Does homeopathy work?
I have blogged before on the subject of homeopathy here. On that occasion, I had two comments: one opponent and one supporter.
I return to the subject this week because I have been contacted by e-mail from someone with whom I was at university but with whom I have not been in contact for the intervening four decades (he found me via my web site). He is now a Registered Homeopath and wanted to challenge my opposition to homeopathy as expressed in one of the essays on my web site.
We have exchanged e-mails setting out our respective views and I thought that I would share an edited version of this exchange with you so that you can express a view.
Homeopathist
In the early 90’s I saw an advert for Homeopathy evening classes – so my wife and I decided we should attend and learn what was all about. Well fairly soon a knee problem that had bothered Celia was cured quickly and fast with one pill! My chronic headaches of some 30 years went away and so on.
Having seen the EVIDENCE for my self I then went and studied the subject at professional level in one of the London colleges and I am now a licensed and registered Homeopath.
You say that “I believe in reason and I believe in evidence”. If you study homeopathy you soon find that it is all based on EVIDENCE and REASON. What other evidence does one require when some who is sick is cured literally before your eyes? The Materia Medica – properties of materials – used in Homeopathy is all based on the experience of volunteers and patients.
The principle of homeopathy is based on the trial of substances which having produced a set of symptoms in volunteers, cured a similar set of symptoms in the sick. Some many years afterwards it was only perhaps by chance that it was discovered that when you dilute the substance it still continues to work – but reduces the unwanted effects. How this happens we still do not know exactly. But just because we cannot explain something, it does not mean that the effect is not there, when we see it ourselves.
Did Radio waves not exist before Marconi discovered them? Do we know how all things work? When we think we know the theory of something, how long does it take before that theory is replaced by another? Have you had any personal experience of Homeopathy? Or was the comments that included homeopathy purely based on personal
thought and reason?
Me
Of course, I accept that homeopathy ‘works’ in the sense that people feel better, BUT I question whether:
1) It works better than a placebo
2) It works differently than a placebo.
All the evidence is that the answer to both questions is ‘No’ See this large-scale examination of 110 trials for instance.
Homeopathist
1- Almost anything can act as a placebo – the more complicated the greater the effect! However, there are two groups that you cannot fool with placebo:
A- Infants
B- Animals
And Homoeopathy works on both.
In fact BBC 2’s QED Prog Circa 1991-2 ran a programme on it showing how a herd of dairy cows with mastitis was cured with one dose of a homoeopathic remedy! In fact so far as I was concerned it was QED for Homeopathy.
2- The article in the Lancet was discredited as it was proved to be extremely biased and unsubstantiated. The Society of Homeopaths replied to the Lancet article – please see here.
Me
Neither infants or animals are in a position to give objective information to researchers, so the results of tests on infants and animals are interpreted by people who believe in the efficacy of homeopathy so that they are simply influenced by the placebo effect again.
Show me a large-scale double blind experiment that has demonstrated that homeopathy has a greater benefit than a placebo.
Homeopathist
OK I give you the QED’s work. You may still be able to get a copy from BBC 2.
A large dairy herd was divided in two. Each had half of segregated field and own trough. In each a small vial of liquid was poured – one was marked A, the other B. The code as to which was the remedy and which was distilled water was in a sealed envelope and was give to the producer for safe keeping. After some weeks (6?) the QED team came back and asked the farmer of the result. One field has some 19 cases of mastitis and the other only 1. When they opened the envelope, the first field had had distilled water and the other with only one incidence had received the homeopathic remedy.
So in fairness, please explain how one could deduct that the herd with one case of mastitis was due to the effect of placebo. Could the cows understand what was happening? And this is not a unique case.
October 12th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
hi roger,
interesting exchange
i am a big fan of homeopathy in principle and have turned to it myself in the past, not because i was convinced that it works (but i think it does) but more because i wanted an alternative to “traditional” medicine, which i am actually very unhappy with.
ok, i am in the fortunate position of enjoying very good health. however, on the few occasions where i have had to see a doctor, i have been less than impressed with the treatment i have had, and my level of distrust is far greater when i consider the big bucks of the pharmaceutical industry and their lobby within our government, than when i think about homeopathy, which supports the body to heal itself. i like the idea and i want to support it. immunisations, vaccinations, antibiotics…i do NOT believe they are safe. perhaps i could be persuaded that they are a lesser evil, but at the moment i am not.
October 13th, 2008 at 1:08 am
Of course homoeopathy works miraculously and quite effectively and there should not be an atom of doubt about it. It all depends upon the quality of remedies and the homoeopaths who prescribe the medicines exactly as per the guidelines laid down in Organon.
