Health Freedom: Freedom for Quacks from pesky government interference.

You think pretty highly of scientific methods and empirical evidence and seem to be trying to me me sound like I believe in unicorns. A doctor and scientist created homeopathic medicine he spent a lot of time researching and writing papers on his findings.
I was making a distinction between logic/reason/science and arbitrary unsubstantiated belief in anything, whether it's homeopathic medicine or allopathic medicine or invisible flying pink unicorns. If you will concede that baseless assertions are not enough to demonstrate truth, and that anecdotal evidence is too biased to say anything useful, and that we must determine truth with logic, reason, and responsible (read: scientific) evaluation of empirical evidence, then we can move forward.

Something I will tell you about homeopathic and why it works. It works on the cellular level. Thru dilution and shaking the healing substance or the "like" is is broken down to be smaller than the cell and the cell can absorb it. Modern science could probably learn a lot about the way they use giant molecules to bump up against the cells and damage them rather than be absorbed and used by the cell to create immunity with homeopathic dosages. If vaccine were made in homeopathic dosages they would be much more effective and safer to store, distribute and administer with none of the dangerous side effects. There are homeopathic vaccines. I know the FDA does not approve it but for me I do not care if the FDA approves it. I want to use it for my self and I don't think the government ought to be able to decide what I put into my body.

Sure, except these explanations are merely untested hypotheses, and homeopaths have never made a serious attempt to support them with empirical evidence or falsify them through experimentation. In short, homeopaths conjured up these explanations in a vacuum, and they have no demonstrated basis in reality. It's much like ancient people saying the sun rose every day because the sun god lifted it into the sky; they just made it up, because it made sense to them from their limited vantage point. (The difference is that back then, people didn't have the tools to test their hypotheses...today, homeopaths do, but actually being responsible and running tests to try to falsify their own BS would not only be bad for business but emotionally crushing to them. They're in way too deep to accept or face that kind of embarrassment.)

Besides, through dilution, the "like" is often broken down to the point where not even a single molecule of it exists anymore in most doses given, or even the whole bottle...rendering your explanation moot. After being confronted with this reality, more sophisticated homeopaths have dreamt up untested hypotheses about water memory (the water retains a memory of the molecules of active substance that used to be in it) and quantum mechanics, except in reality, the closest real phenomenon to water memory lasts for only a tiny fraction of a second, and the quantum physics argument is a total asspull.

I do agree with you that the government has no right to tell you what to put in your body...but that doesn't mean I think it's reasonable to actually believe in homeopathic medicine.
 
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Homeopathic Medicine
http://www.holistic-online.com/homeopathy/homeo_clinical.htm

Clinical Studies:

Homeopaths point to the nearly two hundred years of clinical experience of convinced doctors and satisfied patients. Homeopathic remedies are believed to be effective in treating a wide variety of illnesses: infectious diseases such as flu and colds; chronic conditions such as allergies, asthma, migraines, and PMS. Conventional medicine has not had much of success in treating many of these conditions.

Several clinical studies exist that show the effectiveness of homeopathic remedies. Many of these studies employed double blind studies, accepted by scientists. Recent clinical trials suggest that homeopathic medicines have a positive effect on allergic rhinitis, asthma, treatment of dermatological complaints, fibrositis, influenza, and for the treatment of migraine.

In 1994, the first study that involved homeopathy was published in a peer-reviewed American scientific journal. Jennifer Jacobs, M.D., led the study, which was conducted in Nicaragua and included eighty-one children with acute diarrhea. All the children received standard antidehydration treatment for diarrhea, consisting of water containing salt and sugar. In addition, half the children received homeopathic treatment and half received a placebo. The study confirmed homeopathy's effectiveness: the recovery time for children receiving homeopathic treatment was 20 percent faster than those receiving the placebo, reducing the bout of diarrhea by one day. These results are heartening because diarrhea is the leading cause of death in developing countries such as Nicaragua.

In 1991, the British Medical Journal published an analysis of 107 clinical studies published between 1966 and 1990. The authors found that in 81 of the experiments, the homeopathic treatments were successful. Even when they included only the 23 studies that they considered to be of the highest quality, the vast majority of these (15) showed positive results. Here's how the results broke down: 13 out of the 19 trials of respiratory infection treatment were effective, 6 out of 7 were positive for other infections, 5 out of 7 were positive for digestive system treatment, 5 out of 5 were successful for hay fever, 5 out of 7 showed accelerated recovery after surgery, 4 out of 6 helped in rheumatological disease, 18 of 20 were beneficial for pain or traumatic injury; and 8 out of 10 worked for mental or psychological problems.

