Dr Gabriella Day is a GP in England who describes herself and her beliefs as follows: “I began training in homeopathy as it is clear that for many conditions conventional treatment options are not effective and can have unwanted side effects. It seemed to me that there must be another way to help people suffering from symptoms such as these… I believe in whole person medicine. No illness exists in isolation. The human body is immensely sophisticated and complicated and we do not understand it fully. Therefore the illness cannot be separated from the person suffering the disease. This may be as simple as stress impairing the immune system to far more complex interactions. Homeopathic treatment seeks to match the underlying disturbance in the system and stimulate the body to correct itself.”
I do not know Dr Day, but she caught my attention recently when she published an article in THE HIPPOCRATIC POST (I had never heard of this publication before!). It is, I think, sufficiently noteworthy to show you some excerpts (the references [in square brackets] were added by me, and they refer to my comments below):
START OF QUOTES
…Homeopathy can be helpful for pretty much any condition [1], whether as the main treatment [1], as a complement to a conventional treatment [2] to speed up the healing process [1], or to lessen the side-effects of a pharmacological medication [1]. It can be helpful in the treatment of emotional problems [1], physical problems [1] and for multi-morbidity patients [1]. I find it an invaluable tool in my GP’s toolbox and regularly see the benefits of homeopathy in the patients I treat [3]…
There are many conditions for which I have found homeopathy to be effective [1]… There are, however, a multitude of symptomatic treatments available to suppress symptoms, both on prescription and over-the-counter. Most symptoms experienced by patients in this context result from the body’s attempt to eliminate the infection. Our immune systems have spent thousands of years refining this response; therefore it seems counter-intuitive to suppress it [4].
For these types of acute conditions homeopathy can work with the body to support it [1]. For instance, homeopathic Arsenicum album (arsenic) is a classic remedy for diarrhoea and vomiting that can be taken alongside essential oral rehydration [1]. And in influenza I’ve found Eupatorium perfoliatum (ague or feverwort) to be very helpful if the patient is suffering with bony pain [3].
…Unless it is clinically imperative for a pharmacological intervention, I will always consider homeopathy first [5] and have successfully prescribed the homeopathic remedy Nux vomica (strychnine) for women suffering from morning sickness [5]. Problems associated with breastfeeding such as mastitis have also responded well to the classic remedies Belladonna (deadly nightshade) and Phytolacca (pokeweed), while I have found Urtica urens (dog nettle) effective in switching off the milk supply to prevent engorgement when the mother stops breastfeeding [3].
…“heart sink” patients are clearly suffering from pain and discomfort, which is blighting their lives. This is understandably frustrating for them, for they know full well something is awry but there is no medical evidence for this… Homeopathy affords me another approach in trying to help these patients [1,3]. It doesn’t work for them all, but I’m frequently surprised at how many it does help [3].
Positive side-effects
The beauty of homeopathy is that it combines mental and emotional symptoms with physical symptoms [3]. When the right remedy is found it appears to stimulate the body to recognise how it is being dysfunctional and corrects this, with no suppression, just a correction of the underlying disturbance [3]. Thus homeopathy not only eliminates unwanted symptoms [1], it dramatically improves a patient’s overall well-being [1].
…homeopathy… enables me to reduce the number of painkillers and other drugs I’m prescribing [1,3]. This is particularly true for older multi-morbidity, polypharmacy patients [1] who are often taking huge amounts of medication.
Contrary to what most homeopaths will tell you, I believe homeopathic treatment does have side-effects – positive side-effects! [1] It fosters an enhanced doctor patient relationship [1]. The process of eliciting the relevant information to select a remedy enables me to better understand the patient’s condition and helps me to get to know them better [3]. And the patient, seeing that the doctor is interested in the idiosyncrasies and detail of their disease, finds themselves heard and understood [3]. In short, since training in homeopathy I enjoy my job as a GP and my relationship with patients so much more [3].
Dr Gabriella Day BSc, MBBS, MRCP, DCH, MRCGP, MFHom
END OF QUOTES
MY COMMENTS:
- statement without good evidence,
- Hahnemann was vehemently against combining homeopathy with other treatments and called clinicians who disregarded this ‘traitors’,
- statement of belief,
- wrong assumption,
- questionable ethics.
I have recently attempted to slip into the brain of lay-homeopaths and shown how illogical, misguided and wrong the arguments of such enthusiasts really are. Surely, the logic of a doctor homeopath must be better, I then thought. Once you have studied medicine, you have learnt an awful lot of things about the body, disease, therapy, etc., etc., I felt.
Judging from the above article, I might have been wrong.
132 Responses to Trying to understand a doctor homeopath: “homeopathy is helpful for any condition”!?!?
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The way people chuck around the word “therefore” to link things which only connect in their own minds (see the homeopath GP’s statement) is truly awe-inspiring.
Unless a doctor registered with the GMC obtains fully informed consent from patients prior to treating them, they are practising unethically.
And that means the doctor must share with the patient any evidence they have that the proposed remedy actually has been shown to have an effect on a specific ailment, and advise that there is no plausible evidence accepted by mainstream evidence-based medicine, that the mechanism of action of homeopathic remedies is anything other than engagement of placebo effects. Which are sometimes very effective if helping the patient ‘feel better’ – in the short term.
If a doctor does not explain this to a patient, they are unethical. End of.
This doctor says: “homeopathy… enables me to reduce the number of painkillers and other drugs I’m prescribing.”
Because homeopathic remedies have no action, she therefore admits that she is prescribing painkillers and other drugs unnecessarily. That too, is unethical.
I agree, see here: http://edzardernst.com/2017/06/informed-consent-in-alternative-medicine-ethical-imperative-practical-impossibility/
If GMC was doing its job, this quack and others like her would be immediately and irrevocably struck off. Patients deserve far better. Never mind ethics; any medical professional lost to such delusional thinking is by definition grotesquely unfit to practise.
Thinking of people chucking round words… “This may be as simple as stress impairing the immune system to far more complex interactions.” This suggests the ‘immune system’ is a relatively simple entity. I wonder if Dr Day even begins to comprehend the depth to which the extraordinary complexity of the immune system is understood today. She might entertain us by speculating on which detailed components and processes are affected by stress.
“I believe in whole person medicine.”
I’ve not encountered any fractional people.
Have you associated with the best divisions?
I think the people with medical training who go astray into whichever woo they choose are often those who can not accept that there are patients who they can not help with the best medicine can offer. To me (someone who has a chronic pain problem that isn’t fixable) this is a failure of honesty and a huge disservice to the patient. I was very upset when my GP told me there was nothing more that could be done in terms of a cure and that all he could now offer was a referral to a Pain Clinic. However it meant I started on the road to accepting that my life was irrovocably changed and to learning to live with that – which I still haven’t done completely, I’m not sure I ever will – but offering me false hope woud have been cruel and I am now very glad that my GP did not do this.
