In the early 1920s, a French physician thought he had discovered the virus that caused the Spanish flu. It oscillated under his microscope, and he thus called it oscillococcus. Not only did it cause the flu, in the opinion of his discoverer, but it was also responsible for a whole host of other diseases, including cancer. In fact, the virus does not exist, or at least nobody ever confirmed it existed, but that fact did not stop our good doctor to make a homeopathic remedy from it which he thought would cure all these diseases. His remedy, Oscillococcinum, is made from the liver and heart of a duck because the imaginative inventor believed that the fictitious virus was present in these organs of this animal.
To understand all this fully, one needs to know that the duck organs are so highly diluted that no molecule of the duck is present in the remedy. It is sold in the C200 potency. This means that one part of organ extract is diluted 1: 10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 (a note to Boiron’s legal team: I had a hell of a time getting all these zeros right; in case, I got it wrong after all, it is an honest error – please do not sue me for it!). The dilution is so extreme that it amounts to a single molecule per a multitude of universes.
Given these facts it seems unlikely that the remedy has any effects on human health which go beyond those of a placebo. Let’s see what the current Cochrane review says about its effectiveness: There is insufficient good evidence to enable robust conclusions to be made about Oscillococcinum(®) in the prevention or treatment of influenza and influenza-like illness. Our findings do not rule out the possibility that Oscillococcinum(®) could have a clinically useful treatment effect but, given the low quality of the eligible studies, the evidence is not compelling. There was no evidence of clinically important harms due to Oscillococcinum(®).
Considering that the first author of this review works for the British Homeopathic Association and the senior author is the homeopath of the Queen, this seems a pretty clear statement, don’t you think?
Regardless of the scientific evidence, Oscillococcinum made of ‘Anas Barbariae Hepatis et Cordis Extractum‘, as it is officially called, became a homeopathic best-seller. In the US alone Boiron, the manufacturer, is said to sell US$ 15 m per year of this product. Not only that, in France, where the remedy is a popular medicine sold in virtually all pharmacies and often recommended as soon as you walk into a pharmacy, it is hard to find anyone who does not swear by the ‘potentized‘ duck or is willing to discuss its merits critically.
The amazing duck, it seems, has turned into a ‘holy cow’.
100 Responses to How the amazing duck turned into a holy cow
Leave a Reply to jm Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Perhaps ‘holy cash cow’ would be more appropriate. Here in the US the dilution is 200CK which makes it hard to be sure of your zeros. It would be difficult to be sure of concentration on the walls of the container when it is dumped out and refilled. I suspect that there will be no molecules in the dilution much sooner. This would risk making this “medication” super strong. We should demand a danger warning for all CK dilutions.
It is a little hard to fathom how or why the British Queen has her own homeopath! Is the monarchy there so easily duped? Do they not check into these things? It doesn’t take much time or research to get a clear picture of what nonsense all that is. She needs to have a good chat with Ben Goldacre and Dr. Ernst!
Why would the Queen be any less susceptible to idiocy and scientific literacy than anyone else? Indeed, the opposite is more likely: those living lives isolated from many of the daily realities of most people, who are generally in a position to make reality fit to their desires rather than the other way around, are surely more likely to lean towards magic-make-it-all-better potions. The Queen, Steve Jobs, Gwyneth Paltrow, Madonna etc – it’s hardly a challenge to find fruit loops and woo worshipers amongst the ranks of the rich and famous.
CORRECT, BUT ONE WOULD HOPE THAT THE RICH CAN AFFORD SOLID ADVICE WHICH WARNS AGAINST QUACKERY
Indeed, but money isn’t a guarantee of good advice, just expensive advice. It takes knowledge and discernment to be able to separate good advice from bad advice whatever you paid for it.
so true!
prince Charles, for instance, seems to insist that advice must be wooly for him to consider it
One of the more profitable medical specialisms is the treatment of imaginary diseases of the wealthy.
I recently covered oscillococcinium in my own blog. I find it hard to believe that ANYONE could believe in a “remedy” based on a flawed premise (like cures like) that was based on flawed research (oscillococcinium doesn’t even exist). Even if oscillococcinium existed, which it does not, there is no plausible mechanism by which giving a 200C dilution of it would have any therapeutic effect whatsoever.
This sort of thing may have flown in 1890 when the best medicine was bloodletting, trephination, and leeches. But it is truly mind boggling that people can still be enticed to believe this nonsense in 2014.
I’ve been using it for 20 years and it does work. I can’t cite a study or provide you with proof, except to say whenever I feel like I’m getting a cold, flu, sore throat, etc- I take it and I don’t end up getting sick.
“whenever I feel like I’m getting a cold, flu, sore throat, etc- I take it and I don’t end up getting sick”
Sorry but that is not evidence of anything, except 1. regression to the mean, and/or 2. hypochondria.
Question for you: how would you design a reliable test to determine if “not getting sick” is the product of swallowing magic duck pills as opposed to a myriad other possible causes? Once you can answer that question, we can start discussing why in 200 years homeopathy has consistently failed to perform such tests to any competent standard.
Gentlemen, gentlemen! Order, order!
I am certain that the rich, with all of their resources, with access to the finest medical care, die just as quick or sooner than non-drug approaches since medical care kills 440,000 Americans each year just from errors, as I have said once or twice before.
But here is a question that I have wondered about:
If a substance in a solution becomes so small and diluted as to become impossibly too tiny to detect, then how can a shark detect a few drops of blood in a vast expanse of ocean from miles away and come sniffing around to investigate?
Any thoughts?
Ghosh, I am so pleased that you are CERTAIN!
SkepdicProf said:
Good grief.
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.” – Bertrand Russell
Alan Henness wrote: “Good grief.”
Thank you for that, Al. But I am sure the answer lies deeper than your emotional reactions.
SkepdicProf said:
It does. And I provided it. Perhaps you missed the link.
And please use my full first name in future.
Sorry, Allan. Didn’t realize you were sensitive.
I hadn’t realized that you posted how sharks can sense a few drops of blood from miles away in, what would seem to be, a dilution that is infinitesimally small. Where can I find it?
Thanks
SkepdocProf said:
Are you being deliberately obtuse?
It’s not about being ‘sensitive’.
