Sadly there are people who think homeopathy is a safe and effective form of ‘natural or herbal medicine’. If you are one of those people I urge you to visit the 1023 website at www.1023.org.uk and read the sections that explain what homeopathy is, what it is not and the harm it can do. It will help you make an informed choice about your healthcare.
What is clear is that anybody who has looked at homeopathy and gone beyond the outlandish claims made by the homeopaths will realise that there is just nothing in it – literally nothing. Properly conducted medical trials have repeatedly shown that it is not effective, it is not natural or herbal and it is wrong to class homeopathic remedies as ‘medicines’.
On the subject of safety, well as any active ingredient is diluted to the point of non-existence, all you are left with is water or a little sugar pill, so it may seem safe, but it is the indirect danger posed by homeopathy that is the issue.
Homeopaths often quote (Hippocrates) “First do no harm” when discussing the safety of their remedies. Doing no harm is not quite the same as causing no harm and this is where homeopathy goes from being a leftover from the age of quackery & snake oil salesmen, to posing a present day danger to public health.
The internet is full of instances of homeopaths claiming to cure serious conditions like malaria and HIV/Aids, especially in developing countries where access to conventional healthcare can be restricted, but homeopathy also presents a danger to health much closer to home …..
There are UK homeopaths who offer to treat a range of serious conditions with these magic little sugar pills. For the most part, these people have no medical training and are not qualified to even identify serious medical conditions when they present themselves, let alone treat or cure them. Would you trust a Doctor if they were similarly qualified?
A few days ago I found three UK homeopaths whose stood out from the usual run of the mill sugar pill dispensers. Two were offering to treat Sexually Transmitted Diseases and one was claiming to treat a range of serious conditions, including heart disease and cancer.
Feeling that these homeopaths claims were a danger to public health, I fired off letters the relevant Trading Standards offices. The results of these letters have been mixed and are still ongoing. I have blogged in the past that I think the responses from Trading Standards can be something of a Post Code Lottery. I understand that TS have priorities and limited resources and some TS authorities do take action where needed, but it can be hit and miss.
This is not the first time I’ve had experience of homeopaths making dangerous claims, including treatments for STD’s and protection against malaria and other tropical diseases. What is clear is that these claims are something Trading Standards are not comfortable in dealing with!
Both Notts County and Windsor & Maidenhead TS initially said this was the responsibility of the MHRA. I contacted the MHRA, who said they only regulated the homeopathic medicines (remedies – NOT medicines!) and not the practitioner and that this came under Trading Standards remit.
So it was back to Trading Standards:
Notts County were pretty good, they accepted the MHRA’s view that this was a Trading Standards matter and agreed with me that there may be an issue under The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, Schedule 1 (practice 17):
“17. Falsely claiming that a product is able to cure illnesses, dysfunction or malformations.“
They agreed to take some action and although I have not officially heard back from them, the website claims for treating STD’s have been removed.
Before: http://www.freezepage.com/1281176326VWGBBCWYAO
Containing the Chlamydia & Sexually transmitted disease claims
After: http://homeopathy4healing.co.uk/about-homeopathy/what-conditions-does-homeopathy-treat
Claims removed – yes there are conditions on here that I still have issues with, but it’s a start!
It would be interesting to find out if the homeopath actually tried to defend her claims, or simply accepted that there was no evidence to support them and just took them down!
Windsor & Maidenhead Trading Standards is a slightly different story and is still ongoing, so I will leave this one here for the moment and post and update with the outcome once it is known. If anybody lives in the Maidenhead area wants details of this clinic, I will happily pass them along.
East Sussex Trading Standards was emailed on 15 Aug about Equilibrium Complementary Health and Relaxation and the claims on their website. http://www.equilibrium-clinic.com/Homeopathy.htm
This is the homeopath claiming to treat cancer and a range of other serious conditions. The cancer claim is a breach of the Cancer Act 1939.
