Homeoquack - Pharmacy and Homeopath

Isn't it interesting that the two cases we've heard about where action was taken against people for prescribing homoeopathy involved qualified professionals? And the action was taken not by the homoeopathic clubs, but by the regular authorities. I certainly don't know of any case where a homoeopaths' club has ever sanctioned a member, and of course even if they did the quack could just go on doing as they damn well pleased anyway.
Benguin said:
Do they do placebo trials for vetinary medicine? or as part of animal-based testing?
Click to expand...
Yes.

Rolfe.
 
Well I did sort of know the answer already, Rolfey, what I really would like to know is if anyone has tested placebo vs null (or whatever you'd call it) or managed to demonstrate a "placebo effect".
 
Well, it's all about the perceptions of the observer, really. I've mentioned before the trial of some snake-oil preparation for arthritis in dogs where the participants became unblinded because the snake-oil made the dogs smell. There was no difference between control and test groups according to the objective measurements, but it looked very much as if the unblinding had produced a significant result in favour of the snake-oil on the subjective scores.

Rolfe.
 
Benguin said:
Well I did sort of know the answer already, Rolfey, what I really would like to know is if anyone has tested placebo vs null (or whatever you'd call it) or managed to demonstrate a "placebo effect".
Click to expand...

[anecdote]I was talking to an othopaedic specialist who provides consultancy to one of the drug companies that makes one of the big NSAIDs. He said that in their trials with owner and vet blinded to treatment they can get a 40% positive response to placebo. Real drugs may have a response up to 90%[/anecdote]

The burden of this story would imply that the 40% placebo response was judged against some form of null .

The question it led me to was to wonder whether the 90% drug response whether this is 50% real + 40% placebo, or whether it is up to 90% real. I think the way to resolve this is to make the assessments objective. In the field of NSAID trials, what they can do is take the human subjective observers out of the loop and make objective measurements: in this case, that is to measure using a force plate, the actual weight that an animal bears on a lame leg. That should reduce placebo response to 0%, leaving real response somewhere between 50 and 90%.


http://66.102.11.104/search?q=cache..."force+plate+analysis"+dog+lame+placebo&hl=en

Frustratingly his link shows a comparison of drug vs placebo on subjective measures and drug vs placebo on force plate, but they were not part of the same study.

Also this was 'after' vs 'before' not 'after-placebo' vs 'after-null'.

I'll have a look around and see whether I can find anything that bridges the gap.
 
This;

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entr...eve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=7759332

has the mixure of subjective and objective assessment of the same animals, which we wanted, but the results in the abstract are presented as Odd Ratios for a 'positive response' rather than the degree of improvement on a continuous scale.

This one;

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entr...ve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15025149

might contain the right kind of information.

I think I'll order them from the library.
 
They used force plates in the smelly-snake-oil study too.

No effect at all on force plate measurements. But the subjective assessments of the vets (who almost certainly guessed the identity of a fair proportion of the treated dogs, because of the smell) were significant at p<0.05. The subjective assessments of the owners (some of whom might have put two and two together about the smell, but probably not so much as the vets who saw all the dogs) were reported as almost reaching statistical significance. (Yes, that's how the paper reported it. If I'd been refereeing it I'd have asked them to change that wording.)

Of course, you have to be careful even with objective measurements. If it's a truly hands-off measurement that you have no control over, then fine, but some "objective" measurements do have a degree of subjectivity in them (manual cell counting is a very obvious one), and when that's the case it's still necessary to blind the operator to sample identity.

Rolfe.
 
So it's the human that experiences the placebo effect when they believe their animal is being medicated. Kind of a placebo effect by proxy.

I would find it difficult to believe that your average pet or livestock doesn't know that the antibiotic pill they are being given is anything other than a treat. Without the expectation of healing there won't be any placebo effect. Right?
 
There are a few speculations about when the owner's stress is relieved by believing that everything is under control, the animal will also feel less stressed and so better, but I think it's all a bit tenuous quite frankly.

The two ways "placebo" works in animals is by affecting the perceptions of the person evaluating the patient, and by coincidental recovery. The latter is probably the more important factor in a lot of quackery.

Rolfe.
 
Actually, I have seen homeopathic remedies work instantaneously on animals. I use homeopathy on my dog at times when he needs it and it works extremely well. He is very healthy and has not problems. The last remedy I gave him was Phosphorus by the way.

At one time, he had a skin problem and I gave him a dose of Sulphur and it cleared it straight away. He was itching and scratching all the time. After the dose of Sulphur he stopped.

Why not go and have a chat with Wim over at Hpathy. He treats animals of all varieties all the time with great success and managed to save a dogs leg from amputation with the right remedy. I am sure he would be glad to tell you anything that you want to know about animals and homeopathy. Drop over to Hpathy and have a chat with him.

Just to put you right on one thing though. The doctor who was banned for using homeopathy did not actually prescribe properly. I saw this case and the actually dowsed for a remedy. This is not homeopathy or homeopathic practice at all. If you want to prescribe homeopathically, then a full acute case in this instance needs to be taken and a remedy prescribed on that basis. If she had done this and had then prescribed the correct remedy, then it would most definitely have worked.