We all know that there are self-limiting conditions. Some medical providers can’t resist the temptation to give a “remedy” for every ill, rather than explaining to the patient how the condition will improve, the likely timeframe, and agreeing to a plan if things get worse.
This is made worse by the sCAM providers, who always give a remedy for every ailment (or, if no ailment, to promote “wellness”). This only perpetuates that idea what we always need a “treatment” to feel better.
Rather than “the doctor didn’t give me anything”, we could substitute “the doctor helped me understand what was going on, and saved me a fortune on unnecessary treatment”.
“This is made worse by the sCAM providers, who always give a remedy for every ailment ”
This.
Why is it that for such “natural” holistic practitioners they can never accept that the body has its own healing capacity. They always have to do something (acupuncture) or add something (herbalists) .
If the body was really as fragile as it apparently seems to be (always needing some type of support) I would think we would have been vanquished as the dominant species ages ago.
The denial of the inherent healing capacity of the body is one of the linchpins that underlies much of sCAM treatments
And yet so many providers of pseudo-medicine tell us their remedies aid/boost/restore the body’s inherent healing capacity.
This is what makes homeopaths dangerous. They have no clinical knowledge or skills but think they have.
Björn Geir
” They have no clinical knowledge or skills but think they have.”
Dr Gabriella Day BSc, (Bachelor of Science) MBBS,( Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery) MRCP, (Member of Royal College of Surgeons of UK) DCH,( Diploma in child health) MRCGP,(Membership of the Royal College of General Practitioners) AND MFHom (Diploma in Homeopathy).
With such little attention to details, who allowed YOU to become a doctor?
I am positive, you represent most of your kind of allopaths.
Ooops… Sorry. I woke the grumpy homeopath-groupie.
Belief in the efficacy of shaken water is terminally incompatible with clinical acuity, notwithstanding the number of letters before and after the name.
A person who believes shaken water and derived products thereof can replace or reinforce medicine is not in perceptive harmony with reality.
Titles and serial honorifics denoting scholarly achievements or affiliations, attached to a persons name, certainly do not guarantee that the same person should be allowed near a sick person. I know eminent professors and medical scholars who cannot safely handle a stethoscope or prescription pad.
Now go back and play with your homeopathy kit Iqbal. You are out of your sandbox.
Iqbal, you are hilarious. This is not about diplomas and memberships. This is about knowledge. You may have passed the medical exams, but by also advocating homeopathy you admit that you do not think physiology is true. Homeopathy and medicine do NOT complement each other, they exclude each other. It is akin to a PhD in Astronomy who thinks the earth is flat. Simply by this belief he has disqualified himself, therefore Ms Day is not a competent doctor.
Thomas Mohr
“It is akin to a PhD in Astronomy who thinks the earth is flat.”
Provide me one name other than your own that fits this description. We all know you are an exception.
“……, therefore Ms Day is not a competent doctor.”
Now you cast aspersion on the allopathic education system. I am completely in agreement with you regarding the poor level of the allopathic education system that produces blinkered zombies( tunnel vision, mindless with no observations). Though I believe Björn Geir is a better representative example.
Well, there are thousands of names. Gabrielle Day and yours for starters. You both believe that the earth is flat and a sphere. Or that two plus two equals four and five at the same time. Iqbal homeopathy and natural science do not complement each other. They are mutually exclusive.
If an otherwise qualified doctor shows evidence they’re willing to sidestep the discipline for which they’re employed, I lose confidence in that person.
When my wife was in her last months a doctor (GP weeks from retirement) strove to get us involved in her religion. If she’d still been practicing after my wife died, I would’ve been vigorous in exposing such inappropriate advertising of buffoonery.
It’s frightening to think that a doctor who has undertaken medical training about how the human body actually works could be taken in by such quackery. I pity her patients because they are at very real risk of harm due to being given treatments that are ineffective.
the FACULTY OF HOMEOPATHY like the article by Dr Day and tweeted:
Faculty of Homeopath @fohhomeopathy Jun 20
More
Great post from @fohhomeopathy member Dr Gabriella Day on the use of #homeopathy in general practice:
Dr Rawlins. Ok so you read your statement about homeopathy out. However, what should a Dr or Pharmacist then say to a patient if they disagree with your statement about homeopathy being placebo or just say that it is their choice?
Ah, the solipsists of skepticism, nowhere but here could they be found in such abundance.
Hey, I got an idea . .
Why don’t you brainiacs try reading something other than your own crap?
Try this on for size, although I think you’ll find you may drown in it.
http://researchinhomeopathy.org/ejournal/
Your friend, your best friend, your only friend,
St. John of Homeopathy
Oh John, of course we have read other than our own stuff. F.i. the early works on homeopathy.
Take f.i. the founding experiment of homeopathy, the cinchona bark experiment.
S.Hahnemann: 1 proband (himself), over thousand symptoms derived, including fev
The replication was carried – during Hahnemanns lifetime with several probands and NO symptom occured.
John, apparently you are not capable to realize how bad Hahnemann as scientist really was. His interpretation of his experiments was crap and consequently homeopathy is crap. Homeopathy is as much of a science as Scientology.6
“Our own crap”
Ah. You mean properly-conducted research performed and analysed by professionals like Thomas Mohr who has already conclusively demonstrated to you elsewhere on these pages that he knows exactly what he’s on about and that you do not.
To support your eternally hapless flailings you post a link to a laughable sheet of self-published bumwash. We can go through the articles individually and tear them to pieces one by one if you like, John. But why don’t you try having a look at them and performing a bit of critical appraisal? Oh. You can’t. Because homeopaths will never question anything which appears to support their quackery. And logical thought progression has never been one of your strong points, has it?
To the sainted John
I have on my bookshelf three homeopathy textbooks. I have read them all. I had to do this sitting down or I would have fallen over laughing.
I must confess | approve of your rejection of homeopathy in that children should not play with fire . . which would be the case here if you took up a doctrine so full of pitfalls as this one. It has been said that it takes 25 years to make a good homeopath. Kent said that after you practice for a while you may discover that you’ve killed a few of your patients. The high potencies can act like scalpels and suppurate tumors, or cause a mysteriously profound debility. So it is best that you here, the indiscreet, who cannot process nuance or a huge database, such as found among the solipsists in commentary, avoid homeopathy, even if its medicine is dangerously believed by you to be inert.
Oh John. Not again. Can you present *any* evidence for your claim ? Of course not. However, one statement is correct, namely that: ” Kent said that after you practice for a while you may discover that you’ve killed a few of your patients.” Yes, that may happen. But then you have not killed by homeopathy, but you will have killed by non-treatment.
it’s called neglect – and it’s criminal.