I hadn’t. I had posted a link to what would appear to be a highly authoritative source – the American Museum of Natural History – that debunk’s that myth and corrects your misunderstanding.
Where I left it for you. Have you tried looking for it in my reply to you? It is rather easy to find – I only posted two words.
Here are my thoughts…
Step 1: Fully understand the meaning of the word molecule.
Step 2: Gain the humility to openly admit to being wrong.
Step 3: Acquire a good set of critical thinking skills.
Step 4: Obtain a solid grasp of biology, physics, chemistry, and mathematics (i.e. reality).
Well-well…
A few days ago SDP was reminded that it was better to read the sources he himself googled to support his own false propaganda.
It appears SDP has followed the advice and now (s)he has halved the mythomaniac figure to ‘only’ 440.000. Where this figure comes from, what it means and how it is used to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about real medicine, you can learn by having a look at the discussion here
I wonder if this halved-lie means that SDP now gets only half of his previous remuneration for constantly parroting this disinformation.
Well, Bjorn, based on the public records and put into the paper, Death by Medicine, I still believe the figure is 800,000/year killed every year by the allopaths preventable errors. These are MDs and PhDs who figured it out. All of the references are there. So I have no reason or self-interests to believe otherwise. Just going by the facts, research, references, etc., that they present. Looks like good research to me. I haven’t seen anything to the contrary.
http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2004/mar2004_awsi_death_01.htm
There was even an award-winning documentary made that you can download and watch. I would welcome your opinion on it after you watch it.
https://www.google.com/search?q=death+by+medicine&rlz=1C1RNNN_enUS387&oq=death+by+medicine&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.4186j0j4&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8#q=death+by+medicine+documentary+download
But, if you like 440,000 Americans killed each year, well, that’s fine by me.
@SDP
You are still wrong on all points and so are the altmed sources you quote over and over like a TV-salesman.
It is starting to look like you are a programmed zombie who cannot think for himself.
To repeat myself: the figures you are quoting are exaggerated beyond any sense and do not mean what you are repeatedly implying.
Try clearing your FUD-muddled mind and think for yourself. Try reading something from educated and analytical people instead of lapping up snake-oil selling platitudes for Gary Null and Joe Mercola.
Try this for a change. There you can find a good take-down of the muck you are propagating.
Interesting question. Do sharks really detect a few drops of blood in the water from miles away?
It would take some consideral time for the blood to drift several miles if flowing with the current, and it would never get there against the current. The shark notion sounds like an old fisherman’s tale to me, at least when a large distance is involved.
The theatrics of homeopathy relies on a misdirection that its clientele are unable to detect. The word ratio means: the quantitative relation between two amounts showing the number of times one value contains or is contained within the other. The essential keywords to remember are “quantitative” and “contain”.
E.g. I have a bowl containing 9 oranges and there are 10 people in the room therefore one person must go without an orange. Claiming that each person receives one tenth of the contents of the bowl would demonstrate a complete failure to understand ratios and fractions. The final ratios are: nine people received 1:9 and one person received 0:9.
Rewording my example using the nomenclature of homeopathy, we get: The one person who did not receive an orange received instead a circa 1X dilution of the original contents of the bowl, which is much more potent than the original. WTF?
In other words, manufactures of highly diluted remedies retain 100% of the original substance and sell the remainder to their customers, which is nothing, zilch, nada.
Obviously, my original oranges diluted in the ratio 0:9 is indistinguishable from any other substance diluted in the ratio 0:any_number, such as oscillococcus C200.
Invoking metaphysics in an attempt to justify marketing nothingness is derisory. I assume homeopathy will remain legal until we have lawyers who more or less understood their primary school arithmetic and basic mathematics lessons.
While we await, a little humour may help to pass the time.
The term “Homeopathy manufacturers” applies to the whole industry. Synonym: Homeopathy fabricators.
The term “manufacturing tolerances” brought to mind an apt slogan: Manufacturing Intolerances since 1796.
My only experience with homeopathy: many years ago a homeopathic vet solved an ear issue in our cat, after many attempts by ‘conventional’ vets. Everything worked exactly like the vet said it would. We figured it was a mystery that we didn’t really care to solve – it worked, and we moved on.
The whole homeopathic theory has never really made much sense to me, and I’ve never really been interested in understanding it better. But the evidence seems to suggest there might be something to it…
• Many of the “anti-homeopathic” (for lack of a better term) commenters also post on eastern medicine topics.
• The comments on the eastern medicine posts are quite bizzare, and equally bizzare conclusions are reached (and pretty firmly held) without even a basic understanding of the system.
So I have to wonder – why it would be any different with homeopathy? Or chiropractic, for that matter? Based on the evidence, I would have to conclude that the most vocal commenters have as much understanding about these topics as they do of the eastern systems. So maybe there IS something to homeopathy…
There might be something to homeopathy because its critics don’t understand “eastern medicine”? Ok. By the way, I know you said you’re not really interested in understanding homeopathy better, but I do recommend educating yourself about such things, then you can have a more informed opinion on the evidence (or lack of) and can also perhaps form better arguments against those who “have as much understanding about these topics as they do of the eastern systems”.
Indeed. I see this level of sloppy thinking from many quacks and their supporters. Many can barely form a coherent argument, never mind take part in a rational discussion.
“There might be something to homeopathy because its critics don’t understand “eastern medicine”?”
Nope, not even close to what I meant. I used eastern med as an example. Wow – I didn’t think I was being that cryptic.
Apologies, jm. I’ve read your post more closely and had another go …
The critics of homeopathy don’t understand ‘eastern medicine’, ergo they must not understand homeopathy, ergo there must be something to the efficacy of homeopathy.
Closer, but still no. You still seem to be hung up on particular modalities or methods. I’m more concerned about the evaluation process.
The comments are only bizarre if you change the definition of everything and then say; you don’t understand because you dont know the system that Im using to describe what we are experiencing. If you did it would all become clear. Which is pretty much what i understand from the constant cry of you never try to understand from my point of view.
Its genius because if they dont experience what you experience, they will never truly understand in your eyes. Its similar to people who have children and say to those that don’t ” you’ll understand when you have your own”, as if having a child makes us immediately able to see things more clearly.It maybe makes us have a clearer understanding of what we feel we have to do, but, I would suggest that these extra connections create bias in our judgement and make us less open to understanding that what we see is not all there is.
