effectiveness of homeopathy

ie only partial facts presented.
Its like reading global warming stuff , sounds scientific, looks researched but its cheery picking from all the medical research available to present a slewed picture of its efficacy – ie its made up pish

[professional hat on]
Psychiatry drug trials are particularly hard to measure.

There are pages and pages of arguments out there just discussing the repiability or validity of the measures and rating scales used to quantify symptoms of mental ill health, so that is rather muddy waters before you even start looking for yr trial cohort or doing your baseline measurments!

Then there is the subjectivity of the patient’s own experience and that of the person assessing them if symptoms are examined by interview or observation. Consider the people who agree to double blind trials and also the people who get enthusiastic about researching or carrying them out.

Then there are so many biological or social variables in mental wellbeing which have nothing to do with drugs or indeed placebo drugs.

Then there are trials that just get “buried” or more publicly rubbished because the outcome was not what the ‘sponsor’ wanted. (I forget if its naomi klein’s book or ben goldacre but there are a couple recent of examples of this)

So from a cost and public helath point of view, much of mental health work is done on the basis of ‘more likely’ and ‘less likely’ that actually the cost to society by days off sick or off school, hours spent in specialist inpatient or outpatient care and the relatively low impact of side effects makes it worth a try in many cases. And in many cases you have very little to lose as a patient by trying pills either as a main treatment or an adjunct to talking therapies.

That said, most of my patients [childrens mental health] are not on meds at all and will never be because there is not enough (shaky or otherwise) evidence to suggest they will help at all.

[professional hat off again]

“observational studies” 😆

YOu mean they have proved that people who take homeopathic remedies claim they work now that is surprising.