Yesterday I received an electronic Christmas card from two homeopathic institutions called ‘Homeopathic Associates and The Homeopathic College’. It read: WISHING YOU THE BEST OF HEALTH AND HAPPINESS FOR THE NEW YEAR!
Naturally I was puzzled, particularly since I had no recollection of ever having been in contact with them. The card was signed by Manfred Mueller, MA, DHM, RSHom(NA), CCH, and I decided to find out more about this man. It turns out that Manfred Mueller developed The Mueller Method or “Extra-Strength Homeopathy” to meet today’s complex chronic conditions, drug induced disorders, vaccine injuries, toxic overload, radiation-induced health problems, cancers, etc.
Now, this sounds interesting, I thought, and read on. Just a few clicks further, Mueller offers his wisdom on homeopathic cancer treatments in a lengthy article entitled ‘Is Homeopathy an Effective Cancer Treatment?‘
According to Mueller, the answer to his question is a clear yes. I will spare you the torture of reading the entire paper (if you have masochistic tendencies, you can read it via the link I provided above); instead, I will just copy Mueller’s conclusion:
START OF QUAOTE
Laboratory studies in vitro and in vivo show that homeopathic drugs, in addition to having the capacity to reduce the size of tumors and to induce apoptosis, can induce protective and restorative effects. Additionally homeopathic treatment has shown effects when used as a complementary therapy for the effects of conventional cancer treatment. This confirms observations from our own clinical experience as well as that of others that when suitable remedies are selected according to individual indications as well as according to pathology and to cell-line indications and administered in the appropriate doses according to the standard principles of homeopathic posology, homeopathic treatment of cancer can be a highly effective therapy for all kinds of cancers and leukemia as well as for the harmful side effects of conventional treatment. More research is needed to corroborate these clinical observations.
Homeopathy over almost two decades of its existence has developed more than four hundred remedies for cancer treatment. Only a small fraction have been subjected to scientific study so far. More homeopathic remedies need to be studied to establish if they have any significant action in cancer. Undoubtedly the next big step in homeopathic cancer research must be multiple comprehensive double-blinded, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trials. To assess the effect of homeopathic treatment in clinical settings, volunteer adult patients who prefer to try homeopathic treatment instead of conventional therapy could be recruited, especially in cases for which no conventional therapy has been shown to be effective.
Many of the researchers conducting studies — cited here but not discussed — on the growing interest in homeopathic cancer treatment have observed that patients are driving the demand for access to homeopathic and other alternative modes of cancer treatment. So long as existing cancer treatment is fraught with danger and low efficacy, it is urgent that the research on and the provision of quality homeopathic cancer treatment be made available for those who wish to try it.
END OF QUOTE
Amazing! What could be more wrong than this?
But it’s the season of joy and love; so, let’s not go into the embarrassing details of this article. Instead, I feel like returning the curtesy of Mr Mueller’s Christmas card. Therefore, I have decided to post this open ‘Christmas card’ to him:
Dear Mr Mueller,
thank you for your card, the good wishes, and the links you provided to your websites, articles, etc. I only read the one on cancer but was impressed. It is remarkably misguided, unethical and dangerous. Crucially, it has the potential to shorten the lives of many desperate patients. I therefore urge you to desist making your opinions public or from applying them in your clinical practice. I say this not merely because I am concerned about the patients that have the misfortune to fall into your hands, but also to prevent you from getting into trouble for immoral, unethical or unlawful behaviour.
In this spirit, I wish you happiness for the New Year.
Edzard Ernst
17 Responses to A Christmas card to a homeopath
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Did I read this correctly? Does he really state that homeopathy has been in existence for only two decades? Or did he mean ‘centuries’?
Or, as time passes, do the years become more diluted, in a bizarre variant of homeopathic thinking?
If homeopathy was invented more than 200 years ago, but now has been around for only 20 years, does that mean that in another 20 it will never have existed at all? And will that make it more potent?
he probably referred to his type of homeopathy
Dear Dr. Ernst,
I am posting this response to your December 24 blog post http://edzardernst.com/2016/12/a-christmas-card-to-a-homeopath/ (addressed to me) here on my blog as I have doubts as to whether or not you will publish my response on your own blog…
We here at Homeopathic Associates and The Homeopathic College would like to thank you for your open ‘Christmas card’ and your wishes for a Happy New Year, as well as for the publicity it provided us. We have been followers of your opinions for many years now and are delighted at the opportunity to engage in a dialogue.
