It is not often that we see an article of the great George Vithoulkas, the ‘über-guru‘ of homeopathy, in a medical journal. In fact, this paper, which he co-authored with several colleagues, seems to be a rare exception: in his entire career, he seems to have published just 15 Medline- listed articles most of which are letters to the editor.
According to Wikipedia, Vithoulkas has been described as “the maestro of classical homeopathy” by Robin Shohet; Lyle Morgan says he is “widely considered to be the greatest living homeopathic theorist”; and Scott Shannon calls him a “contemporary master of homeopathy.” Paul Ekins credited Vithoulkas with the revival of the credibility of homeopathy.
In his brand new paper, Vithoulkas provides evidence for the notion that homeopathy can treat infertility. More specifically, the authors present 5 cases of female infertility treated successfully with the use of homeopathic remedies.
Really?
Yes, really! The American Medical College of Homeopathy informs us that homeopathy has an absolute solution that can augment your probability of conception. Homeopathic treatment of Infertility addresses both physical and emotional imbalances in a person. Homeopathy plays a role in treating Infertility by strengthening the reproductive organs in both men and women, by regulating hormonal balance, menstruation and ovulation in women, by escalating blood flow into the pelvic region, by mounting the thickness of the uterine lining and preventing the uterus from contracting hence abating chances of a miscarriage, and by increasing quality and quantity of sperm count in men. It can also be advantageous in reducing anxiety so that the embryo implantation can take place in a favourable environment. Homoeopathy is a system of medicine directed at assisting the body’s own healing process.
Imagine: the 5 women in Vithoulkas ‘study’ wanted to have children; they consulted homeopaths because they did not get pregnant in a timely fashion. The homeopaths prescribed individualised homeopathy and treated them for prolonged periods of time. Eventually, BINGO!, all of the 5 women got pregnant.
What a hoot!
It beggars belief that this result is being credited to the administration of homeopathic remedies. Do the authors not know that, in many cases, it can take many months until a pregnancy occurs? Do they not think that the many women they treated unsuccessfully for the same problem should raise some doubts about homeopathy? Do they really believe that their remedies had any causal relationship to the 5 pregnancies?
Vithoulkas was a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award in 1996. I hope they did not give it to him in recognition of his scientific achievements!
52 Responses to George Vithoulkas: homeopathy makes infertile women fertile
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The link to the paper doesn’t work!
Thanks, David. Link now fixed.
The abstract is less than revealing unfortunately. I would love to read the full text and find out how the miracle of magic water caused 5 women to conceive.
These people are beyond deranged.
It is case(s) study. Nothing less nothing more
Are case studies useless?
It is funny to refer to wikipedia about Vithoulkas — It is totally unreliable The editors there will remove any info that shows his real views. For instance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:George_Vithoulkas#Vithoulkas_believes_that_both_medical_approaches_.28homeopathy_and_conventional_medecine.29_are_necessary
They don’t even refer to the Randi Vithooulkas attempted experiment because it makes Randi look so unreliable. http://www.vithoulkas.com/en/research/clinical-trial-randi.html
1. case reports that make causal inferences are not just useless, they are dangerous.
2. what statement copied from Wiki was not correct?
1. Case reports usually do imply causal inferences without claiming that they arrived to definite conclusions because of the inherent limitations of a report study. Is not that typical in case reports?
2. Your wiki statement is correct ; however using such a unreliable source as wikipedia for any of the controversial topics – is not a good idea.
thank you for confirming the correctness of the statements from wiki
I am not criticising case-reports in general, in fact, I have published quite a few myself; I was criticising the Vithoulkas paper.
Which part of Vithoulkas and others paper departs from the typicality of a case report study? It does imply causality but it does not confirm it -exactly like all case reports.
Regarding wikipedia – you know what I mean- it is a matter of style- people usually avoid using on line sources where different groups take over and try to defame someone by distorting his/her views – the way they do it in wikipedia.
implying causality on the basis of case reports is WRONG.
perhaps you want to have a look at this:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14587689
it is important to point out in such publications that causality is NOT implied; otherwise, they are dangerously misleading.