With best regards
Sincerely yours
Dr. Sayeed Ahmad
October 13th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Very good — just as there may not be an atom of the active ingredient left in the final product!
It would be interesting to read more about the QED programme. For instance, how was the herd divided into two?
October 18th, 2008 at 6:59 am
For complete proof that homoeopathy works visit http://avilian.co.uk/
http://excalibur.110mb.com/arc.htm
http://www.hpathy.com/homeopathyforums/forum_posts.asp?TID=7796&PN=1
“INSTRUMENTAL MEASURING OF DIFFERENT HOMEOPATHIC DILUTIONS OF POTASSIUM IODIDE IN WATER” Igor Jerman, M.D., Sc.D., Full Professor of Theoretical Biology, Maja Berden, M.A. Biology, Metod Škarja, M.A. Physics, BION, Institute for Bioelectromagnetics and New Biology,Celovška 264, 1000 LJUBLJANA, Slovenia (Received October 10,1998; Accepted with revisions March 10, 1999) Although more than 200 years have elapsed since the beginning of homeopathy and in spite of numerous confirmatory scientific experiments, the so-called memory of water is still a highly disputable and controversial theme in scientific circles. To make a contribution to solving this riddle, our research group tried to examine memory properties of water by the method of differential corona discharge Kirlian electrophotography of water-drop pairs. The method is based on a modified form of Kirlian photography with a subsequent thorough computer picture analysis. The potassium iodide (KI) mother solution (0.1M) was diluted in the standard way (without potentisation) or with potentisation (succussion by hand – by striking the vial 60 times against a large book as used traditionally) to 10-3M, 10-6M, 10-10M, 10-16M, 10-17M and 10-24M KI solutions. In the electrophotography method a drop of KI solution was compared with a drop of control water. To get a dependable system of results we compared homeopathic dilutions with ordinary distilled water, sham-potentised distilled water and non-potentised (standard) solutions. The results were analyzed by the Chi-square Goodness-of-fit test and the Sign test. They showed repeatable and statistically significant effects of concentration of KI dilutions as well as potentisation on the corona discharge process (from p http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TVG-481MMWB-2&_user=10&_coverDate=05%2F15%2F2003&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=6384e09990c3f4154c3adbc9fe629f7a
Ultra-high dilutions of lithium chloride and sodium chloride (10-30 gcm-3) have been irradiated by X- and ?-rays at 77 K, then progressively rewarmed to room temperature. During that phase, their thermoluminescence has been studied and it was found that, despite their dilution beyond the Avogadro number, the emitted light was specific of the original salts dissolved initially.
Permanent physico-chemical properties of extremely diluted aqueous solutions of homeopathic medicines.
Elia V, Baiano S, Duro I, Napoli E, Niccoli M, Nonatelli L.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=15287434&ordinalpos=36&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
Department of Chemistry, University Federico II of Naples, Complesso, Universitario di Monte S. Angelo, via Cintia 80126, Naples, Italy. elia@chemistry.unina.it
The purpose of this study was to obtain information about the influence of successive dilutions and succussions on the water structure. ‘Extremely diluted solutions’ (EDS) are solutions obtained through the iteration of two processes: dilution in stages of 1:100 and succussion, typically used in homeopathic medicine. The iteration is repeated until extreme dilutions are reached, so that the chemical composition of the solution is identical to that of the solvent. Nine different preparations, were studied from the 3cH to 30cH (Hahnemannian Centesimal Dilution). Four of those were without the active principle (potentized water). Two different active principles were used: Arsenicum sulphuratum rubrum (ASR), As4S4, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4D). The solvents were: a solution of sodium bicarbonate and of silicic acid at 5 x 10(-5) M (mol/l) each, and solutions of sodium bicarbonate 5 x 10(-5), 7.5 x 10(-5) and 10 x 10(-5) M (mol/l) in double-distilled water. The containers were Pyrex glass to avoid the release of alkaline oxide and silica from the walls. Conductivity measurements of the solutions were carried out as a function of the age of the potencies. We found increases of electrical conductivity compared to untreated solvent. Successive dilution and succussion can permanently alter the physico-chemical properties of the aqueous solvent. But we also detected changes in physio-chemical parameters with time. This has not previously been reported. The modification of the solvent could provide an important support to the validity of homeopathic medicine, that employs ‘medicines without molecules’. The nature of the phenomena here described remains still unexplained, nevertheless some significant experimental results were obtained.
Metallocenyl dendrimers and their applications in molecular electronics, sensing, and catalysis.
Astruc D, Ornelas C, Ruiz J.
