Ullman: homeopathy on Huffpo again

[jimtron]

Here he goes again, from today's Huffington Post:
The Case FOR Homeopathic Medicine: The Historical and Scientific Evidence

A lot of people today are confused about what homeopathy is (and isn't), and this situation is not helped by the skeptics of homeopathy who go to incredible extents to exaggerate and misconstrue what homeopathic medicine is and who commonly provide misinformation about it. It is more than a tad ironic that these "skeptics" who hold themselves out as "defenders of medical science" have exhibited an embarrassingly poor scientific attitude when evaluating what homeopathy is and what the scientific evidence does and doesn't say about it.

It's always like that, isn't it? The woo proponent is all about getting the science right, while the skeptic can't get it right.

Advocates of homeopathy simply honor the Hippocratic tradition of "First, do no harm" and therefore seek to explore and utilize safer methods before resorting to more risky treatments.

While "Western" medical doctors have never heard of the Hippocratic Oath, and would rather do something invasive and risky even though there are safe, equally effective methods available?

It is highly unlikely that a placebo response is the explanation for homeopathy's notable successes in treating epidemics of cholera, yellow fever, scarlet fever, typhoid, pneumonia, or influenza.

I wasn't aware of that...

Skeptics are wonderfully clever in trying to make up stories and excuses for the good and often amazing results that people get from homeopathic medicines. Most often, however, they simply say that "old news is no news," as they brag about not learning from the past as though this is a good thing.

If I had a nickel for every skeptic here who has argued against homeopathy by saying "old news is no news," I'd have like 3 cents...

There is a body of intriguing but not yet fully verified theories about how homeopathic medicines work. These theories are too technical for this article, though I sincerely hope that the "good skeptics" out there will work to explore and help figure out the many mysteries that may explain homeopathy, rather than repeat the old reactionary mantra that "it cannot work."

Too technical...darn it, I would have liked to learn about those theories.

Etcetera...long article.

 

[HarryHenderson]

It is highly unlikely that a placebo response is the explanation for homeopathy's notable successes in treating epidemics of cholera, yellow fever, scarlet fever, typhoid, pneumonia, or influenza.

I wasn't aware of that...

Nor I. And if that was the case, wouldn't the need to defend 'homepathy' be virtually non-existent? I'm thinking the definition of 'notable successes' is where the story takes a turn towards 'real sketchy'.

 

[arthwollipot]

While "Western" medical doctors have never heard of the Hippocratic Oath, and would rather do something invasive and risky even though there are safe, equally effective methods available?

And in fact "First, do no harm" isn't even part of the Hippocratic oath!

Fail.

ETA: on the part of the article, that is.

 

[stup_id]

Oh my FSM!!!... the only thing these articles make me doubt, if that they really believe their BS or are deliberately obscuring truth to make up for their fantasies?


I don´t know which one is worse... :S

 

[Mojo]

There's a nice bit of quote mining in the final paragraph (bolding in original):

When the denialists assert and insist that homeopathy "cannot" work, I remind them that "science" and "medicine" are not just nouns but verbs...science and medicine are ever-changing. ..and what may be today's medicine is tomorrow's quackery, and what may today's quackery may be tomorrow's medicine. This is not a prediction; this is history. I encourage everyone and anyone who is seriously interested in the science and art of real healing to explore what homeopathic medicine has to offer. As Mark Twain once asserted in 1890, "you may honestly feel grateful that homeopathy survived the attempts of the allopathists [conventional physicians] to destroy it."

Note that the last two sentences imply that Twain was recommending homoeopathy.

Here's the full quotation, from an article that Dana has previously cited as a source for Twain quotations (this is the final two paragraphs of the article; Dana's selection from the quotation is bolded):

Even as Twain ridiculed the unscientific approaches taken by practitioners of hydrotherapy and homeopathy, he continued to defend the importance of medical freedom of choice. He particularly recognized the importance of the competing systems in pressuring allopathic medicine to evolve into a new scientific discipline far removed from its noxious origins as a sect based on bloodletting and remedies such as Aqua Limacum (a concoction containing herbs, snails, earthworms, "Goose Dung," "Sheep Dung," "Strong Ale," and "Shavings of Hartshorn".

"When you reflect that your own father had to take such medicines as the above, and that you would be taking them to-day yourself but for the introduction of homeopathy, which forced the old-school doctor to stir around and learn something of a rational nature about his business, you may honestly feel grateful that homeopathy survived the attempts of the allopathists to destroy it, even though you may never employ any physician but an allopathist while you live."

It is apparent from this that Twain saw the usefulness of homoeopathy as being in its effect on the development of medicine, not its usefulness as a therapy.

Here's another Twain quotation from the same article:

"f another citizen preferred to toy with death, and buy health in small parcels, to bribe death with a sugar pill to stay away, or go to the grave with all the original sweetners undrenched out of him, then the individual adopted the "like cures like" system, and called in a homeopath physician as being a pleasant friend of death's."

 

[Mojo]

And in fact "First, do no harm" isn't even part of the Hippocratic oath!

Neither is "Second, do no good".

 

[Drudgewire]

Skeptics are wonderfully clever in trying to make up stories and excuses for the good and often amazing results that people get from homeopathic medicines.

 

[CatInTheBag]

I wasn't aware of that...

Maybe they are referring to the halcyon days of homeopathy, when it was indeed better that contemporary medicine.

In the 1850s.

Still no better than placebo, but at least it didn't bring death on any quicker, as might leaches and bloodletting.

One of these schools has moved on since then.