Homeopathist fined €6.35 (again) after death of Mayo patient (again)

robindch

From the Irish Times this morning, comes the following sad story:

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2005/0405/2714053675HM3INQUEST.html

...or, in summary:

A 49-year-old Co Mayo man, Paul Howie, died of suffocation caused by a cancerous throat tumour. In court, Mr Howie's wife, Michelle, claimed that Mulranny-based "therapist", Mineke Kamper, had subjected the dead man's wife to "fear and terror" as she treated Mr Howie, who died on April 22nd, 2003.

Michelle Howie said in court, "Mineke Kamper had repeatedly said to us that we had a choice but if we did get medical treatment Paul would die and that she could and would cure him. She then relayed stories to me of people who did not follow her advice and who were now dead. She looked me in the eye and said did I want my husband's death on my hands. She looked at our baby, Alan, and asked could I look him in the eye and say I was responsible for his daddy's death."

Ms Howie said she now believed Ms Kamper should not be allowed to continue operating in the manner in which she does at present.

"She is accountable to no one. She has not the decency or common courtesy to this inquest or to Paul's memory to turn up here today. [...] Something needs to be done about this woman Mineke Kamper."

The coroner, John O'Dwyer, described as "pitiful" the only recourse open to him was to impose a fine of €6.35 on Ms Kamper for failing to answer the summons served on her. He added that "The deceased found himself under the total control of a domineering, self-styled natural health therapist who insisted on his surrendering himself exclusively to her care. It appears from the evidence that the deceased was misled and misinformed as to the nature of the illness that led to his death. Because of fear and threats from Ms Kamper, he did not seek the help of a medical doctor. In fact, Mrs Howie states that the advice from his health therapist was that 'Paul would die with conventional medicine'."

It was of great concern to him that unqualified practitioners in healthcare were not answerable to any regulatory authority, Mr O' Dwyer said.

While the 2004 Health and Social Care Professionals Bill regulated professionals from chiropodists to radiographers, there was no regulatory authority for "freelance operators in health-care".

The jury returned a verdict of death by natural causes. Mr Howie leaves behind a wife and one son.

robindch

It seems that it's not homeopath Mineke Kamper's first brush with the law either, having been summonsed (and failed) to appear May district court in December 2001, following the death of another patient, Jacqueline Alderslad, earlier in the year. It seems that, contrary to a statement which the homeopath made to the gardai, the dead patient had recorded in her diary that she'd been advised by Kamper to give up *all* medication she had been taking for her condition except for an inhaler.

The same John O'Dwyer presided over this inquest and Ms Kamper failed to turn up at this inquest too, attracting a fine of five pounds for non-appearance.

Details are not precise, but it seems that Ms Kamper claims membership of the Reflexology institute, who claimed to know nothing about her, with the chair of the same institution, one Lua McIlraith, wanting statutory regulation to be introduced as soon as possible, so "we can be seen as upright, honest people who are not in the business of killing people", an extraordinarily rare instance of a CAM-artist openly criticizing another. Meanwhile, over in the Dail, Minister O'Donoghue stated, almost three and a half years ago (see this article), that he was going to do something, but this seems, subsequently, to have turned into something that "was not a priority". Anybody have any further info?

In addition to the IT articles above, further references to this sad case are here and here.

Anybody care to contact the GMIT, or perhaps the good Ms Kamper herself, for a comment?

- robin.

KCF

This type of thing really makes me irate. Okay, if you want to treat somebody with water, but persuading them to give up their other medication is criminal. Vulnerable people with grave illnesses will often listen to quacks when they tell them what to do. I know a few people who have died in this sort of way. A man who gave up his cholesterol tablets in favour of homeopathy pills and died of a heart attack. My great uncle went to Lourdes rather than to hospital and came back 3 months later when his cancer was inoperable and he suffered a horrible drawn out death. :mad:

Eoghan-psych

With all due respect, is it fair to place blame on the "therapist" here?

Put it like this - when those stupid "please send me money so I can free up my inheritance in a New York bank" emails arrive, don't we all sit there thinking "what kind of moron actually falls for this?"

If you are stupid enough to fall for someone telling you they can cure you without medical intervention then, lets be honest, at least a significant part of the blame must lie with you.

If people stop falling for a scam, the conmen stop using it. Simple economics.

Myksyk

I disagree Eoghan-psych. I don't believe this or similar cases (where there are serious health issues at stake) are about the stupidity of consumers. It is more likely that they are about utter desperation, vulnerability, suggestibility and lack of information on the one hand (that of the consumer/patient) and gross negligence, ignorance, unethical conduct and the selling of useless treatments on behalf of the 'practitioner'.

