bias
Open-label placebos (OLPs) are placebos without deception in the sense that patients know that they are receiving an inert sugar pill with no activity of its own. Intuitively, we think that such treatments must be ineffective. Yet, there have been several studies that seemed to show otherwise.
The objective of this paper was to systematically review and analyze the effect of OLPs in comparison to no treatment in clinical trials. A systematic literature search was carried out in February 2020. Randomized controlled trials of any medical condition or mental disorder comparing OLPs to no treatment were included. Data extraction and risk of bias rating were independently assessed. 1246 records were screened and 13 studies were included in the systematic review. Eleven trials were eligible for meta-analysis.
These trials assessed the effects of OLPs on
- back pain,
- cancer-related fatigue,
- attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,
- allergic rhinitis,
- major depression,
- irritable bowel syndrome,
- menopausal hot flushes.
The risk of bias was moderate among all studies.
Click to enlarge.
A significant overall effect (standardized mean difference = 0.72, 95% Cl 0.39–1.05, p < 0.0001, I2 = 76%) of OLP. Thus, OLPs appear to be a promising treatment in different conditions. Yet, the researchers spotted several caveats and discuss them in some detail.
First, we detected hints of a publication bias in the study sample, but the respective test was not significant. The quantitative basis of the meta-analysis is based on a small number of studies, reflecting the early state of research in this field. Moreover, the set of studies showed some heterogeneity. Finally, four studies were rated to have a high risk of bias, and nine to have some concerns.
In order to assess the impact of these high-risk studies we performed an exploratory best-evidence synthesis. We excluded the four studies with a high risk of bias. In this analysis, the heterogeneity could be reduced to a non-critical value and almost all variance in the set of studies could be explained by a sampling error (I2 = 4%). With the exclusion of these four studies the mean effect size was reduced to a more conservative SMD = 0.49.
Regardless of this reduction of the overall effect, the same conclusions about the treatment-effect of OLPs can be drawn, although the lack of robustness means that interpretations require some caution. The decrease of heterogeneity shows that methodological impairments might be responsible for the considerable unexplained variance in our results. We abstained from carrying out a further sensitivity analysis for explaining heterogeneity because of the small number of studies.
This is certainly an interesting subject. And the above findings are certainly counter-intuitive.
My impression is that the effect of OLPs is small and of doubtful value in clinical practice. My prediction is that, as more and better research emerges, it will diminish further, if not vanish totally. I think that there are several reasons for this:
- The number of trials is still quite small.
- The studies obviously lack patient blinding.
- Positive messages can be included alongside open-label placebos.
- The “time lag bias” is high.
This type of bias means that, due to initial enthusiasm in a new subject, negative results are published with some delay. I have observed this bias repeatedly in the past. A new treatment initially tends to generate nothing but positive results, and only after a while, when the researchers’ euphoria has subsided, more realistic findings emerge.
Yesterday, it was reported that one of Austria’s best-known opponents of vaccination has died as a result of coronavirus infection. He vehemently refused treatment in hospital. Instead, he insisted on treating himself – and tragically, he is not an isolated case.
“Miracle Mineral Solution” (MMS) is being promoted as a treatment for all kinds of diseases – including, of course, the coronavirus. But MMS is nothing more than the bleach and disinfectant chlorine dioxide, or CDL for short. It made headlines when Donald Trump suggested it as a remedy against Covid-19. Subsequently, CDL became highly popular amongst the anti-vax brigade.
Johann Biacsics was one of the leading figures of the anti-vaccination scene in Austria. On 11 November, he was seen in a Vienna hospital with an acute corona infection. At this stage, he had already taken chlorine dioxide because of fever complaints. Biacsics was, of course, not vaccinated and refused treatment. He was firmly convinced that he had already overcome the infection thanks to his treatment with chlorine dioxide.
The senior physician at the Vienna hospital saw things differently. His condition was “life-threatening”, she said. But instead of accepting treatment in hospital, Biacsics discharged himself and said he would rather treat himself. Once home, Biacsics put in an IV line with chlorine dioxide and sodium chloride. Two days later he was dead.
