More Fun with Homeopath Dana Ullman, MPH(!)

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

The amazing feature of skeptics of homeopathy is that you assume that homeopaths have some magical power that other people don't seem to have and just by "magic" those people get better.

Not at all. What we find is a uniform insistence on taking the credit for spontaneous recoveries and active misrepresentation of what actually happened with cases.

Continuing to reiterate the findings of discredited and weak studies does not help your case.

Nor does your failure to answer some simple, direct questions.

Here they are again- numbered for ease of reference.

1. Can you tell us whether remedies are neutralised by airport X-ray scanners?

2. Can you tell us about 'grafting remedies' and whether he thinks that works.

3. Do you tell agree that during a homeopathic proving the people involve risk serious and long-term harm being caused?

4. Can you tell us whether either of these machines works?

http://www.bio-resonance.com/elybra.htm

http://www.remedydevices.com/voice.htm

I'll add another now;

5. Can you tell us whether "constitutional remedies" work?

p.s. It is neither big nor clever to invent new words to cover up the holes in your philosophy. "Nano-", as has been pointed out, has a specific meaning. Describing what you practise as "nanopharmacology" is not technically accurate and is obviously a deliberate attempt to obscure the underlying reality. "Homeopathy" is quite sufficiently accurate a description for what you claim to do and we don't need to adopt any more of self-aggrandising jargon from water and sugar retailers.

Interestingly, by wanting to introduce this term you quietly sidestep the fact that all this dilution/solvent substitution business is a complete side issue, as you know doubt know, being an ardent devotee of Hahnemann. The central and primary false conception is "Like cures like". The dilution process only arose to stop you killing people directly with your toxic remedies.

Typical homeopathy, introduce a new false concept to conceal another. If you read the homeopathic literature it is nothing but a sequence of such ad hoc inventions. Clearly some mechanism for homeopathy would be required if it worked. Since it does not, and the trials clearly say this no matter how much its advocates pretend otherwise, we can sweep away this whole fantastical house of cards.

It is such a pity that some people waste their lives shackled to these lies. Presumably it is this personal investment that makes them so resistant to rational dissuasion.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Thaks to Mojo for notifying me of this thread. Seems for once I'm not too late to joun the fun.

Understanding water is not a simple subject. I recommend reading the work of Rustum Roy, PhD, professor of material sciences at Penn State University and head of a material sciences lab that the ISI considers to be the best in the world. Besides having almost 700 papers published, he has had 13 papers published in NATURE.

Is he an authority on medicine?

Because I'm still a newbie to this list, I cannot provide a full URL for a recent article. Just add the www to it:

rustumroy.com/Roy_Structure%20of%20Water.pdf

Dr. Roy will have another even more important article published shortly, though I wonder how many of you are serious enough to follow the science.

Water physics is indeed a very interesting area. The big question here is what relevance it has to homeopathy. Homeopathic remedies are prepared using both water and alcohol, and they are stored in lactose. Any physics explaining homeopathy must also include properties of alcohol and lactose.

Finally: We can study the good doctor's papers, and I'm sure several of us will be able to understand them, but you, Mr. Ulmann, are the one who makes a claim. If Dr. Roy's studies are in support of your claim, it is your task to explain how.

As for double-blind research, the arsenic study mentioned previously was a randomized double-blind trial for the GROUP A. This is undeniable. GROUP B choose not to be given a chance for a placebo, and if you wish, you can ignore this group. Perhaps it is just a coincidence that both the people in GROUP A who were given a homeopathic *snip*

Both? BOTH?? Two subjects? DO you call that a randomized double blind study???? Excuse me, but do you know anything at all about statistics?

The amazing feature of skeptics of homeopathy is that you assume that homeopaths have some magical power that other people don't seem to have and just by "magic" those people get better. An easier (and more probable) explanation is that nanopharmacology works.

Well, since you cannot explain how it works (you cannot even come close), it might as well be magic. Nevertheless, the above is a straw-man. We do not believe in magic, remember? The easier, and more probable, explanation is that homeopathy is neither magic not nanopharmacology (you don't support things by inventing new scientific-sounding words), but that it simply doesn't work.

I'm glad that some of you appreciate HORMESIS. If so, why do you think that medicine is ignoring it, despite the 1,000+ studies? Is homeo-phobia real?

Ignore? Is 1,000+ plus studies the same as ignoring in your book?