I could write up a report of hundreds of cases of appendicitis that occurred after the patients brushed their teeth after waking up in the morning. It would be exactly as logical, informative, interesting and sensible as this exceedingly silly write-up by the homeopathy cult leader Vithoulkas.
Just one of a legion of quacks making money from women who are desperate to conceive by peddling a post hoc fallacy.
Are you sure you are familiar with the term post hoc fallacy ? Usually people copy the term from wikipedia confusing Logic with “common” sense.
@George
This comment makes no sense, neither common nor logical. Perhaps there is something missign? Or perhaps you are trying to tell us that there is an alternative[sic] definition of the very simple, common and logical fallacy called “post-hoc fallacy”.
alternatively he is delivering a proof that he has no sense?
The question was “Which part of Vithoulkas and others paper departs from the typicality of a case report study? It does imply causality but it does not confirm it -exactly like all case reports.”
Every observational study implies a possible causality. Otherwise why it is published ? For pure entertainment?
Regarding the “report of hundreds of cases of appendicitis that occurred after the patients brushed their teeth after waking up in the morning” Of course, if you religiously believe that a 200 hundred method has zero possibility to work then there is not reason to conduct an case study.
The problem is that religious thinking is not really useful in scientific investigations.
People who know logic understand the distinction between “common” sense and logic but it is not your fault – at medical schools they teach only basic statistics as a the ..higher form of mathematics.
You’re still not making any coherent sense George. Perhaps you need help understanding and expressing yourself in English?
“Coherent sense”?
Which part of my question is ……obscure?
I asked:
“The question was “Which part of Vithoulkas and others paper departs from the typicality of a case report study? It does imply causality but it does not confirm it -exactly like all case reports.”
Every observational study implies a possible causality. Otherwise why it is published ? For pure entertainment?”
What is not clear?
Now regarding the question about logic I would understand your confusion because as I said – people who have not studied mathematics and logic they think that common sense and Logic are the same thing.
But I think that you pretend your don’t understand my questions and comments because of the typos –
it is always easier to pretend you don’t understand a question than to try to give a coherent answer.
.
Ok, since you ask nicely…
Answer: Proper case report studies are reports of reality. The intervention in question here, giving a magic potion containing only sugar and the memory of shaken water to subfertile ladies, is totally lacking any plausibility of cause. It is a useless piece of nonsense, better suited for the screenplay of a Harry Potter movie.
Answer: No, it pretends to do so, but there is no way that the memory of shaken water can affect fertility. Only uneducated and/or stupid people can find any credibility in this study. Is that difficult to grasp?
Perhaps you can enlighten us as to where logic and common sense part company? If you want my opinion: The only thing this laughable affair proves is that these two concepts are equally amiss in the intracranial activity of mister Vithoulkas.
QED!
Oh ! All these ……stupid / uneducated people who take homeopathy more seriously or maintain a more agnostic view about its plausibility:
Rustum Roy, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/dec/19/comment.health
Luc Montagnier, Brian Josephson. Martin Chaplin of London’s South Bank University -to name a few- are researchers who say that there is might be a reason for homeopathy to work.
Try to read what they say- Sometimes you can learn something from the .stupid or uneducated.
Paraphrasing Chaplin
“the final argument used against the plausibility of homeopathy is – I don’t believe it’ … Such unscientific (and religious I would add rhetoric) is heard from the otherwise sensible scientists, with a narrow view of the subject and without any examination or appreciation of the full body of evidence”
or I would a biased examination : if a study shows positive – something MUST be wrong with the statistics. Or the way the data is distributed evaluated and blah blah.
If you say to a non physicist that a very precise clock would display the time differently on a satellite compare to a clock located on the earth, he would reply the same thing- I just don’t believe you.
George said:
Ah… Luc Montagnier: The Nobel disease strikes again
They may or may not take homeopathy seriously, but what on earth does that mean and why does it matter? What if they took crystal healing seriously, does that somehow mean that crystal healing is now more plausible and explainable?
But you claim they say there ‘might be a reason for homeopathy to work’. Well, first, provide some good evidence that homeopathy does, indeed, work, then we can spend some time looking at possible explanations of how it does.