Skepticism should be part of the solution through the education of consumers so they can make informed health choices (particularly when they are vulnerable and desparate) and the challenging of people who insist on selling health products/treatments for which they make claims that have no basis in reality.

davros

Eoghan-psych wrote:

If you are stupid enough to fall for someone telling you they can cure you without medical intervention then, lets be honest, at least a significant part of the blame must lie with you.

I understand your point but I don't believe most people attending homeopaths are stupid.

Their whole lives they have heard through the media and by word-of-mouth that alternative medicine is valid and even more effective than real medicine. Homepaths practise openly and unhindered in a country with strict laws regulating fraud, consumer rights and the sale of medicines. Homeopathic preparations are on sale in chemists, Prince Charles is an advocate, etc., etc. Why wouldn't you believe it? You could easily live your entire life without hearing anyone say a bad word against homeopathy.

So I'm sympathetic towards those who are taken in and harmed, or at least made poorer, by quacks. The death of that man is exactly the reason, IMHO, that the Irish Skeptics Society needs to exist. Alternative medicine is dangerous and nobody else is prepared to stand up and say it.

Eoghan-psych

davros wrote:

So I'm sympathetic towards those who are taken in and harmed, or at least made poorer, by quacks. The death of that man is exactly the reason, IMHO, that the Irish Skeptics Society needs to exist. Alternative medicine is dangerous and nobody else is prepared to stand up and say it.

I can be sympathetic towards those taken in with regard to sea sickness, or bags under their eyes. These are minor issues, and one could be excused from checking the evidence for or against the treatment.

I cannot, however, feel sympathy towards those who put their lives in the hands of whackjobs. It's all well and good saying "the whackjobs shouldn't do X", but at the end of the day would *you* submit yourself to treatment - by *anyone* - without looking at the evidence? If you had cancer, would you just take someone's word for it or would you go to your doctor and ask him about it, or look up research on the net?

Education of consumers is definitely needed, and should definitely be advocated by everyone with both eyes open. Same goes for regulation of "therapists". What we *also* need to start doing is take to task those who support idiocy and quackery. When papers report on yet another email money scam, right alongside the "unscrupulous criminals" bit there should be a mention of the "naive, greedy, foolish" people who fell for it. Make nonsense a double headed issue - if someone leaves their bike unchained outside a building, when the bike's gone we don't hesitate to say "you big eejit, why didn't you lock it - serves you right".

robindch

Last weekend, amongst many other excellent posters, I was given a present of the following, disappointingly appropriate, A3-sized reproduction of a long-forgotten Soviet public information poster. The text translates roughly as "Look, a witch! They don't cure you, but only take your cash and cripple you."



...one of the things which, much to their credit, the Soviets did try to stamp out -- unsuccessfully, as it unfortunately turns out.

- robin.

robindch

> I cannot, however, feel sympathy towards those who
> put their lives in the hands of whackjobs.

When one boils this argument down a little, you're left with the question of whether it's better to regulate human activity through legislation to ensure that consistent standards are applied, or to leave the same activities 'find their own level', and have compensatory legislation in place, to clean up any mess that might have arisen on account of shoddy work (of whatever kind).

This report on boiler design in in the 19th century and the different approaches of the US and UK governments in regulating the industry at the time, is relevant here. In short, the US (generally agreed to have been legislating at the behest of boiler manufacturers), didn't implement any serious regulatory control of the industry, while the UK, after much the same initial carnage from exploding boilers which occurred in the US, began regulating the industry far more heavily. The obvious enough result was that deaths from boiler explosion in the UK dropped dramatically, while similar deaths in the US continued at levels which would be today considered indicative of criminal negligence.

The two situations are comparable -- most people are about as competent to judge boiler design as they are to judge medical diagnoses. At the moment, while there is comprehensive design guidelines + legislation intended to guarantee that the boiler in your local power station is as unlikely to explode as is humanly possible, there is no comparable legislation, that I'm aware of, to guarantee that the medical diagnosis you receive is provided by somebody with genuine, as opposed to fraudulent, medical knowledge. And in Ireland, we're even worse off -- that the homeopath who is responsible in this case, isn't even compelled required to turn up at the inquest into the death of one of her unfortunate patients and is subsequently fined less than a tenner at the inquest into what some people would regard as a straightforward case of culpable homicide.

Until such regulatory legislation is enacted and enforced, some small proportion of the sickest members of society are going to continue dying hideously painful deaths at the hands of unscrupulous frauds and, sorry, but I think that's a disgrace.

- robin.

Gordon

Can anyone not turn up in court and only get fined 6.35?

If I steal someone's car will it only cost me 6.35?

davros

Eoghan-psych wrote:

If you had cancer, would you just take someone's word for it or would you go to your doctor and ask him about it, or look up research on the net?

