Apology: "Homeopathy is not witchcraft, it is nonsense on stilts"

[Guest]

Are over-the-counter homoeopathic remedies like this one, available without consultation with a practitioner, definitely without worth?

[onewheeldave]

Are over-the-counter homoeopathic remedies like this one, available without consultation with a practitioner, definitely without worth?

 

A fair point. Obviously such an over-the-counter remedy does not involve the patient/practitioner diagnostic process.

 

Still, if people want to buy such remedies, that is their choice and they are entitled to spend their money on what they want.

 

Like I say, a fair point, but let's bear in mind it doesn't impact on the central point of this discussion, which is about homepathy, in the full sense, including the extensive patient/practitioner diagnostic process, and it's availablity on the NHS.

[onewheeldave]

Of course it is. Surely you're not proposing that the magical factor is some undefined bond between the practitioner and the patient, and as such the pills are inert, essentially no better than a placebo?

 

I wouldn't use the term 'magical factor'

 

But, as I've clearly stated on numerous occasions in this thread, and, which is a well known and clearly stated fact in homeopathy itself, the patient/practitioner diagnostic process/bond is paramount.

 

I don't think most homeopathists would go along with the view that the remedies are inert.

 

I'm open to it- i don't know if it's the case, but I'm open to it.

 

Certainly, if I thought that were the case, I would still defend the rights of patients to choose homeopathy and it's availability on the NHS.

[HeadingNorth]

No, NHS conventional practictioners are severely restricted in the amount of time they can spend with patients.

 

 

That may prove that the NHS is inefficient, but the NHS is not the sole dispenser of conventional medicine. Private doctors may spend as much time as they please with their patients.

 

In order to prove that homoeopathy has any value, you must prove that it can outperform a placebo. Pointing to time taken over the diagnostic process cannot prove that, because any doctor can - given no time and financial constraint - take the same amount of time and care as any homoeopath. Only the medicines they then dispense, are any different.

[Guest]

...Certainly, if I thought that were the case, I would still defend the rights of patients to choose homeopathy and it's availability on the NHS.

But then you're arguing in support of a rather expensive placebo.

[onewheeldave]

Again, from the model:

 

 

form the study you post, I'd rephrase it to this-

 

"If homoeopathic substances, in isolation from the homeopathic diagnostic process, work beyond the placebo effect, there should be some difference between the two groups."

 

Again, from the model:

Quote:

All of the patients visit their homeopath, ...

 

Can you not see that the study you refer to specifically eliminates the 'visit to their homeopath' as having any effect whatsoever on the results?

 

Both groups visit the homeopath and, presumably, undergo the full diagnostic procedure which is the essence of effective homeopathy- that is identical with both groups.

 

The only difference between the 2 groups is that one receives homeopahtic remedy, the other receives fakes.

 

The study is therefore designed to test only the physical effects of homeopathic remedy against that of the fake.

 

As a study of homeopathy it is severely flawed as it is designed precisely to exclude any effect resulting from the actual, as you put it 'visit to their homeopath' (the diagnostic part).

[onewheeldave]

That may prove that the NHS is inefficient, but the NHS is not the sole dispenser of conventional medicine. Private doctors may spend as much time as they please with their patients.

 

In order to prove that homoeopathy has any value, you must prove that it can outperform a placebo. Pointing to time taken over the diagnostic process cannot prove that, because any doctor can - given no time and financial constraint - take the same amount of time and care as any homoeopath. Only the medicines they then dispense, are any different.

 

No. The issue in this thread concerns the removal of homeopathy from the NHS.

 

The contrast is between homeopathy on the NHS, and, conventional medicine on the NHS.

 

Private doctors can, in theory, spend as much time with their patients as they want (assuming the patients are willing to pay the extra to cover it).

 

But, NHS doctors cannot.

 

An inevitable aspect of NHS treatment is that that time spent liasing with doctors is tightly constrained, in a way that homepathy is not.

 

 

In order to prove that homoeopathy has any value, you must prove that it can outperform a placebo.

 

I do not have to prove that- many of the 'rationalists' who oppose the availability on the NHS of homeopathy, would like us all to accept that as a given, but, it is quite simply untrue.

 

There are also serious issues with 'placebos' as treatments, including ethical issues based around practitioner deception in issuing a placebo (do they tell the patient it's a placebo, or, lie and say it's a drug?)- do 'placebos' actually function in the same way if the patient knows it's a placebo etc.

 

Those issues do not arise with homeopathic remedies- for example, as I've already suggested, homeopathic remedies could be issued with a 'warning' sticker, pointing out that there is no scientific evidence that they function as anything more than a placebo effect: I guarantee you that there will remain a solid base of patients who will happily receive the treatment, who would not want a non-homeopathic placebo.

 

That's because they want the right to choose homeopathy, in the absense of 'scientific proof'.

 

Now, this is all getting convoluted, but, in that case, would the homepathic remedy have the placebo effect, whilst the non-homeopathic placebo would have no effect?

 

(obviously, not due to any physical effects of the substances, but, because the patients 'believe' in the homepathic remedy, but not in the placebo).

[onewheeldave]

But then you're arguing in support of a rather expensive placebo.

 

No, i'm arguing in support of the patients right to choose homeopathy

 

As for my thoughts on placebos, see the post above.

 

But, whatever I think of placebos, I'm arguing in support of the patients right to choose homeopathy

[Guest]

...As a study of homeopathy it is severely flawed as it is designed precisely to exclude any effect resulting from the actual, as you put it 'visit to their homeopath' (the diagnostic part).

But the point is that those who receive the homoeopathic prescription have done so after consultation with the practitioner. If your argument is that the magic combination is pills plus consultation, then that test group has received that combination thus enabling homoeopathy to do its job.

[onewheeldave]

That may prove that the NHS is inefficient

 

I've also got doubts about that. I'm not so sure that the tight constraints on patient/practitioner liason time is a consequence of inefficiency.

 

If anything, i suspect the drive for efficency is part of the reason for the constraints.

 

Combined, of course, with the fact that conventional medicine does not value patient/practitioner liason time as being of high value when it comes to health.