Visiting a Homeopath

Sherbang · Mar 20, 2013

DJ... said:
Oh fine then. Very strict definition then. Have it your way. Means nothing at the end of the day. Still bullschit, regardless of whether you believe it was based on Paracelsus' work. Most homeopaths do, and it is taught to them as such as well.

But heck, if that's how you like to look at it then so be it...

Well, vaccines are also based on the 'like cures like' principle and clearly vaccines are not homeopathy (unless they are homeopathic vaccines) so clearly there is more to homeopathy than just 'like cures like' - it is the second ‘law’ of homeopathy, not the first, where medicine, and reality, part company with homeopathy - the ‘law’ of dilutions...

HapticSimian · Mar 20, 2013

To add: Taking your child to a homoeopath out of ignorance is one thing - although my interest in my kid's welfare would lead me to do some research beforehand - but doing so after you've been shown what lurks behind the curtain is tantamount to child abuse.

HelterSkelter · Mar 20, 2013

A vet once treated one of my cats with nosodes. Didn't think it worked. Interferon did work.

HapticSimian · Mar 20, 2013

Oh, flitting 'round the intertubes for an earlier point of discussion in this thread I came upon this gem of a website:

Though homeopathic medications such as arnica D6 are not considered effective treatments by most medical doctors, they are considered safe for patients to use. Anecdotal evidence suggests that taking arnica D6 can relieve pain, swelling, and bruising that cannot be treated by a topical herbal arnica remedy. Patients who have recently undergone surgery or who have sustained injuries over the entire body can use this remedy along with traditional medications. Arnica D6 is not known to interfere with any medication, so there is no possible harm in taking it, even if there is no official medical research that confirms its effectiveness.

Don't you worry your little head; our stuff doesn't actually do anything. Ah, the banality of bull****.

DJ... · Mar 20, 2013

joelus said:
Well, vaccines are also based on the 'like cures like' principle and clearly vaccines are not homeopathy (unless they are homeopathic vaccines) so clearly there is more to homeopathy than just 'like cures like' - it is the second ‘law’ of homeopathy, not the first, where medicine, and reality, part company with homeopathy - the ‘law’ of dilutions...

You really need to learn how vaccines work. http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/preventive-care/vaccine.htm

And in vaccines it is not the vaccine itself protecting you (note: not curing you - big difference), it is the development of antigen and antibody proteins in your system. There is no such reaction in the body to homeopathic treatments. Ever. This has been tested, studied, researched and proven ineffective for decades already.

The comparison is simply daft.

Secondly, medicine and homeopathy part ways from the very fundamental origins, principles and methodologies. It is not merely at dilution where the two differentiate. That is the biggest bit of disingenuous bullschit posted in this thread so far. To state that homeopathic laws must be treated linear and separate is just bizarre. Whether it is the second, third, eighteenth, seventy fifth, or first law, it makes no difference.

Thirdly, the law of dilutions is just nonsense. There is no basis for any truth in its claims. Nothing whatsoever. It makes no logical sense. It makes no scientific sense. And all credible testing of the dilution theory has proven that it is bull.

I really and truly cannot understand how any reasonable person could possibly look at the dilution theory and say "yeah, that makes perfect sense"...:wtf:

DJ... · Mar 20, 2013

HapticSimian said:
Oh, flitting 'round the intertubes for an earlier point of discussion in this thread I came upon this gem of a website:

Don't you worry your little head; our stuff doesn't actually do anything. Ah, the banality of bull****.

Here's real research into Arnica - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1296246/ Specifically the homeopathic arnica.

Perhaps one of the proponents would like to enlighten themselves...?

Sherbang · Mar 20, 2013

DJ... said:
You really need to learn how vaccines work. http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/preventive-care/vaccine.htm

And in vaccines it is not the vaccine itself protecting you (note: not curing you - big difference), it is the development of antigen and antibody proteins in your system. There is no such reaction in the body to homeopathic treatments. Ever. This has been tested, studied, researched and proven ineffective for decades already.

