Homeopathy - was The Lancet lying to us ?

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BreastImplantAwareness.org - 05 Jul 2006 21:31 GMT

Thanks for your post ...

The most prolific and vitriolic posters against homeopathy are
connected with the very dubious quackwatch team headed by Stephen
Barrett ... he and others from his long discredited (dis)organization
were judged to be "biased and unworthy of credibility" regarding
homeopathy in a recent court case they filed and then hired themselves
to be expert witnesses for.

www.BreastImplantAwareness.org/QuackWatchWatch.htm

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outsor@citynet.net - 05 Jul 2006 20:37 GMT

The subject and body of the post are misleading. It is about a civil suit
regarding statements directed toward and about quackwatch individuals. It
was not about Homeopathy in the least, which must provide scientific
support in the normal way, and which it was judged in a recent lancet
study
to have failed by the few quality studies published by Homeopathy
advocates.

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ship - 05 Jul 2006 23:48 GMT

> The subject and body of the post are misleading. It is about a civil suit
> regarding statements directed toward and about quackwatch individuals. It
> was not about Homeopathy in the least, which must provide scientific
> support in the normal way, and which it was judged in a recent lancet
> study to have failed by the few quality studies published by Homeopathy
> advocates.

Yes and the article within the original post for this thread, casts
serious
doubt about the methodology (let alone the motivation & ethics)
employed by those
who wrote the Lancet article.

As we all know, The Lancet is held to be the Gold Standard of orthodox
medical research, knowledge & truth. If they have been, in effect lying
to us,
then they need to be held to account.

Ship
Shiperton Henethe

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Matti Narkia - 06 Jul 2006 00:27 GMT

>> The subject and body of the post are misleading. It is about a civil suit
>> regarding statements directed toward and about quackwatch individuals. It
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
>employed by those
>who wrote the Lancet article.

Only in your imagination.

>As we all know, The Lancet is held to be the Gold Standard of orthodox
>medical research, knowledge & truth. If they have been, in effect lying
>to us,
>then they need to be held to account.

I found nothing wrong with the Lancet article. Homeopathy only "helps"
in diseases, which most of the time get better even with no treatment.
Has homepathy ever cured cancer?

Homeopathy is ancient superstition.

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Matti Narkia

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ship - 06 Jul 2006 00:52 GMT

> >> The subject and body of the post are misleading. It is about a civil suit
> >> regarding statements directed toward and about quackwatch individuals. It
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
> >
> Only in your imagination.

Incorrect the article certainly casts doubt!
(Please spare us the attacks on my cognitive faculties.)

The issue at hand is how much justification it has for doing so.

> >As we all know, The Lancet is held to be the Gold Standard of orthodox
> >medical research, knowledge & truth. If they have been, in effect lying
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> I found nothing wrong with the Lancet article. Homeopathy only "helps"
> in diseases, which most of the time get better even with no treatment.

Then how come it has done so well in the double blind studies quoted?
By what mechanism COULD that work?

> Has homepathy ever cured cancer?

To be honest this is irrelevant.

(Though while we're at it, how come 66% of us still die of cancer
despite all the trillions of dollars spent by medics on trying to find
a cure? Incidentally antibiotics dont cure cancer either but they
are still quite useful chemicals... But this is a total red-herring.)

> Homeopathy is ancient superstition.

Thanks for declaring your prejudice.

Now back to the original article...

How come the Lancet deliberately ignored studies on homeopathy
with the SOLE reason given, that the treatment was being TOO effective?

Ship

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Matti Narkia - 06 Jul 2006 12:12 GMT

>> I found nothing wrong with the Lancet article. Homeopathy only "helps"
>> in diseases, which most of the time get better even with no treatment.
>
>Then how come it has done so well in the double blind studies quoted?
>By what mechanism COULD that work?

I don't think it has done well at all. If you repeat an experiment,
say a trial, 20 times, you are likely to get one statistically
siginificant positive result. What is happening is that most negative
results don't get published. This is called publication bias. Surely
you must be familiar with it. Also, hardly any positive result from
homeopathy trials has beeen succesfully repeated by differenct
research teams.

Read the Lancet article again, you might get a clue what I am talking
about.

Here some additional reading:

homeopathy
<http://skepdic.com/homeo.html>

>> Has homepathy ever cured cancer?
>To be honest this is irrelevant.

I take you reply as an admission that it hasn't.

>(Though while we're at it, how come 66% of us still die of cancer
>despite all the trillions of dollars spent by medics on trying to find
>a cure? Incidentally antibiotics dont cure cancer either but they
>are still quite useful chemicals... But this is a total red-herring.)

I'm not quite convinced that your percentage is right, but even if it
is, so what? People always die of something, but in many countries
they now live longer than ever before. More cancers are cured than
ever before, and even when cancer is not cured, patients live longer
than before. And the research continuously produces new less toxic
ways to treat cancer, which eventually may even further improver
cancer statistics, if they pass the trials in coming years.

Unfortunately some misinformed people still recommend homepathy even
for cancer. I have seen some cases, and the end result has never been
happy.

>> Homeopathy is ancient superstition.
>Thanks for declaring your prejudice.

No prejudice. I've tried it repeatedly without prejudice, it didn't
work. One of my doctors believed in homeopathy, so I had a go at it
several times over the years. It never had _any_ effect on me. It had
a sad effect on my wallet though.

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Matti Narkia

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Matti Narkia - 07 Jul 2006 12:36 GMT

>>> I found nothing wrong with the Lancet article. Homeopathy only "helps"
>>> in diseases, which most of the time get better even with no treatment.
[quoted text clipped - 17 lines]
>homeopathy
><http://skepdic.com/homeo.html>

See also

TIME.com -- Leon Jaroff: The End of Homeopathy?
<http://www.time.com/time/columnist/jaroff/article/0,9565,1114166,00.html>

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | As a fourth study says it's no
better than a placebo, is this the end for homeopathy?
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,11381,1556831,00.html>

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Matti Narkia

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