No. It is not a scientist’s or a skeptic’s final argument. It is simply one of many – and very many that homeopaths seem unable to answer.
On the other hand, we could simply accept what a study says without looking too closely at how it arrived at the conclusions it did? Is that what you’re advocating? But if flaws are found in a study, what do you suggest is done with the study?
That’s not quite what you meant to say, is it? It’s also irrelevant to the topic.
What about some evidence?
In a big study that took place in the years 1990 to 1992 a total of 182 women were included in a study in Heidelberg, Germany. They all received individualized or complex homeoptahical medication in an unblinded manner. The paper compares the outcome of 150 women that conceived during the time of treatment (n=47) or not at all (n=103)during a four year follow up. This of course has something of a Texan sharpshooter, but still it gives a quite illuminating table, that gives the percentage of medications applied in both groups.
So Medication: percentage pregnancy / percentage no pregnancy reads as follows:
Sepia: 34 % / 32 %
Pulsatilla: 28% / 27 %
Sulfur: 21% / 22 %
Natrium muriaticum: 21 % / 40 %
Nux vomica: 17 % / 16 %
Lycopodium: 17 % / 18 %
Calcium carbonatum: 15 % / 12 %
Thuja: 13 % / < 11 %
Phosphor: 11 % / 20 %
Ignatia: 11% / 24 %
The women that got pregnant and those that did not received the same medication. If there was any effect in Natrium, Phosphr and Ignatia, then it seems to have prevented conception….
Link: http://www.carstens-stiftung.de/wissen/hom/pdf/klin_Gerhard_fert_jb2.pdf (in German)
This means that if we would potentize table salt, Phosphor and Ignatia to a ridiculously strong potency, say 200C and mix them all together we might have a fantastic contraceptive potion?
Hehe… I realized I have never heard of contraceptive remedies so I asked Mr. Google. He actually turned up a few mentions in blogs of Nat. Mur. 200x recommended by some Indian in some book. Maybe there is something to it? 😀
This would certainly appear to be consistent with homoeopathy being used for contraception in India.
Norbert your example shows your ignorance about the claims and practice of homeopathy.
Individualization of remedies means exactly that : for some a remedy works for others the same remedy does not.
Do you think they are are that .”.stupid and ..uneducated” that they did not realize that “If there was any effect in Natrium, Phosphr and Ignatia, then it seems to have prevented conception”.
On the other hand, if you really believe that this is valid and reliable outcome then you just showed us that homeopathy has an effect on human organism and the above remedies are the first homeopathic contraceptives. Congrats!
That reminds me your other papers about the inappropriate and “wrong” statistical methods when used in homeopathy, which magically become appropriate when they are applied in conventional medicine.
Maybe Björn can consult all the stupid and uneducated people such as Rustum Roy, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/dec/19/comment.health
Luc Montagnier, Brian Josephson. Martin Chaplin who take homeopathy more seriously to ask them about this latest study?
Individualization of remedies means exactly that : for some a remedy works for others the same remedy does not.
Absolutely clear. That is why a proving with just a few participants independent of their individual disposition can define the symptoms that the agent can cure in a multitude of patients of any gender, age, nationality, background ….
George, as you seem to appreciate statistics: After just a little shuffling with the figures you could build a contingency table for any of the remedies. For sepia this would look like:
Pregnant: Sepia: 16, no Sepia: 33
Not pregnant: Sepia: 31, no Sepia: 70
By just the widely accepted Pearson test for independence, this gives p about 0.8, hardly anything near significance. So, what you say is essentially, that homeopathy cannot be tested by any method that would involve statistic evaluation?
Could you please explain, which part of Martin Chaplin’s extensive documentation do you think indicates his positive disposition towards homeopathy? I found this piece of text:
If an acceptable theory was available then more people would consider it more seriously. However, it is difficult at present to sustain a theory as to why a truly infinitely diluted aqueous solution, consisting of just H2O molecules, should retain any difference from any other such solution. It is even more difficult to put forward a working hypothesis as to how small quantities of such ‘solutions’ can act to elicit a specific response when confronted with large amounts of complex solution in a subject. A major problem in this area is that, without a testable hypothesis for the generally acknowledged potency of homeopathy, there is a growing possibility of others making fraudulent claims in related areas, as perhaps evidenced by the increasing use of the internet to advertise ‘healthy’ water concentrates using dubious (sometimes published but irreproducible) scientific and spiritual evidence.