Cancer Act 1939 – 4 Prohibition of certain advertisements
(1)No person shall take any part in the publication of any advertisement—
(a) containing an offer to treat any person for cancer, or to prescribe any remedy therefor, or to give any advice in connection with the treatment thereof;
Equilibruium’s homeopathy page starts by claiming “Homeopathy offers a safe and effective alternative to conventional medicine”. It’s bad enough when offered as a form of complementary therapy, where the patient will still be receiving potentially life saving conventional cancer treatments, but claiming homeopathy as an effective alternative.
……… That is just wrong!
I got no response from East Sussex TS to my email, so today I have contacted Consumer Direct and they are passing the details on again. Hopefully something will be done. Again an update will be posted as and when something happens. But if you live in the Lewes area and want to contact your local TS, that can only help get these claims looked at.
With these complaints I have simply focused on those conditions that posed the most immediate danger, there are other conditions listed on all three sites that should be addressed …… but that’s homeopathy all over, unsupported claims to treat medical conditions with sugar pills. Exchange cash for a few words of sympathy and a fist full of sugar pills and if you are lucky you will experience the placebo effect, you may even go away feeling better about yourself.
However, sugar, sympathy and the placebo effect do not add up to an effective medical treatment.
If you need any advice on the treatment of STD/STI’s, do not visit a homeopath! Start by visiting NHS Choices for some information or get along to your GP.
Zeno
August 24, 2010
Excellent work!
I’m sure some homeopaths know full well they cannot cure cancer or AIDS (but will happily still claim they can) while others are so deluded…
shurma wallace
September 6, 2010
For a start you need to get a copy of ‘house of numbers’ which reviews the evidence for HIV/AIDS, you are definitely not up to speed on this subject.
Saying that you are ‘sure’ homeopaths’ are making claims, is an anecdote, so far not so good with the medical science sneer on this one. Papers are full of doctor shit science telling us the latest miracle cure is almost here, why are you so myopic about this? Just because ‘proper trained doctors’ spout crap doesn’t make it any better or credible, in fact by your standards it’s worse!
Three, the number one ‘critic’ of Homeopathy is Ernst and he has been exposed as a fraud in his claims to be qualified to even comment on the subject:
In April 2010 the Deutscher Zentralverein homoeopathischer Aerzte (German National Association of Homeopathic Physicians) published an interview with Professor Edzard Ernst in its newsletter.[1]
In this interview Ernst claims that he “acquired the prerequisites” to be able to add ‘homeopathy’ to his medical title “but never applied for the title”. In fact, a crucial ‘prerequisite’ in Germany, where homeopathy is regulated, is to have passed an exam at the relevant regional branch of the German Landesaerztekammer (medical council), and Ernst never did this. As the interviewer points out:
“So is it correct that you did not acquire the additional medical title ‘Homeopathy’ but took further medical education courses in homeopathy? If yes, which ones?
Ernst: “I never completed any courses.”
In short, it appears that the leading ‘authority’ on homeopathy, and perhaps its most referenced critic, has no qualifications in homeopathy.[2]
This will not come as a surprise to anyone who has read William Alderson’s Halloween Science, the detailed critique of Ernst and Simon Singh’s Trick or Treatment?[3] In his discussion of the chapter on homeopathy Alderson concludes that:
“it destroys entirely Ernst and Singh’s credibility as a reliable source of information about at least one of the therapies they discuss in detail, and this renders highly questionable their reliability as a source of information about all the other therapies.”[4]
Alderson also claims that Trick or Treatment? shows Ernst to be unreliable as a researcher into homeopathy. He outlines 11 mistakes which can arise from ignorance of the principles of homeopathy, and which can seriously affect the reliability of randomised controlled trials and meta-analyses of homeopathy.[5] None of these are mentioned by Ernst and Singh.
“What is unforgivable in two ‘trained scientists’ (p. 3) is they have not considered the implications of these issues in respect of the validity of trials. They do not even refer to any of them when they present two trials to illustrate that individualisation does not guarantee the success of homeopathy.”[6]
Can’t wait to get a copy of the Singh Eddy expose, geez you guys are in for a ride on that one!
