The NHS and Homeopathy.

http://www.nhstayside.scot.nhs.uk/patients/PIL/LN0278%20web%20version.pdf

Surely if they cut the funding it would become more effective?

Do not
Take anything to eat or drink for 15 minutes before and after taking the tablet

Well you wouldn’t want to deincrease the effectiveness of the medicine by diluting it…

This thread needs a video clip from ‘That Mitchell and Webb Look’

Ah, this must be the one:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I[/video]

Nah, I think he meant this one:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNdrgjjsHsM[/video]

I suppose, placebos can make people feel better, and logically should cost absolutely nothing at all since it’s just tapwater. But if anyone uses it instead of actual medicine, under the NHS, then they should probably be sued til they implode.

If it works why mock it? Even if only a placebo effect. As long as people go to a qualified doctor for diagnosis I see no issue to give them homeopathic remedies.
I do see a problem when someone goes to see a non medical person and taking homeopathic medicine when they really should be taking prescription drugs.

iolo, maybe have a read of these to get an idea of the harm:

http://www.1023.org.uk/why-you-cant-trust-homeopathy.php
http://www.1023.org.uk/whats-the-harm-in-homeopathy.php

As for ‘if it works why mock it?’, it doesn’t work and is clearly ridiculous bollocks – that is why it is mocked.

explain conciousness to me in terms of provable scientific theory please.

I like the way patients will be treated as “unique individuals”.

explain conciousness to me in terms of the complete works of Hora. 🙂

iolo – Member
If it works why mock it? Even if only a placebo effect. As long as people go to a qualified doctor for diagnosis I see no issue to give them homeopathic remedies.

Remember to pop back and let us know when it’s actually proven to do anything at all.

And everyone thought the end of western civilisation would be due to nuclear war or over population, instead it looks like we’re going to regress back to the dark ages and disappear in a puff of denial and fantasy. When will we stop respecting the views of complete crackpots just because they’re passionate about their delusions.

There are enough folk on STW who do not believe in real medical treatment, so why not offer it on the NHS?

Why should we not offer it on the NHS?
Finite budget – Would you rather have Dr’s, Nurses, proven and effective medicine or a bottle of special water that once saw an orange.

This makes me shudder….I still don’t understand why it still operates under an NHS banner. I’ll hunt for it, but there’s documentation (sure it’s NICE) suggesting no homeopathy is offered on the NHS!
I had a patient asking for referral to it once…I declined…

And as to the harm of these sorts of things…
I was having a chat with one of our practice nurses about ‘alternative medicine’ (not ‘non traditional medicine’ such as physio and acupuncture, but BS ‘medicine’ like this) and she asked ‘what’s the harm’. I showed her the 1023 site and we discussed it a bit..
A week later she popped in to see me to tell me about a patient who’d seen an alternative therapist who suggested “there was no need to continue monitoring his PSA (prostate level) as it won’t do anything”. He is on treatment for prostate cancer and PSA levels are an important indicator of disease activity. He declined to have it monitored any more.
Bad times.
Sad times.

DrP

Family doctors and homeopathists all rely on one simple fact: that 95% of complaints will eventually resolve themselves.

Your family GP knows that by the time you’ve got in front of a specialist the problem will have gone away so he will bide his time and issue palliatives. Your homeopathist or any other quack relies on the fact in order to perpetuate the juju.

[video]http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0[/video]

I have this bizarre conversation with a mate’s wife. She’s anti religion but pro homeopathy. Ok with nhs spending money on magic book but anti money on a magic book.

Seems another great reason for us to let Scotland go.

it looks like we’re going to regress back to the dark ages and disappear in a puff of denial and fantasy. When will we stop respecting the views of complete crackpots just because they’re passionate about their delusions.

this^^^

Along with the antivaxxers, they should all be rounded up and put on an island somewhere where they can discover the effects of a measles and polio epidemic.

Strange name dr Malcolm FFHOM?
And if it’s so good why do they need disabled parking spaces?

jonah tonto – Member

explain conciousness to me in terms of provable scientific theory please.

you can’t prove a theory, you can only disprove it. That’s kinda how science works.

explain conciousness to me in terms of provable scientific theory please.

Explain the relevance of this question please.

Worth understanding that this leaflet comes from a palliative care unit.

If local results show 70% reported improvements, 40% moderate to good improvement then placebo or not, surely this is helping seriously ill patients cope with some horrible symptoms. Would you deny long term cancer or progressive MS patients anything that might help them suffer less?

Prove to me that you can pass the Turing Test please.

Depends how much it costs, whether you could spend that money on something more effective and whether you can get similar results from something cheaper (and less quackish).

it looks like we’re going to regress back to the dark ages and disappear in a puff of denial and fantasy. When will we stop respecting the views of complete crackpots just because they’re passionate about their delusions.