Maybe there is something to it! ( I say this without believing it) but more than likely there isn’t and there are explanations reproducible and demonstrable to explain most phenomena in the body. If we are prepared to understand that what we experience is not necessarily the truth of the matter and not let our psychological illusions lead us into the arrogance of thinking we understand more than we do.
There is a book by Daniel Kahneman called thinking fast and slow. It enlightened me to see some my own mistakes in thinking and may allow you to do the same.
Neil – changing definitions is a great example, and it’s the commenters I’m referring to that are changing definitions and coming to bizarre conclusions based on the changed definition. Many on the gua sha thread, for instance aren’t talking about ‘gua’ when describing how the therapy is performed. And if you don’t understand ‘gua’, you’re not really talking about that particular therapy.
Gua means scrape, shave, or smear. It’s describing a particular action. Go back and read the comments on the gua sha thread that are talking about the mechanics of how gua sha is performed and imagine shaving your beard (which would be performing ‘gua”) in the way they describe gua sha.
You would come to the conclusion that shaving your beard results in severe injury – not some minor nicks and cuts, but emergency room trauma. And you would come to that conclusion because you didn’t take the time to understand what was meant by “shave”. I would consider that a bizarre conclusion, since you didn’t understand “shave” in the first place. Wouldn’t you?
So yes, technical definitions can be important. And I wonder if the same scenario is playing out on the homeopathic (or chiropractic, naturopathic, etc) threads.
@jm:
How does Santa “work”? Here are the four main steps:
1. We tell children the Santa story.
2. On Christmas Day, children find presents labelled “from Santa”.
3. The children are convinced that Santa exists and the story is true.
4. Not all children receive presents therefore the story we tell them must include a reasonable explanation. Without this explanation, some children may conclude that the Santa story is not quite true then start asking in-depth questions about it.
So far, I’ve explained the processes involved, but not how it actually works. This is how it works (using the same step numbers as above):
1. The story primes the children to expect a good outcome/result.
2. The children who receive a good outcome/result have their expectation fulfilled.
3. These children use the two fallacies, “correlation equals causation” and “confirmation bias”, to convince themselves that the story is true. The story then becomes one of their beliefs about how the real world actually works.
4. The children who did not receive a good outcome/result cannot prove that the story is false. More importantly, they have insufficient evidence to change the minds of the children who firmly believe that the story is true.
This is also how most of Alt Med “works” — your one experience with a homeopathic vet is a good example. However, unlike Alt Med, all adults know that: Santa does not actually exist; the story is a false myth; there is a rational explanation for the positive outcomes/results they experienced.
If you, jm, were to become the world’s top expert in the Santa story, the story will remain a false myth because Santa does not exist.
I am not an expert in the Santa myth, but I am qualified to fully question the myth and demonstrate how it “works”.
Finally, jm, I invite you to think long and hard about your conclusion regarding “the most vocal commenters”. The following may help you to understand the errors that you keep making…
“You don’t need to be a critical thinker to provide a persuasive argument for intelligent design, a young earth, or homeopathy; you need an audience that is ignorant of science and medicine.” — Robert T. Carroll.
jm, find an audience that is ignorant of science and medicine, rather than criticising the commentators here who do understand science and medicine.
“Before we try to explain something, we should be sure it actually happened.” — Ray Hyman.
jm, before you try to explain an Alt Med treatment, make sure that it actually cures an illness. Otherwise, all you are doing is describing a business that is selling an elaborate myth. As above, find an audience that is ignorant of science and medicine.
You know, Pete, as I was reading your post, I thought immediately of psychiatry. Just sayin’.
you mean to say that you realised that this is where you ought to be???
please omit those poor taste, stupid and childish remarks – you cannot be that daft?!?
Well, EE, psychiatry is considered by many to be the gold-standard of pseudo-science. Psychiatry is only considered “legitimate” because it falls under medicine’s umbrella. Psychiatrists have shown to do more harm than good with their drug-based care to “fix” emotional problems for so-callled “chemical imbalances” in the brain for which there are no tests to prove that this, in fact, is what is taking place. I know you will disagree, but it is nothing but a big scam.
Drugging school kids and babies is now a major problem/industry, which is particularly disturbing because it is mostly in the United States. The U.S. consumes 60% of the world’s psychiatric drugs, yet it only accounts for less than 5% of the world’s population. Why doesn’t the rest of the world have this problem? Why doesn’t the United Kingdom have this epidemic of psychiatric problems like the U.S.?
Answer: In the U.S., the pharma companies can charge anything they want for the medications, unlike the U.K. or the rest of the world where drug prices are regulated. A prescription in the U.K. may be $39 while in the U.S. it costs $280. So naturally, they sell them in the U.S. where they can charge what they like. Just good business sense. They advertise directly to consumers on television. The U.S. also consumes 60% of all of the world’s medications and 80% of all of the world’s painkillers.
Corporate health before public health. It is all just a big health fraud. You know what I mean.
what has this to do with homeopathy?
are you saying that, because not everything is as it should be in mainstream medicine, it is acceptable that alternative medicine is fraudulent rubbish?
Yet another zombie argument.
As usual, SkepdocProf, you demonstrate only your ignorance and arrogance. The reason that you are aware of problems in the field of psychiatry is because it is psychiatrists, not armchair critics, who identify the problems and devote a great deal of personal time and effort into making improvements. How many times do we need to remind you of the fundamental difference between medicine and quackery: medicine (and the whole of science) is self-correcting because it harshly criticises itself; quackery rejects any and all criticism, which is why it remains quackery.
Pete 628 says:
“The reason that you are aware of problems in the field of psychiatry is because it is psychiatrists, not armchair critics, who identify the problems and devote a great deal of personal time and effort into making improvements.”
Hey, that’s pretty funny stuff, Pete! Glad to see that I am not the only one with a sense of humor around here.
Yes, psychiatrists are always telling the public about how their pharma therapy is messing up the population, prescribing drugs that have known side effects of violent behaviour and suicide to kids who then shoot up schools and kill themselves.