In one study published in Lancet by Dr. David Taylor Reilly and his colleagues compared the effects of a homeopathic hay-fever remedy with a placebo. In this double-blind controlled study, Dr. Reilly found that those who received the homeopathic remedy had six times fewer symptoms and were able to cut their use of antihistamines in half.

Another study published in 1989 in the British Medical Journal dealt with fibromyalgia. The double- blind, controlled trial was also "crossed over," meaning the treatment lots were switched after one month so the subjects could be compared, not only with each other, but also with themselves. The results were evaluated by a rheumatology professional who was not a homeopath. The study found that the homeopathic remedy provided highly statistically significant improvement in both subjective and objective symptoms.

In a double-blind controlled study conducted in Britain in 1980, 82 percent of those receiving the homeopathic remedy enjoyed improvements in rheumatoid arthritis versus 21 percent of the control group on placebo. The subjects in this study received remedies that were individually prescribed.

Other significant positive studies show homeopathy helps in pain following tooth extraction (76 percent versus 40 percent for a placebo}; reduces vertigo and nausea; reduces labor time in pregnant women (5.1 hours versus 8.5 hours}; and reduces risk of abnormal labor (11.3 percent versus 40 percent).

Two double-blind studies compared Quietude, a combination of homeopathically prepared plant extracts that has been very popular in France, with diazepam (Valium). The subjects were adults and children who were nervous and suffered from sleeplessness. The results showed that the homeopathic product increased sleep time, reduced interruptions during sleep, and reduced nervousness. Both products relieved insomnia and minor nervous tension 63 percent of the time. However, the homeopathic remedy produced no side effects: there was no daytime dizziness, as opposed to 13 percent of the diazepam group. Homeopathic remedy group suffered no daytime drowsiness, but 53 percent of the diazepam group felt drowsy. In addition, Quietude was better at reducing children's nightmares, and 74 percent of the Quietude patients said the product was better than other treatments, as opposed to 48 percent of the diazepam group who felt this way.

A study, conducted in 1985, found that patients who took the homeopathic product Oscillococcinum, derived from duck heart and liver, experienced reduction in their fever much rapidly (in two days ) than those who took placebo. Shivering disappeared by day four. In another controlled study, published in 1989 in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 66 percent more of the Oscillococcinum group recovered within forty-eight hours as compared to the placebo group.

Clinical studies show the effectiveness of homeopathic remedies in treating infectious diseases. In a French study published in 1987, silica, prepared homeopathically to the 10c potency, stimulated macrophage activity by nearly 70 percent. Macrophages are white cells belonging to the immune defense system that destroy harmful cells and microorganisms. Homeopathic remedies were also shown to be effective in correcting immunological disorders in mice. In other studies, eight out of ten homeopathic remedies tested were able to inhibit the growth of viruses (in chicken embryos) by 50 to 100 percent.

Other studies show the usefulness of homeopathic remedies in treating diabetes. A 1992 study examined sixty people with retinal problems due to diabetes. In approximately half of the patients taking the homeopathic remedy (Arnica), the eye condition improved; only 1 percent of the subjects receiving placebo improved a like amount. The subjects were evaluated using objective measuring instruments, indicating that homeopathy may prove valuable in helping this group of diabetics preserve their sight.

Conventional physicians often belittle homeopathic remedies and their effectiveness to placebo effect. However, several studies on animals and infants show that homeopathic remedies do work. Obviously, animals and infants are less likely to be influenced by placebo. In Germany, poultry farmers are treating their hens with homeopathic remedies instead of antibiotics for coughs, colds, and digestive problems. Farmers also treat their cats, dogs, horses, cattle, and birds homeopathically.

Other animal studies add to the evidence. A 3x potency of Chelidonium lowered cholesterol in rabbits by 25 percent. Microdoses of Arsenicum (10x up to 30x; and 5c up to 15c) helped rats eliminate toxic doses of arsenic from their systems, a study that has important implications for humans who are increasingly exposed to many heavy metals in the environment. And pigs given Caulophyllum had half as many stillbirths as those who received a placebo.

Homeopaths have been reporting good results when treating infants for common health problems such as teething, colic, eczema, and fever.

Other sources:
http://www.holistiq.com/homeopathy/Effectiveness of homeopathy controlled clinical trials.htm
 
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Scientific Evaluations of Homeopathic Remedies for Migraine Headaches

Four double-blind, placebo-controlled studies have evaluated the use of classical homeopathic approaches to treat migraines and other forms of headache. One found significant evidence of benefit, while the others did not.