Institut des Sciences Moléculaires, UMR CNRS 5255, Université Bordeaux 1, 33405 Talence Cedex, France. d.astruc@ism.u-bordeaux1.fr
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18624394?ordinalpos=6&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
We have investigated the movement of electrons around the peripheries of dendrimers and between their redox termini and electrodes through studies of the electrochemistry of dendrimers presenting metallocenes (and other transition metal sandwich complexes) as terminal groups. Because these compounds can be stabilized in both their oxidized and their reduced forms, their electrochemical and chemical redox processes proceed without decomposition (chemical reversibility). Most interestingly, electrochemical studies reveal that electron transfer within the dendrimers and between the dendrimers and electrodes are both very fast processes when the branches are flexible (electrochemical reversibility). When the dendrimer branches are sufficiently long, the redox events at the many termini of the metallodendrimer are independent, appearing as a single wave in the cyclic voltammogram, because of very weak electrostatic effects. As a result, these metallodendrimers have applications in the molecular recognition, sensing, and titration of anions (e.g., ATP(2-)) and cations (e.g., transition metal complexes). When the recognition properties are coupled with catalysis, the metallodendrimers function in an enzyme-like manner. For example, Pd(II) can be recognized and titrated using the dendrimer’s terminal redox centers and internal coordinate ligands. Redox control over the number of Pd(II) species located within a dendrimer allows us to predetermine the number of metal atoms that end up in the form of a dendrimer-encapsulated Pd nanoparticle (PdNP). For hydrogenation of olefins, the efficiency (turnover frequency, TOF) and stability (turnover number, TON) depend on the size of the dendrimer-encapsulated PdNP catalysts, similar to the behavior of polymer-supported PdNP catalysts, suggesting a classic mechanism in which all of the steps proceed on the PdNP surface. On the other hand, Miyaura-Suzuki carbon-carbon bond-forming reactions catalyzed by dendrimer-encapsulated PdNPs proceed with TOFs and TONs that do not depend on the size of the PdNPs. Moreover these catalysts are more efficient when employed in lower (down to “homeopathic”) amounts, presumably because of a leaching mechanism whereby Pd atoms escape from the PdNP surface subsequent to oxidative addition of the aryl halide. Under these conditions, the “mother” PdNPs have greater difficulty quenching the extremely active leached Pd atoms because of their low concentration. Although dendrimers presenting catalysts at their branch termini can be recovered and reused readily, their inner-sphere components can lead to steric inhibition of substrate approach. In contrast, star-shaped catalysts do not suffer from such steric problems, as has been demonstrated for water-soluble dendrimers bearing cationic iron-sandwich termini, which are redox catalysts of cathodic nitrate and nitrite reduction in water.
First let people visit these & if they need more I will provide…
January 2nd, 2009 at 11:39 am
I discovered homeopathy a number of years ago when my first child was an infant. Over the years, we have used homeopathy for a variety of illnesses. For example, we (my husband, 4 children and me) often take Aconite at the beginning of cold symptoms, and about 95% of the time those colds dissipate into nothing.
My most miraculous evidence of homeopathy working is when I developed a bladder infection that went straight to my kidneys. I was 8 months pregnant, and my ob/gyn insisted I meet her at the ER right away, which was the middle of the night on a Friday. She required a urine test, and shortly afterwards the infection was confirmed and she prescribed antibiotics. I felt much relief from the kidney pain within about 8-10 hours, and was asymptomatic within 2 days.
My concern about the seriousness of the infection and the baby overrode my concerns about taking antibiotics, of course, so I finished the 10 day treatment.
Two weeks to the day of my first infection (4 days after finishing the antibiotic), the symptoms returned. Again in the middle of the night on a Friday night. I had to go through the same routine.
This time, however, I was determined to find a natural remedy to try to avoid yet another round of antibiotics again. So while taking the full 10-day antibiotic treatment, with the same result as before, I did my research.
I came up with a possible remedy, Sepia, so I kept that in mind in case of another bout.
Sure enough, just a couple of weeks after the 2nd round of antibiotics was complete, the same symptoms of a kidney infection appeared, and again went straight to my my kidneys.
This time I tried the Sepia. Within 3 hours, ALL symptoms were gone. Even though I believed in homeopathy, I still was astounded by the results after just ONE dose of Sepia.
The next infection came about a month later. I took one dose of Sepia, and the symptoms left just as quickly as the previous time.
And so it went, that my symptoms would come back, though it would time between infections would go greater and greater.
The symptoms have come back about 8 times in the past 4 years since the first one. The last infection was about 6 months ago. And Sepia cured it every time, sometimes with one dose, sometimes with a second dose.