You always hear the psychiatrists apologize for pathologizing every human behaviour from the age of infant to nursing homes so they can be reimbursed by the insurance company for the 15 minutes they took to figure out whats going on in the person’s mind.
Good one, Pete! You are funny! LOL!
Pete – “I invite you to think long and hard about your conclusion regarding “the most vocal commenters”.”
Tell me where I went wrong:
Gua sha – scrape the superficial layers of the body (that’s what gua sha is)
Commenter understanding of gua sha – push deep into the body (the opposite of what gua sha is, by definition)
Commenter conclusion – gua sha doesn’t do what it claims to do
My conclusion – commenter came to a faulty conclusion.
My question – is this same methodology used in evaluating homeopathy, naturopathy, chiropratics, etc.? Perhaps I should have used a different example – apparently eastern med triggers some sort of defensive reaction…strong enough to invoke the “Santa Claus Response”.
Quod erat demonstrandum.
Pete – here you go:
刮 guā : scrape, shave, daub/smear (with paste/etc.)
痧 sha: term used to describe congestion of blood at the surface of the body
Quod erat demonstrandum. Fixa est in ignorantia
jm, the method used to evaluate homeopathy is the same used to evaluate any proposed medical treatment – the randomised controlled trial. Read around this site and you will get an idea.
All the rigorous trials of homeopathy – and there have been many – have produced the same result: homeopathy doesn’t have any effect apart from placebo. So although it is fairly clear that homeopathy shouldn’t work because it contains no active ingredient and has no scientific basis, the reason why homeopathy is rejected by medical science is that it can be tested and shown to be useless, repeatedly and predictably.
Thanks Julian – this site has been quite the eye opener as to how things are evaluated. I had been under the impression that studies, clinical trials, etc were evaluating treatments, which doesn’t seem to be the case. I’m starting to see that what is being evaluated are the parameters of various treatment tools. I think I owe apologies to some homeopaths…
jm I don’t understand “parameters of various treatment tools” or how you could conclude that clinical trials are not designed to evaluate treatments.
Julian – I’ve only really looked at a handful of studies, mainly dealing with acupuncture & massage. The ones dealing with acupuncture seem to focus on prescribed point protocols. An actual treatment would involve not just acupuncture, but diet, exercise, massage, herbs, and myriad other factors…so I never really put much value on the results.
But, it does seem like the results could be quite useful – in that one could start honing in on how much of a role different parts of a treatment play in the overall treatment. One tool would be needling particular points (acupuncture) – and studying just the acupuncture aspect hones in on the parameters of that tool. Hopefully that made some sense (it’s quite late here).
I’m getting the sense that it’s the homeopathic ‘substances’ (medicines? I’m not sure of the vocabulary in this realm) that are being studied, and not actual treatments with homeopathic physicians. Which is why I’m thinking I owe apologies to some homeopaths…
My Chinese dictionary (published by the Chinese Foreign Languages Press, and required of me when an undergraduate studying Chinese) translates gua sha (both first tone) as “a popular treatment for sunstroke by scraping the patient’s neck, chest or back”. A rather limited use of the therapy? See also http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/10/traditional_chinese_medicine_origins_mao_invented_it_but_didn_t_believe.html, by an assistant professor of Chinese philosophy and religion …
Ben – Thanks for the link. It’s even more interesting to actually talk to folks who lived through that time period and hear them describe how Mao destroyed their traditional medical system and replaced it with TCM.
As far as your dictionary goes, yes, sunstroke would be one of the conditions where gua sha would be a good first choice for treatment. Your dictionary probably also defines ‘gua’ as scrape or shave – which would have a different effect on the body than deep compression.
So it would take quite the quack to confuse the results of deep compression with those of scraping. Don’t you think?
It is interesting to see how our nameless friend “jm” is completely blinded by her/his faith. (S)he is (figuratively speaking) hit in the head with a very detailed and referenced take-down of the origins and credibility of the fantasy system (s)he is so infatuated with, written by an expert. But instead of discussing its contents (s)he simply ignores the evidence and spins a story about how it must be the other way around without the support of any citations or evidence at all.
They don’t come any more delusionally deranged.
For those interested in the real origins of what is commonly called “Traditional Chinese Medicine” there is quite a lot to be found that corroborates Alan Levinovitz’s very interesting article referenced by Ben Harris above. Try for example to search for Ben Kavoussi on http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org and take it from there.
At least you should read this article: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/astrology-with-needles/
Oh, I almost forgot.
“jm” says it is interesting to “…actually talk to folks who lived through that time period. ” Maybe (s)he can prove her/his point but I doubt it.
Here you can read a very graphic and detailed, one hundred year old account of “traditional chinese medicine” from the time period before it was “reinvented” to suit modern times: https://archive.org/details/thirtyyearsinman01chri (the whole book is easily downloaded as PDF or other e-book formats) I deeply recommend reading this enlightening book by the Scottish missionary surgeon Dugald Christie. Our friend, in another dialog on this blog, tried fervently to discredit Mr. Christies book but never came up with any evidence despite encouragement to do so.
“…tried fervently to discredit Mr. Christies book…”
Nope. It’s actually on my reading list. I like reading anecdotal accounts of things like that – and since his travels were apparently focused in a pretty particular area of China, it will be interesting how the practices relate to the Neijing. (The link I sent you describes how different therapies in Chinese medicine relate to different areas of the country, and why.)
And then you had go getting all racist…to your credit, you held back the blatantly racist stuff until about ¾ of the way down the page.
So jm reveals that he hasn’t even read Dugald Christie’s book yet. That is most revealing.
Her/his immature ad hominem allegation about racism is not worth comment other than it has annihilated any need for mutual respect. It was interesting while it lasted.
No allegation about racism, Bjorn. You speak for yourself here:
http://edzardernst.com/2014/05/the-top-three-untruths-about-acupuncture/#comment-59313
You said:
“As an afterthought: It seems like this book about health and healing by(?) the jaundiced emperor, and for all I know adapted to the fantasies of modern meridian-prickers, contains the “science” that you base your practice on- right?Has it never occurred to your meridian-muddled mind that even if the chinamen were first with gunpowder and paper and whatnot, that they failed miserably in medicine until “western” science came to their aid?”