I find it interesting that you are puzzled by receiving our Christmas greeting, as you yourself followed us on Twitter just a few months ago. Here’s a screenshot to jog your memory (Or may I suggest that homeopathic treatment may assist you if you find yourself with further symptoms of early onset dementia; Alzheimer’s, etc.?). See image here https://thehomeopathiccollege.org/wp-content/themes/website/data/php/timthumb.php?src=wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Screen-Shot-2016-12-30-at-7.31.58-PM.png&q=90&w=650
Also, many thanks to your commenter who pointed out a mistake in my paper (“decades” instead of “centuries”). I truly loved his sense of humor. I have made the correction in my paper https://thehomeopathiccollege.org/cancer-treatment/homeopathy-effective-cancer-treatment/ .
Your tongue-in-cheek Christmas message pleas with me to desist making my opinions public, as you fear they will shorten the lives of “desperate patients” who may “fall into [my] hands.” I must respond that I, too, am extremely concerned by the reckless endangerment of these patients, but rather at the hands of conventional doctors and the pharmaceutical industry, whom you so doggedly support. Nevertheless, I would never dare suggest that any healthcare information be suppressed, as you so flippantly did in your Christmas Eve post.
Patients Have the Right to Choose
Instead, I believe that every patient, especially those in such dire circumstance as needing cancer treatment, should have access to any and all information that may help them in making their own informed healthcare decisions. I believe that these patients are intelligent, free-thinking individuals who are able to understand and discern what is best for them. It seems that you would prefer that anything you or the mainstream medical/pharmaceutical industry and their government sell-out stooges do not agree with should be simply suppressed and made unavailable to the public. Would you be happier if your faithful readers were simply not aware of the sixty plus scientific studies that I cited in my two reviews finding efficacy of homeopathic cancer treatment? (Is Homeopathy An Effective Cancer Treatment https://thehomeopathiccollege.org/cancer-treatment/homeopathy-effective-cancer-treatment/ and The Evidence: Scientific Studies on Homeopathic Cancer Treatment https://thehomeopathiccollege.org/cancer-treatment/evidence-scientific-studies-cancer-treatment/
Ultra-diluted Drugs
I’ve noticed that in your past commentaries, you seem to be obsessed with the “implausibility” of ultra-diluted drugs used in homeopathy. However, you should know that the use of these high potencies account for only about 25% of homeopathic prescriptions worldwide, according to GIRI polls. The other 75% are low dilutions or undiluted drugs. You might call your attitude towards homeopathic research “throwing out the baby with the bath water.”
By the way, only the studies on ultra-diluted potencies in cancer treatment were included in my reviews, because I wanted people like you (so-called skeptics and quackbusters). The evidence clearly shows that even these ultra-diluted drugs have biological effects. Had I included published studies on homeopathic tinctures, ointments, and many other low dose drugs used in homeopathic cancer treatment, I would have found, literally, thousands of studies proving efficacy. I would have had to write a book…. And I did (see below).
Unethical?
Your misdirected insinuation is that I am immoral and unethical for suggesting that homeopathic cancer treatment be made available to everyone who wishes to try it. Actually, I don’t have to suggest it… Did you not read that the demand for homeopathic treatment is driven by patients themselves (Frenkel et al)?
Besides, what is so ethical about your beloved conventional cancer treatment? Does it not kill people all the time? Does it not cause additional cancers and metastasis, not to mention, subsequent decline and death. Yes it does. Do you warn the public about that?
I have talked to many patients who chose chemotherapy, radiation or surgery. What I find strange is that none of them were told about the serious adverse consequences these treatment could have. Instead, doctors scare them to death on what would happen to them if they refuse conventional treatment. Is that ethical? In legal circles this behavior might be construed as abusing their power by putting patients “under duress” or better yet, coersion. But I’m sure you know this.
I just love this quote by Dr. Evan S. Levine, MD from his book Cancer Doctors – the Oncologist and the Surgeon…“some of the oncologists are without a doubt the most treacherous people in the medical field.” (page 117/118)
Regarding your comments, I surely hope you are not one of the doctors Dr. George Crile talked about in the book Cancer and Common Sense, “that those responsible for giving information to the public have chosen to use fear as a weapon. They have created a new disease called cancer phobia, a contagious disease that spreads from mouth to ear.”(page 120)
Surgery, Chemo & Radiation is Harmful
Fortunately there are still some honest doctors. Are you aware that some of your colleagues have concluded that surgery, chemotherapy and radiation is not only harmful but also rather useless?
“After analyzing cancer survival statistics for several decades, ‘… patients are as well, or better off untreated.’” –Dr. Hardin Jones, professor of medicine at the University of California
“The success of most chemotherapies is appalling. There is no scientific evidence for its ability to extend in any appreciable way the lives of patients suffering from the most common organic cancer. Chemotherapy for malignancies too advanced for surgery, which accounts for 80 percent of all cancers, is a scientific wasteland…There is no evidence that the vast majority of chemotherapy cancer treatments exert any kind of positive influence as far as life expectancy or quality of life … the almost dogmatic belief in the efficiency of chemotherapy is generally based on false conclusion drawn from inaccurate data… In fact, many cancer specialists wouldn’t take chemotherapy themselves if they had cancer.” -–Dr. Ulrich Abel, Stuttgart, Germany 1990
“Many medical oncologists recommend chemotherapy for virtually any tumor, with a hopefulness undiscouraged by almost invariable failure.”