Only two weeks before his death, Biacsics had demonstrated in Vienna against the Austrian Corona measures. In a television interview from September, he can be seen in front of the parliament. “There are mainly vaccinated people in the intensive care units. 67 percent of them are vaccinated,” he said on camera at the time. When the reporter corrected him, he only replied that he had “inside information”.
His followers are now suggesting that he was poisoned. And for once they are, of course, correct. He basically poisoned himself with MMS. His family, meanwhile, blames the hospital and claim that he did not die of COVID, nor that Biacsics’ death is the result of treatment with chlorine dioxide.
Biacsics is not the first Austrian Covid patient who has refused treatment or used “alternative remedies”. And he is not the first who has died as a result. Self-treatment is booming among vaccination opponents and Corona deniers. It was even propagated in the Austrian parliament. For weeks, FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl (who also is COVID-positive) and his party colleagues have been promoting the deworming drug ivermectin – despite warnings from doctors, scientists, and the manufacturer.
All too often, the consequences are fatal: In Styria, two patients died from poisoning with ivermectin, in the district of Rohrbach in Upper Austria, a Corona patient left the intensive care unit in critical condition and died. He had also relied on ivermectin and refused other treatments.
Conspiracy beliefs are associated with detrimental health attitudes during the coronavirus pandemic. Prior research on these issues was mostly cross-sectional, however, and restricted to attitudes or behavioral intentions. This investigation was designed to examine to what extent conspiracy beliefs predict health behavior and well-being over a longer period of time.
In this multi-wave study on a large (N = 5745) Dutch research panel (weighted to provide nationally representative population estimates), the researchers examined if conspiracy beliefs early in the pandemic (April 2020) would predict a range of concrete health and well-being outcomes eight months later (December 2020).
The results revealed that Covid-19 conspiracy beliefs prospectively predicted a decreased likelihood of getting tested for corona; if tested, an increased likelihood of the test coming out positive; and, an increased likelihood of having violated corona regulations, deteriorated economic outcomes (job loss; reduced income), experiences of social rejection, and decreased overall well-being. Most of these effects generalized to a broader susceptibility to conspiracy theories (i.e. conspiracy mentality).
The authors concluded that conspiracy beliefs are associated with a myriad of negative life outcomes in the long run. Conspiracy beliefs predict how well people have coped with the pandemic over a period of eight months, as reflected in their health behavior, and their economic and social well-being.
These findings tie in with another recent study that investigated whether individual beliefs and personal characteristics differences affect people’s likelihood of contracting COVID-19. In the early months of the pandemic, U.S. participants responded to a variety of individual difference measures as well as questions specific to the pandemic itself. Four months later, 2120 of these participants were asked whether they had contracted COVID-19. Nearly all of the included individual difference measures significantly predicted whether a person reported testing positive for the virus in this four-month period. Additional analyses revealed that all of these relationships were primarily mediated by whether participants held accurate knowledge about COVID-19.
I find it hard not to despair vis a vis such results. Not that they were not to be expected – if you ignore the existence of risk factors exist for heart attacks, it seems plausible that your likelihood of dying of myocardial infarction is increased. What is particularly desolating are two facts:
- This pandemic seems to have rendered the voices of stupidity and ignorance loud and popular, even fashionable.
- Those lunatics who adhere to conspiracy beliefs harm not merely themselves but endanger all of us.
I ask myself how we will ever get past this new age of unreason.
“There is a battle raging for humanity”, claims Dr Carrie Madej, a US osteopathic doctor (in the US, osteopaths are [almost] conventional physicians). She thinks she has discovered how Big Tech collaborates with Big Pharma introduced new technologies in the coming vaccines, that will alter our DNA and turn us into hybrids. This, she submits, will end humanity as we know it, and start the process of transhumanism: HUMAN 2.0 They use vaccines to inject nanotechnology into our bodies and connect us to the Cloud and artificial intelligence. This will enable corrupt governments and tech giants to control us, without us being aware of it.