If it’s criminal, then why isn’t it prosecuted as such? That’s a reasonable question, isn’t it? This is what you can’t reasonably answer! In other words, you lost this argument long ago. You’ve been pitting unsupported theory against widespread observations made by countless people and losing the argument! You’ve refused to recognize the physical indices and biochemical in vitros that support the clinical observations proving the active ingredients are hydrolytes, so if you set out to prove that homeopathic remedies are inert, without any trace of the original solute, you’d lose the bet. This is why your monetary offers for proof have been withdrawn.
Put up or shut up . .
Well, John, if something happens, then the homeopath *is* prosecuted. You do not even know that.
Regarding lost arguments, you STILL do not have sufficient qualification to assess a paper on it’s validity as this post clearly shows. Even if homeopathic preparation contain the original substance, so what ? That does not help homeopathy one little bit. Do you know why ? Because the Like cures like law is complete and utter nonsense. Are you acquainted with the experiment by Jörg ? No ? I am. Nine people fed with cinchona bark tea and not one observed the symptoms of Hahnemann. That is science. Hahnemann’s homeopathy is not.
It’s true that the authorities are pretty supine when it comes to acting against quackery. But homeopaths do kill people, and just occasionally they are disciplined, eg:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/3352247/Patient-died-after-being-told-to-stop-heart-medicine.html
How this danger to society wasn’t prosecuted for manslaughter is beyond me.
Two hundred years, John. That’s how long homeopaths have had to show some concrete proof of their claims. Two. Hundred. Years. And in al, that time, the best you can come up with is “It works because my mate says so.”
And you wonder why we laugh at you.
Just read the [laughable] 2007 (!) article posted by Les Rose at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/3352247/Patient-died-after-being-told-to-stop-heart-medicine.html and I have to ask, that’s the best you can do? That’s the best you can do to prove that homeopathy is criminal? I mean, come on! This is nothing more than proof for how stupid your average skeptic is. Apparently you didn’t even finish reading this 10-year-old article which has little if not nothing to do with homeopathy . . and reportedly no conviction rendered by a so-called “medical tribunal”?
What a bunch of dopes you are. Thousands of people die every year while receiving conventional medical treatment and you have nothing to say about it. But when one person dies 10 years ago, because among other things, somebody agreed with the patient that she should stop using homeopathic drugs, this becomes your poster child for the criminality of homeopathy! [?]
Pardon me while I die laughing.
This is why the case against homeopathy has gone nowhere in 200 years. 200 years Lenny. You’ve had two centuries to prove your assumptions to be correct and you failed. Like a chain reaction, what started as the doctrine of one man has self-assembled into what it is now practiced worldwide by millions . . and you are enraged by it, you’re so angry you can’t even think straight.
John, so you are at Iqbals level on trying to lay a smokescreen by with medical deaths. Let me lecture you, John. Science does not work this way. WE do not have to prove anything. It is YOU who bears the burden of proof. Now let us look at that. In 1820, Johann Christian Georg Jörg tried to repeat Hahnemann’s Cinchona bark experiment with 9 persons. NONE of them displayed any of the symptoms Hahnemann described. He also tested several other remedies, all with negative results and published these in 1820. J.W.Begbie destroyed Hahnemann’s scarlet fever prevention by publishing the mortality statistics which did NOT drop as expected.
The problem is that most homeopaths are bad scientists as you are a prime example. You have NO idea about quantum physics, you can NOT interpret studies correctly as has been demonstrated your interpretation of studies claiming that something remains in the solutions and you can NOT interpret even a p-value correctly.
Have you ever done in your life one statistical analysis ? I bet not. Worse, you – as most homeopaths – are even learning resistant when others point out the alternative reality you live in.
Let me lecture you again, John. The reason why homeopathy does not kill more patients is because of the very existence of allopathy. They correct mistakes of homeopaths. However, if a patient chooses NOT to subject to allopathy, even a simple otitis may turn deadly as it has been the case in Italy.
I prefer not to use the word `allopathy’ as it’s a pejorative term invented by Hahnemann. `Real medicine’ is better.
Normally I prefer that too. However, here I used the term “allopathy” fully consciously because John Benneth is a homeopathy. For a homeopath the statement that allopathy rescues from homeopathy is especially tough.
“The reason why homeopathy does not kill more patients is because of the very existence of allopathy. They correct mistakes of homeopaths.”
Great reasoning. Can you explain this in detail in context with the 254,000 deaths due to allopaths/allopathic drugs in USA in 2015.
“NONE of them displayed any of the symptoms Hahnemann described. He also tested several other remedies, all with negative results and published these in 1820. J.W.Begbie destroyed Hahnemann’s scarlet fever prevention by publishing the mortality statistics which did NOT drop as expected.”
Provide a link to the 1820 trial.
JW Begbie: Either you cannot read or you don’t understand. Repeated citing of an idiotic trial does not improve its credibility.
Hahnemann was aware that different strains of scarlet fever required different remedies.
http://www.wholehealthnow.com/homeopathy_pro/wt10.html
Let me explain something to you, Iqbal. The Belladonna “therapy” was invented by the great master himself. I bet Hahnemann used the correct remedy. Begbie (a contemporrary of Hahnemann) destroyed Hahnemann himself completely by looking at mortality of Hahnemanns own cases. Are you too stupid to realize that or what ?
Re Jörg: cited for example in Tischner, R. Geschichte der Homöopathie, Springer 1998. Alone thae fact that you demand a LINK for a paper from1820 demosntrates your idiocy.
Re: Your deaths in medicine smokescreen. Scarlet fever mortality did not drop despite Hahnemann himself treating people. Now guess the mortality in a homeopathy only world. Your figure would be a negligible by noise in that.
Re Jörg: cited for example in Tischner, R. Geschichte der Homöopathie, Springer 1998. Alone thae fact that you demand a LINK for a paper from1820 demosntrates your idiocy.
It seems you are the only one who is aware of this. Please update on Google. I will read from there.
JW Begbie reported on trials in 1855. Hahnmann had seen the mutation in 1808 and reported it. If you cannot even understand chronology, let me not waste time on you.
http://www.jameslindlibrary.org/articles/19th-century-controlled-trials-to-test-whether-belladonna-prevents-scarlet-fever/
254,000 dead in USA alone, killed by doctors is a smoke screen? Just wait for the next set of figures. As usual, they would be even larger.
Let me explain something for you.
First, Jörg is cited in *every* German book on the history of homeopathy. I will NOT “update Google” just because you are too idiotic to do a proper literature research.