The comparison is simply daft.

I'm not the only one who makes the comparison though, and I do know how vaccines work, for example:

The first ‘law’ behind vaccines and homeopathy is the same: like cures like. Vaccines are the only medical validation of the first ‘law’ of homeopathy of which I am aware. It is the second ‘law’ of homeopathy where medicine, and reality, part company with homeopathy, the ‘law’ of dilutions. Where vaccines are given with a well characterized concentration of antigen, homeopathic nostrums are often diluted long past the point where anything remains behind. If a homeopathic nostrum is 20X, then there is no longer even a molecule of the original substance in the mixture. Which can be a good thing, since homeopaths use nosodes as their vehicle for imaginary vaccination.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/homeopathic-vaccines/

DJ... said:
Secondly, medicine and homeopathy part ways from the very fundamental origins, principles and methodologies. It is not merely at dilution where the two differentiate. That is the biggest bit of disingenuous bullschit posted in this thread so far. To state that homeopathic laws must be treated linear and separate is just bizarre. Whether it is the second, third, eighteenth, seventy fifth, or first law, it makes no difference.

Well, if you want to talk about and critique homeopathy then you need to know what homeopathy is - to just lump anything thats sounds vaguely like it is to murky the waters and indicates you are criticising something you actually know very little about - I don't think this is the case but it makes you less credible if you're making untrue statements about homeopathy.
The 'laws' of homeopathy are specified quite comprehensively - The first law is like cures like - but there are many other systems which use the same principle and are not homeopathy - even Hippocrates wrote, "By similar things a disease is produced and through the application of the like it is cured" way before Paracelsus - and, in the case of vaccines, even western medicine has a case of this law. When we get to the second law though, there is nothing in medicine to support it at all, and no other systems use dilution - potency - this is what makes homeopathy unique and thus is a defining element...

DJ... said:
Thirdly, the law of dilutions is just nonsense. There is no basis for any truth in its claims. Nothing whatsoever. It makes no logical sense. It makes no scientific sense. And all credible testing of the dilution theory has proven that it is bull.

I really and truly cannot understand how any reasonable person could possibly look at the dilution theory and say "yeah, that makes perfect sense"...:wtf:

I agree with this...

DJ... · Mar 20, 2013

DJ... · Mar 20, 2013

joelus said:
I'm not the only one who makes the comparison though, and I do know how vaccines work, for example:

Argumentum ad numerum is a fallacious argument to say the least. Please address how the mechanisms of vaccines are in any way comparable with homeopathy. Homeopathy does not define a physiological mechanism for efficacy, nor for delivery, so please collect your nobel prize on the way out after proving as such and accurately comparing it with vaccines.

You're simply throwing comparisons around that have no basis in reality. How in any way can homeopathy match up with what we KNOW about homoeostasis, for example? Moreover, if this were true, surely vitamin absorption and efficacy would work in the same way? In fact it would, as the metabolic systems operate the same way from absorption in the stomach and are then fed elsewhere through various mechanisms. So why would nutrient homeostasis work any differently to homeopathy and why do the same laws not apply to nutrient requirements as they do homeopathy?

Additionally, active ingredients are in such small doses that considering the surface area of water, it is likely to never make its way from the bottle (due to electrostatic reactions with the bottle itself - see meniscus error), through the mouth, down the throat and into the stomach. So how does the delivery mechanism work? Additionally, how does something like arnica oil help in the digestive tract when it is simply broken down into its chemical components (this is how the body works)? Additionally, once the chemical breakdown takes place, we now have an even lower dilution. This just makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. In any fashion.