— Albert Braverman, MD —Medical Oncology in the 90s, 1991 Lancet 1991 337 p901
“Most cancer patients in this country die of chemotherapy. Chemotherapy does not eliminate breast, colon, or lung cancers. This fact has been documented for over a decade, yet doctors still use chemotherapy for these tumors.”
— Allen Levin, MD, UCSF — The Healing of Cancer
“Despite widespread use of chemotherapies, breast cancer mortality has not changed in the last 70 years.”
— Thomas Dao, MD — NEJM Mar 1975 292 p 707
“Chemotherapy is now being seen as analogous to Sherman’s slash-and-burn … and is already being viewed less as a cure and more as a means of gaining time. One of the shortcomings of chemotherapy, doctors recognize, is that it actually weakens the body’s own efforts to fight the disease,” according to Dr. Edmundo Muniz, MD, PhD, a former cancer researcher and now President of Tigris Pharmaceuticals (Dr Muniz was the former vice president of Eli Lilly Research Laboratories Global Oncology program, where he helped create numerous cancer drugs, seven of which have been approved by the FDA).
“As for chemotherapy, it is, by definition a poison. Chemotherapy first kills the cells that reproduce rapidly – that is to say, cancer cells, but it also kills intestinal and immune cells. All the more so because there was no guarantee of success, given the unfortunate tendency of brain tumors to rapidly become resistant to chemotherapy… One of the great mysteries of chemotherapy is that sometimes you can make tumors melt away and have very little effect on survival time.” – Dr. David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD, a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscientist at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine (himself a brain cancer survivor for 15 years, using alternative methods).
Dr. Heine H. Hansen, lung cancer specialist of the Finsen Institute in Copenhagen surveyed 118 doctors, many of them cancer specialists and was shocked that oncologists recommend to most patients experimental chemotherapy that experts in the field would not accept for themselves. The vast majority of doctors considered most of the treatment options with more than two to six drugs to be unacceptable option if they themselves were to take part in the clinical trials.
And what about the very recent study published in Lancet Oncology in August 2016 that found 50% of patients die from chemotherapy treatment rather than from their cancer? What happened to the Hippocratic oath you doctors take, “first, do no harm”?
Are patient being told about these facts? No, of course not, and doctors continue to brow-beat (coerce) patients into the same old three dangerous and harmful methods – surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. Why doesn’t this bother you? Patients have the right to hear the full facts before embarking on a course of permanent mutilation, physical & chemical castration and/or deadly poisoning and radiation. After all, it’s people like me are unethical for wanting people to make informed choices… But you complain about homeopathic treatment, almost universally considered safe. At least homeopathic treatment does not kill anyone!
By the way, the studies in my review found that patients actually feel better throughout their treatment while using homeopathy. And often tumors recede under homeopathic treatment alone, and patients go on to recover completely (Pathak 2006, Preethi 2007, Frenkel 2010, etc.).
Conclusions
My heart is touched by your magnanimous decision not to go into the “embarrassing details” of my review, due to the holidays being “the season of Joy and Love” (though I must confess, I find this to be a bit of a weak excuse, even for you). Let’s face it, you just don’t want your readers to learn about the many safe and effective drugs homeopathic medicine has to treat cancer. I guess we know for sure who “butters your bread”.
BTW, thank you for reminding me, its 2017. I will, this New Year, give you another opportunity to show your readers the amazing results of homeopathic “placebos” in cancer treatment. I am publishing my book Homeopathic Cancer Drugs this year – the result of several years’ careful research on this safe and effective treatment. I found more than 600 homeopathic drugs that have been used in homeopathic cancer treatment over the past two centuries, and all of them are still in use today.
In addition, it has been 5 years since my last homeopathic cancer treatment review, so it is time to publish yet a third review. I found more than 60 new studies since 2012 on homeopathic drugs used in cancer treatment – most of them with positive outcomes… This review will be published this year in the American Homeopath, vol 23. I sincerely hope you do not find it ethical and moral to suggest that this information be kept from patients as well.
Next year, instead of spending your Christmas Eve in an attempt to keep pertinent healthcare information from dying patients, I cordially invite you to spend the holiday reading about why some of your colleagues opt for homeopathic treatment for themselves and for their patients.
Warm Wishes for a Happy New Year,
Manfred Mueller
Homeopath
“… pharmaceutical industry, whom you so doggedly support…” really? where?