Ernst’s failure to take these issues seriously is confrmed by the interview, when he is asked:
“Do you see fundamental problems with double-blind studies for individualised methods?”
Ernst: “No.”
This failure is also confirmed by looking at the protocol of a trial of Arnica he specifically mentions in his career details.[7] In this trial approximately one third of the patients were given Arnica 30c and another third Arnica 6c, and “Tablets were to be taken three times daily for seven days preoperatively and fourteen days postoperatively.”[8] Not only did this mean that treatment was not individualised, but patients were taking medicine for a week before the operation when there was nothing to treat. Such a procedure will have unpredictable effects, and is anathema to homeopathic principles and prescribing practice.
We believe that it is time to recognise that opposition to homeopathy is largely based on the opinions of individuals who are unqualified or unwilling to judge the evidence fairly. Against them is the experience of millions who have actually benefited from homeopathy. A recently published example of this success is the trial in Cuba where 2.3 million people were immunised homeopathically against endemic Leptospirosis. In two weeks, the infection rate plummeted by 80% in the trial areas and the mortality rate dropped to zero, with this success continuing though the following year.[9,10]
One person may be right and 2.3 million may be wrong, but this interview confirms the evidence which H:MC21 has already presented, namely that one individual, Edzard Ernst, is not a credible source of information about the effectiveness of homeopathy.
skepticbarista
September 6, 2010
Shurma,
If you want to continue posting comments here, you are going to have to stick to the subject.
You seem to be treating this blog as a platform for you to air your own grudges, personal gripes and conspiracy theories and have so far avoided giving any detailed answers when asked to substantiate your statements. Instead you simply attack those you disagree with and swap back and forth between anti-vaccination rants, HIV denials and medical conspiracy.
So far I have tollerated your off topic posts and ‘anti-Ernst’ agenda, others people have also put up with you distorting usernames in what can only be viewed as childish name calling, which does nothing to promote your case!
I fully realise that if you are blocked or your posts removed from this blog, you will see yourself as the victim of some conspiracy to silence the truth, if that were the case you and your comments would already have gone. So I will simply ask you to stick to the subject and stop the personal attacks or post elsewhere.
Of course you may have your own blog where you post you ‘alternative’ views, if so please feel free to post a link and the discussion can continue there.
Thanks
davidp
September 3, 2010
People with cancer may get “gentle, natural” torture from their homeopath, as Penelope Dingle in Perth, Australia did – see http://thesecondsight.blogspot.com/2010/08/alternative-medicine-natural-gentle_27.html or http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/nurse-tells-how-cancer-patient-penelope-dingle-was-writhing-in-pain/story-e6frea8c-1225880173914
shurma wallace
September 6, 2010
Shipman was a kind and caring GP, all up to date with his training, even two weeks before he got busted he passed all external audits, working with others he was an exemplary practitioner.
Yes there are twats in every profession, but that doesn’t mean the profession is bullshit, that isn’t a scientific comment. There are plenty of medics in denial about how flawed their treatments are, it may be a contributory factor to the high suicide rate amongst GP’s.
So far all of the critics of homeopathy have failed to test anything, except their own lack of comprehension and understanding, they are using gutter press tactics instead of proper scientific rational.
Zeno
September 6, 2010
Shurma
Homeopaths make claims about homeopathy and want to sell their wares to the public. It’s up to them to show that their magic beans work. It’s not up to anyone else to show that they don’t work. They are the ones making the claims and making the money.
shurma wallace
September 6, 2010
I am right on topic, if Ernst is the number one critic of homeopathy he deserves to be exposed as a fraud. If I decided surgery was making holes in people, not observing the principles of surgery and started stabbing everyone and pronounced surgery as a fraud as it only killed people I am sure you would have something to say about it!
The proper application of homeopathy has principles of application, if Ernst decides to test it using RCT’s that are inappropriate for testing individually prescribed treatments, by his own words his research is flawed.