In the positive study, 60 people who suffered from migraines were given either a classical homeopathic remedy or placebo. 1 At the start of the study, researchers evaluated each person and, based on classical homeopathy, prescribed one or two of the following remedies: Belladonna, Ignatia, Lachesis, Silicea, Gelsemium, Cyclamen, Natrum muriaticum, or Sulphur, each in 30c potency. Once an appropriate remedy was determined for each participant, researchers randomly divided participants into treatment and control groups.

At the conclusion of the 4-month study period, the treatment group showed statistically significant reduction in the intensity, duration, and frequency of migraine attacks as compared to the placebo group.

Another 4-month, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of about the same size also evaluated the effects of individualized homeopathic treatment on migraines, but with less positive results. 2 On most measurements of headache severity, no statistically significant differences were seen between the treated group and the placebo group.

Lack of benefit was seen in two other trials as well, each involving individualized homeopathic treatment, and enrolling a total of more than 150 people. 3 (The larger of these two trials, however, included people with various forms of headache, not just migraines.)

http://www.med.nyu.edu/content?ChunkIID=38335
 
Homeopathic medicine also once had a major presence in American medical care and in American society. In 1900 there were 22 homeopathic medical schools in the US, including Boston University, University of Michigan, New York Medical College, Hahnemann University, University of Minnesota, and even the University of Iowa. Further, many of America’s cultural elite were homeopathy’s strongest advocates, including Mark Twain, William James, John D. Rockefeller, Susan B. Anthony, Louisa May Alcott, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Henry David Thoreau, and Harriett Beecher Stowe, amongst many others.

http://www.sallyhaleymd.com/articles/why-homeopathy-works/
 
Okay, now we're talking. :)

First though, I should address the comments about historical figures like Mark Twain, as well as homeopathy's previous medical acceptance: Obviously, intelligent and humane people in the 19th century would have preferred homeopathy to the other disgusting and outright dangerous medical practices of the time, like bloodletting, so that shouldn't exactly come as much of a surprise.

Second, I want to clarify comments I made to Working Poor about homeopaths being unwilling to test their hypotheses about mechanisms: To be clear, I wasn't referring to efficacy tests (which they attempt all the time) but to tests to substantiate or falsify their hypotheses about the [blatantly implausible] mechanisms by which homeopathy is supposed to work. There actually are a couple notable exceptions here where relevant tests of the medicines themselves were conducted...but even tests suggested by homeopaths themselves have demonstrated that homeopathic dilutions cannot be differentiated from water (or water and ethanol and/or sugar, when used). Why? Well, water is exactly what you get when you dilute an active ingredient in water so much that you'd literally need to take two billion 30C pills in order to get a single molecule of the original active ingredient. You can't actually treat "like with like" when there's no "like" left in the solution by a longshot. (What they do is fill the original solution with water or water and ethanol, pour it out, fill it back up, pour it out, etc. The drops left clinging to the walls of the container are supposed to contain a less concentrated form of the original ingredient every time, but the process crudely ignores the fact that matter is composed of a finite and discrete number of molecules and atoms rather than being continuously and cleanly divisible, so it's repeated so many times that there's long since been nothing but water and ethanol in the container. The concentrations used are often one part in 10^40 or so, when there are only around 10^50 atoms in the entire world, and some dilutions are an even more ridiculous one part in 10^20000. For reference, Avogadro's number implies a limit beyond which no trace of the original substance remains in the average dose - not even a single molecule - and that's at a dilution of about one part in 10^24, well under what's often used.)

Anyway, let's get to the heart of the matter: I will concede that I overstated my case that only one double-blind study has shown a positive result...not sure where I got that from, to be honest. It's been a while since I looked into this, so I probably confused double-blind trials showing positive results with larger meta-analyses of double-blind trials. Anyway, I was wrong on that point, so the waters of efficacy studies are muddier than I led on. Individual tests of varying quality do show positive results, but with a couple of exceptions that were reconsidered later or inconclusive from the start (including the 1991 meta-analysis published in the British Medical Journal), systematic reviews have consistently failed to show positive results. This is important, because these reviews take a big picture view and weed out methodologically flawed studies. Poor randomization is a perennial source of bias in trials conducted by homeopaths in particular. There are even some otherwise well-conducted studies that show spurious positive results due to the noise and low confidence intervals inherent to the small sample pools used.

The essay you posted about clinical studies is interesting, but that very same passage is curiously copy/pasted everywhere on naturalist/homeopathic websites without attribution, so I'm not really sure who the actual author is, and the lack of attribution and citations is a bit of a red flag for me. I don't have the time to hunt down and look into all the individual studies alluded to (rather than properly cited), but I do know that Jacobs's 1993 study in Nicaragua only barely passed statistical significance, and her 2006 follow-up in Honduras showed a negative result. More importantly, I did find the claim about the British Medical Journal's 1991 review of 107 to be compelling enough to investigate. It's easy to disregard the 84 that were not of the highest quality (i.e. methodologically flawed ;)), but I couldn't overlook that 15 of the 23 best studies showed positive results, so I wanted to see what the authors had to say.

I managed to track down a copy of the study here, but I found the above article's characterization of it to be...quite biased, to the point of misrepresenting the conclusion of the meta-analysis. Here is the abstract, and note the conclusion I bolded:

Clinical Trials of Homeopathy said:
OBJECTIVE: To establish whether there is evidence of the efficacy of homoeopathy from controlled trials in humans.

DESIGN: Criteria based meta-analysis. Assessment of the methodological quality of 107 controlled trials in 96 published reports found after an extensive search. Trials were scored using a list of predefined criteria of good methodology, and the outcome of the trials was interpreted in relation to their quality.

SETTING: Controlled trials published world wide.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Results of the trials with the best methodological quality. Trials of classical homoeopathy and several modern varieties were considered separately.

RESULTS: In 14 trials some form of classical homoeopathy was tested and in 58 trials the same single homoeopathic treatment was given to patients with comparable conventional diagnosis. Combinations of several homoeopathic treatments were tested in 26 trials; isopathy was tested in nine trials. Most trials seemed to be of very low quality, but there were many exceptions. The results showed a positive trend regardless of the quality of the trial or the variety of homeopathy used. Overall, of the 105 trials with interpretable results, 81 trials indicated positive results whereas in 24 trials no positive effects of homoeopathy were found. The results of the review may be complicated by publication bias, especially in such a controversial subject as homoeopathy.

CONCLUSIONS: At the moment the evidence of clinical trials is positive but not sufficient to draw definitive conclusions because most trials are of low methodological quality and because of the unknown role of publication bias. This indicates that there is a legitimate case for further evaluation of homoeopathy, but only by means of well performed trials.

Since then, other meta-analyses and systematic reviews of the literature have indeed been conducted. Wikipedia has a breakdown here, including a ton of actual citations of meta-analyses and systematic reviews demonstrating no positive result for homeopathy. (I know we can't rely on Wikipedia to always include a reliable and balanced selection of sources, as evidenced by the global warming page having been totally hijacked by an alarmist who censors or blatantly mischaracterizes any reference to critical scientific research or evidence of fraud and manipulation...but in this particular case, having the references provided is a lot more helpful than the lack of references from the above essay.)

You might also be interested in the comments on this blog article. The original author trashes Dana Ullman for comments pertaining to a particular meta-analysis, but there's a pretty civil discussion later in the comments between both him and Ullman about whether Shang et al (authors of yet another meta-analysis) narrowed their focus to a small number of studies due to their own biases, or due to the biases and unreliability of the the rest of the studies. It's an interesting read:
http://hawk-handsaw.blogspot.com/2008/08/dana-ullman-says-thing-that-is-not.html
 
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I will bookmark this and follow up tomorrow--errr later today. I am little tired now, and would rather look it all over when I have gotten some needed sleep.

I also appreciate the civil discourse and the manner in which you debate.

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Mini-Me again."
 
What percent of people using "alternative" treatments also die or are harmed as a percent of those seeking that kind of treatment (hundreds of millions go to doctors every year). Hint: The numbers are unavailable. Why? They aren't required to provide them and promoters and sellers have no incentive to do so voluntarily.

Are "alternatives" more effective or safer? Can anybody provide statistics as to cure rates and death or harm rates for alternative medicines beyond anecdotal reports to show how good or bad they may be?
(since alternative medicines are not required to report negative events including deaths like conventional medicines are, this will lead to a severe under-counting of them when they do get reported)
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/16/health/16diet.html?pagewanted=all

There are side effects from just about every treatment in western medicine. Even if alternative medicine had terrible record of injuries, it just couldn't come close to the injuries from western medicine. Ever here of a medicine with zero listed side effects? Ever hear of a surgery without side effects? Get my point?
 
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I find no good use for double blind studies..
I have used homeopathy for many years. I use it when I first start having symptoms and most of the time I do not have to go to anything else. If you read about homeopathy in any depth the reason it works is explained. I find that I get very good results using homeopathy with my pets too of course they could just be getting well because they think I am God and know everything. Homeopathy for pets is a growing industry there are even vets who practice it.

Double blind studies are bullshit. There are great practitioners and there are bad ones. You can't expect the bad practitioner down the street to duplicate the treatment of one of the best ones. It just doesn't work that way. The acupuncturist I went to prided himself in the fact that very few people could duplicate his treatment.

That said, I am not as impressed with homeopaths as I am with Chinese traditional medicine. In CTM they use herbs to cure your imbalance. In homeopathy, they tend to use herbs to cover up your symptoms like a medical doctor would. Thags just not the correct way to use herbs.
 
That's exactly your problem. You only think it's works, but you really don't know. In fact with homeopathy, it is certain that it won't work.

You cannot use the placebo as a crutch. The purpose of medicine is to have efficacy BEYOND the placebo effect and to prove it.

That's why double blind studies are mandatory in medicine. It's absolutely crucial that you understand that.

Try it with your family members next time you have a cold. Make sure it's a double blind.

Double blind studies can only be effective if you compare practitioners who are considered to be the best, or at least competent. If you are comparing a great practitioner to a bad one, of course you are going to get the result that they suck. In Chinese tradtional medicine, most practitioners suck. Which means if you use double blind studies, you are guaranteed to determine all practitioners suck, which is far from the truth.

Additionally, even if you compare two great practitioners, their treatment will rarely be exact. The reason is the combinations of herbs or acupuncture are so complex, its difficult to make them exact. Its not like in western medicine where the doctor just hands the patient a standardized pill, or just tells the patients he is fine, which is what most doctors do.
 
You know what they call alternative medicine that has been proven to work?

"Medicine"
 
While I hate homeopathy for being a scam, at least it never killed anyone!
 
Scientific Evidence for Homeopathic Medicine
Dana Ullman, MPH

http://www.healthy.net/Health/Article/Scientific_Evidence_for_Homeopathic_Medicine/942/1

(Excerpted from The Consumer's Guide to Homeopathy)

Most people with a little experience in homeopathy have no doubt that these medicines work, though inevitably they will have some family members, friends, neighbors, and physicians who will be skeptical about it. One way to deal with these people's skepticism is to become familiar with research on the efficacy of homeopathic medicines (see also Chapter 5 for a discussion on how to respond to skeptics' remarks; sorry, not online at present). There is actually considerably more laboratory and clinical research on homeopathic medicine than most people realize. That said, it must also be recognized that more research is certainly needed, not simply to answer the questions of skeptics but to help homeopaths optimize their use of these powerful natural medicines.

Some skeptics insist that research on homeopathy is mandatory since the exceptionally small doses used do not make sense and there is no known mechanism for action for these drugs. While it is true that homeopaths presently do not know precisely how the homeopathic microdoses work, there are some compelling theories about their mechanism of action (see the discussion in Chapter 1, "The Wisdom and Wonder of Small Doses"). More important, there is compelling evidence that they do work, as this chapter will show. And although homeopaths may not understand how their medicines work, keep in mind that leading contemporary pharmacologists readily acknowledge that there are many commonly prescribed drugs today, including aspirin and certain antibiotics, whose mechanism of action remains unknown, but this gap in knowledge has yet to stop physicians from prescribing them.

Many conventional physicians express doubt about the efficacy of homeopathy, asserting that they will "believe it when they see it." It may be more appropriate for them to acknowledge that they will "see it when they will believe it." This is not meant as a criticism of conventional physicians as much as of conventional medical thinking. The biomedical paradigm has narrowed the view of, the thinking about, and the practice of medicine to the treatment of specific disease entities with supposedly symptom-specific drugs and procedures. An integral aspect of this approach to medicine is the assumption that the larger the dose of a drug, the stronger will be its effects. While this seems to make sense on the surface, knowledgeable physicians and pharmacologists know that it isn't true. There is a recognized principle in pharmacology called the "biphasic response of drugs."1 Rather than a drug simply having increased effects as its dose becomes larger, research has consisently shown that exceedingly small doses of a substance will have the opposite effects of large doses.

The two phases of a drug's action (thus the name "biphasic") are dose-dependent. For instance, it is widely recognized that normal medical doses of atropine block the parasympathetic nerves, causing mucous membranes to dry up, while exceedingly small doses of atropine cause increased secretions to mucous membranes.