Link: http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/homeop.html
This has been explained very well here. http://www.vithoulkas.com/en/research/articles/2247.html and here http://www.vithoulkas.com/en/research/clinical-trial-randi.html —I think you are wasting your time by looking these numbers.
Much to your surprise I would tell you that my appreciation for statistics is very limited : one can almost “prove” everything positive or negative ( look for instance Ernst reviews and Linde reviews which arrive to different conclusions. Detection of mechanism of action is the best criterion. But in many cases in medicine, statistics is the only tool available to evaluate effectiveness. Not only in homeopathy : antidepressants, is one example. The people who say they work they have no idea how.
Read this article to see what Chaplin and the other ..”.uneducated and stupid”people say. You might learn something.
Nope, nothing in there but the worn, old fallacies and make-believe.
Vithoulkas:
And then he goes on about how the treatment should be individualized and so on… Yawn!
What is confused is the minds of those struggling to intellectualize the impossible and explain the inexplicable.
Vithoulkas might as well be writing about fairies and elves.
One wonders what diverts people like him from reality? They may not be the sharpest knives in the drawer but they can’t all be stupid either. It must be the money.
Maybe Vithoulkas is being sponsored by Big-Homeo? Blink-blink 😉
Thanks for the two links, George:
1. Primary premise is that homeopathy works therefore (conclusion) homeopathy works.
2. Primary premise is that the JREF is not to be trusted therefore (conclusion) homeopathy works.
You seem totally unable to analyse inductive arguments that have not only zero inductive force, they don’t even follow the most basic rules of inductive arguments.
You don’t seem to be able to respond to any arguments rationally. This a summary of emotional responses.
Homeopaths are telling you to test the individualized homeopathy with a specific protocol and the response is
“Yawn!”
After this “inductive argument” one remain speechless..
You must be right about all these stupid / uneducated people; After all they are not “the sharpest knives in the drawer” therefore take homeopathy more seriously or maintain a more agnostic view about its plausibility:Rustum Roy, Luc Montagnier, Brian Josephson. Martin Chaplin.
You are all brilliant.
At least you left out Benveniste and Emoto
Why don’t you do a little homework before you write such drivel?
Your arguments from authority fall flat an all points.
Rustum Roy… A retired materials scientist known for his strong belief in homeopathy and work with Andrew Weil, a well known . His Intention Experiment with Lynne McTaggart two years before his death is at best an excercize in proving the absurd. And that he was probably off his rockers.
Luc Montagnier … A virologist, part Nobel prize winner for having been involved in the discovery of the HIV Virus
Lost his credibility after having published a very strange paper in a journal he himself edited. The experiment was seriously flawed, the interpretation fantastical and the conclusion doubtful. He mentioned nothing about homeopathy but homeopaths caught onto the fact that it used high (not astronomical) dilutions and could perhaps suggest that there was an effect left in the dilution. When approached by CBC, Luc himself denied that his experiments suggest anything as far as explaining the effect of homeopathy. This you can confirm by watching this very enlightening documentary.
Brian Josephsson…
—It is a beautiful Sunday morning and my wife is calling on me to come help her in the garden so I will cut this short and just paste a quote from Wikipedia:
Martin Chaplin…
A lot of very, very, very speculative thoughts on the different properties of water and their possible implications. But no inkling of any proof that water can hold onto a healing memory for more than a femtosecond. Much less how it might propagate that memory over to sugar pilules before evaporating.
He certainly seems to hope that there’s something to it.
I’ll leave it to someone else to go into more detail about Chaplin if anyone is interested.
Agnostic views on the plausibility of homeopathy??? Hardly.
Sorry, I forgot to say, the second quote in my recent comment was taken fromChaplin’s website…
Of course –if you and other skeptics say that all these nobel prize notable scientists are useless – this must be true.
After all —- they are all stupid and educated -as you said- regardless their Nobels and professional research– compare to you —-who you just copy and paste from wikipedia without any understanding of the content.