If you felt more tired than usual and went to a reiki therapist to get your energies back in balance... but several months later it turned out you actually had cancer and you let it progress too far to be treated, is that stupidity?

These days I don't breathe without checking the pros and cons first on the internet. But before the 'net, I would just have taken a doctor's word for it. And if I considered an alternative medicine practitioner ("quack" is so much more concise) to be on an equal, but separate, footing with a conventional doctor, I might take his word for it.

The internet's wonderful but how many people are using it well as a research tool? And would they be as likely to find something plausible and wrong as they would to find something genuine and helpful?

I do like your suggestion though that it should be socially embarrassing to visit a homeopath. We're a long way from that at the moment, unfortunately.

davros

Gordon wrote:

Can anyone not turn up in court and only get fined 6.35?

If I steal someone's car will it only cost me 6.35?

It wasn't a criminal proceeding but an inquest at the Coroner's Court. Nobody was on trial.

davros

robindch wrote:

...one of the things which, much to their credit, the Soviets did try to stamp out -- unsuccessfully, as it unfortunately turns out.

The Chinese Communists are still trying. A new regulation this year from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television bans advertisements for psychic hotlines and other superstitious and pseudo-scientific services.

They are often criticised (rightly, to a great extent) for the stance they take against Falun Gong but it is at least consistent with a policy of stamping out nonsense and superstition that goes back many decades.

KCF

davros wrote:

The Chinese Communists are still trying. A new regulation this year from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television bans advertisements for psychic hotlines and other superstitious and pseudo-scientific services.

They are often criticised (rightly, to a great extent) for the stance they take against Falun Gong but it is at least consistent with a policy of stamping out nonsense and superstition that goes back many decades.

I dunno if stamping out superstitions is worth a cultural revolution! In any case I reckon that state bans are fairly unreliable ways of stamping out things - they can work, but they can have the opposite effect (for example, religion in the Czech republic versus prohibition in the US). I generally think that the best solution to all such questions is to forbid unqualified people to _charge_ for their quackery. No bans, relatively easy to regulate (compared to a ban anyway) and most importantly no profits (which I suspect would lead quickly to no quacks).

robindch

> In any case I reckon that state bans are fairly unreliable
> ways of stamping out things - they can work, but they
> can have the opposite effect

Yeah, you're right it's almost impossible to stamp out something by negative means, which is why positive, thought-inducing, and lengthy, education in schools + universities is so important (and why the creationists in the US are pressing so hard to get their brain-deadening crap onto the school syllabuses there).

> I generally think that the best solution to all such
> questions is to forbid unqualified people to _charge_
> for their quackery.

Won't work There seem to be quite a few quacks out there already who operate in something close to this way, by suggesting a 'donation' rather than any fixed fee (+ then go on to suggest what the donation might be). Patchy research upon my part indicates that suggested donations range from around €50 to €100 per hour. The same 'no charge' business operates in many churches too -- see many websites, for example, of US-based evangelical outfits, where almost all will have healthy-looking, comprehensive, 'electronic giving' sections

> No bans, relatively easy to regulate (compared to a
> ban anyway) and most importantly no profits (which
> I suspect would lead quickly to no quacks).

As I mentioned above, licensing is much easier -- specifically, on the provider side, you legislate that the practitioner must show the patient their medical license at the start of a consultation, and on the consumer side, educate people to ask for the license. This way, people ought quickly get used to the idea of the license itself implying some level of competency, and the lack of it indicating the opposite. Something like the Guild of Master Craftsmen was supposed to be, but turned out to be anything but!

- robin.

ISAW

davros wrote:

I understand your point but I don't believe most people attending homeopaths are stupid.

[ISAW] Even if they were stupid stupidity is not illegal. However, taking advantage of it is!

ISAW

robindch wrote:

From the Irish Times this morning, comes the following sad story:

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2005/0405/2714053675HM3INQUEST.html

...or, in summary:

A 49-year-old Co Mayo man, Paul Howie, died of suffocation caused by a cancerous throat tumour. In court, Mr Howie's wife, Michelle, claimed that Mulranny-based "therapist", Mineke Kamper, had subjected the dead man's wife to "fear and terror" as she treated Mr Howie, who died on April 22nd, 2003.

...

The jury returned a verdict of death by natural causes. Mr Howie leaves behind a wife and one son.

there was a scottish guy on Damien Kiberd's Lunchtime show on Dublin Newstalk on 106FM. he was on about regulating the homeopath industry and how chiropractors have done so and become mainstream. i texted the station saying i had just taken two bottles of homeopathic sleeping pills I didnt feel drowsy but might I be in any danger?

