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Homeopathy sold in Pharmacy. Your thoughts please.

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    #62
    nesf
    Registered Users Posts: 27,645 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    boardswalker wrote: »
    Don't worry about the "average conspiracy theory-esque stuff" - that's just a red herring for you to divert attention.

    What scares me about Big Pharma is the reasoned and caculated analysis of Big Pharma that are made by many, including Ben Goldacre.

    Given what I know now about the abuse of evidence as part of the approval process, about off-label prescribing and about serious conflicts of interest in research, all well documented by Ben Goldacre et al, its very clear that patients/consumers are much more at risk from flawed highly potent drugs than they are from "sugarpills/water."

    I haven't seen too many threads on here concerned about the risks of medicines where the evidence turned out to be lacking and patients suffered as a result.

    I don't know, I suffer from a mental illness that requires long term medication and to be honest the doctors are very well up on what works and what doesn't work, which drug to prescribe for lower side effects and which for maximum effectiveness. I think you're underestimating the wisdom of doctors and their experience here, it doesn't take long for the medical profession to figure out if a medication isn't that effective or if it has some serious drawbacks side effect wise.


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    #63
    boardswalker
    Registered Users Posts: 460 ✭✭boardswalker


    nesf wrote: »
    I don't know, I suffer from a mental illness that requires long term medication and to be honest the doctors are very well up on what works and what doesn't work, which drug to prescribe for lower side effects and which for maximum effectiveness. I think you're underestimating the wisdom of doctors and their experience here, it doesn't take long for the medical profession to figure out if a medication isn't that effective or if it has some serious drawbacks side effect wise.

    I am sorry to hear about your illness and I am very glad that your treatment is working well for you.

    However, in a Health Sciences forum, you should be aware that you cannot extrapolate from one example to conclude that all must be the same.

    If you read Goldacre regularly you would be very familiar with the problems with medical research.

    In the General Press, in the last two weeks alone, it was reported that

    (i) "GlaxoSmithKline Plc agreed to pay $3 billion to resolve U.S. criminal and civil investigations into whether the U.K. company marketed drugs for unapproved uses and other matters, its biggest legal settlement."

    http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-08/glaxo-to-pay-3-billion-to-settle-u-s-sales-avandia-cases.html

    (ii) Medtronic sought approval for a product even though they had undisclosed information that the product increased the risks of cancer in patients. A similar product, with similar risks, is widely prescribed off-label in the US, where Doctors have not been made aware of the risks.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/health/research/amplify-by-medtronic-may-raise-chance-of-cancer-data-shows.html

    (iii) Look at the quotes from Goldacre in my post above.

    The information is out there. Its not highlighted in this forum but its easily available.

    Compared to the side-effects of some approved products, the risks of homeopathy seem slight.


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    #64
    kuro_man
    Registered Users Posts: 1,036 ✭✭✭kuro_man


    boardswalker wrote: »
    Compared to the side-effects of some approved products, the risks of homeopathy seem slight.

    Homeopathy and other belief systems attack the very same scientific method that doubled out life span in the last 100 years.

    Nobody denies there are problems with the pharm industry, but we should not let them throw the baby out with the bathwater.


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    #65
    boardswalker
    Registered Users Posts: 460 ✭✭boardswalker


    kuro_man wrote: »
    Homeopathy and other belief systems attack the very same scientific method that doubled out life span in the last 100 years.

    Are you really equating Big Pharma with the Scientific Method? That's quite a leap.

    If you read Goldacre et al, you'd know that he accuses them of often abusing the scientific method.
    kuro_man wrote: »
    Nobody denies there are problems with the pharm industry, but we should not let them throw the baby out with the bathwater.

    Right now, the problem is that nobody's throwing anything out. And, as I wrote earlier, the risk from water and sugar pills is significantly less than the risk from big pharma products that have undisclosed side-effects eg Avandia, Vioxx, SSRIs (for teens) etc etc etc.

    The information is all in the public domain.