Helios pharmacy make remedies by the Hahnemannian method and you can get all the potencies from them from the X's to C's, M's and LM's. You can also get mother tinctures and medicating potencies. It is more than their reputation is worth to make their remedies by any other way and they do have a very good reputation within the homeopathic community.

Why not visit their website at www.helios.co.uk. You can e-mail them for more information about the way they make their remedies and what type of water they use. Their technical director Bob Lawrence is extremely helpful too and he works at the Tunbridge Wells branch.
 
Hello fellow Homeopath, how goes the wat..remedy ;) selling comrade?

i've got high potency chemical analogue homeopathic remedies made from filtered purified Welsh water for sale at a reasonable prices if you're interested. I'll also be going for Gold membership at hpathy soon too, help pick which trolls to ban, should be fun eh friend.
TTFN

PJ
 
Homeoskeptic wrote:

If you want to prescribe homeopathically, then a full acute case in this instance needs to be taken and a remedy prescribed on that basis.

Then how do you explain this?:

http://www.helios.co.uk./cgi-bin/store.cgi?action=link&sku=AEKIT

Accidents and Emergencies

An essential first-aid remedy kit for the home, car and workplace specifically formulated to be used in even the most severe emergency and accident situations. The kit contains 18 remedies in 200c to provide comfort, relief and promote recovery while waiting, if necessary, for the Emergency Services to arrive.
Click to expand...
 
Homeoskeptic said:
If you want to prescribe homeopathically, then a full acute case in this instance needs to be taken and a remedy prescribed on that basis. If she had done this and had then prescribed the correct remedy, then it would most definitely have worked.
Click to expand...
Right, so it has to be the CORRECT plain water, not any old plain water. Got it.

Hey PJ, are you selling stock yet? I think your venture will be a complete success.
 
Thanks garys_2k, i'm gonna set up a website to advertise myself. I've got oodles of stock, it almost as if it comes out of taps, wait a moment....almost gave away a homeopathic secret there folks.

Anyone know a place where i can get some free webspace?
 
Homeoskeptic said:
Actually, I have seen homeopathic remedies work instantaneously on animals. [snipped remainder of inventive rant]
Click to expand...
Oh, isn't debate easy when you just make it all up as you go along!

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
Oh, isn't debate easy when you just make it all up as you go along!

Rolfe.
Click to expand...
That may be a new debating method, I'm not sure (and don't have the list handy). But if it isn't it certainly deserves recognition.
 
Prester John said:
Thanks garys_2k, i'm gonna set up a website to advertise myself. I've got oodles of stock, it almost as if it comes out of taps, wait a moment....almost gave away a homeopathic secret there folks.

Anyone know a place where i can get some free webspace?
Click to expand...

Well for the real authentic look you should go for geocities as a start up. Howver if you want to look established try somewhere else.
 
If you'd like to start a practice as a homeopath I'd suggest you start by purchasing a good book on pharmacology.

I'd recommend Goodman & Gilman's "The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics" but there are other suitable choices.

You don't actually have to read the book or understand what it says.

As you flip through the pages you'll see lots of big impressive sounding words like " postsynaptic"--"paroxysmal depolarizing shift"--"gamma-aminobutyric acid"-- and "enterochromaffin system".

Just work all the big words you see into sentences that apply to your particular patient.

They won't understand what you're saying----but they'll be impressed by the big words you're using & will believe every word you tell them.


For example:

Pt complains of headaches and states that nothing his regular MD has prescribed has helped.

You say " AHAH----I've seen this before----many allopathic MDs, due to the limitations they operate under, don't recognize this unsual syndrome.

What's happening is you've experienced a paroxysmal depolarizing shift. This in turn has created a reflux condition which has upset the gamma-aminobutyric acid levels in your enterochromaffin system......

Fortunately--homeopathy has learned how to treat this rare & difficult to diagnose condition by....(now you just sell him whatever the hell you have on your shelf that you want to unload).

All you have to do---is sound good------

Sometimes I wish I had no scruples.......it'd be so easy.......
 
The two ways "placebo" works in animals is by affecting the perceptions of the person evaluating the patient, and by coincidental recovery. The latter is probably the more important factor in a lot of quackery.
Click to expand...

I'd like to disagree with you to propose the third option you deliberately omitted ...

I think animals do believe they are recieving treatment and respond, at the very least, to prevent being revisited by a vet (most animals I've dealt with hate vets).

We shouldn't underestimate the IQ of pets or farm animals when playing with these theories.
 
Prester John said:

Anyone know a place where i can get some free webspace?
Click to expand...


I get free web space from my high speed internet provider. You can make it look as professional as you want. I recommend a program like FrontPage. I used composer, which is lacking compared to FrontPage, and it still looks okay I think.
 
Excellent idea, Ralph. He has to have some good lingo to sound oh-so-authoritative. Growing a beard would help, too.

As for websites, may I suggest a black background? It just seems popular with certain websites, those that deal with somewhat "out there" stuff.

Eos, do you want in on the IPO? Rumor has it that we may be able to pay with homeopathic money!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom