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Gotta say, I didn't expect it from you though.
Exactly, the only pro-homeopathy reports I've read are along the lines of "X% of people reported that they felt better," which is about as valid as "X% of women reported that their hair looked shinier after using Pantene."
Millions of people the world over swear by homeopathy and now the NHS are cottoning on to it as well. Youre saying im talking bullshit but im telling you it does work. I have nothing to gain from this. I dont sell the stuff, but i think its pretty amazing that it does work tbh.
If it was just me that it had worked on then maybe id consider placebo effect, but when it works for my kids too that dont even know what im giving them, then i think its about as obvious that it works as anything else.
Believe what you want. Id hoped that maybe someone could see that i have experience that it does work and if you had a problem then it might be something you could consider that could help you, but no, youre being cunts about it, so fuck off and die.
Other research has been done, but i dont know much about it. All ive seen are results.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1532
from http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg18524911.600-13-things-that-do-not-make-sense.html
http://www.wddty.com/03363800371628761562/proof-positive-homeopathy-works-but-dr-jacques-isn-t-around-to-hear-his-work-vindicated.html
Having used it several times (mainly for blocked nose & to bring out bruises) I can honestly say it does work.
1. It's not "the rest of the UK" because Scotland has free scripts too
2. They actually have longer waits for many operations in Wales. Our money went into that and increased pay. Funnily enough when the Govt did a public survey in 1998 the public said that they wanted shorter waits, more doctros and beeter pay for nurses. You got waht you asked for so stop fucking whinging
we don't meantion the H word, because i have been treated with it all my life and find it provides much better results than "conventional" medicine..
he says it's jsut the placebo effect
but anyway thats another story!
the "proven western medicine" has awful side effects, are subject to much corruption, and are more expencive to make...there are many things that "modern medicine" cannot treat well. Stress, can be greatly relieved with aromatherapy and massage, no tablet will give you that kind of relief without side effects...and possible addiction...
Okay, I;'ve read the rest and now I've had enough of this bloody argument.
I can give you a list of people whose treatment in a homeopathic way has apparently benefitted them. That is one hell of a huge number of conincidences.
You really have to ask yourself tougher questions about the money you spend and if it's spent wisely. Now I know of cases where someone has been through the chronic pain services for years. Each time they go it costs the NHS about £160 and they go at least four times per year. Steroid injections (which is one of the treatments offered) only have a short working life before they become ineffective and so you end up with patients on morhine pumps.
In some cases we have tried alternate (and scientifically unproven) treatments like osteopaths and acupunturists. We also have used various forms of massage, including reflexology. I havea practice in my area which is very forward in using these threapies. Gps referring.
They have the lowest referrals to Pain services out of over 100 GP practices in the area. Co incidence? Poor patient treatment? Huge numbers of unhappy pain filled patients? Or enough eveidence that something must be benefitting these patients, enough not to dismiss the idea out of hand?
Sure you can apply the double blind testing etc to these treatments - but as they have no "scientific" basis then "science" isn;t going to find anything. Given our current understanding that is.
I don't care if it is the placebo effect, those patients report that their problems are better. And it costs me less.
I'd say that you get value for money, as a taxpayer, wouldn;t you?
Except is women want shiny hair then it's a pretty good recommendation, wouldn't you say?
We can prevent death now?
Herceptin osts about £40k per year to treat a single patient. If offer no benefit in 75%. So that's £160k for each succesful treatment.
Alternatively, for that same money I could have 30 hip operations, 640 hearing aids, I could empy three nurses for a year who could see over 200 patient each, I could employ another GP would could do the same...
The same cost, therefore, could treat a much larger number of people.
The NHS has a responsibility to treat as many people as possible for as little cash as possible.
Do we waste money sometimes, certainly. Would it mean that every singles treatment should be free - absolutely not.
So what do we restrict? Proven or effective treatments, or those with emotive issues like breast cancer. What about offering better mental health services, why should that take a back seat to cancer when freed up funds are mentioned?
Enough evidence to do more research into the precise reasons for this (which isn't homeopathy because that's impossible), and focus the spending on that.
Lol, if you think that homeopathy doesn't claim some scientific basis, then you obvious don't know a lot about it. And these scientific claims have been proven false on so many levels, so many times. I'm not talking about the effectiveness now, but the practice itself is bullshit. Surely you must at least agree with that?
