Homoeopathy: Help explain it to our credulous parliamentarians!

Rolfe said:
I would try to point out the lack of any evidence base for the entire discipline, and maybe highlight the source of the claim of 70% benefit (a survey that was no more than a straw poll, simply asking patients at a homoeopathic hospital whether they felt a bit better after attending there for a while). No control group, and the person asking the question was the patient's homoeopath himself - a position where many people might feel obliged to answer in the affirmative. In fact, given the structure of the survey, I'm just gobsmacked that they managed as little as 70%! I'll try to find that reference later, or maybe someone else has it at their fingertips.
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Is this the one: Spence et al., Homeopathic Treatment for Chronic Disease: A 6-Year University-Hospital Outpatient Observational Study, Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine Vol 11 No 5 p 793?


One little wrinkle about the SAS leflet - it seems yet again to propagate the myth that the remedies are chosen because appreciable quantities of the substance really do produce the symptoms of the condition in question. This is just so not true. When I actually found out the truth about "provings" I was just gobsmacked. It's probably not appropriate to go into the detail of that in a letter to a politician, but the relative rationality of the common (and wrong) version is misleading, and I'm sorry to see the leaflet continuing to repeat it.
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It's apparent from homoeopathic sites that provings are generally carried out at 30C, but do you have a reasonably authoritative source for Hahnemann having recommended provings being carried out at 30C? The best I've managed to find so far is one of Hoare's letters on the BVVS site.
 
Mojo said:
Is this the one: Spence et al., Homeopathic Treatment for Chronic Disease: A 6-Year University-Hospital Outpatient Observational Study, Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine Vol 11 No 5 p 793?
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That's the one!

Mojo said:
It's apparent from homoeopathic sites that provings are generally carried out at 30C, but do you have a reasonably authoritative source for Hahnemann having recommended provings being carried out at 30C? The best I've managed to find so far is one of Hoare's letters on the BVVS site.
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I'm really going by Hoare as well. He's not one for citing references, you might have noticed. And you're right, the unsupported statement of a homoeopath should not be accepted without confirmation. It may be Hans has the source for this.

I had a look at Holmes, and he says:

The effects of drugs upon healthy persons have been studied by Hahnemann and his associates. Their results were made known in his Materia Medica, a work in three large volumes in the French translation, published about eight years ago. The mode of experimentation appears to have been, to take the substance on trial, either in common or minute doses
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This is consistent with what Hoare has claimed, that Hahnemann originally used material doses, but later shifted to using 30C exclusively.

Rolfe.
 
NB. Given the probable inability of any reputable scientists at the time, let alone Hahnemann working in a kitchen, to be able to accurately create and measure such dilutions, I'd suggest that any reliance on the "30C proving" data from Hahnemann would be utterly unreliable at best.
 
Rolfe said:
One little wrinkle about the SAS leflet - it seems yet again to propagate the myth that the remedies are chosen because appreciable quantities of the substance really do produce the symptoms of the condition in question. This is just so not true. When I actually found out the truth about "provings" I was just gobsmacked. It's probably not appropriate to go into the detail of that in a letter to a politician, but the relative rationality of the common (and wrong) version is misleading, and I'm sorry to see the leaflet continuing to repeat it.

Rolfe.
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I'd be interested in knowing more about this Rolfe. I don't want to de-rail this thread, so maybe you could post a link to more info on "the truth about provings", or to another thread where this has been discussed.

Many thanks
 
Mojo said:
The truth about provings.

See also here.

And here.
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Oooh, I see the dingbats at hominf.org have added a few more tasty ones since I last looked. Have they ever got anyone to come and say any of these remedies has been credited with a "cure" yet? It's a bit like waiting for accredited miracles, except you don't need any to take money for the stuff so who cares.

To be fair, these ones are out on the lunatic fringe (though I came across one of moonbeams once). But the whole business of collecting every little sensation and nuance from people who've basically sucked a couple of sugar pills is standard.

It's well worth reading O. W. Holmes - he collected some absolute doozies from the 19th century.

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
...snip...

One little wrinkle about the SAS leflet - it seems yet again to propagate the myth that the remedies are chosen because appreciable quantities of the substance really do produce the symptoms of the condition in question. This is just so not true. When I actually found out the truth about "provings" I was just gobsmacked. It's probably not appropriate to go into the detail of that in a letter to a politician, but the relative rationality of the common (and wrong) version is misleading, and I'm sorry to see the leaflet continuing to repeat it.

Rolfe.
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Please, please consider producing a "JREF Forum" or "Rofle's Guide" (I don't care about the name) leaflet for the Repository e.g ."A quick guide to what homeopathy really is and isn't" - pretty please? :wackynotworthy: :wackygrin: (see: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=73720 and "The Repositry" section about a third of the way down)
 
Rolfe said:
Oooh, I see the dingbats at hominf.org have added a few more tasty ones since I last looked. Have they ever got anyone to come and say any of these remedies has been credited with a "cure" yet?
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I don't know about them, but if you take a look at "veryscarymary" (Mary English)'s site you'll find some amazing claims and testimonials about the effects of "Tempesta".
 
My MP hasn't signed any EDMs at all in the past year, including this one.

I've drafted him a letter regardless, just to say 'good lad, support your non-support stance etc'.
 
Does anyone know if it's possible to see the votes cast by an individual MP?
 
When I talk to people about homeopathy I always make sure I include the third of Hahneman's principles after like cures like and the law of infinitesimals, which is the need to strike the vial containing each dilution several times on a leather pad in order to potentize it. You seldom hear present-day homeos mention this, because it makes the whole thing sound so obviously ridiculous, and of course it can't be, can it...?
 
brodski said:
they are not obliged to respond to all correspondence.
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Indeed, my MP has about a 25% success rate in terms of replying to my correspondence.

Fortunately mine hasn't signed this, which makes a pleasant surprise!
 
When you write your letters, you might want to add that the homoeopathic pills that most homoeopathic users take, are in fact just sugar pills sprayed with the homoeopathic solution. Most homoeopathic patients I have met have been speechless when I mentioned this to them, and the article does not say this at all.
 
Mojo said:
The truth about provings.

See also here.

And here.
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Just as well I was sitting down when I read these. Even so I nearly fell off my chair laughing. To be fair to the authors of the Sense About Science leaflet (to which I made a small contribution), I think it is talking about the `theoretical' basis of provings, even though publications by homeopaths themselves show that the whole process is total rubbish. There was one recently, can't remember which, upbrading homeopaths for not providing more consistent provings. In other words, they can't even agree with each other - the surest sign of quackery that I know.

My own MP Robert Key did of course sign this EDM. I shall invite him to a discussion group on sCAM which I am running in Salisbury in a month or so.
 
BTW does anyone on this board have Dr Ian Gibson as their MP? He is a signatory, and was chair of the Commons Science and Technology Committee until last year.
 
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