This pharmacological principle was concurrently discovered in the 1870s by two separate researchers, Hugo Schulz, a conventional scientist, and Rudolf Arndt, a psychiatrist and homeopath. Initially called the Arndt-Schulz law, this principle is still widely recognized, as witnessed by the fact that it is commonly listed in medical dictionaries under the definition of "law."

More specifically, these reseachers discovered that weak stimuli accelerate physiological activity, medium stimuli inhibit physiological activity, and strong stimuli halt physiological activity. For example, very weak concentations of iodine, bromine, mercuric chloride, and arsenious acid will stimulate yeast growth, medium doses of these substances will inhibit yeast growth, and large doses will kill the yeast.

In the 1920s, conventional scientists who tested and verified this biphasic response termed the phenomenon "hormesis," and dozens of studies were published in a wide variety of fields to confirm this biological principle.2

In the past two decades there has again been a resurgence of interest in this pharmacological law, and now hundreds of studies in numerous areas of scientific investigation have verified it.3 Because these studies have been performed by conventional scientists who are typically unfamiliar with homeopathic medicine, they have not tested or even considered testing the ultra-high dilutions commonly used in homeopathy. However, their research has consistently shown very significant effects from such small microdoses that even the researchers express confusion and surprise.

Reference to this research on the Arndt-Schulz law and hormesis is important for validating homeopathic research because it demonstrates the evidence for the important biphasic responses and microdose effects that lie at the heart of homeopathy. This research is readily available to physicians and scientists yet is often ignored or not understood.

The amount of research on homeopathic medicines is growing, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore these studies, because they are now appearing in many of the most respected medical and scientific journals in the world. This chapter is not meant to be exhaustive (that would require a book or two of its own). It will include many of the best studies, most of which have been published in conventional medical and scientific journals. Some of the studies are discussed because of the impressive results they showed, and others are included for their implications for better understanding homeopathy and the healing process. The review of research is not simply to provide evidence of the efficacy of homeopathic medicine but also to enlighten readers on how to evaluate homeopathic research, whether positive or negative results are obtained.

To best understand the remaining part of this chapter, some definitions are helpful:
--Double-blind trials refer to experiments in which neither the experimenter nor the subjects know whether a specific treatment was prescribe or a placebo (a fake medicine that looks and tastes like real homeopathic medicines).
--Randomized trials are those in which subjects of an experiment are randomly placed either in treatment groups or in placebo groups. The researchers attempt to place people with similar characteristics in equal numbers in treatment and placebo groups.
--Crossover studies refer to experiments in which half of the subjects of a study are given a placebo during one phase of a study and then given the active treatment during the second phase, while the other half begin with the active treatment and then receive the placebo during the second phase. Crossover studies sometimes do not test a placebo and instead compare one type of treatment with another type of treatment.

Modern research is designed to evaluate the results of a therapy as compared to a placebo and/or another therapy. This type of study is valuable because many patients respond very well to placebos, and this "treatment" is so safe and inexpensive it is generally assumed that "real treatments" should have considerably better results than placebo medicine. One should note that placebo effects can be significant, and clinically, these effects can be very positive (some people think of them as a type of self-healing).

Double-blinding an experiment is important to research because experimenters tend to treat people who are getting the real treatment differently or better than those given a placebo, thus throwing off the results of the experiment. Research is randomized so that those people treated with the real medicine and those treated with the placebo are as similar as possible, making a comparison between real treatment and placebo treatment more accurate. Crossover studies allow researchers to compare the separate effects of a placebo and a treatment on all subjects in an experiment.

Statistics obviously are an important part of research. A treatment is thought to be considered better than a placebo if the results, according to statistical analysis, have no more than a 5% possibility of happening at random (the notation of this statistical probability is: P=.05). A study with a small number of patients (for example, 30 or less) must show a large difference between treatment and nontreatment groups for it to become statistically significant. A study with a large number of patients (for example, several hundred) needs to have only a small but consistent difference to obtain a similar statistical significance. This information is provided so that readers will know that all the studies described in this chapter are statistically significant, except when otherwise noted.

Clinical Research
People are often confused by research, not only because it can be overly technical but because some studies show that a therapy works and other studies shows that it doesn't. To solve this problem, a recent development in research is used, called a "meta-analysis," which is a systematic review of a body of research that evaluates the overall results of experiments.

In 1991, three professors of medicine from the Netherlands, none of them homeopaths, performed a meta-analysis of 25 years of clinical studies using homeopathic medicines and published their results in the British Medical Journal.4 This meta-analysis covered 107 controlled trials, of which 81 showed that homeopathic medicines were effective, 24 showed they were ineffective, and 2 were inconclusive.