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    #66
    kuro_man
    Registered Users Posts: 1,036 ✭✭✭kuro_man


    I never mentioned big pharma. Medicine is a science that believes in evidence based research, which has served us extremely well.
    Homeopathy undermines the scientic method, and that is very dangerous.

    I really don't understand your point: we should ignore quackery because of the problems with big pharma? Hardly. The topic of the thread is homeopathy, not big pharma.

    We have increases in malaria infections due to the use of homeopathic "remedies", homeopaths telling clients not to immunise their childrens etc. Its all very worrying and certainly not harmless.


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    #67
    nesf
    Registered Users Posts: 27,645 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    boardswalker wrote: »
    Compared to the side-effects of some approved products, the risks of homeopathy seem slight.

    See this I have a problem with. Just because there are issues with Big Pharma doesn't mean you can substitute any kind of voodoo you want instead of it! It's a bit like saying there are issues with Capitalism so therefore Communism can't be that bad.


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    #68
    boardswalker
    Registered Users Posts: 460 ✭✭boardswalker


    kuro_man wrote: »
    I never mentioned big pharma.

    The phrase you used was the "pharm industry". Same thing.
    kuro_man wrote: »
    Medicine is a science that believes in evidence based research, which has served us extremely well.

    Evidence-based medicine is becoming more and more discredited for all the reasons that I mentioned earlier - poor design of trials, research bias, suppression of results that don't give the desired answers etc. It's well documented.

    Secondly, off-label prescribing cannot be evidence-based. Off label prescribing is not approved usually because there is no/insufficient evidence to support off-label prescribing - that's why its off label.

    Evidence Based Medicine is nothing of the sort. That's why the Cochrane Collaboration recently (5 Oct 11) posted the following on their website. "Selective reporting of trial results occurs frequently, leading to exaggerated findings of the beneficial effects of healthcare interventions and underestimates of their harms. As a consequence, many patients are unknowingly treated with interventions that have little or no effect, and may be harmed unnecessarily. This is unethical 1 and has been said to violate the implicit contract between healthcare researchers and patients, where the aim of research is to improve treatment of future patients." http://www.cochrane.org/about-us/our-policies/support-free-access-to-all-data-from-all-clinical-trials

    Homeopathy Selective reporting of Trial Results undermines the scientic method, and that is very dangerous.

    kuro_man wrote: »
    I really don't understand your point: we should ignore quackery because of the problems with big pharma? Hardly. The topic of the thread is homeopathy, not big pharma.

    But the real risk lies with Products that claim to be evidence based. Homeopaths or Homeopathic manufacturers did not recently pay out € 3.5bn in fines. As is often pointed out here, homeopathy is just sugared water. You have to address the real risks. Homeopathy is a red herring.
    kuro_man wrote: »
    We have increases in malaria infections due to the use of homeopathic "remedies", homeopaths telling clients not to immunise their childrens etc. Its all very worrying and certainly not harmless.

    But is that a greater risk than patients being harmed unncessarily by being treated with conventional medicine, as Cochrane acknowledges? Why do conventional doctors pay so much more in PI than homeopaths. Because the risk is significantly lower.


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    #69
    boardswalker
    Registered Users Posts: 460 ✭✭boardswalker


    nesf wrote: »
    See this I have a problem with. Just because there are issues with Big Pharma doesn't mean you can substitute any kind of voodoo you want instead of it! It's a bit like saying there are issues with Capitalism so therefore Communism can't be that bad.

    See the last section of my reply to Kuro Man.

    I am not asking you to substitute voodoo. I am asking you to focus on the real risks - those pharmaceutical products that have been approved on the basis of flawed evidence.


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    #70
    locum-motion
    Registered Users Posts: 5,143 ✭✭✭locum-motion


    boardswalker wrote: »
    See the last section of my reply to Kuro Man.

    I am not asking you to substitute voodoo. I am asking you to focus on the real risks - those pharmaceutical products that have been approved on the basis of flawed evidence.

    This thread is about Homoeopathy. Not about the pharm industry/big pharma.