KCF

William Reville had an article about homeopathy in his science column in the IT last week. It was ok. It did at least point out the potential dangers of homeopathy, but it did spend far too much time investigating the possibility of water having a molecular memory of the 'active' substance.

I don't think that there is any point in looking for such molecular funnies as, if it were true, then every drop of water in the world would already be a cure for every poisonous substance in the world - we've had a few billion years of some really serious dilutions, so we would be expected to be immune to everything. For example, homeopathic remedies should be a much stronger cure for whatever dinosaur piss causes than for whatever they are actually diluted with.

Zombrex

davros wrote:

Their whole lives they have heard through the media and by word-of-mouth that alternative medicine is valid and even more effective than real medicine.

I would point out this woman was not a homeopath in the same way your mate who ties a string to your loose tooth and pulls it out it not a dentist.

As far as I am aware she had no formal recongised homeopathic qualification or experience. Seemingly she did a 2 week course or something. She is a nut. No qualified homeopath in the world would tell someone to stop all treatment for cancer.

We should be careful that we don't tar all homepaths with the same brush because this unqualified, unexperiences nut job killed someone.

KCF

Wicknight wrote:

We should be careful that we don't tar all homepaths with the same brush because this unqualified, unexperiences nut job killed someone.

What reason is there not to tar all homeopaths with the 'absolute nonsense' brush? Sure some of them may be more reckless than others, as with any profession, but they're still peddlers in nonsense to a (wo)man.

Zombrex

KCF wrote:

What reason is there not to tar all homeopaths with the 'absolute nonsense' brush? Sure some of them may be more reckless than others, as with any profession, but they're still peddlers in nonsense to a (wo)man.

Well you can choose to believe it is all nonsense if you wish, that isn't the point. The point is that proper homeopathic medicine is a professional industry, they don't "pedel" anything.

No professional homeopath would try to force you to take anything, or instruct you to give up any traditional medical procedure. If you ask them for help they will give you advice.

Like I said no qualified homeopath in the world would have told this man to go off all medicine, or even told him that homeopathic medicine would cure him.

KCF

Wicknight wrote:

Well you can choose to believe it is all nonsense if you wish, that isn't the point. The point is that proper homeopathic medicine is a professional industry, they don't "pedel" anything.

No professional homeopath would try to force you to take anything, or instruct you to give up any traditional medical procedure. If you ask them for help they will give you advice.

I think that the fact that is a professional industry is merely a fig-leaf. I mean if soothsayers or astrologers were to form their own 'professional' body (they probably have you know ) what difference would it make?

Wicknight wrote:

Like I said no qualified homeopath in the world would have told this man to go off all medicine, or even told him that homeopathic medicine would cure him.

Considering the fact that many qualified doctors have been proven to give advice of such poor quality to their patients, resulting in deaths and permanent ill-health, I rather think you are being a little bit sweeping with this assertion.

davros

Wicknight wrote:

Like I said no qualified homeopath in the world would have ... told him that homeopathic medicine would cure him.

I hope, as you say, that they don't recommend forgoing real medicine but I can't agree that they are not offering "cures"(*). And once they are offering cures, no matter what sort of legal get-out clauses they couch their statements in, the clear implication is that homeopathy is an alternative route to restored health.

Going to both an alternative and a mainstream practitioner/doctor is a belt-and-braces approach that is twice as expensive as choosing one or the other. Why not simply go for the one that offers zero side-effects and works in harmony with your mysterious energies? Promoting ignorance under the heading of "homeopathy", no matter how qualified the practitioner is a dangerous game. I don't see a useful distinction between the professional, qualified homeopath and the "quack" homeopath.

(*) It was easy to find an Irish homeopathic organisation promising cures:
http://www.homeopathyireland.net/simple.htm

ISAW

Wicknight wrote:

Like I said no qualified homeopath in the world would have told this man to go off all medicine, or even told him that homeopathic medicine would cure him.

Bit of a "true scotsman" argument there? Exactly what is a "qualified homeopath"?

ISAW

Lets just get things straight:

theory of homeopathy:

Homeopathy is based on the idea of a "vital force" ( a bit likr the Oriental Chi?)

Proving
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/homeopathy/84253

basically i give you something to eat or drink lets say sulphur or better yet lets say petrol. After some time your head hurts and you have a pain in your right knee and you eye swells up. I write all this down.

some time later a guy comes in to me with a swollen eye. His head hurts. I ask if he has a pain in his right knee. YES he sayd how did you know? You have petrol i say. and so I give him petrol.
Why do I give him petrol?