“…my two reviews finding efficacy of homeopathic cancer treatment…” masterpieces of cherry-picking!
“…the use of these high potencies account for only about 25% of homeopathic prescriptions worldwide…” can you provide the links to the evidence, please?
“…The evidence clearly shows that even these ultra-diluted drugs have biological effects…” not if you critically assess the evidence!
“… none of them were told about the serious adverse consequences these treatment could have…” wrong, it’s obligatory to inform patients fully about that!
I DID NOT READ THE REST OF YOUR POST BECAUSE I COULD NOT FIND ANY TRUTH IN IT SO FAR.
What facts?!! Do you mean the preceding list of “alternate facts” containing many of the most vile misquotes, lies and erroneous opinions about cancers and their treatments. It makes me sick to see yet again this collection of lies and deceptions that is commonly parroted by purveyors of fake medicine.
I feel genuinely sorry for Mr. Muellers clients, who fall offer for someone so wickedly ill-informed.
I could spend an hour or two taking your arguments down one at the time and proving how wrong you are.
For example the Heine Hansen partial quote is from a 30 year old(!!!) article and the question was about specific kinds of trials that were being conducted at the time. Claiming it proves that oncologists would not take their own advise is an outright lie. The same with your quote about breast cancer mortality not having changed for 70 years. It is from 1975 for crying out loud. You even copy-pasted the reference complete with the year of publication!!! Are you out of your mind? Only a complete ignoramus would use this as an argument against modern breast cancer therapy in 2017.
For those in the audience who wish to take part of the real, honest truth about cancer treatment and its history, I recommend the book “Emperor of all maladies – a biology of cancer” by Siddharta Mukherjee, which can conveniently be obtained in many formats on Amazon for example If you order the Kindle version you can have it in your device after ten seconds flat.
I dear say I would not put my money on Mr. Mueller reading it 🙁
Well…
There are better things to do than argue with yet another ignorant, uneducable homeopath but this collection of vicious untruths was just too much too keep quiet over.
I didn’t catch that eyesore spelling mistake in time. It should of course be: “…I dare say…”
I really would need a ten minute window of redaction, at least when I am upset by homeopathic inanity 😀
Just because I am still seething with anger over the offensive untruths by Mr. Mueller above and waiting for a patient, I wish to contribute to the unraveling of the homeopaths ignorance with the following link to an article by a well known oncologist and true debunker of deceptions, David Gorski:
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/chemotherapy-doesnt-work-not-so-fast-a-lesson-from-history/
Manfred Mueller said:
Why ever would you have such doubts? But why didn’t you try to post it here first and only then post it on your own website if Prof Ernst didn’t publish?
Anyway, thanks for publishing it: it provides many, many excellent examples of sloppy thinking for commenters here to pick apart and provides an insight into the homeopathic mind and mind-set.
I usually oblige if someone insists to make a fool of himself.
Manfred Mueller posted the following on his blog post on 30 January 2017 at 12:01 pm:
Mueller has not been blocked from commenting here; his comment was never received, was not deleted and was not put in the spam bin.
this does not surprise me.
he cannot spell my name and has difficulties with telling the truth, it seems.
You ‘doctors’ have killed millions of people with your ‘medicine’, commenting which homeopathy has yet to do.
are you competing in the fallacy competition?
#reality_filter ON
-Doing something has an effect. Doing nothing has yet to have some.
-Doing nothing can replace doing something.
-Doing nothing can prevent the effect of doing something.
-When an effect is needed, doing nothing can be dangerous.
#
There, Jay. Simple, succinct, easy to follow.
Homeopathy: doesn’t kill (directly), doesn’t cure, doesn’t do anything. Play-medicine… Suitable for all ages.
I find this post most offensive. If you tried Homeopathy instead of just talking about it you would see it works. I raised three children with homeopathy successfully.
Your post is mean spirited and closed minded.
You never even call this doctor and talked to him about what he does with an open mind. Your investigation was one article.
Narrow mindedness starts with you and it frightens me the patients that go to you. If medicine is “ practicing on us” then your profession should be learning on a continuous motion. And if your learning then your research should be more extensive than judging a whole industry by one article. Shame on you to judge what you have not tried yourself.
shame on you for writing such nonsense without even checking whether I did try it [I did!]
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scientist-Wonderland-Searching-Finding-Trouble/dp/1845407776
and I did study it in great detail
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19832813
https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Professor-Edzard-Ernst/Homeopathy—The-Undiluted-Facts–Including-a-Comprehensive-A-Z-Lexicon/19719982
Just wondering why EE feels so threatened by Homeopathy. Do you believe your way is the only way to heal? History proves you wrong. Give people information and let them decide on which path to take. Otherwise the world becomes a tyrannical arena where the “educated” believe they are gods.