I’m surprised and disappointed that Bob Dobbs was the only one that called you out on it.
Sigh…
http://edzardernst.com/2014/05/the-top-three-untruths-about-acupuncture/#comment-59420
What really is Integrative Medicine? According to Wikipedia:
“Integrative medicine combines alternative medicine with evidence-based medicine. Proponents claim that it treats the ‘whole person’, focuses on wellness and health rather than on treating disease, and emphasizes the patient-physician relationship.”
Many of its proponents claim that this is what Integrative Medicine is all about. How do the proponents of Integrative Medicine react when challenged to provide solid evidence of efficacy for the plethora of alternative treatments? Invariably with anger and hostility; even to the point of claiming racial and/or religious intolerance to be the cause of their treatments failing when subjected to systematic reviews of RCTs.
Is it just me, or are others frightened by the prospect of one day ending up in an “Integrative Medicine Care Home” that bullies all patients who dare to challenge the efficacy of Alt Med? E.g.:
Our Reiki treatments failed because you refuse to accept the principle of universal energy.
Our Acupuncture treatments failed because you refuse to accept the principles of Qi.
Our Gua Sha treatments failed due to your racial prejudice.
Our Homeopathy treatments failed because you refuse to accept bullshit.
Our Applied Kinesiology treatments are blocked by your critical thinking skills.
Our Faith Healing is blocked by your totally wrong choice of religion.
This isn’t some surreal fantasy, this is currently happening when one dares to challenge the holy cash cow of Integrative Medicine (previously known as sCAM).
Integrative medicine treats the “whole person”. Indeed it does, it treats the whole patient as a cash cow.
Integrative medicine “focuses on wellness and health rather than on treating disease, and emphasizes the patient-physician relationship.” Indeed, this is undeniably true because it neatly avoids mentioning whether it is the physician or their patient who receives the “wellness and health” from their relationship.
I give my sincerest thanks to the amazing ducks who involuntarily donated their organs to the debunking of quackery.
I believe it is called “excrementum vaccinium” in homeospeak.
Next time I travel abroad I will be wearing a Med-Alert badge saying: “No alternative, integrative or non-evidence/science based medicine!”
Almost every Cochrane review says there’s insufficient evidence, I don’t see you denouncing Pfizer or Astra Zeneca for selling drugs with insufficient evidence. And the authors of the Oscillococcinum review say that their study does not exclude a benefit.
Notwithstanding the Straw Man, Ocean, list these drugs which you believe have insufficient evidence to support their use. Then we can go back to discussing imaginary bacteria and water with no duck liver in it.
Just consult the Cochrane database for conventional drugs, “inconclusive evidence”, “lack of rigour”, “low quality evidence”, the most common expressions.
Roy was wrong to believe he had identified a bacterium called “Oscillococcus” to treat cancer. Does Boiron sell oscillococcinum to treat cancer? No, they sell it to treat the common cold because you should know yourself that Bavarian ducks are reservoirs of the flu virus. The level of evidence for Oscillococcinum is much higher than for some allopathic drugs. Even Shang himself considered one of these trials to be of high methodological quality.
@Ocean
You are completely wrong:
– Roy was searching for a treatment for Spanish Flu, not cancer.
– The bacterium he thought he found does not exist at all.
– Yet Roy claimed that he isolated the bacterium from ducks, which explains why he chose this animal.
– Influenza viruses were not known at that time, nor was it known that birds harboured these viruses.
And once again you are completely wrong. Yes, ducks and other birds can harbour flu viruses. But:
– As soon as influenza viruses are actually found in poultry, the birds must be destroyed by law. It is not allowed to process infected birds for any product.
– Influenza viruses in birds are not found in the heart and liver of infected birds, but in the intestines.
IIRC, the best result for oscillococcinum was that it shortened the duration of ‘flu-like symptoms’ by 6 hours. Which, given that an average flu takes 10 days to resolve to the point that the most severe symptoms have cleared up, is an utterly insignificant reduction of less than 2%(*).
It is possible that there are medicines out there that have the same abysmal efficacy, but it is nonsense to claim that oscillococcinum has any evidence going for it.
*: Which is (haha) symptomatic of homeopathic trials: any positive results are invariably very weak as well as singular. There is not a single homeopathic product with a repeatable, consistent efficacy. Which means that homoeopathy is nonsense. And no, the fact that some pharmaceutical products aren’t much good either does not change this.
Not to forget the total abscence of “prior probability”. Oscillococcinum is produced in such a way that it is impossible that anything, material or ethereal, after a serial dilution to 200C, which if written out with all the zero’s looks like this
1/100000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000.
Then the resulting wash is dripped on sugar tablets and let dry.
Only
a foolan idiot would believe that this can have any biological effect.correction: The first part of my comment above should read:
1. I precisely said that Roy was wrong in their observation, and you have proved me right! I think a little ignorant Richard. This is a comment from one of your friends called “Guy Chapman” (sounds like Lenny):
“He later identified this bacterium in patients with many other disorders, and posted it as a causative agent in herpes, chicken pox, shingles, eczema, rheumatism, tuberculosis, measles, and cancer”
And the comment from Mathie and Fisher:
”The rationale for its use in influenza is not the standard homeopathic principle of ’let like be cured by like’, but the related principle of ’isopathy’: that a medicine derived from the causative agent of the
disease, or from a product of the disease process, is used to treat the condition“. And the assertion that there is ’no inferential link [between] duck liver and influenza’ is simply false: it is ’hypothesised that wild aquatic birds are the primordial reservoir of all influenza A viruses’.[iii] However, water fowl do not generally become ill with the virus they harbour”
2. Oscillococcinum is in fact one of the few homeopathic medications that consistently proves to reduce the duration of flu symptoms but not in prevention. A reduction in the duration of symptoms is of great value from the point of view of public and individual health. Just look at the effectiveness of the best-selling flu pills, none cure and only slightly reduce the duration of the disease.
*Björn’s comments are insults and speculation.
Hehe, insolence intended, received and confirmed as expected by one of the usual suspects with 200C shaken water on his or her brain and hiding behind a silly (but telling 🙂 ) pseudonym.