The professors concluded, "The amount of positive results came as a surprise to us." Specifically, they found that:
--13 of 19 trials showed successful treatment of respiratory infections,
--6 of 7 trials showed positive results in treating other infections,
--5 of 7 trials showed improvement in diseases of the digestive system,
--5 of 5 showed successful treatment of hay fever,
--5 of 7 showed faster recovery after abdominal surgery,
--4 of 6 promoted healing in treating rheumatological disease,
--18 of 20 showed benefit in addressing pain or trauma,
--8 of 10 showed positive results in relieving mental or psychological
problems, and
--13 of 15 showed benefit from miscellaneous diagnoses.

Despite the high percentage of studies that provided evidence of success with homeopathic medicine, most of these studies were flawed in some way or another. Still, the researchers found 22 high-caliber studies, 15 of which showed that homeopathic medicines were effective. Of further interest, they found that 11 of the best 15 studies showed efficacy of these natural medicines, suggesting that the better designed and performed the studies were, the higher the likelihood that the medicines were found to be effective. Although people unfamiliar with research may be surprised to learn that most of the studies on homeopathy were flawed in one significant way or another,5 research in conventional medicine during the past 25 years has had a similar percentage of flawed studies.

With this knowledge, the researchers of the meta-analysis on homeopathy concluded, "The evidence presented in this review would probably be sufficient for establishing homeopathy as a regular treatment for certain indications."

There are different types of homeopathic clinical research, some of which provide individualization of remedies; which is the hallmark of the homeopathic methodology; some of which give a commonly prescribed remedy to all people with a similar ailment, and some of which give a combination of homeopathic medicines to people with a similar condition. While one can perform good research using any of these methods, there are certain issues that researchers have to be aware of and sensitive to in order to obtain the best objective results.

For instance, if a study does not individualize a homeopathic medicine to people suffering from a specific ailment and the results of the study show that there was no difference between those given this remedy and those given a placebo, the study does not disprove homeopathy; it simply proves that this one remedy is not effective in treating every person suffering from that ailment, each of whom may have a unique pattern of symptoms that requires an individual prescription.


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You know what they call alternative medicine that has been proven to work?

"Medicine"

Alternative medicine - the practice of medicine without the use of drugs; may involve herbal medicines or self-awareness or biofeedback or acupuncture.

Allopathy is treatment to suppress the symptoms of illness using the principle of opposites, while homeopathy encourages, rather than suppresses, the body's reaction to an illness.
 
I don't know much about Homeopathy, but herbology is a useful medicinal science. Most of the first pharmaceuticals were attempts to artificially produce a chemical found in a medicinal plant. Bayer was the first company to replicate willow-bark extract in a laboratory and thus created the brand name pharmaceutical Aspirin. There are many similar such cases of herbal medicines being replicated in the lab, and a good herbologist can tell you which plants can replicate which pharmaceuticals. How many of you know that Poison oak, ivy and sumac can be made into a poultice that acts just like IcyHot or BenGay, a topical relief for joint and muscle pain.
 
Double blind studies are bullshit. There are great practitioners and there are bad ones. You can't expect the bad practitioner down the street to duplicate the treatment of one of the best ones. It just doesn't work that way.

LOL. Double-blind studies are "bullshit," but unsubstantiated claims of superiority - beyond highly biased anecdotal evidence - are not? ;) In the case of acupuncture though, double-blind trials are seemingly impossible. You could still perform single-blind studies though, including between multiple acupuncturists. They're more likely to produce false positive results, but they're better than nothing, because they at least have a chance of falsifying claims. Then again, they would probably only be particularly useful to genuinely objective people who look at the whole body of research, because there would undoubtedly be a large number of positives, whether false or true. In the case of chronic disease, you could strengthen the research with long-term follow-ups on both the experimental group and control group. Now, I personally have no idea if acupuncture is effective: I'm skeptical about the stated means for its function (body energy manipulation), but it could very well work by some other mechanism anyway, and I have no opinion on its efficacy.

The inapplicability of double-blind testing to acupuncture does not extend to homeopathy though, because the procedure for preparation is separated from its administration. Some homeopaths like to argue that "individualized" or "classical" practitioners of homeopathy are better (without evidence), when they're more complicated to test with double-blind procedures (they have been tested though, nevertheless). Do you know why? Making homeopathy out to be something fluid and mystical and "hard to get right" is a sneaky way of making it untestable and unfalsifiable. If you're actually being objective, you should be suspicious of claims like that.