The Law of similars

Hahnemann developed a theory he called "the law of similars". According to this theory, a medicine that causes the same symptoms as those of the disease will override the disease, such that the morbid function of the vital force is now caused by the medicine, not the original disease, and as the effect of the medicine wears off, the patient will be left cured. Thus, Hahnemann declares the group of homeopathic medicines to be the one and only path to cure.

The result of the provings were compiled into a work called the Materia Medica, which has later been expanded by Hahnemann’s followers. The idea of homeopathic treatment is that the patient’s symptom profile is taken, then the Materia Medica is carefully perused to find the medicine that provides the best (ideally perfect) match of that symptom profile. That is assumed to be the medicine that cures that particular case. During this matching, interestingly, a medicine is sought that matches as many of the patient’s symptoms as possible, whereas any symptoms recorded for the medicine, but NOT matching the patient’s profile are normally ignored.

Concentrations
Now do you really want someone to drink petrol? Don't worry. homeopaths dilute them! How much? How about one part in ten to the thirty? Apparently the effect still holds true. And not only that they havce a way to dilute them which nowadays even extends to linking water up to your phone and having it done over the internet ( after you have paid for the service).

Zombrex

KCF wrote:

I mean if soothsayers or astrologers were to form their own 'professional' body (they probably have you know ) what difference would it make?

Or doctors or dentists ....

KCF wrote:

Considering the fact that many qualified doctors have been proven to give advice of such poor quality to their patients, resulting in deaths and permanent ill-health, I rather think you are being a little bit sweeping with this assertion.

What doctor do you go to that would tell someone to ignore all forms of traditional cancer treatment, because I suggest I don't go to them again ...

Zombrex

davros wrote:

I hope, as you say, that they don't recommend forgoing real medicine but I can't agree that they are not offering "cures"(*). And once they are offering cures, no matter what sort of legal get-out clauses they couch their statements in, the clear implication is that homeopathy is an alternative route to restored health.

They are offering "cures" in the same way that doctors offer "cures" ... but in the same way that a doctor doesn't promise mircles neither does a professional homeopath. Like I said, no professional homeopath would tell you that their treatment will definitly cure serious illness like cancer, or that you should not seek other medical advice.

Zombrex

ISAW wrote:

Bit of a "true scotsman" argument there? Exactly what is a "qualified homeopath"?

Someone with a recongised qualification in homeopathic medicne. What is a "qualified doctor"?

Eriugena

ISAW wrote:

Now do you really want someone to drink petrol?

They don't use petrol so why do you choose this example?

Don't worry. homeopaths dilute them! How much? How about one part in ten to the thirty? Apparently the effect still holds true. And not only that they havce a way to dilute them which nowadays even extends to linking water up to your phone and having it done over the internet ( after you have paid for the service).

Do you have source for this last claim?

KCF

Wicknight wrote:

Or doctors or dentists ....

The difference being that there is a scientific method to training in those disciplines and there is a huge amount of evidence to support their efficacy in healing ills, whereas homeopathy is based purely upon faith and mysticism and is not useful for anything, except perhaps some obscure psychological benefits that you might gain from sharing the company of the homeopath.

I also think it is safe to say that for every minute and dollar spent on homeopathy, some fraction of that is prevented from being spent on something that works.

So, to put it simply, if their 'professional' status was to mean what that term does when applied to doctors and dentists, we would expect homoepaths to show similar ethical standards. In particular we would expect them to show similar commitment to treating the patient in the most effective way - according to scientific principles (double blind studies, peer reviewed published research, reproducible experiments, etc, etc). If homeopaths were to operate according to such ethics (which have remained established as the correct ethics for healers since ancient greece) , then they would all have to retire en-masse instantly and redirect all their patients towards a scientific practitioner. Obviously, they don't, nor are they likely too, but it means that their 'professional' status is meaningless. It is perfectly analoguous to a "code of thieves".

Wicknight wrote:

What doctor do you go to that would tell someone to ignore all forms of traditional cancer treatment, because I suggest I don't go to them again ...

Obviously, I wouldn't go to one if I could avoid it, but there have been a great number of malpractice cases which have exposed some shocking negligence on the part of doctors.

Zombrex

ISAW wrote:

Lets just get things straight:

Homeopathy is based on the idea of a "vital force"

Homeopathy is based on the idea that a very tiny amount of a substance can trigger the body to produce a positive health response. How this happens, or even if this actually happens, is unclear.

It is an "alternative" medicine in that the methods of how it work are unclear, the focus is on the results. Some studies have shown it does have a positive result on the pathent, others have shown little change. Traditional medicine is skeptical because the methods that the homeopathic substance is supposed to trigger a response is unclear. Some scientists believe that it is chemcially impossible for such a tiny amount to trigger a response in a patient.

