Ben Goldacre on Homeopathy

Ben Goldacre, Guardian columnist and author of Bad Science, explores homeopathy and the placebo effect. Not all alternative therapies are equal, you know

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• homeopathy
• bad science
• medicine
• alternative therapy
• dilution
• placebo

[moodlandscape]

Do you make any difference between someone who is cured forever, and one who's symptoms are just diminished to some extent, but who has to pay for a lifetime for that effect, and who also develops several more additional symptoms? And just FYI homeopathy can be efficient in Smallpox prevention,and just for your surprise, during the Spanish Fly epidemy the mortality among homeopathic patients has been 1% (one percent) compared to 30% (thirty percent) among the "conventionally" treated patients.

[moodlandscape]

"Survivors" is a very good term for any kind of cancer,"treated" by the official medicine,because their survival has just a little in common with the actual treatment.HIV and epilepsy actually are not cured finally and forever,as you might know, not to mention the side effects which in the case of epilepsy appear in 88% of the patients due to the official statistics.

[murdocha]

@moodlandscape "almost zero effect on chronic diseases" Really? Please explain that to the survivors of paediatric cancer, HIV, epilepsy, etc. Perhaps you could also explain why homeopathy failed to treat or cure Smallpox, Spanish Flu or any other condition besides dehydration.

Yes, pharmaceutical companies spend money on research, sadly missing in alt-med. They also produce results, something also sadly missing in alt-med.

[TheRealBoff]

@moodlandscape I suppose you don't realise that his next book is called "Drug Pushers", and about the underhand marketing tactics employed by big pharma...

Try actually listening to what he is saying, not immediately dismissing it.

[gabrieleprotopapa]

@moodlandscape Go get a cold shower, messiah… You're sounding overexcited. By the way, while you're having it try to ingest a few drops of water: it will surely cure your chronic delusion!

[moodlandscape]

But if you prefer to trust people like mr. Goldmaker, who are paid by the Big Pharma, or if you are just like him, no problem - just continue, sooner or later the truth is always reveled, and very often the ones who have concealed, pay some price.

[moodlandscape]

What you don't understand the whole time is that, if you would like to play the game of skepticism, there is a much greater opportunity doing it with the "conventional" medicine, where billions are spend each years for research, and its profits hit the sky, but with almost zero effect on chronic diseases, and a controversial effect on acute diseases, thus making it the biggest quackery ever.

[moodlandscape]

@murdocha: I gave you an example how homeopathy works in practice with the scarlet fever case - you weren't able to deny it, so you could continue the blah-blah of null, one or whatever hypothesis you would like - I don't care.

[murdocha]

@moodlandscape There's no point, because it doesn't prove your case at all. Can you understand that concept?

"What you are doing here is only trying to provoke emotional reaction in public by scaring it". Yes, now maybe you understand. I'm using your arguments against you. You dismiss my argument, but start off with "do you want me to flood you with examples of people who died, in spite of being "treated" with "conventional" pills?"

Do you understand irony?

[murdocha]

@moodlandscape Quoting your words here:"there is insufficient evidence to show that homeopathy doesn't work", that doesn't mean you reject the null hypothesis. What I really don't understand about proponents of alt-med is that they rage against "science", quote "science" when it appears to support their claims, and then demonstrate they have no understanding of it when they can't comprehend the concept of the null hypothesis.

If there's no effect, there's no mechanism to investigate. Period.