Second, as for your different strain reported by Hahnemann claim: Hahnemann wrote once about scarlet fever, that was 1801: Hahnemann S (1801). Heilung und Verhütung des Scharlachfiebers. Originally published at Gotha.and did NOT report on a different strain. What you mean is his defence in his materia medica: that Begbie et al. misdiagnosed purpura miliaris as scarlet fever. This (a) contradicts Hahnemanns entire approach since Hahnemann did NOT believe in diagnosis and (b) shows that Hahnemann did not understand the studies. Begbie used data derived from Homeopaths, partly Hahnemann himself and (c) shows that Hahnemann is a complete idiot, because milaria is not accompanied by fever, is not deadly and con not be confused by scarlet fever. I.o.W., Hahnemann is an idiot.
Third, breast cancer patients going for natural treatments only (including homeopathy !) have a three time higher probability to die within 5 years. YOU are co-responsible for that, Iqbal.
254,000 dead in USA alone, killed by doctors
Must be a murderous gang these docters. 😀
It seems like our resident alties are unable to read facts and references.
So why not try a favourite resource of quacks, a Youtube video.
They seem to be able to believe everything seen on YT so let’s see if poor Iqbal can grasp this one:
https://youtu.be/KAyMYdQcwV4
Thomas Mohr
“Originally published at Gotha.and did NOT report on a different strain.”
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=RDTiwKPlMiEC&pg=PA482&lpg=PA482&dq=scarlet+fever+and+hahnemann&source=bl&ots=GQb1ArbiHt&sig=UOgaxzUhI1TGL-SsFPx3BoGcTVM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiRoYTloYDVAhWMMo8KHevZB7wQ6AEIVzAJ#v=onepage&q=scarlet%20fever%20and%20hahnemann&f=false
Now look at the difference between Belladona and Aconite symptoms during fever. (Ernst knows nothing about this and therefore I doubt you will be able to differentiate.)
http://www.homeoint.org/books/boericmm/b/bell.htm
http://www.homeoint.org/books/boericmm/a/acon.htm
I, all the time, use the difference to use the right remedy for my children: and this is not only restricted to fever with a name!
“Third, breast cancer patients going for natural treatments only (including homeopathy !) have a three time higher probability to die within 5 years.”
You speak out of turn and complete ignorance. If you are on homeopathy all your life, like me, you don’t get cancer.
With allopathy:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/316734.php
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18704945
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14970061
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17119034
First the treatment for simple medical conditions lead to breast cancer and then chemotherapy converts it into more malignant cancers!!!!!!!
“Researchers in the US studied the impact of drugs on patients with breast cancer and found medication increases the chance of cancer cells migrating to other parts of the body, where they are almost always lethal.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/07/05/chemotherapy-may-spread-cancer-trigger-aggressive-tumours-warn/
http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/9/397/eaan0026
Let me lecture you, Iqbal.
First, Hahnemann explicitly claimed that his critics confused scarlet fever with miliaria, therefore Belladonna did not work. This was the “master’s” own explanation (no two strains), therefore you have to be silent. The reasoning, however., is a pathetic attempt to cover up the own failure since miliaria and scarlet fever can be distinguished even by an idiot. Therefore your ancient quotations are moot, the same goes for Boehricke et all who is as a bad scientist as Hahnemann was.
Second, homeopathy does not prevent cancer or do you have serious studies on you claim ? Of course you have NOT and if you had you would qute them eeroneously.
Third your allopathy references are a pathetic attempt to lay a smokescreen. With a serious disease, homeopathy kills.
BTW, Iqbal, your own master shoots himself into his foot. He explicitely says that after 1800 a new miliary fever instead of scarlet fever was preeminent, How do you explain that the “master” himelf used belladonna as late as 1820 for this disease ? Hahnemann is a bad scientist, and hmeopathy is quackery.
“If you are on homeopathy all your life, like me, you don’t get cancer”
So what happened to Kaviraj and Tinus Smits, then? Two high-profile homeopaths who died of cancer?
Iqbal. The bilge you come out with defies belief.
Unfortunately, Iqbal as well as most uneducated readers and the members of the press misunderstand the conclusions and implications of this research quoted in the Telegraph. The authors unfortunately encourage this with the easily misunderstood title: “Neoadjuvant chemotherapy induces breast cancer metastasis through a TMEM-mediated mechanism”
What this research is saying is not that they discovered that cancer drugs have untoward effects, that we already knew.
The truth is that this very interesting and important BASIC RESEARCH (not clinical) is showing how the effective cancer drugs MAY increase the risk of tumors metastasising, more importantly how it works and most important, how it might be counteracted.
These result are very preliminary. They need to be confirmed with further research and there is a long road ahead towards clinical applicability. But this is a step forward in the treatment of (breast) cancer which is already getting very effective at saving lives.
Breast cancer therapy has come a long way. A large part of those diagnosed are cured, but the cure can be tough and debilitating at times.
As I said before Iqbal, you do not have the knowledge or training to understand or take part in discussions of this sort. You should go and play with your homeopathy set and let those who understand science discuss such complicated matters. If you absolutely wish to us with your unenlightened thoughts, at least try to read the material you are referring to before making a fool of yourself yet again.
Björn Geir
“These result are very preliminary. They need to be confirmed with further research and there is a long road ahead towards clinical applicability.”
Just read the personal anecdote defined in this message. The year 1996. The outcome?
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/is-there-a-reproducibility-crisis-in-biomedical-science-no-but-there-is-a-reproducibility-problem/
” You should go and play with your homeopathy set and let those who understand science discuss such complicated matters.”
The homeopaths I play with, very long back, before I was born, had clearly laid out the outcome of the “scientific medical procedures” and drugs. By removing or suppressing the symptoms, the disease does not go away. It may not be seen in its present form but it would be there inside the body and it will morph into a more malignant form. You can see this EVERY TIME. It is so simple. Earlier homeopaths were observing this. Now most research papers are coming out to confirm the same. The adverse effects are no more that are recorded on the drug containers/strips. Antibiotics do not come with breast cancer warning. Diabetic drugs do not come with bladder cancer warnings. There are numerous such examples. More and more of medical research is clearly defining this today.Remember Dr Blaser: he is implicating only one drug type: antibiotics. There are NSAIDS: forget the side effects. Wait for the complexity to surface.
“Let those who understand science discuss such complicated matters.”
You all are trained not to look beyond your nose and you expect to solve complex (correct word) human body issues? What do you believe will be the doctor kills patient figure for USA in 2017? Will it be lower to 254,000 or higher?
Thomas Mohr
“He explicitely says that after 1800 a new miliary fever instead of scarlet fever was preeminent, How do you explain that the “master” himelf used belladonna as late as 1820 for this disease ?”
Are you really as obtuse as you show your self to be? I have numerous times used Aconite and Belladonna to take care of my children’s fever, depending upon the differentiating symptom.
Names of the disease not important: symptoms are.
And please learn to use spell check before you learn to lecture.