Hans

 

[fls]

As for double-blind research, the arsenic study mentioned previously was a randomized double-blind trial for the GROUP A. This is undeniable. GROUP B choose not to be given a chance for a placebo, and if you wish, you can ignore this group. Perhaps it is just a coincidence that both the people in GROUP A who were given a homeopathic dose of arsenic and the people in GROUP B who were also given this medicine experienced a significant increase in certain detoxifying liver enzymes, while people in GROUP A who were given a placebo didn't.

Now you're just making stuff up. Yes, parts of the studies included a group that was divided into a treatment arm and a control arm. However, the claims of effectiveness are based only on the results from the uncontrolled groups. The first arsenic study did not say it was randomized, and the description of the assignment of medication in the second trial is specifically of a non-random assignment. The liver enzymes were not measured in GROUP A, so your statement about differences in liver enzymes is a fabrication.

The COPD study was another great trial, as was the severe sepsis trial, both of which were conducted at the University of Vienna Hospital.

The results of the sepsis trial would be considered negative if it had been analyzed by conventional standards.

The COPD study is an isolated finding, and at the very least would have to be replicated (preferably not by a team that is heavily invested in the outcome) before one could even begin to suggest that it supports the idea that a sugar pill exposed to a particular water influenced the outcome in this particular situation. It still would not provide evidence for homeopathy for reasons that I provided earlier in this thread.

Linda

 

[JJM]

@ MRC Hans post #82

Rustum Roy is a retired "material scientist." I tried to read the cited paper; which is quite long and full of jargon. It is pure speculation on water memory, proving mothing. Half-way through, I skipped to the "Conclusion" which claims the paper suggests how to test the speculations.

Roy's argument begins with the lifetime of a hydrogen bond in pure water being 1 microsecond. Then, he argues (i.e., does not demonstrate) that clusters of water molecules may last longer. Then he argues that water clusters may form around a dissolved molecule, and remain after the foreign molecule is removed.

Let us suppose that the cluster lives 1 million times longer than a particular bond. That means the homeopath has one second to deliver a product to a victim; which is not even enough time to prepare said product. To provide a shelf-life of one day, the cluster has to live 84.6 billion times longer than an H-bond- and that is not much of a shelf-life (we like to see five years).

In short, for water to have a usable memory, the lifetime of water clusters must be MUCH greater than is indicated by research.

 

[MRC_Hans]

Yes, plus water clusters must be complex enough to hold unique information about several thousand different compounts, several of them highly complex *). And these water clusters must be sturdy enough to transfer their information into new clusters during successive potentization steps. And once you have shown that, you still need to explain the alcohol and lactose connection. AND once you have done that, all you have done is made it possible that potentized remedies might have some biological effect. You then have to prove that like cures like.

Hans

*) IIRR, The most complex water cluster discovered so far consists of 64 water molecules.

Hans

 

[fls]

Another reason is that Dana Ullman (despite his lack of math skills and understanding of basic science) has set himself up as a big homeopathy expert. He has written several books... and does practice medicine without a license.

Does any of what we say here trickle down to those people who need to hear it?

I realize that this is the Million Dollar Question (ha ha, I made a funny), but can we really accomplish anything here in some way that gives us a reasonable return for our effort? I think my perspective on the nature of this debate in Cyberworld is much narrower than yours and some of the others here. And I don't know the extent to which the Cyberworld debate impacts the Realworld debate.

Linda

 

[Delusions_O_Grandeur]

Does any of what we say here trickle down to those people who need to hear it?

At least to some. This really was the last straw for me. I think I now at last understand why homeopathy is so incredibly persistent. It's persistency is the one thing that had me believe that "there had to be more to it than the placebo effect". I've been readin over the term 'emotional investment' without a second thought until it quite suddenly got stuck in my head and made me remember my experiences with homeopathy.

Healers in general (whether they are doctors or quaks) have a high social standing. Their patients concider them invaluable people in their lives. Homeopathy is an easy way for a person to achieve this standing. Once they have a stable circle of patients who keep telling them they feel better because of their treatments they will put themselves at the same level as a doctor. Because scientific research disproves the efficacy of their remedies they also start to think they know more then conventional doctors because those doctors can't even prove let alone understand how homeopathy cures people while they clearly see that they do. It's really not that hard to simply ignore or put down good scientific research when personal experience is valued above scientific research as a way of life.

