14 July 2006

Homeopathic Danger

I personally am pretty open minded, and think that if homeopathic medicine works at least as a placebo it can only be a good thing, however, in some cases I think its best to stick with what has been medically proven.

So when I read This I was quite worried that homeopathic practitioners where suggesting that people dont take anti malaria tablets, they have nsty side effects, instead try a homeopathic remedy!

Of course the great thing is if homeopathic remedies for serious illness dont work, what makes them work for minor ailments?

Personally I think these homeopathic 'practitioners' are obviously making a quick buck out of some of these people, and in cases such as this I would expect the people who suffered, as giving false medical advice knowingly is infact a crime.

The BBC investigated this and put the following quote on their site,

"The doctors have this big fear thing about malaria... obviously it is a nasty thing, but actually, as I say, you can prevent it with the remedies and as you say the tablets are really horrible. They're very nasty, have nasty side effects, and I've seen quite a lot of patients who have had serious problems from them."

Ok, from a salesmans point of view here is what I see,

They have dumbed down maleria, made it seem insignificant so that people will focus on what the Homeopathic Practitioner (HP) wants, the sentance also dumbs down the doctor, making them seem like liars, or even salesmen, trying to get you to use their product.

The repetition of the word nasty 3 times in the paragraph relating to the conventional malaria drug, this is a technique often used, repetition of words with negative connotations used in relation to a competitors products is a trick often used by advertisers.

The HP Claims that she has seen many many problems with the conventional medicine, again straongly suggesting the client finds something else.

Infact the only time the Homeopathic remedy is mentioned is in passing, this is a typical subliminal technique used by salesman as it makes the client think of homeopathic remedies positively, and then since the HP hasnt yet properly mentioned the Homeopathic solution I think it would be the Client who mentions using Homeopathic drugs.

This instantly means that the client is asking for something, so the HP can make it seem like the client has just had a brilliant idea.

I think the whole use of this obvious salesman technique in a medical profession is a disgrace, and defiantely grounds for a few lawsuits.

Are any of you users of homeopathic remedies?

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would be as cynical as you, if it hadn't worked quite so spectacularly with my mum. She had an inner ear problem that meant she staggered when she walked, couldn't look at busy patterns without getting dizzy, couldn't do heights..etc.. and she took these homeopathic pills for a few months without any real effect and was just taking them out of habit not because she thought theyd work, and suddenly one day they worked, and now her balance and everything is fine... Having said that, I'm not sure I'd risk them for something more short term like malaria pills on holiday though.

Oli said...

Would you say it was the millionth part of some homeopatch remedey, placedo effect or maybe a change in diet?

If she had been doing it for several months with absolutely no change then wouldnt you think that it was something else that perhaps fixed her problem?


I have to admit my mum is obsessed with homeopathy she used it for colds and flu & claimed it ass a huge success, incidentally this was about the same time she discovered lemsip, it was defiantely the homeopathy that made everyone get better much quicker though.

Anonymous said...

I'm fairly sure it was the homeopathy, she's fairly cynical as far as mums go, and she definitely wasn't believing it was having an effect, and the way she describes it happening as a very sudden thing is quite similar to how other people have described homeopathy affecting them so I don't think it was anything else either..but she's also had it work well for asthma and hayfever, its never worked for either me or her on colds and that kind of thing though

Anonymous said...

Inner Ear problem? - What inner ear problem? - Was it an infection, a swelling, a growth - you don't say. Sounds to me like just one of those things that often gets better all by itself. Since your mum was simple taking some expensive water (or chalk pills) then it almost certainly did get better all by itself. Controlled tests (which in this case would involve many mums with the same inner ear problem some taking the homeopathetic remedy and some taking placeboes neither the mums or the docs knowing which was which untill later) have shown time and time again that there is nothing in homeopathy (excuse the pun there). Grow up and stop believeing in magic.

Oli said...

My IT teacher back at college used to tell our class repetedly about research that had been done into homeopathic one group given homeopathic medicine the other not, the homeopathic drugs worked 80% of the time the none homeopathic sugar pills worked 60%

First thing we did was point out that 60% of one focus group had got better on sugar water alone, after 5 minutes of internet surfing we discovered that there had been many tests on the effectiveness of homeopathy, surprisingly enough with these 50-50 splits the effectiveness of water and homeopathic drugs was about equal
(please note that the subjects were not told which they were being given)

Just out of interest could you justify a test as accurate when it technically proved that water was 60% effective at treating illness? (Cant remember what the specific illness was)

Anonymous said...

You are right - what were the 'ilnesses' that 60% of people recoverd from? - Probably very nebulous ailments, I'll bet. Or things that don't have well understood causes - unlikely to be malaria or a broken leg! Don't get me wrong - I am a great believer in 'mind-over-matter' and a positive outlook has fantastic healing capacity for these general malaises. I therefor believe that if you think something like a sugar pill is going to work then it may well do. This doesn't explain the supposed efficacy of homeopathic cures on animals though - except I suspect the owners expectations can be picked-up by the animal which responds accordingly.

Oli said...

I agree with willpower and stuff, unfortunately the homepoathic tests also seem to run along the same lines as the human tests. Did a bit of googling and there are as many animal tests that disprove homeopathy as those that prove it. A lot of the stuff we read has been altered to pursue a perception.

Anonymous said...

I have begun to develop asthma twice in my life, and they have been resolved after a homeopathy treatment on both occasions. The second time, the "normal" doctor I went to said that the only thing that can be done is minimizing exposure to triggers to decrease the frequency of asthma attacks. I credit homeopathy with the fact that, without using any drugs, I have not had any asthma problems for more than a decade.

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