Iqbal, I am not interested in what YOU use or in your quackery. Hahnemann himself used Belladonna in the same setting as his critics who destroyed him. On realizing this he tried to wiggle himself out with a pathetic explanation using a fake disease (miliaria purpura) that does not exist. Homeopaths to this day use Belladonna as a prophylaxis for scarlet fever.
As for your spell check argument. Once you are able to read Hahnemann in the original German – or to understand even scientific papers in English (your own language !), you may come back.
No John, it’s not the best I can do but I’m not prepared to debate further with someone who left their manners behind. Marisa Viegas was suspended because of the death of the patient, and finally struck off because she had no insight into her failings. She said she would do the same thing again. This is of course utterly typical of the delusions under which most homeopaths labour. The GMC case has been archived but the full determination is here:
https://www.casewatch.org/foreign/viegas/2008.shtml
As I have said, the regulators don’t shine when it comes to stamping out quackery, and only the most extreme cases such as this one grab their attention. The problem mainly is that most patients would quite literally rather die than complain against their doctor. In this case it was another doctor who complained. Understandably the patient wasn’t in a position to do so, being dead.
Do not try to subvert the discussion with the tu quoque fallacy (look it up). Have you actually heard of risk:benefit ratio? Who is it that has provided reasoned and effective criticism of the pharmaceutical industry, rather than hysterical personal attacks? The sceptics themselves of course, led by Ben Goldacre and Sense About Science. Not the homeopaths, who lack the necessary numeracy and grasp of science.
I’m not answering you here in any hope that you will understand any of it, but rather for the guidance of others who might not be as familiar with the subject.
Thomas Mohr writes, and apparently all those who pit denial against direct observation agree, “. . the Like cures like law is complete and utter nonsense. “
The first tenet of homeopathy, the universal law of “like cures like”, is the pons asinorum of homeopathy. Despite the glaring example of like curing like in the smallpox vaccine, most people cannot cross this bridge due to their counter-intuitive confirmation bias.
Jenner’s vaccine, taken from cowpox serum, which produces similar, but mild and transient symptoms in humans, is the primary example of “like cures like” and is Hahnemann’s major inspiration for the doctrine of homeopathy, wherein one disease will push out a similar, natural one.
If the reciprocal effect in prevention and cure is not it, triggering the immune system into prophylaxis and cure, then just what does Dr. Mohr think is the mechanism of the vaccine?
It could be said and it should be said that in the vaccine like cures like stands as mankind’s greatest medical achievement in that it wiped out his greatest scourge.
People like Thomas Mohr, masquerading as “scientists”, who refuse to accept the confirmation of like cures like in the cowpox serum, demonstrate the ossification of dogmatic thinking.
Too bad Mohr is not the only one who suffers from the delusion that like cures like “is complete and utter nonsense.” It seems to be the demon suffered by the majority of the medical profession.
Vaccines are not cures, John. They are preventatives. They also work, and do so via an established, completely understood and repeatedly demonstrated mechanism. Unlike homeopathy which does not work, has no explanation of its supposed function and has no demonstration of this happening outside the repeatedly debunked laboratory fantasies of the true believers. As has been pointed out to you. Repeatedly. Why do you persist in using these asinine arguments?
John, let me lecture you. Vaccines cure nothing. They prime the immune system towards a fast response if the antigen is encountered again. In an acute smallpox infection the vaccine does exactly nothing. You are correct that like cures like is a donkey’s bridge. Only donkeys cross it. However this your post serves one thing. It proves beyond any doubt that you have no clue to how a human body works. This precludes you from any valid opinion on homeopathy.
Once vaccinated against smallpox you are immunized, cured of it. You know this quite well. It could just as easily be said that like prevents like. The point is the same mechanism is at work. So what is that mechanism? You are merely constructing a semantic strawman to avoid answering the key question, which you and allopathic medicine obviously have no clue as to what the answer is: How is it that one disease, cowpox, prevents a more serious one such as smallpox? Likewise, how is it that you rarely if ever find two similar diseases occurring in the body at the same time? How is it that we have numerous examples of one disease, such as smallpox, curing previously existing symptoms wrought by smallpox, such as blindness? I’ll give you a hint: Only homeopathy provides a clue to the answer.
“Once vaccinated against smallpox you are immunized, cured of it.” Which is it, John? ‘Immunized’ is definitively not the same as ‘cured’. (I bet Tracy Kolenchuk would have a lot to add about the meaning of ‘cure’.)
“How is it that one disease, cowpox, prevents a more serious one such as smallpox? Likewise, how is it that you rarely if ever find two similar diseases occurring in the body at the same time?” You have clearly never heard of coinfection or comorbidity.
If you reckon vaccination is confirmation of the “like cures like” principle of homeopathy, how come many homeopaths seem to object to vaccines and offer ‘proper’ homeopathic alternatives? If smallpox vaccine cures the disease why are there more than 40 homeopathic remedies for smallpox? If “like cures like” is a truly universal law, as you claim, how come that, shortly before Hahnemann was even born, and well before he pulled his ‘universal law’ out of his arse, a physician called James Lind demonstrated (in the first example of a scientifically controlled clinical experiment) that scurvy could be reproducibly cured with citrus fruits?
We now recognize scurvy as an example of vitamin deficiency diseases, of which there are several. Supplement the appropriate vitamin and the symptoms disappear. The same principle applies to conditions like iron deficiency anaemia. There’s no question of ‘like curing like’ for a vitamin or mineral deficiency: the principle is palpably absurd in these instances. Yet homeopaths still insist on recommending other treatments for these conditions, I guess in religious adherence to the presumed universality of the ‘Similia Similibus Curantur’ ‘law’, and the excuse (in reality, pure vitalism) of treating the whole patient.
I’m sure all this will fly above your head, John, but perhaps you might like to contemplate some other post-hoc rationalizations of ‘like cures like’ beyond vaccination that you may not yet have thought of. Do you realize that most pharmaceuticals work by binding to a particular protein and thus inhibiting the function of the protein? To do this, drugs often have a 3-dimensional molecular conformation that mimics that of the protein’s natural substrate, but which binds to the protein’s active site without being released in the normal way? That’s surely another example of ‘like cures like’, isn’t it?
Surgeons place stents in coronary arteries to cure cardiac diseases. A stent is a tube; so is an artery. Wow! That’s ‘like cures like’ big time.
Gene therapy, the great white hope for the future of some branches of medicine, involves replacing a defective gene with a properly functioning one. But the difference between the ‘bad’ and ‘good’ versions of the genes’ DNA sequences is only a few bases out of thousands: they’re typically more than 90% identical. Gosh! Another proof that ‘like cures like’.
Please feel free to add these examples to the already extensive list of your wild misapprehensions.