Now imagine you're a 50 year old housewife with no higher education and you got all that. What happens when you give that up? From a noble and deeply spiritual healer battleing against sickness and prejudice of scientific researchers you are suddenly reduced to a deluded old woman who sells bottles of water, with virtually no chance of doing anything in the future that comes even close to the glory of her former position.

I tried to explain to my homepathic therapist that based on all the studies I had read that I could no longer believe homeopathy was effective, and that we both had to accept the concequences of that. I had to stop taking medicine, and since she always just wanted to make people's lives better, should close her shop. Well, I just kinda got shut out.

 

[JJM]

Does any of what we say here trickle down to those people who need to hear it?

{snip} Linda

Probably not directly; but I have learned a lot from many of you. If you recall the movie A Fistful od Dollars "Sometimes a man's life depends on a mere scrap of information."

Sometimes that info can be transferred to the curious; but almost never to the believers.

 

[catbasket]

I have made the number big to show how strong the solution is.

That reminds me of the joke somebody posted here a short time back - "Did you hear about the homoepath who forgot to take his medicine? He died of an overdose".

 

[fuelair]

Understanding water is not a simple subject. I recommend reading the work of Rustum Roy, PhD, professor of material sciences at Penn State University and head of a material sciences lab that the ISI considers to be the best in the world. Besides having almost 700 papers published, he has had 13 papers published in NATURE.

Because I'm still a newbie to this list, I cannot provide a full URL for a recent article. Just add the www to it:

rustumroy.com/Roy_Structure%20of%20Water.pdf

Dr. Roy will have another even more important article published shortly, though I wonder how many of you are serious enough to follow the science.

As for double-blind research, the arsenic study mentioned previously was a randomized double-blind trial for the GROUP A. This is undeniable. GROUP B choose not to be given a chance for a placebo, and if you wish, you can ignore this group. Perhaps it is just a coincidence that both the people in GROUP A who were given a homeopathic dose of arsenic and the people in GROUP B who were also given this medicine experienced a significant increase in certain detoxifying liver enzymes, while people in GROUP A who were given a placebo didn't.

The COPD study was another great trial, as was the severe sepsis trial, both of which were conducted at the University of Vienna Hospital.

The amazing feature of skeptics of homeopathy is that you assume that homeopaths have some magical power that other people don't seem to have and just by "magic" those people get better. An easier (and more probable) explanation is that nanopharmacology works.

I'm glad that some of you appreciate HORMESIS. If so, why do you think that medicine is ignoring it, despite the 1,000+ studies? Is homeo-phobia real?

Why in dogs' name would I believe homicid - oops I mean homeopaths have magic - though I will grant only magic could explain this male porcine cleaning solution ever working. Chemically, biologically and physics way - it cannot - and no properly designed and monitored experiment could/has shown any signs that it does. 1000+ (I still only remember a count of 5 or so- all bad - but feel free to cite the others) poorly done studies = nothing.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Water physics is indeed a very interesting area. The big question here is what relevance it has to homeopathy. Homeopathic remedies are prepared using both water and alcohol, and they are stored in lactose. Any physics explaining homeopathy must also include properties of alcohol and lactose.

You also need to be an expert on lactose tablets next to other lactose tablets and having their powers magically "grafted" onto them, while avoiding being "grafted" with the magic powers of some other adjacent lactose tablets.

For the uninititaed in these magic arts, see;

http://www.wholehealthnow.com/homeopathy_pro/pro_glossary.html

 

[Mojo]

Yes, plus water clusters must be complex enough to hold unique information about several thousand different compounts, several of them highly complex *). And these water clusters must be sturdy enough to transfer their information into new clusters during successive potentization steps. And once you have shown that, you still need to explain the alcohol and lactose connection. AND once you have done that, all you have done is made it possible that potentized remedies might have some biological effect. You then have to prove that like cures like.

Hmm. That sounds like a lot of work.

Wouldn't it be a better idea to first establish whether homoeopathy works and only worry about a mechanism if it can be established that it works?

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

Hmm. That sounds like a lot of work.

Wouldn't it be a better idea to first establish whether homoeopathy works and only worry about a mechanism if it can be established that it works?

Don't get me started on "long-time, mass-existing", or whatever Kumar's precise formula was!

 

[Cuddles]

Roy's argument begins with the lifetime of a hydrogen bond in pure water being 1 microsecond. Then, he argues (i.e., does not demonstrate) that clusters of water molecules may last longer. Then he argues that water clusters may form around a dissolved molecule, and remain after the foreign molecule is removed.

