Barbrae said:
Benguin,
I don't think the Doctor even refered to herself as a homeopath (at least not in the article). She is a family practitioner. She dowsed and prescribed a remedy but like I have said a million times before - if I take an accupunture needle and ram it in your eye - that ain't accupunture, even if I was an accupuncturist - it still ain't accupuncture.
OK, I see what you are saying. I can't see how she would be dishing out homeopathic remedies unless she concerned herself capable of doing so. This is a GP, not a helpful friend. I accept your point that it doesn't say whether she described herself as a homeopath so we don't know either way.
I cannot accept your definition of homeopathy only being homeopathy when being done the correct way. In all the conversations that have been held here (and hpathy) the issue of there being no defined way to state what is and is not homeopathy has come up. Homeopathic sympathisers seem to stick to the approach that where it appears damaging to their cause or position it, therefore, is not homeopathy.
Even your acupuncture analogy is flawed. Every time blinded trials are attempted on acupuncture it becomes clear the practitioners can't agree amongst themselves what is and is not a
valid stabbing point .
If you recall when I attempted (on hpathy) to get an intelligent answer on how homeopathy could be practised outside of very clear guidelines specified in Hahnemann's Oragnon I got nothing approaching a sensible answer. You yourself were most vociferous in suggesting I shouldn't even ask. When you tried to rephrase the same question you also got no proper answer, and yet you did not have the integrity to state that without proper justification, making up the rules and experimenting on patients is unforgiveable.
I'm sorry Barbrae, but much as I regard you as polite and rational, I can't accept this line of reasoning. You asked me why I wanted to know the answer to the combination remedy question I posed. Well there is one very good reason for you. How are we supposed to know what is and is not homeopathy? Come back with an unambiguous definition and then you'll be able to reject 'fradulent homeopaths' with some credibility.
You must aslo be aware that for every instance of "woo" that was irresponsable I could find 10 more allopaths that were irresponsable - it means nothing to the profession. There are morons everywhere - morons in homeopathy, morons in veterinary, morons in accupuncture, morons in gastroenterology. If you won't accept anecdotes as evidence for homeopathy then you can't post anecdotes as evidence against it. (well, you can, and did, but it doesn't seem to make much sense.)
True there are morons everywhere, but show me one instance of homeopathy stumping up and disciplining one properly. The GMC and the law come down like a ton of bricks on medical staff doing things wrong, and they can sued in a civil court.
This doesn't get away from the central point of the immorality of using this unproven nonsense on children.
And on a pure point of pedantry, that story is not an anecdote. Anecdotes involve some element of hearsay and are, by definition, lacking in veracity. This particular case is
incredibly well documented.
It is (as geni and rolfe would point out) n=1, or a sample size too small to mean anything other than a good example of the dangers posed by one idiot.