@Ocean
I merely pointed out that Roy initially only sought a cure for the Spanish flu. It was only later that the man started believing that it was the cause of almost every ailment under the sun. Which is something that often happens when incompetent persons think they stumbled onto something.
But Roy could never have made this particular link, yet HE was the one who selected these birds as a prime source of his non-existing ‘oscillococci’. It was only many decades later that birds were found to harbour and spread avian flu viruses, long after the fact. And if you really want a good source of avian flu viruses, chickens are a much better choice, as they are far more susceptible to the virus than ducks. So Roy’s choice for those ducks is not based on any rationale.
And even worse, the continued use of these ducks is also not based on any rationale either – as I already explained, it is strictly forbidden to use infected birds for any purpose. Avian flu is a notifiable disease, and any infected birds that are found must be immediately destroyed.
So whatever there may be inside those ducks that Boiron uses for their quacky sugar crumbs, it most certainly isn’t any flu virus.
Nope, nonsense again. I don’t know about you, but just two very low-quality trials with only marginally positive outcomes are not what I would call consistently positive results.
So let me repeat, and please remember this: There is not a single homeopathic product with a repeatable, consistent efficacy. Homeopathy is merely a risk-free way to defraud people by selling them sugar crumbs and plain water as ‘medicine’.
Utter bullshit.
You’re making this claim, Ocean. You need to prove it. The burden of proof lies with you. Like all all homeopathy freaks, you view your fatuous bullshit imaginings as objective fact. They aren’t.
@Ocean
Um, maybe because by law, real pharmaceuticals are only allowed to be sold AFTER evidence of both safety and efficacy has been delivered? And if it turns out later that this evidence was fudged or embellished in any way, the pharmaceutical company risks huge fines and of course withdrawal of their product from the market. Which, quite contrary to what you suggest, happens regularly (although most withdrawals result from safety concerns).
Homeopathic ‘remedies’ OTOH have the strange privilege that they can be legally sold as ‘medicine’ without any testing whatsoever, not even for safety. And not only that, but even if study after study fails to establish efficacy, homeopathic manufacturers continue to sell them regardless. Which de facto makes homeopathy a way to defraud people without any legal risks.
The best way to remedy this (pun intended), is to hold homeopathic products to the same standard as other medicines: No evidence of efficacy? Then they’re not allowed on the market.
There are thousands of comments on the Internet from anti homeopathy skeptics saying that quantum biology is “nonsense” because “there is decoherence”. You can look for them yourself in old blogs or online videos of your friends, even the late Robert L. Park said quantum biology and biophotons were “woo”.
Clearly you have not read the article, you need to have advanced knowledge of physics. The article is a hypothesis about the mechanism of action, if you don’t understand the difference between hypothesis and experiment you don’t know nothing about science. And that hypothesis is perfectly plausible with the accumulated knowledge in quantum biology and thermodynamics far from equilibrium.Yeah, almost everything I’ve been reading about “objections” against homeopathy is from the point of view of the second law of thermodynamics for lifeless physical systems. The lax interpretation of the second law of thermodynamics says that you could not be alive, but you are, you write, you breathe, you have a metabolism and a homeostasis. I realize that Edzard Ernst has no knowledge of this subject, he does not know, his knowledge is reduced to what he learned of physiology 30, 40 years ago?
Are you ever going to supply references for any of your myriad claims? Or can we all just skip straight to the laughing you out of the room part now?
And to be clear: claims by some homeopaths that homeopathy operates via quantum effects are bunk, because we already know that quantum physics effects manifest at the subatomic level, not at the larger scales where the vast majority of interesting cell functions—including immunology and diseases, which are the relevant ones here—operate via classical physics. If quantum physics proves to have any significant biological effects (and the science to determine this is still being done) such effects will be subtle and rare, and all but entirely overwhelmed by gross macro mechanics.
(We’re talking, like, marginal influences on how a single photon gets detected by a light-sensitive molecule within a cell within your eye, not killing enormous invading viruses and bacteria like a pro.)
Besides, if homeopaths could unify quantum and classical physics into a single working model there’d be a whole boatload of Nobel Prizes in it for them, not to mention global adulation and vast profit (well, vaster). But since homeopaths already have absolutely zero understanding of either classical physics or quantum physics, their chances of successfully merging them into one are even less than homeopathic, so safe to say that boat won’t be sailing any time soon.
If your bowels are half as lax as your interpretation of thermodynamics is, you should get out of homeopathy and move all your money into adult diapers instead.
#NotEvenWrong #ScienceCosplayFail
It is extremely clear to me that you do not understand physics “has”. Jim Al Khalili even agrees that there are quantum properties in neurons, and that quantum is not only limited to atoms or what the Planck constant dictates.
To say that “homeopaths” have no knowledge of physics is false, there are several homeopaths who are physicists or chemists. Lionel Milgrom earned a Ph. D. in chemistry from Imperial College. There are scientists who are not homeopaths but who investigate this field, Marc Henry is doctor of quantum chemistry, Louis Demangeat is doctor of chemistry and medicine, Vittorio Elia is doctor of chemistry, Rustum Roy was doctor of materials science, Stephan Baumgartner is physicist and doctor of science, Alexander Tournier is doctor of physics at Imperial College, Luc Montagnier is Nobel Prize, Brian Josephson is Nobel Prize in physics. Can you tell me if Edzard Ernst has a PhD in physics or chemistry? have any contributions to science been made from the list of “guest bloggers” that Ersnt has on his blog? can you show me the scientific articles written by Norbert Aust, Richard Rasker, Björn Gerf, Kevin Smith, Christian Lehmann, Ken McLeod, Loretta Marron, Alan Henness, Michael Scholz, Wolfgang Denzer, Alastair MacLennan, Carlos Orsi, Nick Ross, Frank, Jan, Nienjuys, Dunbar, Rawlins, Lubetkin? can you tell me how many articles you’ve published “has”?
Lionel Milgrom?
you must be joking
It’s rude to answer a question with another question, can you tell me how many articles Lenny or any of your friends has written? Lionel Milgrom, PhD in chemistry and a homeopath. Are you saying Milgrom is ignorant of chemistry? is it less for being homeopath? I remind you that you claimed to be a “trained homeopath” , and that your colleague Natalie Grams claimed to be a homeopath, how many scientific articles (not opinion essays) did Grams publish?