Of course, this raises the problem of how to get the dissolved molecule out. Even if we allow that water forms clusters around molecules and even if we allow them to have lifetimes billions of times greater than that actually observed, it is not possible to remove the molecule without taking the cluster apart, which means that either the dissolved molecules must still be there, which is clearly not the case, or the clusters cannot survive removal of the molecules. Either way, homeopathy fails.

 

[Mojo]

Don't get me started on "long-time, mass-existing", or whatever Kumar's precise formula was!

"Mass existing in well distributed people since long with least adversities".

You just have to think bit dynamically.

 

[Michael C]

Understanding water is not a simple subject. I recommend reading the work of Rustum Roy, PhD, professor of material sciences at Penn State University and head of a material sciences lab that the ISI considers to be the best in the world. Besides having almost 700 papers published, he has had 13 papers published in NATURE.

http://www.rustumroy.com/Roy_Structure of Water.pdf

(fixed the URL for you)

In his conclusion, Roy states:

The connection of the imprinting, via succussion and possible epitaxy, of the different specific homeopathic remedies on the structure of water eliminates the primitive criticism of homeopathy being untenable due to the absence of any remnant of the molecules.

Here's my question for JamesGully:

If we accept that water can retain the imprint of whatever was dissolved in it, how can the homeopathic laboratories be sure that the remedies they prepare only contain the imprint of the substance they use at the start of the dilution process, and do not contain imprints from any other substance?

The water they are using for each successive dilution must be full of imprints of many substances: the water has been in contact with the metal of the pipes it flowed through, whatever gases are in the air of the lab, the glass of the vessel which contains it, whatever. There is no known way to test what substances have left their "imprint" on a sample of water, so the laboratories can never prove that the water they are using for the dilutions is "pure", i.e. completely free from imprints.

Who can prove that the final remedy does not in fact contain high homeopathic potencies of duck's urine, copper, nitrogen or other substances with which the water has been in contact?

 

[Mojo]

In his conclusion, Roy states:

The connection of the imprinting, via succussion and possible epitaxy, of the different specific homeopathic remedies on the structure of water eliminates the primitive criticism of homeopathy being untenable due to the absence of any remnant of the molecules.

This strawman has been mentioned on the forum before. The abstract of the article says:

The most telling argument is the core paradigm of materials science, that properties of a phase are determined by structure, not composition. Hence the single argument used against homeopathy, that because there are no molecules of the remedy left in the final product it cannot be different, is completely negated.

This is not, of course, "the single argument used against homeopathy". The main argument against homoeopathy is that it doesn't work better than placebo.

Incidentally, the editor-in-chief of that journal is a chap called Rustum Roy.

 

[Delusions_O_Grandeur]

I'm just curious, how long do you think homeopathy will remain in existence? If it's going to be accepted that it's disproven, every alternative healer with homeopathic medicine in his/her arsenal is going to have to explain why his/her powers or insights were always perscribing ineffective remedies yet are still OK for everything else... Like asking questions about your relationship, future, vacation, job, dead relative etc.

 

[Victor Meldrew]

Not to mention an offer of $1m for carrying out such an experiment (assuming homeopathy works, of course...) I mean, if someone offered me a million bucks research funding in exchange for carrying out one simple experiment, I wouldn't really care how 'silly' what they wanted me to do was...hell, if I was asked to wear a clown outfit while working, my response would be 'what type of shoes'

Maybe homeopathic research is better funded, though? Or Dana doubts that homeopathy would pass such a 'silly' challenge.

Forget the money: they already make plenty selling diluted products. But the prestige...and just imagine, if you could prove to all the skeptics that they were wrong.....with just one experiment....that would be priceless, wouldn't it?

Can you imagine the worldwide publicity that it would generate, being the first to prove James Randi wrong?

If they really believe it works, they would jump at the chance. Which just shows that they are more than happy to take money of people fraudulently, selling them a product that doesn't work.....they are low life.

 

[Chris Haynes]

Is it just my active imagination, or does this actually look like another Dana Ullman sockpuppet:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/05/doctor_strange_and_the_only_way_to_make.php#comment-458678 ?

I kind of figured out in a feeble way why he chose the 'nym of "JamesGully" here. It seems to be something about "Aims for Gullible". Anyway, just that "Gully" needs to be gullible.