@George
Tut-tut! I told you to do your homework before you write something.
Only one of the men you mention is an actual Nobel prize winner. He could even have been a notable one if he had not fallen prey to Nobelitis and become a laughed-at one.
He is also the one who did not have a prior devotion to homeopathy and said about his [failed] experiment that one “cannot extrapolate it to the products used in homeopathy” I gave you the original reference to that statement.
The other are simply men with titles struggling to defend their religious beliefs.
Isn’t it nice to have Wikipedia to find facts? Makes life so much easier. And it is referenced so you just have a look at the original references if in doubt.
Yes, George is absolutely right, whoever is awarded a Nobel Prize in any field automatically converts into a all-knowing überscientist and henceforth is able to discuss – nay – dictate the truth in any scientific field. What laureates actually say doesn’t matter, even if it seems to everyone else (even other laureates) they’re wrong, they by definition aren’t b/c Nobel Prize!
Is that the response you’d like to receive?
this is why Pauling discovered that vitamin protects against cancer, a disease that sadly then killed him?
Vicky did not follow the discussion ; of course, I did not say “whoever is awarded a Nobel Prize in any field automatically converts into a all-knowing überscientist and henceforth is able to discuss – nay – dictate the truth in any scientific field.”
It is easy to reduce or change an argument to something stupid and then “refute” it.
I was responding to Björn who said ——only uneducated and/or stupid people can find any credibility in homeopathy or something like that.
Thats why I referred to the stupid/uneducated, and “laughed at” Luc Montagnier, Brian Josephsson. (They got the Nobel, you have remained with the laugh )
Rustum Roy… Martin Chaplin etc
Of course they hold positive or agnostic views on homeopathy ( which is the healthiest option) – everybody can verify that besides pseudosceptics who copy and paste from wikipedia.
By the way it does not look good on you to use wikipedia so much at least in the topics. It is known that many references have been distorted and several other have been censored by different groups – I would give you examples but it is better to find out yourself in the event you are curious about the subject.
George: Discrediting Wikipedia and/or those who use it as a reference is a tiresomely weak defence strategy, most often used by those who lack any credible evidence to support their flailing rhetoric. Of course, there will be many people resorting to flailing (wildly thrashing around) rhetoric as homeopathy slowly drowns in its own vast quagmire of increasingly diluted science and evidence.
Does homeopathy cure any known disease? No, it does not, which is why it is illegal in the UK for anyone to advertise that it does cure specific conditions. It cannot cure any known disease therefore, by definition, it is not healthcare neither is it medicine. I concede that homeopathy is indeed an alternative to medicine just I would concede that 2 + 2 = 5 is an alternative to arithmetic — i.e both alternatives are profoundly incorrect, illogical, useless, and abject nonsense.
We were discussing whether homeopathy is taken seriously only by the ….stupid/uneducated.
Od course wikipedia cannot be trusted in these topics. Example: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12614092
This is from a very reputable journal ,
The review says “There is a lack of conclusive evidence on the effectiveness of homeopathy for most conditions.”
but also says
“Three independent systematic reviews of placebo-controlled trials on homeopathy reported that its effects seem to be more than placebo, and one review found its effects consistent with placebo.”
“There is also evidence from randomized, controlled trials that homeopathy may be effective for the treatment of influenza, allergies, postoperative ileus, and childhood diarrhea”
Wikipedia has censored this source – and any source which departs from the view that homeopathy = nonsense = placebo.
This is enough to make wikipedia article look – totally unreliable.
@George
Have you tried reading the whole article instead of just the abstract? Here’s what it actually concluded:
Thanks for quoting the conclusions, Mojo.
George continually fails to understand even the basics of critical thinking skills in presenting his arguments. The abstract of that report he quoted from was written invoking the epistemological Principle of Charity. This principle has no place whatsoever in any gold standard RCT, which by definition is a deductive and scientific argument used for the sole propose of accumulating knowledge.
George’s quotes from the review are nothing but weasel words:
1) “… its effects seem to be more than placebo, and one review found its effects consistent with placebo.”