Either it is my imagination or most of the profiles of activists against homeopathy are not scientists, a small percentage that is not relevant (or they are mediocre that only appear in the media and wrote a blog without a single scientific publication behind) and only an insignificant percentage has some Nobel or some scientific career. It seems that that “consensus” you talk about so much is only in your imagination based on people who mostly believe they are scientists from reading Wikipedia?
Milgrom may have been trained in science and chemistry, but that doesn’t mean he’s applying either in his pursuit of homeopathy. People are good at compartmentalization and rationalization, and in a contest between science and religion it is religion that often as not wins: because religion tells people pleasing things they very much want to hear, whereas science just tells them how wrong they are.
The more Milgrom embraces homeopathy, the more he is emotionally motivated not to find it in error. A good scientist—e.g. Prof Ernst—would set his personal biases aside, knowing that the only way to prove that homeopathy works is to test it to destruction first. If the most rigorous scientific testing consistently fails to prove it ineffective, then at that point science says he’s probably got something. Until then, all he has is religion.
So we don’t care if Milgrom has a PhD in chemistry; we care only if he has performed those tests. Has he? To date you have provided zero evidence that he has, despite our repeated requests. All you’ve presented is “Lionel Milgrom has a PhD and you don’t”, which is a lazy Appeal to Authority and not worth squat.
Furthermore, you claim that the criticisms made by the lay commentariat on a retired scientist’s personal blog are invalid because those critics do not possess scientific degrees. That is an Ad Hominem. (It’s also wrong: while some folks here are not degreed—e.g. I washed out of first-year medicine many decades ago and ended up in a different field entirely—others are.) Besides which, just as a scientist is free to think non-scientifically, a non-scientist can think scientifically if they so choose: it really isn’t hard to learn the basics. Our arguments should be assessed on their own validity, not on who said them, just as Milgrom &co’s should be.
So we’ve already told you (nicely) the terms by which you can enjoy your critics all eating humble pie: post a body of high-quality scientific research that consistently shows homeopathy is more than a placebo, which we are (despite our best professional and amateur efforts) unable to tear apart. Because the only thing that your fallacious flibbergibbets, repetitive weaseling, and tedious courtier’s replies have proved is that you don’t have that evidence to give—and furthermore that you already know you can’t provide that evidence because it doesn’t exist, and are blustering desperately to hide that fact.
You’re a shallow puddle with gross delusions of grandeur, fooling nobody but yourself. We don’t need science to disprove you: we only need show how your own words disprove yourself. Which isn’t a challenge for even the amateur me, never mind an interesting one for the professonals among us. Evidence or GTFO.
It’s ironic, but you just used the appeal to authority quoting Feynmann’s words. Explain this “have you” to me, how do Feynmann quotes prove that Milgrom doesn’t have a Phd in chemistry?
“Has”, you are very aggressive, I have not insulted you and you are telling me to go to the “GTOF”.
congratulations!
you have managed to write no less than 13 nonsensical comments within just a few minutes.
could I perhaps suggest you restrain yourself in future and think before typing?
Whoa, whoa, wait a minute Ernst, all the comments that contradict you are “nonsensical”, you ban people who refute you, and you allow comments with insults like Lenny’s or you have. Thank you, Ernst, thank you, I am very happy to know that you are unethical, I am not surprised now by your superficial approach in your books when you talk about memory of water. No one beyond your close friends or the media takes you seriously.
Do you feel that you are a “greatness” because you are highly cited but no one has given you a Nobel Prize? Look, Montagnier has fewer published articles, he has a Nobel Prize and not even with all the smears of journalists he has given up. And you Ernst? What have you contributed? With letters to the editor fighting every so often? With systematic reviews of such poor quality that when you try to talk about the memory of water, did you keep what they told you?
You just have to read your “review” of Cochrane studies, you oscillate between accepting the studies and not accepting the studies, and you always end up with your catchphrase of “not convincing”. Look, you have reviews about yoga with low quality trials you say they are promising, but when it deals with homeopathy and found very good quality trials you dismiss them with “I don’t like the conclusions.”
It is clear that your bias has to do with your poor understanding in basic physics, it does not surprise me, I have read comments here from people like Rasker talking about things that they do not understand and think they can refute with a simple comment. Or how about your friend “has” trying to talk about the scientific method that he doesn’t understand and confuses? Or of others speaking of “statistics” believing that they are experts trying to teach experts like Robert Mathie. I could not miss the comments of people without knowledge trying to give lessons to experts in molecular biology like Professor Anirus Raman, or of people trying to teach the basics of homeopathy to Dana Ullman!
your comments do not contradict me – they are just BS!
Lenny is on the same level as the renowned Edward Calabrese? Rasker has the same level as Etienne Cappeaux? Jan William Ninehuys has the same level as Cédric Villani? Lorreta Marron has the same level as Brian Josephson or Emilio Del Guidice? Björn has the same level as Robert Hahn? Does Nobert Aust have the same level as Robert T. Mathie? Does your friend Viktor Weiss have the same level as Marc Henry? Les Rose has the same level as Michael Frass? Buddy, Ernst, your “guests” are just smoke, hate, and circus.
No, Ocean. We’re not equal with any of those people.
We’re way, way ahead of them. Because we understand what science and evidence are. And they don’t.
Their and your irrelevant circle-jerk of mutual affirmation means absolutely nothing.
Unless you’ve suddenly got that top-end evidence of efficacy to show us. Which you plainly haven’t. Continue with your pompous, ignorant and insignificant prating for as long as you want. Your and their dreams of significance will remain just that. Dreams.
@Ocean: “I have not insulted you”
Actually you have. You deliberately willfully insult all of our intelligences. And you do so repeatedly.
We have already generously explained to you how you can beat us: Post your body of evidence upon which your assertions are founded so that we can examine it for ourselves. If we are unable to refute that evidence and the conclusions formed from it, then: Congratulations, you win!—and we will all eat our humble pie here as we publicly acknowledge that you may in fact be Not-Wrong.†
I mean, seriously. How much more hand-holding here do you need from us? Must we also tie your shoelaces and wipe your botty when you go poo-poo? Are you really so far beyond useless that your only conceivable value in life would be to act as a functioning doorstop?