Any proper homeopath will tell you this up front. They are not in the profession of "pedaling" "cures" to make a quick buck. It is not magic, or witch-doctor stuff, nor do they claim it is a miracle cure to things like cancer.

Poisonwood

Wicknight wrote:

Homeopathy is based on the idea that a very tiny amount of a substance can trigger the body to produce a positive health response.

Incorrect. There is no amount of the substance. It is based on the idea that the 'memory' (held somehow in water) of a very small amount of a sunbstance can influence the body.

How this happens, or even if this actually happens, is unclear.

It has never been shown to happen.

It is an "alternative" medicine in that the methods of how it work are unclear, the focus is on the results.

Its proposed methods are impossible. It doesn't work. If it did it would be called medicine.

Some studies have shown it does have a positive result on the pathent, others have shown little change.

Please reference studies which have shown positive results.

Some scientists believe that it is chemcially impossible for such a tiny amount to trigger a response in a patient.

It is chemically impossible for NO substance to trigger a response. It has also never been shown that succussing generates a memory in water of the substance and that this memory can influence physiology.

Any proper homeopath will tell you this up front.

Maybe. Most people I know who use homeopathy are incredulous when you tell them the actual theories behind the practice. Most in my experience think they are taking something akin to herbal remedies.

It is not magic, or witch-doctor stuff

It is exactly this.

nor do they claim it is a miracle cure to things like cancer.

Many homeopaths say that they can cure or treat cancer. The Big Bite last week had two homeopaths on where it was claimed that it could be used to treat cancer.

davros

Eriugena wrote:

Do you have source for this last claim?

J. Benveniste, P. Jurgens, W. Hsueh and J. Aissa, Transatlantic Transfer of Digitized Antigen Signal by Telephone Link, Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology - Program and abstracts of papers to be presented during scientific sessions AAAAI/AAI.CIS Joint Meeting February 21-26, 1997

Peanut

KCF wrote:

... if it were true, then every drop of water in the world would already be a cure for every poisonous substance in the world - we've had a few billion years of some really serious dilutions, so we would be expected to be immune to everything. For example, homeopathic remedies should be a much stronger cure for whatever dinosaur piss causes than for whatever they are actually diluted with.

KCF, please google for "serial dilution" and homeopathy. It is correct what you are saying that if a substance is just diluted "normally" then you wouldn't expect any effect, however this is not how homeopathic remedies are made.

The serial dilution of a remedy substance leaves the possibility, however remote, that there is some mechanism that "remembers" the ratio of the substance diluted in reference to the amount of substance in the previous dilution. (where "substance" at the start is the gross remedy material, and in later steps is a fixed number of drops from the previous dilution).

Since the rest of the solution (water/alcohol) remains "newly filled" in each step, this could prevent other minerals etc. in the water from being "potentized".

KCF

Peanut wrote:

KCF, please google for "serial dilution" and homeopathy. It is correct what you are saying that if a substance is just diluted "normally" then you wouldn't expect any effect, however this is not how homeopathic remedies are made.

The serial dilution of a remedy substance leaves the possibility, however remote, that there is some mechanism that "remembers" the ratio of the substance diluted in reference to the amount of substance in the previous dilution. (where "substance" at the start is the gross remedy material, and in later steps is a fixed number of drops from the previous dilution).

Since the rest of the solution (water/alcohol) remains "newly filled" in each step, this could prevent other minerals etc. in the water from being "potentized".

Thanks, but I know quite enough about homeopathy not to need google. Consider a drop of dinasour pee emitted into the water 65 million years ago. This drop has been "serially diluted" far beyond the potency of any homeopathic dilution, through an enormous number of cycles of evaporation and condensation. The big question for homeopaths is how on earth do they arrive get the pure water to dilute their substances with - according to their own (nonsense) theory, it should be impossible to purify water as it will retain memories of all the substances that were diluted into it in the past. Since the more dilute the substance is, the more powerful it is supposed to be, this means that no matter how many serial dilutions the quacks carry out, they will never achieve the strengths of dinasour pee in the water (65 million years of serial dilution in a really big body of water).

Homeopathic theory is nonsense, plain and simple. In practical terms, it is no better. If any homeopathic treatment was able to show its efficacy in scientific trials it would have been incorporated into medicine.

Peanut

KCF wrote:

Thanks, but I know quite enough about homeopathy not to need google. Consider a drop of dinasour pee emitted into the water 65 million years ago. This drop has been "serially diluted" far beyond the potency of any homeopathic dilution, through an enormous number of cycles of evaporation and condensation. The big question for homeopaths is how on earth do they arrive get the pure water to dilute their substances with - according to their own (nonsense) theory, it should be impossible to purify water as it will retain memories of all the substances that were diluted into it in the past. Since the more dilute the substance is, the more powerful it is supposed to be, this means that no matter how many serial dilutions the quacks carry out, they will never achieve the strengths of dinasour pee in the water (65 million years of serial dilution in a really big body of water).

