False claim. A good example of bad science. Pet owners know without a doubt when their animal has diarrhea, when they refuse food, when they are passing foul gas, and many other obvious symptoms. They also can tell when such symptoms stop. Is it the herbal formula? Or would the problem have gone away on it's own?
Robinson, that is deeply dishonest. You did not say "pet owners know when their pets' condition has improved". You said (my bold)
one thing I know about pet owners, they know when something works on their pet.
That is an entirely different statement, and it was that statement which I was challenging. You have now changed this to "they know when the symptoms stop", commenting that who knows whether the remedy was responsible or whether it would have happened anyway. Where's the moving goalpost smilie when you need it?
However, you're still on completely shaky and indeed untenable ground. Pet owners are quite astonishingly subjective about their pets' clinical signs (not symptoms - pets cannot communicate symptoms, so it's a non-word in veterinary medicine). Frequently it is necessary to instruct owners to keep a diary of such things as amount of water drunk or even frequency ond consistancy of faeces, to get any idea at all of whether things are changing. Of course, for extremely obvious things, yes, and not everybody is wrong all the time. But it's quite astonishing how often they actually are.
If you have any actual "science" to refute this, fire away. But remember, anecdotes are worthless (especially so here - of course, owners get it right
sometimes!).
Here's another little anecdote for you.
Either way, you missed the point, that the term "homeopathic" is being used on herbal formulas.
I did not miss the point. Interesting though it is, I chose to repond to the gross fallacy in your statement, as it is a common one used to prop up quack medicines of all sorts, and as such, ought to be addressed.
Do you have any evidence to show that to actually be true? Or is this just anecdotal evidence? Is there any science behind your claim?
Another study I like to quote in this context indeed concerns a herbal preparation, used in dogs with arthritis. In this case it was the vets who were fooled, rather more than the owners, but hey, we're all human. It's in the
Veterinary Record, about 4 years ago, I can dig up the reference tomorrow if you're interested.
For reasons too complicated to go into, the blinding in this study was broken. And it was broken very much for the vets examining the dogs, but less so for the owners. They had three measures of lameness - vets' assessment, owner's assessment, and objective measurement by force plate (measures how much weight the dog is putting on each leg).
The vets' assessments showed statistically significant results for the herbal remedy.
The owners' assessments were not quite statistically significant, but there did seem to be quite a marked trend, and the authors' commented, oh,
nearly!
The force plate measurements showed absolutely
no difference at all between treated and placebo groups.
Why the bloody blue blazes do you think we need placebo control groups in veterinary studies, for pity's sake! Well, we do, they are mandatory.
All of them worthless when it comes to evidence based medicine.
Excuse me, what on earth are you talking about? You stated that pet owners "know when something works on their pet". So, no amount of single instances where the owner knew no such thing can refute this? Don't be ridiculous. Even a handful of such instances disproves your general assertion. If you're so into published studies, where is you citation to show that pet owners are invariably absolutely objective when recalling their pets' clinical condition, and always know when a treatment has "worked" on their animal. (Pointing out that you didn't say "always" is irrelevant here. Of course owners are right sometimes. The point is that they are also very very wrong sometimes, and quite often at that.)
Got any? Go on, surprise the entire veterinary profession!
Again, is there any evidence to show that is true? Panic attacks, which some dogs suffer from (triggered by thunderstorms, fireworks) are unmistakable, and no amount of attention will "cure" them. Drugs can alleviate the symptoms, but there is no doubt about pet owners knowing when it occurs, or when it subsides. If a "homeopathic" remedy stopped panic attacks, that would be remarkable.
Really? Funny you should pick that one.
[snip explanation that the writer was a sceptic who was persuaded against his better judgement to enrol in a course on veterinary homoeopathy]
....I went for four days in October 1991.
I arrived back at my practice armed with a free remedy kit given on the course, bursting with useless knowledge! Okay, I thought, let's put this junk to the test. We had been told about the 10 remedies in the box; the only things I could remember was that one of them was meant to be good for anticipatory anxiety, and one was for panic and shock. We were heading for bonfire night, and the annual drugging of anxious dogs which I was convinced made the anxiety worse, not better, and which I hated doing.
So I decided to run my own mini trial, and around 10 willing owners opted to give their dogs argentum nitricum 30c pre-5th November, and aconite 30c if they started to get into their expected state of panic during any fireworks. I waited to get my proof that these were nothing more than sugar pills, convinced that I would see no response. I felt sure I would never attend another homoeopathic course in my life and would, therefore, be able to continue to study for the Certificate in Small Animal Dermatology, for which I was registered, and which was my love at the time.
Improvement
When I saw the results, my heart sank. I cannot remember the exact figures, so excuse me for this, but around seven out of 10 dogs had shown improvement on previous years, some marked, and a couple had not even needed any of the panic remedy on the night as they seemed totally unconcerned.
This was not meant to happen! I did not want to have to learn any more about this stuff, but this was too unexpected to be ignored! I decided that I owed it to my curiosity to find out more, so enrolled for the first year of the course.
[snip rest of account of an educated professional slipping inexorably into homoeopathy]
Note the date of his conversion, and (probably) the firework trial. 1991. Funny that, people are still very concerned by the problem of dogs and fireworks, and yet this miracle breakthrough seems to have been entirely overlooked.
Note the remedies. Both 30C, and supplied by the London Homoeopathic Hospital. I suspect them of many things, but not of spiking their sugar pills with canine sedatives.
Any explanation? (I can think of several.)
But finding it is actually a potent herbal tincture, was quite a shock. It makes the whole homeopathic thing suspect, and possibly explains why some people swear by "homeopathy". It isn't really homeopathy, it is herbal medicine.
I'm sure that happens from time to time. The Zicam affair ("2X zincum gluconium", that is, appreciable amounts of zinc gluconate, used as a nasal spray, oh, look it up on Quackwatch) is perhaps the best documented occurrence.
It's actually more commonly reported for actual herbal preparations - "herbal impotence remedy" which actually contained viagra has been reported I believe, and a GP dermatologist friend of mine knows of a case where a Chinese herbal eczema cream which was apparently performing miracles for a group of children in Yorkshire was discovered on analysis to be repackaged (prescription-only, and quite unsuitable in such quantities for children that age) betamethasone. So don't discount the equivalent effect as possibly being behind some of the alleged miracle "herb" cures.
However, most of the studies the veterinary homoeopaths like to boast about incur no suspicion that the remedies have been adulterated. Sorry, but while this observation might explain a few of the alleged miracle cures from OTC preparations, it leaves most of the literature unscathed.
Rolfe.