Dr. Carrie Madej is from Dearborn, Michigan, and received her medical degree from Kansas City University of Medical Biosciences in 2001. She then completed her traditional internship at The Medical Center in Columbus, Georgia, and internal medicine residency at Mercer University in Macon Georgia. Dr. Madej served as a private clinician and medical director of clinics in Georgia until 2015. Dr. Madej also served as an attending physician for the Pennsylvania College of Osteopathic Medicine. She has served as a public speaker and was featured in the documentary, “The Marketing of Madness” about the overuse of prescription psychotropic medicines. Dr. Madej now dedicates her time educating others on vaccines, nanotechnology, and human rights via multiple platforms and speaking engagements.
IN HER NEWEST SCORCHED EARTH DISCUSSION, Dr. Carrie Madej simply Can NOT stay silent about the ABSOLUTE DANGERS of the Covid-19 “vaccines” any longer! In fact, in this SCATHING PRESENTATION, she literally describes the ‘Killer Concoctions’ as ‘THE FRANKENSTEIN CODE” and HAMMERS the ‘Purveyors of the Poison Jab’ as ‘Murdering Psychopath Witch Doctors’ who are HELL BENT on the TOTAL DESTRUCTION & ANNIHILATION of the ENTIRE HUMAN RACE, as we know it today.
The ‘Kung Flu’ (as it’s been referred to by none other than POTUS Trump), is only ‘KILLING PEOPLE who are already suffering from cancer, diabetes, heart disease and a plethora of other autoimmune problems’ – so now WHY IN THE WORLD IS EVERYBODY being told to get the ‘Killer Jab’ when the risk of DIRE & GROTESQUE INJURY FAR OUTWEIGHS the risk of dying from Covid-19 or the fake Delta Variant, or Beta, or Gamma or WHATEVER ELSE THE DEMONIC FAUCI & GATES CONCOCT NEXT?! Get ready for a BEATING unlike you’ve seen in recent days, as Dr. Madej RIPS THE THROATS straight out of these Deep State Demons in this ‘DO NOT MISS’ Epic Video! Grab the popcorn, and get ready for a trip down the Rabbit Hole and a takedown of Satan’s Army!
This was published by the ‘REPUBLIC BROADCASTING NETWORK’ (RBN) who also published articles such as ‘Who are the Jews behind the coronavirus vaccines?‘
Dr. Carrie Madej is certainly no fan of COVID vaccines: Doctor Carrie Madej says she personally examined multiple vials of the vaccines that are being forced into people’s arms, and she was horrified by what she saw. She says she cried harder than she ever has before. Elsewhere she explained in detail:
“First it looked just translucent. And then as time went on, over two hours, colors appeared. I had never seen anything like this. There wasn’t a chemical reaction happening. It was a brilliant blue, and royal purple, yellow, and sometimes green,” she said.
She later shared that when she asked nanotech engineers what the emerging brilliant colors might come from, the engineers said the “only thing they knew that could do that” was a white light, over time, causing a reaction on “a super-conducting material.” In this case, Madej noted, white light came from the microscope itself.
She pointed out that an example of a super-conducting substance would be “an injectable computing system.”
Madej went on, “These fibers were appearing more and more. Some of the fibers had a little cube structure on them, I’m not sure what that was. And also metallic fragments were in there. They were not metallic fragments I’m used to seeing. They were exotic. They were very opaque.”
In time, Madej said, “all the particulates, all these colors started moving to the edge” of the cover slide. “There was self-assembling going on, things were growing. They looked synthetic.”
Madej noticed something else quite strange: “There was one particular object or organism, I’m not sure what to call it, that had tentacles coming from it. It was able to lift itself up off of the glass slide. It appeared to be self-aware, or to be able to grow or move in space.”
She found it disturbing but said she thought, “Maybe that was a fluke in a way, maybe that was just that one vial.”
Some time later, the same lab obtained more vials from a different batch of Moderna shots, as well as a J&J vial. Madej was concerned to see the same things she had observed in the first vial.
“Another one of those tentacle-like structures appeared,” she said. “This was now completely under the cover slip, so there was no movement because it wasn’t on the edge, but I just couldn’t believe I saw another one. Same thing.” Madej also saw the “same colors” appear over time, as well as the fibers.
In the J&J vial, Madej said, there was “definitely a substance that looked like graphene. They all had graphene-like structures in there. Whether or not they were, I don’t have the capability of testing them in order to know at this lab, but that’s what they appeared to be.”
The vial’s contents also had “fatty substances, a sticky glue-like substance that would be considered a hydrogel in those, both of them.”
The J&J vial “also had colors appear.” “Their colors were different, like a fluorescent pastel kind of color. Again, a lot of synthetic structures in there as well.” Madej also noticed many “spherical ring structures” in the J&J contents.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before. They’re not supposed to be in these injections. What are they going to do to somebody? What are they going to do to a child? I started crying when I saw these the second time under a microscope, because it was confirmation of everything I saw the first time,” Madej said.
Madej again appeared on the Stew Peters show on October 20 to discuss her findings from a Pfizer jab vial as well as another J&J vial. “What I’m seeing in all of these manufacturers are synthetic substances, graphene-like, also these nano-carbon tubes,” Madej said.
“In this particular J&J” vial, Madej saw “round spheres, which were not air bubbles.” She continued, “There’s many of these rings, and as time went on they would get thinner and thinner and expand out and then finally extrude out some gelatinous material — I’m not sure what it was, but different kinds of things were inside these spheres. So they’re almost like a delivery structure, that’s what they were doing.”
On one of these rings, Madej saw what “looked like a translucent organism that went around, and back and forth.” Madej first “thought it was another water parasite,” but after continuing to observe its movements, “thought perhaps it was moving in a more robotic way.”
Madej saw the “same kind of synthetic things” in the Pfizer jab, as well as “something that looks similar to teslaphoresis. That’s when these little graphite-like black, metallic particles start to coalesce into strings, like a spider web. They do that through any external force — it could be light, it could be a magnetic force, it could be an impulse, like a frequency. Anyhow, all these little particles would then coalesce and form their own neural network, or their own fibers, or wires.”
After listening to Madej’s findings and seeing the photo and video documentation she provided, Peters commented, “It’s like I’m watching a seriously bad B-movie, a horror thriller.”
Madej believes the tentacled entity she found in the Moderna jabs has a connection with the organism hydra vulgaris. “It is one of the model organisms that the transhumanists like to study and look at. They feel that this is an amazing organism for humanity,” said Madej, in part because “it’s immortal in the lab setting” and “continuously produces its own stem cells.”
“It never stops. You can chop it up into little bits, put it in a petri dish and it forms itself again and again,” she continued. “They’re thinking, wouldn’t this be great if we could put this inside of a human body’s genome, and then if your hand was chopped off by a trauma, you could grow a new hand.”
My friend Joe Schwarcz recently wrote a brilliant article about Dr. Madej. He concluded by asking: Is Dr. Madej a maddeningly malicious malfeasant, or does she just have a few loose marbles? I fear that it might be both.
The complex links between so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) and the pandemic have been a regular subject on this blog. Here is more:
This study investigated if people’s response to the official recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic is associated with conspiracy beliefs related to COVID-19, a distrust in the sources providing information on COVID-19, and an endorsement of SCAM.
The sample consisted of 1325 Finnish adults who filled out an online survey advertised on Facebook. Structural regression analysis was used to investigate whether:
1) conspiracy beliefs, a distrust in information sources, and endorsement of SCAM predict people’s response to the non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) implemented by the government during the COVID-19 pandemic,
2) conspiracy beliefs, a distrust in information sources, and endorsement of CAM are related to people’s willingness to take a COVID-19 vaccine.
The results indicate that individuals with more conspiracy beliefs and lower trust in information sources were less likely to have a positive response to the NPIs. Individuals with less trust in information sources and more endorsement of SCAM were more unwilling to take a COVID-19 vaccine. Distrust in information sources was the strongest and most consistent predictor in all models. In addition, the analyses revealed that some of the people who respond negatively to the NPIs also have a lower likelihood to take the vaccine. This association was partly related to lower trust in information sources.
The authors concluded that distrusting the establishment to provide accurate information, believing in conspiracy theories, and endorsing treatments and substances that are not part of conventional medicine, are all associated with a more negative response to the official guidelines during COVID-19. How people respond to the guidelines, however, is more strongly and consistently related to the degree of trust they feel in the information sources than to their tendency to hold conspiracy beliefs or endorse CAM. These findings highlight the need for governments and health authorities to create communication strategies that build public trust.
I also believe that these findings highlight the urgent need for improvements in education. In my view, it should start at school and continue into adult life. It should focus on a better understanding of science and – crucially – on the ability to differentiate facts from fiction and conspiracies.
Steiner (Waldorf) schools, like anthroposophical medicine, are the inventions of Rudolf Steiner. His followers have often been associated with rampant anti-vax sentiments. Yet, officially such beliefs are usually denied.
A few days ago, I came across this tweet:
Der Dachverband der anthroposophischen Medizin begrüßt Corona-Impfungen… & distanziert sich von Querdenken und Co. Steiner war selbst gegen Pocken geimpft und ließ impfen.
As it is in German, allow me to translate it for you:
The umbrella organization of anthroposophical medicine welcomes corona vaccinations… & distances itself from lateral thinking and co. Steiner himself was vaccinated against smallpox and had it vaccinated.
Almost simultaneously, it was reported that, after the Corona outbreak at a Freiburg Steiner school with more than 100 people infected, it is now certain: the certificates presented to the school for exemption from wearing masks were invalid.
During circus performances at the Steiner school in Freiburg, more than 100 people had become infected with the coronavirus in October: among them pupils, teachers, and contact persons. Therefore, the school inspectorate of the Freiburg Regional Council examined the certificates that freed people from the obligation to wear masks at school for health reasons. Heike Spannagel, a spokeswoman for the Freiburg Regional Council, called the results surprising. There were 55 certificates, 52 from pupils and three from teachers – and all of them were invalid. Heike Spannagel added that the school will no longer recognize any of the certificates. Those who cannot present new certificates that are more convincing will therefore have to wear the mask, Spannagel said.
It was noticeable that many certificates came from (far remote) private clinics in Bavaria or Berlin. In addition, a Freiburg doctor had exempted pupils from the obligation to wear a mask with identical justifications. According to the regional council, however, justifications must be individually tailored. In the meantime, the public prosecutor’s office in Freiburg has requested documents from the regional council in order to initiate an investigation.
So, what has been going on?
To me, it looks like the Steiner school was tolerating or even encouraging the use of dodgy certificates. This contrasts somewhat with the tweet cited above. And, in turn, this seems to indicate that proponents of anthroposophy say one thing about COVID and then do something entirely different. This suspicion was strengthened by a tweet that appeared a little while later as a response to the tweet cited above:
Alle Anhänger der Anthroposophie, die ich kenne, sind nicht geimpft. Es ist ja schön, wenn diese Verbände das öffentlich so verkünden. Die Praxis sieht leider anders aus.
Allow me to translate again:
All the followers of anthroposophy that I know are not vaccinated. It is nice when these associations proclaim this publicly. Unfortunately, the practice looks different.
The following press release was published by the AMA on 16/11/2021. I consider it sufficiently relevant to re-publish it here in full and, as it is entirely self-explanatory, without further comment:
At its Special Meeting today, the American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates approved a resolution stating that only licensed physicians should determine whether a person should receive a medical exemption from vaccines.
The policy comes in the wake of tens of thousands of people seeking exemptions to state and municipal COVID mandates, contending they have medical reasons for remaining unvaccinated. The new policy states that only licensed physicians should have the medical authority and the power to grant these exemptions.