Now let's move on to like vs like. We know this to be bullschit. Bacteria, viruses, cancers and disorders - how on earth is there any like vs like going on when one treats cancer with a dilution of oil? You're closer to making mayonaise than you are to treating anything on the principle of like cures like. If you believe in like cures like, then please identify how these herbs replicate various bacteria, viruses, cancers, disorders and hereditary problems. How is like vs like ever going to solve, let's say, a problem with hunger (hungre suppresants are big in homeopathy), when we know how how this is actually controlled by the hormones? So evidently the homeopathic treatments are replicating hormones now? Complex ghrelin, neuropeptide Y and proopiomelanocortin hormones are miraculously replicated by this watered-down single plant extract, that nobody has ever really researched whatsoever in terms of efficacy of treatment? It then also binds itself to receptors in the hypothalmus, right?

Or does this sound like a whole heap of schit, considering that these often simple compounds are broken down into their chemical components and considering metabolic rate, absorption, and how far it has to travel, it would never make it to the hpothalmus, nor be sufficient to trigger even the remotest, minimal amount of ghrelin into the system? This is the schit that in lower than negligible quantities supposedly cures us of ailments?

Utter fscking tripe...

Well, if you want to talk about and critique homeopathy then you need to know what homeopathy is - to just lump anything thats sounds vaguely like it is to murky the waters and indicates you are criticising something you actually know very little about - I don't think this is the case but it makes you less credible if you're making untrue statements about homeopathy.

Where am I bastardising what it claims to be? I know exactly what it claims to be and have even paged through the odd homeopathy book, much to my subsequent disgust. You're simply stating I misunderstand it as if it lends credibility to your posts. It doesn't...

The 'laws' of homeopathy are specified quite comprehensively - The first law is like cures like - but there are many other systems which use the same principle and are not homeopathy - even Hippocrates wrote, "By similar things a disease is produced and through the application of the like it is cured" way before Paracelsus - and, in the case of vaccines, even western medicine has a case of this law. When we get to the second law though, there is nothing in medicine to support it at all, and no other systems use dilution - potency - this is what makes homeopathy unique and thus is a defining element...

No reputable medicine operates on the principle of like cures like. If you're going to use vaccines again then you evidently do not understand the mechanisms involved in vaccines. The vaccine triggers an auto-immune response. It is the response that helps as a preventative measure later down the line, possibly. Vaccines do not, and never have cured someone of the ailment it attempts to protect you from. Vaccines do not work that way! Stop using them as comparable examples.

Secondly, hippocrates is a fscking imbecile if he wrote that. I'm sure he wrote a lot of other schit that has turned out to be false. Einstein was also wrong about a lot of things.

Thirdly, yes, dilution is a defining characteristic. It defines it as utter tripe, and a scam, even more so than its other ridiculous laws...

Sherbang · Mar 20, 2013

DJ... said:
Argumentum ad numerum is a fallacious argument to say the least. Please address how the mechanisms of vaccines are in any way comparable with homeopathy. Homeopathy does not define a physiological mechanism for efficacy, nor for delivery, so please collect your nobel prize on the way out after proving as such and accurately comparing it with vaccines.

You're simply throwing comparisons around that have no basis in reality. How in any way can homeopathy match up with what we KNOW about homoeostasis, for example? Moreover, if this were true, surely vitamin absorption and efficacy would work in the same way? In fact it would, as the metabolic systems operate the same way from absorption in the stomach and are then fed elsewhere through various mechanisms. So why would nutrient homeostasis work any differently to homeopathy and why do the same laws not apply to nutrient requirements as they do homeopathy?

Additionally, active ingredients are in such small doses that considering the surface area of water, it is likely to never make its way from the bottle (due to electrostatic reactions with the bottle itself - see meniscus error), through the mouth, down the throat and into the stomach. So how does the delivery mechanism work? Additionally, how does something like arnica oil help in the digestive tract when it is simply broken down into its chemical components (this is how the body works)? Additionally, once the chemical breakdown takes place, we now have an even lower dilution. This just makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. In any fashion.