Homeopathic theory is nonsense, plain and simple. In practical terms, it is no better. If any homeopathic treatment was able to show its efficacy in scientific trials it would have been incorporated into medicine.

KCF you are not comparing like with like, the serial dilution steps of homeopathy do not appear anywhere in the natural world that we know of, it's a very specific artifical processing of remedy and solution that uses exactly the same ratios of dilution at each step (along with succession).

You cannot just randomly take an arbitrary amount of dilution in the rain cycle example and expect it to be the same process, it's a completely different situation.

What I was trying to convey is that it is totally unnecessary for the alcohol/water solution to be "pure", all that matters in this regard is that the same alcohol/water solution is used at each step, and a *fixed* fraction of the previous *remedy solution* is used at the next step. Because the alcohol/water added at each step is *not* a fraction of the previous remedy solution, this provides a means to differentiate the remedy from the surrounding substances *if* you accept some sort of memory hypothesis.

This is not some vague guess, it is (relatively) easily shown by example *as long as* you accept the possibility of the solution having a memory of it's previous dilution ratio.

robindch

> it is totally unnecessary for the alcohol/water
> solution to be "pure"

Does you mean that it doesn't matter at all if the alcohol/water solution contains other substances in 'homeopathic' quantities?

- robin.

Peanut

robindch wrote:

> it is totally unnecessary for the alcohol/water
> solution to be "pure"

Does you mean that it doesn't matter at all if the alcohol/water solution contains other substances in 'homeopathic' quantities?

- robin.

Yes

robindch

> > Does you mean that it doesn't matter at all if
> > the alcohol/water solution contains other
> > substances in 'homeopathic' quantities?

> Yes.

So, this means that any homeopathic preparation contains not only the "memory" of the stuff that it's a preparation of, but also a "memory" of the impurities in the alcohol/water. How do you know then, what the "active" ingredient in a solution is?

- robin.

Obni

robindch wrote:

> > Does you mean that it doesn't matter at all if
> > the alcohol/water solution contains other
> > substances in 'homeopathic' quantities?

> Yes.

So, this means that any homeopathic preparation contains not only the "memory" of the stuff that it's a preparation of, but also a "memory" of the impurities in the alcohol/water. How do you know then, what the "active" ingredient in a solution is?

- robin.

It's written on the label. :rolleyes:

Peanut

robindch wrote:

> > Does you mean that it doesn't matter at all if
> > the alcohol/water solution contains other
> > substances in 'homeopathic' quantities?

> Yes.

So, this means that any homeopathic preparation contains not only the "memory" of the stuff that it's a preparation of, but also a "memory" of the impurities in the alcohol/water. How do you know then, what the "active" ingredient in a solution is?

- robin.

No, it doesn't contain a "memory" of the impurities (at least not in any meaningful way). If you accept the possibility of a memory of the previous dilution, then at each new step you are "resetting" the memory of the "impurities" to the initial state, while the remedy itself is "carried forward" because it is being added at a specific ratio. It can be shown if you abstract it out into more generalised non-homeopathic terms.

As for how to measure the "active" ingredient, I've no idea.. :rolleyes:
I'm just pointing out that there are possible ways that homeopathy could work that make the other dilution arguments irrelevant.

secret_squirrel

For a forum thats meant to look at things in a skeptical light I find most of the arguments on this thread lacking in any kind of reasoned analysis or logical consistency.

The first thing you need to realise is that extrapolating from a single case is extremely flawed - thus all this case states is that a woman - claiming to be a homeopath alledgely was a contributing factor in the death of a man from throat cancer. It has very little bearing on the validity - or not - of homeopathy as a whole.

All you can say is that this case under these specific conditions indicates that homeopathy was not a valid treatment for this man.
Its quite possible that this man could have died under mainstream medical treatment - where would you fling your outrage then???

Secondly as any good physicist will tell you there are few/if any absolutes in this universe. Most of the models we use to understand the universe are flawed, highly simplified or offer only an approximation of reality. A good experimental physicist will never suggest that an experiment will always produce the same results - only that it has done so far

Most of the so called skeptics on this thread seem to be plain ole rabid flatearthers. Personally I have no idea if homeopathy works or not - but Im willing to consider the possibility that it might in the right circumstances - its called keeping an open mind. Most of the posters here seem to consider skepticism the same thing as closemindedness.

Peanut

secret_squirrel wrote:

All you can say is that this case under these specific conditions indicates that homeopathy was not a valid treatment for this man.