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    #71
    Dr Galen
    Registered Users Posts: 7,373 ✭✭✭Dr Galen


    boardswalker wrote: »
    See the last section of my reply to Kuro Man.

    I am not asking you to substitute voodoo. I am asking you to focus on the real risks - those pharmaceutical products that have been approved on the basis of flawed evidence.

    Can we keep this thread OT. By all means start a new thread about this topic though.

    Cheers

    DrG


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    #72
    boardswalker
    Registered Users Posts: 460 ✭✭boardswalker


    Dr Galen wrote: »
    Can we keep this thread OT.

    Actually, despite the thread title, the two questions posed in the original post were
    Mordy wrote: »
    So my questions are;

    Do you think that this is a breach of trust of the pharmacist to be recommending and/or selling non clinically proven remedies?

    And

    Should this practice be stopped?

    As far as I can see, we are still on topic when discussing the recommending or selling of non-clinically proven remedies, other than homeopathy.

    While the thread title may have misled slightly, the actual questions were not restricted to homeopathy.

    And as you may have gathered, I am against the selling or use of unproven remedies including highly potent pharmaceutical remedies, especially when they are held out to be proven.


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    #73
    Dr Galen
    Registered Users Posts: 7,373 ✭✭✭Dr Galen


    No

    We're on your topic. So far this thread has discussed homeopathy as per the thread title.

    I'm not saying that some the points you make arent valid ones, I'm saying that this is not the thread to discuss them in.


    That's as far as this discussion goes on thread. Start a new thread if you wish.

    Cheers

    DrG


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    #74
    nesf
    Registered Users Posts: 27,645 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    Dr Galen wrote: »
    Can we keep this thread OT. By all means start a new thread about this topic though.

    Cheers

    DrG

    *contemplates whether getting one more reply in would be worth a ban*


  • Options
    #75
    Dr Galen
    Registered Users Posts: 7,373 ✭✭✭Dr Galen


    just try it............

    :P


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    #76
    kuro_man
    Registered Users Posts: 1,036 ✭✭✭kuro_man


    alternative_literature.png

    Image text: I just noticed CVS has started stocking homeopathic pills on the same shelves with--and labeled similarly to--their actual medicine. Telling someone who trusts you that you're giving them medicine, when you know you’re not, because you want their money, isn’t just lying--it’s like an example you’d make up if you had to illustrate for a child why lying is wrong.

    http://xkcd.com/971/


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    #77
    28064212
    Registered Users Posts: 10,460 ✭✭✭✭28064212


    kuro_man wrote: »
    Image text: I just noticed CVS has started stocking homeopathic pills on the same shelves with--and labeled similarly to--their actual medicine. Telling someone who trusts you that you're giving them medicine, when you know you’re not, because you want their money, isn’t just lying--it’s like an example you’d make up if you had to illustrate for a child why lying is wrong.

    http://xkcd.com/971/
    Thanked purely for including the mouseover text, because no-one ever does that when they're posting XKCD

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    #78
    kuro_man
    Registered Users Posts: 1,036 ✭✭✭kuro_man


    28064212 wrote: »
    Thanked purely for including the mouseover text, because no-one ever does that when they're posting XKCD

    www.explainxkcd.com


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    #79
    ClocksForward
    Closed Accounts Posts: 61 ✭✭ClocksForward


    Homeopathy is serious bull. It is a shame people buy into this quackery. I say stock this junk on the shelves. If people are thick enough to actually buy this stuff, I say let them.


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    #80
    kuro_man
    Registered Users Posts: 1,036 ✭✭✭kuro_man


    ClocksForward wrote: »
    Homeopathy is serious bull. It is a shame people buy into this quackery. I say stock this junk on the shelves. If people are thick enough to actually buy this stuff, I say let them.

    Perhaps proper labels would help consumer make more informed choices, like "no active ingredients", "not medicine", "no evidence of efficiacy", "not effective in the treatment of any known conditions". Also, the so called ingredient should be qualified e.g. Arnica 30C (contains no arnica)


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