Now let's move on to like vs like. We know this to be bullschit. Bacteria, viruses, cancers and disorders - how on earth is there any like vs like going on when one treats cancer with a dilution of oil? You're closer to making mayonaise than you are to treating anything on the principle of like cures like. If you believe in like cures like, then please identify how these herbs replicate various bacteria, viruses, cancers, disorders and hereditary problems. How is like vs like ever going to solve, let's say, a problem with hunger (hungre suppresants are big in homeopathy), when we know how how this is actually controlled by the hormones? So evidently the homeopathic treatments are replicating hormones now? Complex ghrelin, neuropeptide Y and proopiomelanocortin hormones are miraculously replicated by this watered-down single plant extract, that nobody has ever really researched whatsoever in terms of efficacy of treatment? It then also binds itself to receptors in the hypothalmus, right?

Or does this sound like a whole heap of schit, considering that these often simple compounds are broken down into their chemical components and considering metabolic rate, absorption, and how far it has to travel, it would never make it to the hpothalmus, nor be sufficient to trigger even the remotest, minimal amount of ghrelin into the system? This is the schit that in lower than negligible quantities supposedly cures us of ailments?

Utter fscking tripe...

Where am I bastardising what it claims to be? I know exactly what it claims to be and have even paged through the odd homeopathy book, much to my subsequent disgust. You're simply stating I misunderstand it as if it lends credibility to your posts. It doesn't...

No reputable medicine operates on the principle of like cures like. If you're going to use vaccines again then you evidently do not understand the mechanisms involved in vaccines. The vaccine triggers an auto-immune response. It is the response that helps as a preventative measure later down the line, possibly. Vaccines do not, and never have cured someone of the ailment it attempts to protect you from. Vaccines do not work that way! Stop using them as comparable examples.

Secondly, hippocrates is a fscking imbecile if he wrote that. I'm sure he wrote a lot of other schit that has turned out to be false. Einstein was also wrong about a lot of things.

Thirdly, yes, dilution is a defining characteristic. It defines it as utter tripe, and a scam, even more so than its other ridiculous laws...

Gosh, you are totally missing the point. See all the bold bits above - I never made any claimes related to any of that so it's all straw men...

The point about hippocrates was that the idea of like cures like precedes Paracelsus by centuries so your assertion that Paracelsus created it is nonsense, that's all - it doesn't mean I think he was right or that I'm using it as an argument to support homeopathy ... straw man again

Vaccines introduce a virus in order to protect the person from the same virus - so use like cures like.
The fact that homeopathy is bull**** is irrelevant - the point I was making is that like cures like is not the defining aspect of homeopathy - which you seemed to think it was by your reference to Paracelsus.

OrbitalDawn · Mar 20, 2013

joelus said:
Vaccines introduce a virus in order to protect the person from the same virus - so use like cures like.
The fact that homeopathy is bull**** is irrelevant - the point I was making is that like cures like is not the defining aspect of homeopathy - which you seemed to think it was by your reference to Paracelsus.

But it isn't the virus that protects the person from the virus? It's the body's adaptive capability that protects them, using a controllable amount of the virus to generate antibodies. It's akin to how they develop antivenoms. The immune response generates antibodies, which do the 'curing', not the venom itself.

The homeopathic parallel is claiming the venom itself is what's doing the 'curing', instead of the antibodies.

Sherbang · Mar 20, 2013

OrbitalDawn said:
But it isn't the virus that protects the person from the virus? It's the body's adaptive capability that protects them, using a controllable amount of the virus to generate antibodies. It's akin to how they develop antivenoms. The immune response generates antibodies, which do the 'curing', not the venom itself.

The homeopathic parallel is claiming the venom itself is what's doing the 'curing', instead of the antibodies.

Yes, of course, I was just commenting on the principle - like cures like - not the underlying mechanism! Homeopathy is rubbish, it doesn't work, there is no underlying mechanism, but the principle of like cures like describes vaccines, not the underlying machanism of operation (which is nothing like homeopathy) just the principle that a dose of the virus cures or protects a person from the same virus.