Not really. You're effectively paying someone £30-£100 an hour, who's qualified in nothing to speak nicely to a patient for a while and prescribe nothing of any chemical value. I feel there must be a more cost-effective way to get the placebo effect. Hell, even making hospitals more pleasent environments would likely have a similar effect. Oh, and every practically independent study of any worth has reported no statistical evidence that homeopathy gains any greater results than one is likely to see from the placebo effect. Incidentally, if we're gonna pay for the placebo effect, we might as well pay for it in its cheapest form. I don't know how cheap voodoo preists are going for nowadays, or maybe a well-placed lie from the doctor.
It doesn't make it true though.
thats GREAT science that is!! Well done!
How about looking at the results eh?
And to dismiss a treatment because the benefits are mainly based on talking rather than medication and science would surely mean throwing out most success treatments for mental health - ever read anything that tries to find a scientific justification for why psychoanalysis works?
Agree on both points
I'm inclined to agree, but unlike things like massage or similar you could do a double blind trial on homeopathy. And if it proves that its the talking and not the water which is the effective part then surely that would be good to know so we can concentrate on that rather than diluting things 1 million times.
Though strangely in the field of hospices they are WAY behind us, up until recently there wasnt even one childrens hospice in the whole US (there might not even be one now).
I used the word "apparently" because I couldn't possibly say that they were cured, or better. The patient think that they are, comlpain no more about their symptoms etc and that is good enoug houtcome for me.
What would you want from any "treatment"?
Erm.. maybe because you are the only person linking scientfic evidence. We're saying it seems to work. I also said, every clearly, that I didn;t think that there was "scientific basis" for the outcomes and therefore it will be very hard toscience to identify exactly what did lead to that outcome...
I didn't say that. I don't care what they "claim", I am only interested in what is actually delivered. It's the outcomes that matter not the "advertising".
Personally I'd rather pay the price of whichever treatment is effective. But then I am in the business of making people feel better. Not scientific dogma.
Not really. It's just a case of applying existing known scientifically proven treatments (the placebo effect, for example), and seeing if homeopathy shares anything in common with these treatments in terms of practices and results (which it does). If it does, then chances are that the thing that works for homeopathy would be the thing that has been known to work in other instances. Isolate the specific active (if you will) aspect, and bingo, you have your treatment.
Why? When they presumably ask for funding for "supplies" I don't think it's unreasonable to ask what these supplies are, what they do, and ask for proof of these things. If they can't provide this, then they can obviously do their job without them. A doctor (obviously on a larger scale than individual doctors) has to do all of these things when they want to prescribe a drug. No wonder the NHS wastes so much money if they don't care what the money is spent on.
Funny, I thought you were in the business of curing illnesses, not making people feel better. I must've mistaken you for a manager of a health spa.
if homeopathy is based on the placebo effect you can't seperate the mumbo jumbo from the counselling/pyschological impact because they're one and the same.
the same effect can be achieved by just shooting all ill people. ULTIMATE CURE!!!
*raises eyebrow*
is that an offer?!
sorry, sorry. I *knew* I shouldnt have had that cider
Here a measure for you:
1. How did you feel before the treatment?
2. How did you feel afterwards?
If the answer to question 2 isn't some form of "better" then I don't really care what scientific evidence you can show me that it "should" work, it clearly didn't.
You know that surgery doesn;t always work, don't you. You know that a [medically proven] course of tablets doesn;t always work either. Yet you seem to put much store in them because they are based on "science".
What actually matter is how the patient is, not what science says they should be like.
How is that different from making them "feel" better, through homeopathy?
You know what the "placebo" effect is, don't you?
It's something happening which science cannot explain. It's proof that the abscence of anything scientific has made a "difference". Which is why scientists are dismissive of the impact... they just don't understand it.
Indeed. When a patient asks how effective I think that reflexology is, I can point to the number of people who had a course of treatment and who haven't been back for the same condition since.
Er... who do you think is referring the patient to the homeopathic services?
Option A
£80 on an homeopathic treatment which seem to have a positive effect
Option B
£160, four times per year, for the rest of the patients life on a "scientific" treatment.
I choose to pay for Option A, you want Option B.
Which one of us spends more?
No, you must have mistaken medical science for miracle workers.
When you can tell me how we can "cure" Chronic Pain, Mental Health, COPD, Heart Disease, Epilepsy, Lympoedema, Diabetes and all the other "long term conditions", then I'll agree with you.
Until that point our job is to "treat" people to make them feel better. Sometimes you cannot cure something, sometimes you treat the symptoms, sometimes you just make someone's life pain free because there is nothing else you can do.