Scientists aren’t that bad. I’m all for using whatever we can to help people. Even if it offends your dogma there are people out there that have had positive results that cannot be yet attributed to conventional, accepted techniques.

Should we belittle them because they don’t conform or should we attempt to broaden our understanding? Seems pretty simple to me….

I think we need to consider combining therapies as a method of improving effectiveness and reducing costs.
Say Acupuncture and Voodoo.
That way you don’t even have to visit the therapist, they can just make a doll of you and stick needles in it.

New scientist had some articles recently about this – What about diazapam for post op patients that only seems to work if the patient knows they are getting it? And placebos that do no better in drugs trials than known active drugs.

Weird
I wouldn’t choose it myself though but see no reason to deny to someone that may well benefit however crackpot.

There are enough folk on STW who do not believe in real medical treatment,

Burn them!

I wouldn’t choose it myself though but see no reason to deny to someone that may well benefit however crackpot.

I would suggest that we don’t spend any money on it and just give them a glass of tap water with a label saying magic special water….

you can’t prove a theory, you can only disprove it. That’s kinda how science works.

Just as an aside, “prove” has a mostly archaic meaning of “test” in English hence “proving ground” and “exception that proves the rule”. So I suppose you can prove a theory but when you do, you don’t always prove it…

this^^^

Along with the antivaxxers, they should all be rounded up and put on an island somewhere where they can discover the effects of a measles and polio epidemic.

What we should do is put them all in Scotland and then initiate a massive engineering project so that Scotland floats off into the Atlantic, after which we introduce genetically modified midges that carry a weaponised Malaria.

There’d be no one left within a month.

after which we introduce genetically modified midges that carry a weaponised Malaria.

I was reading somewhere that Hitler considered this during WWII. Can’t recall if Scotland was the primary target though. But if it was good enough to test the Poll Tax, it’s good enough to test with weaponised midges.

For those of you suggesting it’s ok to offer quack remedies on the NHS two points to bear in mind, you might be aware of the placebo effect and happy it works, a lot of people won’t think of it as a pkacebo and believe it really works (ie the placebo effect) which is fine right up to the point they stop taking active medication axmentionned above. The second point to consider is for the placebo effect to work the patient must believe it will work which means the doctor will need to lie to the patient which isn’t very ethical. Any doctor who believes in homeopathy despite the underwhelming lack of efficacy evidence would be suspect to start with.

yossarian, I’ve no problem with medicine broadening it’s understanding as long as it’s done in a repeatable and rigorous way, just trying things at random with no understanding of how they work was what the quacks in the 18th century did. As for dogma being offended, it’s the established medical professionals way of doing things, if the alternative medicine brigade want to submit to the same controlled trials as main stream pharma then great.

mikewsmith – Member

Finite budget – Would you rather have Dr’s, Nurses, proven and effective medicine or a bottle of special water that once saw an orange.

What are the alternatives, and are they more expensive, is the question you need to ask there.

yossarian, I’ve no problem with medicine broadening it’s understanding as long as it’s done in a repeatable and rigorous way, just trying things at random with no understanding of how they work was what the quacks in the 18th century did. As for dogma being offended, it’s the established medical professionals way of doing things, if the alternative medicine brigade want to submit to the same controlled trials as main stream pharma then great.

Can I say from the outset that I’m not interested in having an argument about this? I am interested in discussing the role of as yet scientifically unproven remedies. I reckon that anyone in either side who thinks that they are conclusively ‘right’ is excluded 🙂

I should also say that I’ve never had any complimentary therapy that has skewed my judgement one way or the other. I’ve pretty much never been to see a doctor as it goes.

The comment above about 18 century ‘quacks’ interests me. Where did previous medicinal knowledge and experience come from? It wasn’t plucked from the air that’s for sure. There is a heritage of nature remedies and therapies, hedge lore to some I suppose, that pre dates what we consider to be rational. I wonder if it’s rationale, which must exist on some level, is not yet clear to us because our limited, proven understanding of the universe doesn’t allow for it. For me that’s not a valid reason to dismiss it, quite the opposite. Maybe there are cheap/free, easily distributable and teachable solutions right around the corner. Not looking for them because they don’t fit with a traditional view would’ve exactly the sort of obstacle that mankind would throw at itself.

yossarian – Member

The comment above about 18 century ‘quacks’ interests me. Where did previous medicinal knowledge and experience come from? It wasn’t plucked from the air that’s for sure. There is a heritage of nature remedies and therapies, hedge lore to some I suppose, that pre dates what we consider to be rational.

Dara’s got this one:

Ooo Dara, one of the best quotes I ever heard came from him, ‘everyone’s entitled to their opinion, doesn’t mean it’s worth anything though’.