I like the post Squirrel, however we can't even assume the above because -

a) We don't know if the woman was in fact practising homeopathy as is generally defined, or just using the title for the sake of advertising. Certainly from her actions, it strongly looks like the latter.

b) If she was legit, she may have used different criteria for establishing the case, or diagnosing the remedy, she may have just selected the wrong remedy.

c) The remedy may not have been manufactured properly, or may have since been contaminated somehow.

d) The remedy may not have been administered in such a way as to be effective.

e) Homeopathy may not have helped in this case anyway, regardless of whether it may have been effective in other cases. (your original point)


There's a very relevant talk tomorrow (Wednesday, 6pm) in the RDS from Dr David Reilly of the Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital, outlining the integration of conventional medicine and alternative therapy. I imagine it would be well worth going to for anyone interested in the supposed dichotomy between the two.

http://www.rds.ie/members/minerva/1_2005_Minerva.pdf

KCF

secret_squirrel wrote:

For a forum thats meant to look at things in a skeptical light I find most of the arguments on this thread lacking in any kind of reasoned analysis or logical consistency.

What is it about this forum that makes every new visitor announce their arrival with a string of generalised insults?

To return to the specific, Peanut, as I understand you, you are saying that homeopathic dilutions 'cancel out' any traces of impurities in the solvent, but that further dilution increases the traces of the diluted substance. This makes no sense to me and indeed contradicts much that I know about the behaviour of matter. It also begs the question of whether the homeopathic solution is hermetically sealed before being consumed, for wouldn't any impurities in the air that might dissolve into the water 'cancel out' the homeopathic properties?

Eriugena

davros wrote:

J. Benveniste, P. Jurgens, W. Hsueh and J. Aissa, Transatlantic Transfer of Digitized Antigen Signal by Telephone Link, Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology - Program and abstracts of papers to be presented during scientific sessions AAAAI/AAI.CIS Joint Meeting February 21-26, 1997

Well, this reminds me of the time in the 1970's I think when it was announced that Mass on TV was valid. The difference being that that at least had some plausibility to it!

Eriugena

KCF wrote:

What is it about this forum that makes every new visitor announce their arrival with a string of generalised insults?

I think you started a trend.

Turley

secret_squirrel wrote:

Most of the posters here seem to consider skepticism the same thing as closemindedness.

This is true.
And at the same time, most of the posters here would not consider themselves closeminded.

ISAW

Turley wrote:

This is true.
And at the same time, most of the posters here would not consider themselves closeminded.

I think the issue revolvs around this:

1. Is there ANY evidence Homeopathy works?
2. Is there ANY evidence that the mecahnism and underylying theory of homeopathy is even better than placebo?
3. If someone recommends homeopathy (or any other CAM) over perscription are they acticing ethically, morally or legally?

Myksyk

secret_squirrel wrote:

Most of the so called skeptics on this thread seem to be plain ole rabid flatearthers. Personally I have no idea if homeopathy works or not - but Im willing to consider the possibility that it might in the right circumstances - its called keeping an open mind. Most of the posters here seem to consider skepticism the same thing as closemindedness.

There is also such a thing as 'making up your mind'.

New ideas which look promising deserve open minds regarding their validity. Other ideas like astrology, homeopathy and their ilk have been around for centuries without validation. Literally hundreds of years without a morcel of credible evidence being offered, bar "but maybe there's a way they work that we don;t know". When people have had centuries to back up their ideas and fail to do so in grand fashion, then it's time to get off the potty. As Carl Sagan I think said, it's fine having an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out. I'm actually happy to take a position on homeopathy - it doesn't work, it hasn't shown that it works, it has failed to present even a credible mechanism by which it could work. It's not up to everyone else to give homeopathy the benefit of any doubt, it is up to homeopathy to show it has any benefit. I doubt it.

Obni

secret_squirrel wrote:

For a forum thats meant to look at things in a skeptical light ... Most of the posters here seem to consider skepticism the same thing as closemindedness.

Your post seems to be based on the assumption that this is the first time anyone here has considered the merits of homeopathy.

If the proposed mechanism behind homeopathy doesn't convince you that it's hokum, then accept the evidence of corporate greed. I spend a lot of time in pharmaceutical plants, and have seen the technical problems and the expense facing companies in the production of conventional medications. If homeopathy was anything more than quackery, then it would be bottled and sold by every pharma-corporation on the planet. Cast off your reactors, condensers, and scrubbers! Forget about emissions and EPA licences! Just buy a couple of dozen eye-droppers and install a tap. Arse!

Obni

Turley wrote:

This is true.
And at the same time, most of the posters here would not consider themselves closeminded.

Personally speaking, I have a mind like a steal trap!!!