So let me state, yet again, to the terminally Hard of Learning:
Evidence or GTFO Already!
Because while science may be hard, it is not that hard, you dismal, ignorant, witless buffoon.
#ComedyGold #HumanityIsSoDoomed #VoteGiantMeteorite2022
—
† Which in science is the second-highest compliment there is. (The highest being taking the time to comprehensively shred your thesis and explain to you in excruciating detail all of the ways in which you are wrong. But, baby steps.)
I shall also observe that my citing of Feynman’s words on honesty is not an Appeal to Authority. It is a lesson. A lesson on how to learn for oneself and not balls it up. A lesson that has sadly flown straight over the pathetic puddle, as it now proudly adds Tu Quoque to its Arsenal of Stupid.
The first and famous part of Feynman’s lesson is, of course:
Though the part I feel most insightful is this:
The good scientist assists others towards their own understanding. The priest assists others towards his own point of view.
Richard Feynman was a damn fine teacher.
“Ocean” seems to be hard at worrk trying to win a prize for the most laughable comment of the year?
This one is a good runner up:
A chemist turned homeopath means nothing more than wasted academic schooling. Homeopathy flies in the face of basic chemistry and physics and someone who promotes or practices homeopathy cannot at the same time claim to be a professional chemist, an alchemist perhaps but not someone to trust with danggerous and delicate chemical processes.
Ini addition, records indicate that Mr. Milgrom seems to prefer fiction over truthfulness: https://god-knows-what.com/2009/10/24/with-friends-like-these-the-bca-and-dr-milgrom/#more-1232
What’s the point of that blog post, Bjrön? I see nothing but disqualifications towards Milgrom, thank you I did not know that article of him published in the JACM, so there was a positive report published by the WHO that was suppressed by the complaints of a few of you?
can you tell me how many articles you’ve published ‘Ocean’?
@Ocean
[snip gibberish]
Look, it’s really simple: even after 227 years, homeopaths and their ilk have not succeeded in coming up with even ONE ‘remedy’ that is efficacious beyond a shadow of a doubt. This means that homeopathy is nonsense, IT DOES NOT WORK.
It does not matter if you can name a handful of deluded fools who happen to have a scientific degree – because they also never succeeded in demonstrating that homeopathy really works. (Not to mention that far larger numbers of far more esteemed scientists are of the opinion that homeopathy is dumb nonsense.)
Of course it also doesn’t help that homeopathy’s foundational principles have never been found to exist, i.e. the similia principle and the law of infinitesimals. ‘Like’ does NOT ‘cure like’, and higher dilutions most certainly were never found to become more potent medicines – quite the contrary, as is observed every day. And the concept of ‘proving’ is the final evidence for homeopathy’s foolishness: only a total imbecile believes that one can reliably establish a substance’s therapeutic effects without ever testing it on real patients.
Name all those conventional drugs that have proven efficacy “beyond a shadow of a doubt.” If you can’t, you must conclude that none of these drugs work.
And here we have the most fatuous, ignorant and pathetic comment that Ocean has yet produced despite previously having set an impressively high bar. Quite headshaking. The disordered thought-processes of homeopathy freaks are, as ever, quite something to witness.
We could name all those drugs, Ocean. And the families of drugs. Antibiotics, corticosteroids, monoclonal antibodies, alpha blockers, beta blockers, PPIs, Ca2+ channel inhibitors and so on and so on. In their thousands.
Your witless and inconsequential trolling is becoming an irritation.
Inglés
I didn’t ask you for a list, I asked you to show that the Cochrane reviews on those drugs mention that they have proven efficacy “beyond all doubt”, those are the words that should come, not what you think.If you cannot do something so simple and you only have insults as a defense, you make it very clear that something is not right.
“Beta-blockers probably make little or no difference in the number of deaths among people on treatment for high blood pressure”
None. But at least I can quote sources to back my own arguments when I make them. Still waiting for you to post anything more solid than verbal diarrhea.
As for Milgrom, Montagnier, Roy, et al. Please. Now you’re just doing argument from authority. As if their homeodrivel hasn’t already been debunked as well. That’s the nice thing about science: it isn’t about who you are, it’s about your ability to back your case with evidence. The only evidence you’ve provided us is evidence that you don’t have any evidence to give. Yawn.
Nobody has refuted Montagner’s investigations, nobody, the only thing there are opinion comments scattered around that do not have any seriousness.
Yes they have. It’s why nobody other than inconsequential homeopathy freaks like yourself has paid Montagnier’s deranged wibblings any heed. Their impact on science has been absolutely zero.
Of more relevance is that nobody has replicated Montagnier’s “findings”.
Montagnier is a crank. Pure and simple.
Interesting, you always attack with insults. It is obvious that you are not interested in knowing, you only want to confirm your arrogance and prejudices, you do not contribute anything. But in fact, your word is not important, Montagnier’s is. Let me know when you have a Nobel or have scientific articles, meanwhile your word is smoke.
https://edzardernst.com/2017/05/a-method-of-ending-discussions-with-belligerent-twits/
See those hands of yours waving, Ocean. Ooh flappy flappy flap they go.
All those names. All those people. All those theories. All that flapdoodle.
So.
How many of those luminaries have been able to provide the knock-down unarguable trial results which prove the efficacy of homeopathy?
How many have caused the textbooks to be rewritten?
How many have received Nobel prizes for the results which have transformed all that we previously thought we knew?
You could shut us up easily, Ocean. By showing us those stunning, unarguable trial results
But they don’t exist.
Because they never will.
What a shame.
Your comment is a nonsensical absurdity, it is as if you complain to Marie Curie for not having done clinical trials to show that nuclear radiation does not harm. Seriously, you need a basic methodology course and learn to separate between fundamental research and applied research. At least all those scientists that you so arrogantly disqualify managed to publish pioneering articles, what have you done?
No, Ocean.
Your reply is nonsensical absurdity, like al that you write.
Doddge, obfuscate, bluff, ignore the point raised.
That knock-down published, replicated unarguable evidence as to the efficacy of homeopathy. Where is it?
And I’m trained to degree level in science. Which includes training in how to critically appraise papers. You?