“Vaccine hesitancy has played an unfortunate role in extending the COVID-19 public emergency. Failing to get vaccinated has resulted in tragic and unnecessary deaths. To protect everyone, we must be sure that a trained, licensed physician is making the judgment on whether a person actually warrants an exemption,” said Willie Underwood III, M.D., M.Sc., M.P.H., a member of the AMA Board of Trustees.
The definition of “medical authority” varies from state to state, with some states allowing alternative practitioners, such as naturopathic providers, to approve vaccine exemptions. Surveys have shown that naturopathic providers and other alternative medicine providers (such as homeopaths and chiropractors) are less likely to recommend vaccines—or even recommend against vaccines—despite scientific evidence of safety and efficacy.
“State policymakers need to limit the definition to physicians who have the training necessary to recognize a medical condition that prevents a patient from receiving a vaccine,” Dr. Underwood said. “We shouldn’t jeopardize public health by listening to unlicensed and untrained providers.”
The AMA already has policy opposing nonmedical (religious, philosophic, or personal belief) exemptions from immunizations, since such exemptions endanger the health of the unvaccinated individual and the health of the community at large. The AMA supports the immunization recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices for all individuals without medical contraindications. It also supports legislation eliminating nonmedical immunization exemptions and encourages state medical associations to seek removal of nonmedical exemptions in states requiring mandatory immunizations.
“One of the unfortunate side effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and misinformation around it is the questioning of vaccine efficacy even though vaccines have nearly wiped out diseases that once plagued us. Physicians must make the argument clearly and loudly based on the science: Vaccines save lives,” Underwood said.
Long-COVID syndrome is a condition that will affect a large proportion of those who survived a COVID-19 infection. According to a recent meta-analysis, it is associated predominantly with poor quality of life, persistent symptoms including fatigue, dyspnea, anosmia, sleep disturbances, and mental health problems.
At present, we are still struggling to understand the exact causes and mechanisms of this condition. Therefore, its optimal treatment is as yet uncertain. Governments around the world have therefore made sizable research funds available to make progress in this area, and research in this area is frantically active.
Regardless of the evidence, practitioners and entrepreneurs of so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) are gearing up to jump on this bandwagon by declaring that their offerings are a solution to this growing problem. Indeed, many of them have already done so. Here are just three sites that I found today which are promoting homeopathy for long COVID:
- Post Covid Syndrome – Homeopathy for Support & Symptom Management
- HOMEOPATHY FOR POST- COVID-19 SYNDROME
- Homeopathic medicines for Post Covid
One hardly needs to mention that homeopathy is not supported by sound evidence in the management of long-Covid (or any other condition for that matter). Neither does one need to stress that homeopaths are just one example, and virtually all other SCAM providers are promoting their services in the absence of evidence.
A recent review of the literature stated this:
Patients with long COVID commonly refer to taking ‘the stack’ or ‘the supplement stack’, which includes high-dose vitamin C and D, niacin (nicotinic acid), quercetin, zinc, selenium, and sometimes also magnesium. Further research is needed to confirm or refute the impact of supplements in long COVID. Examples of noteworthy interactions with supplements include: niacin causing an increased risk of bleeding events when combined with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, increased risk of rhabdomyolysis together with statins, and quercetin causing inhibition and induction of various human cytochrome P450 enzymes.
Why then are SCAM providers promoting SCAM for long-COVID?
This is a daft question if there ever was one.
It seems obvious they do it because:
- they are believers who don’t care about evidence,
- they are in it for the money,
- or both.
Some time ago, this homeopath already indicated, that SCAM providers should see COVID as an opportunity: For homeopathy, shunned during its 200 years of existence by conventional medicine, this outbreak is a key opportunity to show potentially the contribution it can make in treating COVID-19 patients. We should perhaps not hold our breath to see the emergence of convincing evidence, but we should be prepared to warn the public of getting exploited by charlatans who disregard both ethics and evidence.
