My ‘rant’ was not about homeopathy; it was a political rant lamenting the disrespect shown to liberty and democracy by those who think that their scientistic views should naturally trump the democratic rights of a sizeable minority of the British public whom they clearly regard as ignorant and needing to be protected from themselves. My point is very simple: Either the NHS has a standard of evidence that must be passed by any intervention it funds – or not. To pay for many orthodox interventions that are less than evidence based (eg SSRI anti-depressants in most cases of mild and moderate depression) and then cut funding for homeopathy saying that it ‘lacks evidence’ is disingenuous. In my opinion it is homeopathy’s ‘implausibility’ that irritates its detractors (as it does you) but for them relentlessly to cite lack of evidence is blisteringly hypocritical.s

Anyway the good guys won this one so I’ll be blogging a lot more about Provocative Therapy now. It was always what I wanted to write about, but I felt morally obliged to defend homeopathy. One day we might have a chat about how listening to tens of thousands of life stories in the homeopathic way really set me up to be a Provocative Therapist.

Nice to hear from you.
Brian

Provocation (stuffixes) works upon the assumption that the victim has within them the ability to be healthy and happy. No measurably valuable input goes into the victim (it sounds like jokes and abuse), and yet they respond positively. Same with homeopathy.

Provokers thrust their victim into the mindset of following a negative pattern, and break it with humour, demanding that they rework their perception of the problem rapidly. It’s just a mind game.

So is homeopathy.

That’s why single blind testing works but double blind doesn’t. They test it again and again and James Randi offers one million dollars for the proof of its efficacy. The science is bunk, but the value is real.

People have a placebo thrust upon them and they believe it so it works. Well.

But it’s a lie. Should the NHS cover it? I don’t know. Probably not, I feel it insults my scientific idealism.

We would have to completely throw out our current HEAVILY researched, tested and validated models of the nature of H20 molecules, twist models of immunology and lose a few IQ points to ever look objectively at homeopathy and go: Yeah that seems sane.

If you really trusted in people’s ability to change themselves, you’d give them the choice to know how it’s happening so they may become powerful even without your expensive magic water. That’s what a really provocative therapist would do – show them the hilarious truth and let them be changed.

I keep a rather skeptical blog but am obsessed with the work of Frank Farrelly and hence Provocative and that’s how I found you. Excuse the tirade, I didn’t come here for a cyber-debate but rather a cordial hello! Please excuse my former me, he got quite heated.

This one thinks you’re welcome to whichever loopy opinion you choose. I believe that racism is hilarious.

Your view on the “rights” of patients to choose their treatments and what sort of doctors they wish to be treated by is interesting. Peoples right to choose extends to many things which often are not advisable or desirable. Do you have a view on the rights of people to choose a doctor who will carry out female circumcision?

@Paul,
Yes, I do think doctors should be able to choose the medicines they wish to give to their patients, but again one can try and draw distinctions between what is effective, ineffective, safe and dangerous. Would you support a doctor’s choice to administer thalidomide to your pregnant wife? An extreme example, I know, but doctors often have restrictions applied to their own prescribing choices for a good reason. Re homeopathy, I would expect any doctor worth his/her salt to appreciate that in giving a homeopathic remedy they are essentially using a placebo (and until someone can come up with solid evidence that homeopathic remedies consistently outperform placebo in adequate clinical trials this will remain my view).
I think these things are best paid for by the patient outside the NHS, which could better use the money elsewhere.

On A more humanistic note:

I was recently struck by some quotes from Professor Sir Karl Popper’s : The Open Society and its Enemies ISBN 0-415-04031-0

1. Pericles of Athens (about 430 B.C.) ‘Although only a few may originate a policy,we are all able to judge it.’

2. Plato of Athens (about 350 B.C.) ‘The greatest principle of all is that nobody, whether male or female, should be without a leader. Nor should the mind of anybody be habituated to letting him do anything at all of his own initiative; neither out of zeal, nor even playfully. But in war and in the midst of peace -to his leader he shall direct his eye and follow him faithfully. And even in the smallest matter he should stand under leadership. For example, he should get up, or move, or wash, or take his meals…only if he has been told to do so. In a word, he should teach his soul, by long habit, never to dream of acting independently, and to become utterly incapable of it.’

3. Immanuel Kant 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804
‘I do not wish to hide the fact that I can only look with repugnance…upon the puffed-up pretentiousness of all these volumes filled with wisdom, such as are fashionable nowadays. For I am fully satisfied that…the accepted methods must endlessly increase these follies and blunders, and that even the complete annihilation of all these fanciful achievements could not possibly be as harmful as this fictitious science with its accursed fertility.’

These arguments, like mud pies, could be cast by either side in the current debate. Just thankful we seem to be in the clutches of a government which appears more keen on an open society. This bears the consequences of shouldering budgetary responsibilities and the honour to our profession of taking upon itself the cudgels of shrewd stewardship in the interests of long term patient safety and health management.

And on a scientific note:

There is actual SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE that homeopathy works and 2 publications on this in the last week:

Klocke P, Ivemeyer S, Butler G, Maeschli A, Heil F. A randomized controlled trial to compare the use of homeopathy and internal Teat Sealers for the prevention of mastitis in organically farmed dairy cows during the dry period and 100 days post-calving. Homeopathy 2010, 99: 90-98.

Nobel laureate’s research may explain homeopathic medicines’ action.

On 28 June 2010 during the prestigious 60 anniversary conference of Nobel Laureates held in Germany, Prof. Luc Montagnier, postulated a mechanism that he considers may explain how homeopathic medicines’ informational content is created and maintained. Montagnier, awarded the Nobel Prize in 2008 for his discovery of the link between HIV and AIDS, gave a lecture entitled ‘DNA between physics and biology’ based on his own research. He reported findings from his research that some DNA sequences belonging to pathogenic bacteria and viruses are able to induce specific structures of nanometric size in water. When sufficiently diluted in water, these structures emit a spectrum of electromagnetic waves of low frequencies. During the conference he astonished his colleagues by postulating that his results may suggest the long sought after explanation for the mechanism of action of homeopathic medicines.

References: Conference Abstract: http://www.lindau-nobel.org/AbstractDetails.AxCMS?AbstractID=1102 Related journal article: Electromagnetic signals are produced by aqueous nanostructures derived from bacterial DNA sequences http://www.springerlink.com/content/0557v31188m3766x/

and interestingly:

A comparison of placebo-controlled randomised clinical trials (RTCs) found that the placebo effect was equally strong (or weak) in conventional medicine as in homeopathy. In a systematic review of placebo-controlled double-blind RCTs of classical homeopathy researchers matched existing homeopathy trials with trials in conventional medicine. Each homeopathy trial was compared to three conventional trials treating the same medical diagnosis. A total of 25 homeopathic RCTs were included. Out of these 13 homeopathic trials had a larger and 12 had a lower placebo effect compared to conventional trials (p=0.39). The authors conclude that: ‘Placebo effects in RCTs on classical homeopathy were not larger than placebo effects in conventional medicine.’

Reference: Rüdtke R, Nuhn T, Garaedts M. Placebo effects in homeopathic and conventional drugs. 5 International Congress on Complementary Medicine Research (ICCMR), Abstract book, 2010, O-089: 35.

Hope Randi’s got his million handy!