LOL! Snide remarks aside, I applaud and thank you, Frank, for a pseudo intelligent sounding, scrambled response that is patently self-condemning, but you have failed miserably to answer the question as to what the mechanism is for . . and here is a new term from homeopathy for you . . homeoprophylaxis. This is the great anomaly before skeptics. It is a more defining agent for the putative old “vaccination”, and so it must be terribly depressing for you to realize that what you’ve been bashing turns out to be from homeopathy, man’s greatest medical achievement.
But since you seem to be lost in the concept of homeoprophylaxis, let’s move on and see if I can unpack comorbidity and co-infection for you and your simpleton friends, and see if you can understand homeoprophylaxis.
Co-infection refers to “the simultaneous infection of a host by multiple pathogen species. In virology, coinfection includes simultaneous infection of a single cell by two or more virus particles” . . which is not necessarily similitude . . it certainly isn’t homeoprophylaxis.
Think, Frank, think! Use your mind! It says“ simultaneous”, not similar. So the question is, are the antigens similar, do they produce similar symptoms?
I know skepticism makes it hard to think, but let’s see if you can figure out what the answer is. The law of similitude states non-competing species of pathogens or virus particles will produce different symptoms, whereas competing pathogens virus particles usually cannot exist with one another. To re- state, different pathogens or viruses do exist with one another but they usually are not in direct competition and will produce different symptoms. The same would be true for the diseases and disorders found in comorbidity.
The point of relaxation here is that pathogens, viruses, diseases and disorders that produce similar symptoms usually do not exist together at the same time, therefore comorbidity and coinfectious usually do not constitute similitude in antigens.
Have you got that, Frank? You might consider reading the references you post.
The question that still remains is what the skeptic community can’t answer without losing their creed. What is the mechanism of homeoprophylaxis as found in the cowpox serum preventing smallpox?
Oh yes, you asked why homeopaths are against common vaccination, that being crude, molecular vaccination, as opposed to supramolecular prophylaxis. In a word, the reason is “vaccinosis”, a new word for your vocabulary.
Let’s see if you can figure it out.
Quote: “The question that still remains is what the skeptic community can’t answer without losing their creed. What is the mechanism of homeoprophylaxis as found in the cowpox serum preventing smallpox?”
John, there is no homeoprophylactic mechanism involved in this. The mechanism is crystal clear. Structural similarities between smallpox and cowpox lead to the production of cross reacting antibodies. John, your parrot is dead. The bird does not fly anymore. It has gone to bis ancestors. It views the grass from below.
“Oh yes, you asked why homeopaths are against common vaccination, that being crude, molecular vaccination, as opposed to supramolecular prophylaxis. In a word, the reason is “vaccinosis”, a new word for your vocabulary.”
Utmost rubbish, John. You clearly have not the slightest idea what you are talking about.
John, you really do earn your title “Clown prince of homeopathy”. Your response may make great sense to you, but our knowledge and understanding of biomedicine really has advanced enormously since Hahnemann founded homeopathy. But those advances pass over your head like butter over Teflon: you’re rooted in an ideology that’s simply lost any claim to credibility or compatibility with current understanding. Yet you persist in trying to argue from a point of view that demonstrates nothing but vacuous ignorance.
Sorry; I’m done. I could wipe the floor with you on explaining the mechanisms by which vaccination works but I really do have better things to occupy my time. You shift the goalposts of every discussion in which you participate, you appear not to understand plain English, and you come over on this blog as a homeopathic parallel to a Christian young-earth fundie: trying to use words in an attempt to justify a response that defies all reason.
The sad thing is that you’ll continue to think I’m the idiot.
Oh, hooray, I win again!
John, you did not “win again”. You have proven beyond doubt that you have no idea what you are talking about.
Thomas Mohr writes, “John, there is no homeoprophylactic mechanism involved in this. The mechanism is crystal clear. Structural similarities between smallpox and cowpox lead to the production of cross reacting antibodies.”
If there is no homeoprophylactic mechanism involved, why are you going out of your way to explain it? What else are you going to call it? Anti-pathogenic similitude? The first Nobel prizewinner for medicine, Emil Behring, discoverer of the diphtheria antitoxin, said the word “homeopathic” described perfectly the immune response.
I’d also be interested in knowing what you think the structural similarities are between smallpox and cowpox at the cellular level. How deep are you going with those structural similarities? Are you speaking of electronic structure? How is it that these structural similarities you speak of are conveyed from one cell to another? How is it that you believe cells communicate between one another? Do they have to come in the contact with one another, or do you believe they communicate electromagnetically?
I’m asking these questions because I think you’re speaking from the dogma of condensed phase materialism. I suspect you’re totally lost at the quantum level. Prove me wrong! Show me how this works in plasma physics.
“…prove me wrong…” is a flawed challenge and a poor retreat.
Without medical training, I’m constantly having to check what many phrases used here mean, but invalid argument is glaring.
John Benneth is an alien from a different galaxy!
PROVE ME WRONG!!!
Behring was a known supporter of Hahnemann. I do not care what he said. John, let’s do the litmus test. If you inject the vaccine into healthy people, do they show symptoms of the disease they are vaccinated against ? Nope. That means, homeopaths would NEVER EVER have discovered working vaccines by just applying their rules, i.e. symptoms visible in the healthy. There is NO homeopathy in vaccines. Period.
As for the rest of your answer, well, alone that fact that you use the word “cell” in connection with a virus proves that you have no idea about biology. Your further questions prove beyond doubt that you have no idea how a virus works.
It does not make sense to waste time on you on further explanations.
You just shot yourself in the foot, Thomas:
Thomas Mohr writes, “John, let’s do the litmus test. If you inject the vaccine into healthy people, do they show symptoms of the disease they are vaccinated against ? Nope. That means, homeopaths would NEVER EVER have discovered working vaccines by just applying their rules, i.e. symptoms visible in the healthy. There is NO homeopathy in vaccines. Period.”
This is the typical of skeptics, that they will pose a question and then incorrectly answer it themselves with what they conjecture it to be.
How tragic . . apparently the product of a dogmatic lip-synch education.
Let’s go to the woodshed, Thomas: Contrary to your superstition, if you inject the vaccine into healthy people they DO show the symptoms of the disease . . if the vaccine “takes”. It was the only way they knew whether or not the person had been immunized, whether or not they showed the symptoms of the disease, usually a boil at the point of entry. I remember when I was vaccinated for smallpox, it caused a boil to arise on my upper arm where the needle had stuck me. I bore the scar for many years. My mother had an even more serious reaction to the smallpox vaccine, a huge pus filled, supperating boil.
Here are other symptoms of smallpox vaccination:
Decreased ability to exercise.
difficulty having a bowel movement (stool)
difficulty with moving.
flushing or redness of the skin.
general feeling of discomfort or illness.
itching, pain, redness, or swelling at the vaccine site.
muscle aching or cramping.
muscle stiffness.