Guest post by Richard Rasker
Last summer, I strolled through my garden, enjoying the abundance of flowers and insects. At the far end, the garden gave way to shrubs and reedy grass and a tiny pond that, contrary to past years, hadn’t dried out completely yet.
And right there, at the water’s edge, is where I stumbled upon IT.
At first I thought the small white object was a twig or something similar, but upon closer inspection it turned out to be a small bone – looking remarkably like a human femur, albeit a bit eroded. So I looked around in the vicinity, to see if I could find any more bones. This was not the case, but what I DID find was even more breathtaking: a slender, 2-inch long gauze-like wing.
Immediately a mind-blowing realization dawned: there are fairies in the back of my garden!
Of course I had to be careful not to get carried away based on this single observation, so I spent the following months painstakingly searching for more corroborating evidence. And what I found was astounding: at least a dozen similar bones and wings, and even a very small tuft of brownish hair. And the bogs and marshes a few miles from my home proved an even richer treasure trove. Of course I also identified remains of numerous dead animals, mostly mice and other small rodents, but the femur-like bones I found were definitely too long for mice.
So I can now safely reveal my findings: fairies do exist after all! This is truly world-shattering!
Now what does this have to do with homeopathy, one may ask? The answer is simple: the gathering of evidence for the viability of homeopathy (and many other alternative modalities) is fully analogous to the way that I found scientific evidence for the existence of fairies:
- People (scientists or homeopaths) believe that they stumbled upon something special.
- They almost immediately consider their finding as either a type of revelation, or as something that lends strong support to their prior belief.
- They then set out to gather more evidence in support of the phenomenon they found, thus affirming their belief.
- And after a lot of painstaking work, the conclusion is reached that the observed phenomenon indeed exists!
Recently, a commenter on this blog tried to bolster the validity of homeopathy by naming a couple of scientists who did exactly this: they started believing in homeopathy, not because of proper clinical trials with homeopathic medicines, but because of revelation-type experiences, or because of hypotheses and/or observations that appeared to explain and support one important prerequisite of homeopathy, the so-called ‘water memory’.
These scientists come up with all sorts of hypothetical mechanisms how this water memory is supposed to work. Usually, quantum physics is invoked – even though real quantum physicists are unanimous in condemning this as nonsense, because quantum physics doesn’t work the way that homeopaths say it does. Nevertheless, these believers in homeopathy come up with ‘explanations’ that involve entanglement, or ‘coherence domains’, or stable nanostructures in water. And there are still lots of other mechanisms dreamed up by believers in homeopathy that aim to explain the all-important water memory.
First of all, most of these hypotheses are completely bonkers, without any real-world evidence to back up the suggestions and claims made – and none of these scientists have so far succeeded in distinguishing an arbitrary homeopathic dilution from plain water, even though some claim that they can find minute differences for a few very specific substances. Just too bad that these results have not been replicated by other scientists, and that they have not been published in any peer-reviewed scientific journal. And even if these results are legitimate, the effect found is absolutely tiny – just like all other homeopathic research with positive results.
But for the sake of the argument, let’s assume that these findings with regard to water memory are real (although no two researchers agree on even the basics of the purported mechanisms). Does this provide enough evidence to make us accept that homeopathy is a viable system of medicine?
No, of course it doesn’t!
Even if water would retain certain ‘nanostructures’ or ‘coherence domains’ or ‘quantum-entangled particles’, this means just that: that an almost undetectable ‘something’ apparently persists in water. It says NOTHING about how this tiny something can have a huge range of highly specific therapeutic effects, necessitating a hugely intricate structure (of which not a trace has ever been found). It says nothing about how this something finds its way from the water to the specific parts of the body to exert those beneficial effects, or about the way that this something interacts with the organism. It does not tell us why this something only ends up in water if it is shaken, or why this something becomes more potent with higher dilutions, or how this something can pass from homeopathic water to sugar pellets while retaining its very special water-based(!) structure – or why, in spite of this all, literally nobody can distinguish a homeopathic dilution from plain water.