2) “There is also evidence from randomized, controlled trials that homeopathy may be effective for the treatment of influenza, allergies, postoperative ileus, and childhood diarrhea.”
To get the context of these absurdities fully into perspective, I invite George to consider how likely he would be to purchase an expensive mobile communications device or a domestic appliance that had a review abstract stating: “… its effects seem to be more than placebo, and one review found its effects consistent with placebo.”
George’s constant lashing out at wikipedia makes me think he tried to “improve” it with his opinion but couldn’t due to wikipedia’s insistence on (scientific) sources. Wikipedians are quick and not necessarily polite when enforcing wikipedia’s rules, and failure to comply with these rules can get you banned.
It does not say that it is all placebo – what Ernst says.
This is even accepted by the wikipedia editors who have censored the review from the homeopathy article in wikipedia and several others.
@George:
[citation needed]
Vicky did follow the discussion, George however may not have.
I’ll cite Björn verbatim (with added emphasis) so you can tell me where he said that “only uneducated and/or stupid people can find any credibility in homeopathy or something like that”.
He was talking – if I’m not mistaken – about Vithoulkas’ fertility study and I’d be surprised if the people you listed had publicly talked about it, let alone called it credible evidence.
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get back to your argument that since these two people (Montagnier and Josephson) are Nobel laureates, their opinion carries more weight than that of people “who you just copy and paste from wikipedia without any understanding of the content”. In the last 40 years Nobel prizes have been awarded to more than 400 people – so what if two of them believe in homeopathy? Your arguing from authority – Nobel laureates and other notable scientists believe it’s true (or at least possible) so … what exactly are you trying argue? You’re right and Edzard Ernst is wrong? You may be wrong but since even a few Nobel laureates share your point of view it’s a mistake anyone could make so the polite thing would be to agree you could be right?
Oh… how sad. Another severe Nobelitis victim 🙂 As I said I was, the moment I looked up Mr. Josephsson, whom I was not familiar with before (as I was the other names) approached by my beautiful wife to come out into the marvelous weather to help her. So I only saw and copied the part about Mr Josephssons barmy beliefs and immediately lost interest in the character whom I had not studied before. Just another potty physicist who went off the rockers over mystical magic. No way this guy can be relied upon to have agnostic views on homeopathy was my conclusion. That he had landed a laureate was not the question at hand. As a clinician I should of course have thought of the differential diagnosis of Nobelitis and read on a bit.
This was one mistake on my account, caused in part by the attentions of a lovely woman. Whats your excuse George? You’ve never admitted your misreadings that I can recall.
Don’t you think the piece I refered to about “Nobelitis” is interesting?
Well, if you were looking at your beautiful wife – you are absolutely excused. 🙂
Please consider any of my misreading and/or mistakes as a result of distraction caused by beauty ( beautiful women children , equations, art. and more)
Regarding Nobelitis – i did not read carefully – It is certainly easier to talk about Nobel prize winners than to get one.
I don’t think that they are automatically authorized to say the last word in any field including their field – but I would take seriously what they say – especially if they provide good reasoning and not truisms.
George said:
You’ve missed something there, but can’t quite put my finger on it…
Oh! I know. They should also provide that thing called evidence.
Just read….
http://www.homoeoscan.com/2012/09/a-case-study-of-male-infertility-and.html
Homeopathy can when others fail.
The truth cannot be covered too deep.
The only thing this inflated anecdote proves is that while the homeopath was busy shaking water and chatting with the subject, one of the man’s sperms found its way past all the hurdles. Nature sometimes takes care of such difficulties itself and it is well known that unexpected “miracles” of this kind happen. Even without shaken water and silly sugar pilules.
Azoospermia does not always mean total absence of viable sperms.
Closing eyes does not make anything disappear.
Why miracles wait for the correct homeopathic remedy.
Homeopathy as you said is infact a miracle .
Please do close your eyes. ..
I’m so sad to hear that the “uber-guru” of homeopathy is Greek, and most likely living and working here. But then again it makes sense since in Greece there is a Pharmacy in almost every single block, and at least half of them have a “Homeopathic Prescriptions” sign on the window.
On another note, I can’t grasp the idea of studying homeopathy, basically going to school everyday studying nothing. Insane!