Obviously, Thomas, you must be too young to have been vaccinated for smallpox, otherwise you would know this from direct experience.
If you don’t believe it, look it up! Google “smallpox vaccination side effects”. You just recused yourself from an intelligent discussion of anything at all once again, Thomas . . and I’m surprised nobody else caught his gaff, especially Edzard.
I think this shows really where your head’s at, Thomas. You’re speaking not from your experience or education, but from what you think theoretically should be correct.
Typical pathological skepticism of proof for homeopathy: No wonder they can’t get it. They just make up the answers as they go along.
John, let me lecture you: we are not talking about the smallpox vaccine in particular. It causes a very local infection, so what ? Here we are talking about vaccines in general. Due to my profession (scientist in a lab working with human material) I have had a ton of vaccinations. Except the smallpox vaccine NONE displayed any symptoms AT ALL. The same goes for the vast majority of healthy people. You are trying to whine yourself out of an indefensible position, John. However, homeopaths would not have discovered vaccines, because vaccines in general DO NOT CAUSE DISEASE SPECIFIC SYMPTOMS.
However, your insistence in the smallpox vaccine is shooting into your own foot. Guess how many people have been cured (as defined by – in simple English for you – making an ongoing disease disappear) ? None. Nada. Zilch. That means your like-cures-like principle goes up the chimney.
John, let me lecture you further. There are indeed vaccines that can cure early stages of a disease. These are the passive immunizations. They, however, NEVER contain the infectious agent, but an antibody preparation against the infectious agent which NEVER EVER elicits the same symptoms as the diseases. Poof, your like-cures-like claim goes up the chimney again.
Quote: “You’re speaking not from your experience or education,” … says the one who thinks the smallpox virus is a cell and able to communicate with other smallpox viruses. John, the fact that viruses are not living organisms in the strict sense is biology 101. In this class, however, you very likely got an F.
Finally., Hahnemann was a bad scientist, you are not even that.
John Benneth seems to think the causative agents of cowpox and smallpox are cells!!
“How is it that these structural similarities you speak of are conveyed from one cell to another? How is it that you believe cells communicate between one another? Do they have to come in the contact with one another, or do you believe they communicate electromagnetically?” “I think you’re speaking from the dogma of condensed phase materialism. I suspect you’re totally lost at the quantum level. Prove me wrong! Show me how this works in plasma physics.”
Clear evidence that this flaming ignoramus MUST be an alien from a different galaxy.
“PROVE ME WRONG!” Seconded.
John, John. You’re making yourself look silly again. A preventative and a curative are, as you surely know, and as Thomas explains succinctly above, completely different things. Or are you arguing with the dictionary now? Of course you are. Anything which contradicts the words of Comrade Benneth HAS to be wrong, doesn’t it John?
Hey Lenny, I don’t agree, and what’s that poison your drinking?
John, Thomas is a dumbo but why are you still on this site arguing with these people?
If Thomas is “dumbo” then how to classify John (or Greg and several other CAMtastic friends ) 😀
Perhaps “Bag o’Nuts”?
https://youtu.be/9JT9z0KcAcI
(CAM-ists do not understand written media and even if they would be able to read it they neither understand nor trust logical reasoning. Therefore I have resorted to using a medium they seem to be able to trust, i.e. Youtube Video’s)
Greg.. I think you meant to say “John.. Thomas is a highly qualified, highly intelligent and highly experienced medical researcher. Why are you still on this site when he and the others repeatedly blow holes in your facile arguments and demonstrate your foolishness to everyone?”
We know why you do not reveal your qualification. You have none. That means, even if I would be a Dumbo you would not be able to recognize that – and if I would be a Dumbo the size of the universe. Your lack of qualification prevents you from recognizing anything in medicine.
John, Thomas is a dumbo but why are you still on this site arguing with these people?
I must confess that I find the dialectic fascinating. The appeal here from skeptics is to authority. If you note Thomas Mohr is always stating his qualifications, being superior to mine and others, are what make him right and me wrong, that he is the de jure authority. Apparently he can’t see what an ass this makes him look like. Midway crossing the pons asinorum he stops to lecture the river. The mere fact that I’m investigating homeopathy is enough to disqualify me in his mind and others. But when asked a key question he, like his ilk, can only respond with ad hominems, the latest being, if not homeopathic, then what is the mechanism of prevention in immunology, as seen in the cowpox serum preventing variola? Any scientific mind of real merit will zero in on that question and answer it without scoffing rank or rancor.
Is the anti-homeopathy faction is exposing itself as pseudoscientific? Where is the exploration, the questioning, the dialectic?.
Is the immune response chemical or electrical? Is it a keyhole or a charge? In his biochemical experiments Benveniste stumbled across the same question. When he presented it at the Cavendish, with the exception of Josephson, it was met with the same mumbling outrage as it is met with in Ernst’s blog, the holy sepulcher of scientific thinking about homeopathy.
John is, for once, correct. The appeal is indeed to authority. Those who know what they are talking about. Who can cite and interpret evidence.
To employ John’s favoured clacissisms, and to lift from elsewhere, “the argumentum ad verecundiam is a form of argument in which expert opinion supports the argument’s conclusion. It is well known as a fallacy, though it is most often used in a cogent form”.
As it is here in demolishing the fervid spoutings of John and Greg.
And, John, you might want to look up what Ad Hominen means. And then re-read your post.
I’d be interested to see what an outsider would make of the posts in this thread; Greg and John’s rambling incoherencies, as contrasted with the simple deconstructions of their arguments made by others.
John, I am not arguing without my qualification but with your lack of qualification as demonstrated by your claim that the smallpox vaccine is an example of the like cures like law. It is not, John. Your claim proves beyond doubt that you do not know how the human body works.
Thomas writes, “John, I am not arguing without my qualification but with your lack of qualification as demonstrated by your claim that the smallpox vaccine is an example of the like cures like law. It is not, John. Your claim proves beyond doubt that you do not know how the human body works.”
“Treated a great many cases of variola and varioloid during last eighteen years, some of them of the most desperate character, and yet never lost a case when employing vaccine virus as a remedy; moreover, none of the cases so treated were ever troubled with hæmorrhage, or with delirium, or secondary fevers, or were ever disfigured with pitting . .’ http://homeoint.org/clarke/v/vacc.htm
Stop pretending to be stupid, Thomas. Here is Clarke reporting in the FDA recommended literature that over the course of 18 years he cured many cases of smallpox using the smallpox vaccine, proving that not only does like prevent like, as you have admitted in the case of the vaccine, but also that with the vaccine like cures like.
Now, once again, Thomas will be forced to use ad hominem, ridicule, denial and his bluster about being a superior scientist to refute Clarke, who is reporting from direct experience as opposed to Thomas’ screwball theories
Repeating the Master’s words to his doubting disciple, Thomas Didymus, “seeing is believing.”