The correct way to argue for homeopathy is not through hand-waving and "I KNOW it works for me," but through demonstrating efficacy through significance testing, much like donnay is arguing has been done. While I think he's cherry-picking positive studies and opinion piece spin over the most positive ever (but still ambiguous) meta-analysis (e.g. the 1991 British Medical Journal review rather than the more critical recent reviews) without taking in the bigger picture, he at least understands what objective evidence of efficacy actually looks like.
 
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LOL. Double-blind studies are "bullshit," but unsubstantiated claims of superiority - beyond highly biased anecdotal evidence - are not? ;) In the case of acupuncture though, double-blind trials are seemingly impossible. You could still perform single-blind studies though, including between multiple acupuncturists. They're more likely to produce false positive results, but they're better than nothing, because they at least have a chance of falsifying claims. Then again, they would probably only be particularly useful to genuinely objective people who look at the whole body of research, because there would undoubtedly be a large number of positives, whether false or true. In the case of chronic disease, you could strengthen the research with long-term follow-ups on both the experimental group and control group. Now, I personally have no idea if acupuncture is effective: I'm skeptical about the stated means for its function (body energy manipulation), but it could very well work by some other mechanism anyway, and I have no opinion on its efficacy.

The inapplicability of double-blind testing to acupuncture does not extend to homeopathy though, because the procedure for preparation is separated from its administration. Some homeopaths like to argue that "individualized" or "classical" practitioners of homeopathy are better (without evidence), when they're more complicated to test with double-blind procedures (they have been tested though, nevertheless). Do you know why? Making homeopathy out to be something fluid and mystical and "hard to get right" is a sneaky way of making it untestable and unfalsifiable. If you're actually being objective, you should be suspicious of claims like that.

The correct way to argue for homeopathy is not through hand-waving and "I KNOW it works for me," but through demonstrating efficacy through significance testing, much like donnay is arguing has been done. While I think he's cherry-picking positive studies and opinion piece spin over the most positive ever (but still ambiguous) meta-analysis (e.g. the 1991 British Medical Journal review rather than the more critical recent reviews) without taking in the bigger picture, he at least understands what objective evidence of efficacy actually looks like.

Perhaps you should read my posts. I criticized homeopathy and I don't even know what the studies concluded. I was supportive of CTM, and explained how its difficult to create a study for herbology in CTM. There's just so much more complexity in herbs than there are medicine. Medicine just treats individual symptoms, and for each symptoms they only have a few medications to choose from. A herbologist has to find the imbalance causing the symptoms, and that can be any number of causes. Then you have to consider there are way more herbs to choose from than medications. Then the herbologist has to blend the right combination of herbs, something a doctor doesn't have to do with medicine. So its just a given that medicine would do better in double blind studies. Additionally, like I said before, only a small percetage of practitioners know anything in CTM, so odds are one of the practitioners in the study are going to be bad, making the study ineffective.

I've had this discussion with someone elsewhere, its very difficult to design a study to prove CTM works. I don't think they have ever developed such a study. First you have to isolate the best practitioners and use them in the study instead of the bad ones that are usually in the study. Second, who judges the study? You can't use medical doctors because they can't measure most of what CTM does. That's why patients choose CTM, it can do stuff for them doctors can't even see. Additionally, you can't have patients to judge because many of them are idiots and would be happy going to an acupuncturist just for the experience. You really have to do your own research, find someone who is suppose to be excellent, then judge for yourself. You can't let some study tell you what to think. If a study claimed Obama was a great president and Ron Paul was an idiot, would you believe it? Just because a study is performed by experts, doesn't mean its any better than using your own judgement.
 
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mini said:
LOL. Double-blind studies are "bullshit," but unsubstantiated claims of superiority - beyond highly biased anecdotal evidence - are not?


For some reason side effects are considered anecdotal yet for some reason they are listed on the packaging. Is it possible that there is something to anecdotal evidence?

I used to be okay with double blind studies until Linus Pauling was discredited after he did double blind studies that proved vitamin C would cure cancer. When that happened I decided that double blind studies only mean something if the out come is about making money.
 
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LOL. Double-blind studies are "bullshit," but unsubstantiated claims of superiority - beyond highly biased anecdotal evidence - are not?




For some reason side effects are considered anecdotal yet for some reason they are listed on the packaging. Is it possible that there is something to anecdotal evidence?

I used to be okay with double blind studies until Linus Pauling was discredited after he did double blind studies that proved vitamin C would cure cancer. When that happened I decided that double blind studies only mean something if the out come is about making money.

I explained my point about double blind studies very well. If you disagree with my points on double blind studies, you should start by addressing the points I made.
 
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