Zeno
September 6, 2010
Shurma
What are these homeopathy ‘principles of application’ and are they universal?
skepticbarista
September 6, 2010
Although I have had no contact from East Sussex Trading Standards, they have obviously been in touch with Equilibrium Complementary Health and Relaxation who have now removed the cancer claims from their website!
shurma wallace
September 6, 2010
At last they have had that conversation ‘It’s that prat again, just make your site more reasonable then we can ignore him’.
shurma wallace
September 6, 2010
You are really showing the density of your thought process, if I went into a chemist and brought some paracetamol, on the side is the directions for use. If I decide to test the product by taking the whole packet and dying I’m not testing it according to the modus operandi.
If I then got someone, in my absence to start a campaign using the ASA and tax payers money to start multiple legal actions, hey this is starting to sound like reality…….
If Ernst or anyone wants to do trials on therapies that consider multi-factorial issues then unless he follows the rules required to apply the therapy in the way directed the research is a pile of woo.
If you are admitting at this late stage that you have no idea what you are complaining about it just shows how ridiculous your position is, you have been taken in by a tea boy!
It’s not scientific to nose thumb nah nah and say there’s nothing in it, that’s the kind of thinking that denied the vacuum for years, it got people hung, in fact the more I look at it this site has some of the worst religious mania I have ever witnessed, it’s the deaf following the diuretic, wake up and smell the coffee.
Why don’t you go back to septicsville?
Zeno
September 6, 2010
Shurma
Maybe you missed Skeptic Barista’s warning to you earlier today?
Besides, here’s something for you to get your teeth into:
“Complex, multi-component therapy” can be studied well
I’m sure they’ll welcome your thought processes over there.
shurma wallace
September 6, 2010
So far you haven’t commented on the ‘House of numbers’ film that reviews the evidence for HIV/AIDS, having anecdotally suggested that homeopaths say they can treat this, my thread is very on topic. Also you can’t get your head round the idea that Erny and his Arnica trial didn’t test anything except his misconception, also very on topic.
I think we can assume that you are incapable of looking at evidence unless it fits with your idea of reality! That is religion.
You talk about ‘proper doctors’ using ‘proper treatments’ that have been shown to ‘work’. How does that apply to someone with arthritis? You’ve obviously never been chronically ill, which is a blessing as I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
The analgesic pathway to destruction is a complete sham, if I was a mechanic and ran my business with this logic, ie stuck sticky tape over warning indicators I would be sued as bloody dangerous.
shurma wallace
September 6, 2010
This is a bollocks post, multi-factorial and individualised means sitting down with the patient and taking a case history that identifies the maintaining factors in the total context of the patient.In this study the patients already had a diagnosis before they started and doco decided who had what.
Anyone reading this should click on the ZENO link above and LOL and read this it’s great!
Offering ADDH adults either supported relaxation or cognitive therapy isn’t even comparable to a homeopathy consultation, might be comparable to ‘shall I have mint tea or cuppachino’.
Please post more of this crap, it is good evidence of why you have no idea what you are doing.
Zeno
September 6, 2010
I see you didn’t bother to tell them that your considered opinion was that it was bollocks.
You just keep on providing great entertainment, Shurma!
shurma wallace
September 6, 2010
There is so much of this Pseudo science clap trap posted by med. students, all grade A and dim as ditch, it’s impossible to address it, like a tide of sewage, bowel due knows all about it.
The thread about Pertussis was unreal, the USA has highest uptake of vaccine crap in the world and they still can’t understand why everyone is getting it!
Must need more boosters? If this was homeopathy you’d be telling us it was woo. I had to log off as I couldn’t stop laughing.
Nobby knockers
September 6, 2010
There is a lot of evidence that skeptics have no idea about homeopathy from the 1023 day they participated in, I laughed when I heard of it, especially for a group who pride themselves on their rationale thought it made anyone who took part look like a complete dumb arse.
Zeno
September 6, 2010
I’m glad it provided you with a good laugh – it’s the best medicine, so they say. But what ‘evidence’ would you be referring to, Nobby?