What makes homeopathy unique is not the idea that a small dose of something protects or cures a person from the same thing - which is mostly nonsense but is true for vaccines (by triggering the bodies immune system) but the dilution and potency rubbish - that is what defines homeopathy.

DJ... · Mar 20, 2013

joelus said:
Gosh, you are totally missing the point. See all the bold bits above - I never made any claimes related to any of that so it's all straw men...

The point about hippocrates was that the idea of like cures like precedes Paracelsus by centuries so your assertion that Paracelsus created it is nonsense, that's all - it doesn't mean I think he was right or that I'm using it as an argument to support homeopathy ... straw man again

Vaccines introduce a virus in order to protect the person from the same virus - so use like cures like.
The fact that homeopathy is bull**** is irrelevant - the point I was making is that like cures like is not the defining aspect of homeopathy - which you seemed to think it was by your reference to Paracelsus.

It is one of the defining characteristics of homeopathy. One doesn't simply ignore the etymology thereof because it has subsequently expanded.

What a stupid argument we were having then. I thought we were done with this ages ago already...

DJ... · Mar 20, 2013

joelus said:
Yes, of course, I was just commenting on the principle - like cures like - not the underlying mechanism!

But it is not like cures like ffs. That is the point. There is no cure, and you cannot simply ignore the mechanism to suit your assertions...

DJ... · Mar 20, 2013

joelus said:
What makes homeopathy unique is not the idea that a small dose of something protects or cures a person from the same thing - which is mostly nonsense but is true for vaccines (by triggering the bodies immune system)

Vaccines don't cure schit. We've addressed this already...

RiaX · Mar 20, 2013

dont waste your money with this rubbish.

HelterSkelter · Mar 20, 2013

Jislike reading about homeopathetic now, just last week I bought oscillococcinum. Should read the package next time I buy something and not just buy and pop into my mouth. Farking Dischem, displaying it everywhere.

Nanfeishen · Mar 20, 2013

DJ... said:
All from http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/homeo.html

Your source is somewhat dodgy :

US court rules that Dr. Barrett is a fraud and FDA front man.
Dr. Stephen Barrett of Quackwatch Exposed In Court Cases
http://doctorwatch.blogspot.com/2011/06/us-court-rules-that-dr-barrett-is-fraud.html

Several of their leadership, including infamous quackwatch.com author Stephen Barrett, National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF) president Bobbie Baratz, and others, are named in a now Federal "Racketeering" (RICO) complaint. Barrett and Baratz are being sued in Canada for their nefarious activities, and the NCAHF lost a major court decision to the homeopaths where the Courts awarded attorney fees the NCAHF has no ability to pay.

http://www.zoominfo.com/#!search/profile/person?personId=163402956&targetid=profile

Quackbusters Are Busted!

In Canada, Barrett admitted to claims made by a plaintiff(3) that:
The sole purpose of the activities of Barrett & Baratz are to discredit and cause damage and harm to health care practitioners, businesses that make alternative health therapies or products available, and advocates of non-allopathic therapies and health freedom.

http://www.gaia-health.com/articles251/000277-quackbusters-are-busted.shtml

DJ... · Mar 20, 2013

Told ya Nanfeishen would be here soon.

We've addressed the Stephen Barrett issue before. http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/504266-The-Alkaline-Diet?p=9813438&viewfull=1#post9813438

Moreover, Stephen Barrett is not the only linked debunking in this thread - there was plenty. Moreover, the court cases you refer to have no bearing on homeopathy's efficacy. Doesn't work that way...

DrJohnZoidberg · Mar 20, 2013

Shouldn't take too long to find another source though

Visiting a Homeopath

Executive Member

Honorary Master

Expert Member

Honorary Master

Banned

Banned

Executive Member

Banned

Banned

Executive Member

Ulysses Everett McGill

Executive Member

Banned

Banned

Banned

Executive Member

Expert Member

Executive Member

Banned

Honorary Master