Saying that the existence of water memory proves that homeopathy is real is like saying that the existence of those bones and wings I found proves that fairies exist. It is a totally unwarranted inference, and an excellent example of, in the words of Dr. Harriet Hall, Tooth Fairy science: these people spend lots of time, effort and money doing very serious research into all sorts of mechanisms and effects to explain how homeopathy works, but totally neglect to answer the primary question first: does homeopathy work at all? And even worse: these people think that the tiniest glimmer of an effect supporting their hypothesis immediately proves all of homeopathy right. Which is not so much jumping to conclusions, but making leaps of astronomical proportions that would have made even Neil Armstrong jealous. This is not how science works.
For homeopathy, I think that the primary question is answered pretty definitively: even after 227 years, homeopaths have not succeeded in coming up with even ONE ‘remedy’ that is efficacious beyond a shadow of a doubt. NOT ONE.
And to add insult to injury, nothing in science even remotely supports the very core tenets of homeopathy, 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 on a daily basis literally everywhere.
Most other ancient and traditional forms of medicine have come up with at least some treatments or herbs that turned out to have scientifically proven efficacy and have become part of modern medicine – but not homeopathy. Homeopathy DOES NOT WORK, PERIOD.
(Although, to be fair, homeopathy has given us one important insight with regard to medicine: that for many ailments, simply doing nothing is often the best choice. Because most conditions resolve naturally, without medical intervention.)
On a friendlier note: I do not think that those people who study water memory mechanisms and other similarly elusive effects are useless as scientists. Their painstaking research into things like nanostructures in water may one day produce interesting and useful new scientific insights. But it would benefit them greatly if they would distance themselves from homeopathy and its associated pseudoscience, because that is truly a dead-end street, bringing them nothing but scorn and derision.
And oh, about those bones and wings that I said I found? Those were of course likely from frogs and dragonflies, respectively. Or maybe I was the victim of a prank, or maybe I simply made up the whole story. Believe what you will, but you probably agree with me that almost any explanation one can think of is more likely than the fairy scenario. And this again is analogous to homeopathy: almost any explanation one can think of is more plausible than the explanation that mere shaking and diluting magically transforms water into a highly specific medicine.
The German paper DIE ZEIT reported about the dire state of the pandemic in Upper Bavaria. In the district of Rosenheim (close to where I grew up), only about 58% of the population are fully vaccinated, far less than the German average.
Why?
The article blames a broad distrust in conventional medicine, the media, and politics. And a pronounced tendency to look for alternatives. Nowhere in Bavaria are there as many Heilpraktiker as in Upper Bavaria. Heilpraktikers are not medical practitioners, they focus on so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) and do not have to prove that they can effectively treat patients, even if that is what the name suggests. “That seems to be a cultural factor in the region. They are already pretty much in their own soup here,” says the director of the local hospital, Jens Deerberg-Wittram. There is much skepticism towards everything that comes from above and a pronounced interest in SCAM in the region, he says.
The gradient runs from north to south through Bavaria. With Heilpraktiker as well as with vaccination. The higher the density of Heilpraktiker, the lower the uptake of immunizations. This is just as true for Corona as for vaccination in general. For measles, the figure for fully vaccinated children in 2019 was 92.3 % in Germany, but in Rosenheim, it was only 83.3 %. “These are all ingredients for the big Corona cake,” says Deerberg-Wittram.
In Rosenheim, vaccination takes place in the local Volkshochschule, the German institution of adult education (as DER SPIEGEL disclosed [with my help] in 2018, these institutions are deeply steeped in woo and the Volkshochschule in Rosenheim even offers a course led by a Heilpraktiker). Although there is only a small, inconspicuous sign in the window outside of the Volkshochschule in Rosenheim, the queue of people wanting to be vaccinated is long. It stretches across the entire first floor; above the heads of the waiting people, the courses on offer flicker on a monitor: Crochet and knitting in the sewing room, integration courses, language courses in English and Spanish at different levels. Yoga for the elderly, Tai Chi.