Nobby Knockers
September 6, 2010
The whole 1023 day
Zeno
September 6, 2010
That hardly amounts to ‘evidence’, now does it? Care to explain?
shurma wallace
September 6, 2010
http://www.homeopathyworkedforme.org/#/halloween-science/4533482584
How about that for starters Zeno! Come on I read that silly SBM article done by loads of med students so you can have a look at this and tell me what you think, posting a septic debunk isn’t good enough as that will be full of more pseudo science.
shurma wallace
September 7, 2010
So guys here’s a complaint that will be published in a journal accepted by you, shall we start complaining to the ASA, how do I start:
A drug-resistant strain of pneumonia is the result of a highly-praised vaccine routinely given to infants three times in their first year of life, according to a study that will be published in today’s Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
There can be no reasonable doubt that pneumonia vaccinations are creating a new, more virulent and less treatable form of the disease. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recently replaced PCV-7 with PCV-13, and those children who have already received PCV-7 are being pressed to also take the new version. There is little reason to believe that the new vaccine will improve matters.
It is, in fact, more likely to make things worse. It consists of 13 strains of pneumonia, including the ones in PCV-7. The only difference the new vaccine could make is to worsen the situation by causing even more drug-resistant bacteria to emerge. The introduction of pneumonia vaccines is resulting in far greater pneumonia ris k than existed before.
Doctors owe it to patients to inform them that any protection they might gain against pneumonia will ultimately come at the cost of worse disease for which there is no treatment. Parents of newborns should consider the plight of their own children as their grandchildren face virulent disease that was unknown to their grandparents, disease created by the vaccines their doctors are now pushing on them. The public is nothing but a vast testing lab, with each and every person a potential lab rat.
Zeno
September 7, 2010
Shurma
I thought you’d have known, but the ASA only deals with some forms of advertising (in the UK, of course) and they are funded from the budgets of marketing companies. Oh! And they set limits on the ‘medical’ claims made by chiropractors.
What you’re on about has nothing to do with homeopathy of course (which is what this thread is about), but I suggest you try the MHRA – they deal with such regulation. Didn’t you know that?
Assuming you are really worried about this issue, you could always set up your own blog and tell the world about it.
Or are you too busy lifting stuff from other websites?
Zeno
September 7, 2010
Or maybe it was this website?
skepticbarista
September 8, 2010
Shurma,
You have been given fair warning about going off topic and persuing your personal agenda/attack.
you have not been totally blocked, but your comments now require approval, if any do get throug then they’ll just be deleted.
If they are on topic AND relevant then they will be approved.
damian green
September 10, 2010
My gosh, whatever happened to science? They really are like religious nutters how fascinating!
nemisis
September 20, 2010
Looks like the science and select committee got told where to go in its attempts to get Homeopathy banned. It’s a shame that medical research is more concerned with PR than it is with decent honest and truthful studies of what makes us healthy and witholding information about why drugs are so dangerous.
Bonkers
December 1, 2010
How do you get free of the trap homeopaths use – if you feel unwell – you need to have more treatment, and if you feel better – either you are told it is because homeopathy works – or they find another thing to apply treatment to. Whichever way the logic loop reaffirms a delusion, provides ongoing costly consultation, and makes sure patients can only get free if they pretend the treatment provided a complete cure. It’s bonkers and no wonder so many ‘anecdotal’ cures are heralded – I bet it’s cos patients will say anything to get free of the endless patronising dispensers of quack treatments. It’s also very hard to go for homeopathy with the understanding it may work as a placebo effect when you already know there is no active ingredient; unless you can somehow create an elaborate ritual around taking sugar pills. Is it me or is it bonkers?
Bonkers
December 1, 2010
Not having completed the rant – ref cancer – it worries me that people at a vulnerable stage can place trust in unproven treatments, in which the influence the homeopath has may override objective decision making of the patient. These practitioners often work unsupervised and develop a potentially controlling effect on their patients, at the same time, they may dissuade the patient from considering conventional treatment – until it is too late. I doubt undue influence is a basis for action against a practitioner, but I can see how some people may look to the ‘unhealthy’ relationship. It is no defence that the homeopath had a deluded belief in their cures – but it can make them sound convincing. Thoughts? or still bonkers?