You might have something credible to say, Thomas, once you have been responsible for dealing with and curing 1000’s with serious illnesses, as Clarke and others have done.
Ouch. John, that really hurts, but not me, it hurts you. Quote: ““Treated a great many cases of variola and varioloid during last eighteen years, some of them of the most desperate character, and yet never lost a case when employing vaccine virus as a remedy; moreover, none of the cases so treated were ever troubled with hæmorrhage, or with delirium, or secondary fevers, or were ever disfigured with pitting . .’
Yeah, John. I sold many bridges in New York. Just because somebody has written on it does not impress me and that it may be on some FDA reading list doesn’t impress me either. Aside that, the FDA reading list deals with preparation and selling of homeopathics and NOT whether they work or not. With regard to that the FDA has been very clear by requiring homeopathics to bear the label that there is no proof of efficacy.
But let us dissect the statement a bit. John Clarke was born 1853, roughly 20 years after mandatory vaccination was in force in Great Britain. He practiced in London. The last major smallpox outbreak in London was in 1871, by that time Clarke was in his teens. Mortality rates dropped in the 1880ties (when Clarke began to practice) have dropped to one low digit numbers, which means that all of London had a low two digit morbidity rate, most of which Clarke would never see b/c of class restrictions. This renders his statement of having treated many smallpox cases highly unlikely. He probably treated a handful, if ever.
For your “ad hominem” argument: Quote wikipedia: “When a statement is challenged by making an ad hominem attack on its author, it is important to draw a distinction between whether the statement in question was an argument or a statement of fact (testimony). In the latter case the issues of the credibility of the person making the statement may be crucial.”
You state your hypotheses as if they where facts, therefore I have proven – beyond doubt – that you are scientifically an analphabet.
I’m fascinated to learn from this thread that the FDA is happy to recommend as a primary source of information for prescription of homeopathic medicines books published between 1900 and 1902 (the Clarke Dictionary/materia medica). As Thomas Mohr points out, Clarke’s accounts come essentially from the 19th century. We now live in the 21st century.
Are there any other medicines for which the FDA relies on such antique publications for reference? In the present case, this situation reinforces the point that homeopathy never alters its materia medica in the light of more recent research findings: it only ever adds to the late 19th/early 20th century publications by more recent ‘provings’ (should be known as ‘crazy testings’ for clarity) of such things as pieces of the Berlin wall, moonbeams, etc.
You’d think homeopaths would be supportive of the diligent and honourable medical profession without which there’d be far fewer people surviving to the age where they can be duped by buffoonery.
🙂
Except that buffoonery is age-independent!
A more than reasonable point, Frank, however we’re generally adults before having enough cash to sponsor the charlatans.
Lenny, what a name, how do you know which ‘Thomas’ I am referring to? As always, you guys are so much fun. Thank you. I don’t write much here anymore, but I still get my regular laughs from reading the posts.
Given that Benneth was referring to Thomas Mohr in his post above, to which you replied, and given that no other people called Thomas appear in this thread I think it is the only conclusion to make. Perhaps you could tell us which other Thomases there are here. A magic invisible Thomas who only you can see who makes homeopathy work, perhaps? Who speaks only to you in voices inadible to anyone else? John hears those voices as well. Maybe you should both compare notes.
I wonder how come that “Greg” character is going on about an alternative “Thomas”.
I asked the Chrome browser to find all occurrences of “Thomas” in this discussion it only finds 19 distinct references to Thomas Mohr.
Or is the Greg seeing double on a Wednesday night?
The inferential mind of Lenny draws its conclusions.
Bjorn, does the name ‘Greg Cope’ ring bells for you?
Where is Dr. Rawlins lately? The doctor that states that homeopaths are ‘liars’, ‘charlatans’, ‘frauds’ (‘where is the evidence that they are not’) without actually naming any of these homeopaths.
He did not respond to the comparison to Freemasonry poppycock that is still being promoted today albeit its apparent historical association with racism and sexism. Here is a campaign to give you something to do: abolish Freemasonry and make it illegal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcZupMMEEwY
By the way, where is Mr Mohr’s reply to Mr. Bennet’s question regarding cowpox and smallpox?
this is from my book (http://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Professor-Edzard-Ernst/Homeopathy—The-Undiluted-Facts–Including-a-Comprehensive-A-Z-Lexicon/19719982):
FREEMASONRY
Hahnemann became a freemason when he was just 22 years of age. He continued to be attached to freemasonry throughout his life and befriended several distinguished freemasons. At the time, freemasonry harboured ideas of the enlightenment as well as those of the occult, alchemy, cabalism, spiritism and theosophy. Most biographers of Hahnemann believe that the latter aspects had an important influence on his thinking.
The motto of Freemasonry – Aude Sapere (‘Dare to be Wise), is taken from Horace. Hahnemann used this motto on the title page of The Organon. The influence of freemasonry can also be seen elsewhere: for much of his life, Hahnemann had a preference for the C30 potency, and the thirtieth was the degree to which a Freemason could be exalted, and it is the age at which Jesus is said to have commenced his public ministry (Luke 3:23).
There have been no responses to my comment and I expect that in a few weeks from now the commenters will hope that Greg has ‘gone away’ so that they can return to the usual drivel about about ‘destroying’ the arguments of John and Greg ‘line by line’ and referring to the ‘idiotic/deluded comments of Jon and Greg’ etc.
To date, none of my comments have been adequately responded to, apart from the modes stated above.
However, I believe that Edzard is sincere in his mission to establish the ‘truth’ about homeopathy and this is a noble cause (even if I disagree with his viewpoint that homeopathy is placebo only). So, vaccination has been a big topic on this site and the commenters need to provide their response to support their argument that homeopaths are against vaccination.
In his blog, regarding homeopaths being against vaccination, Edzard provided this link:
Attitudes of homeopathic physicians towards vaccination (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11535339)
Quote
Vaccinations are one of the most effective preventive procedures in modern medicine. However, earlier studies have indicated that homoeopathic physicians do not recommend or apply vaccinations as frequently as their allopathic colleagues. Few studies have been undertaken to clarify this question and most of these have not distinguished between medically and non-medically qualified homoeopathic practitioners. Therefore, misunderstandings have arisen concerning this question. In the study presented only medically qualified colleagues were included. In the course of this study, 219 medically qualified homoeopathic and 281 non-homoeopathic physicians in Germany (response rate 30.4%) returned a questionnaire about the application and recommendation of 17 different vaccinations in their practices. The answers show that the responding homoeopathic physicians do not generally refuse vaccines but rather view them with a specific hierarchy. The ‘classical’ vaccines against tetanus, diphtheria and poliomyelitis are applied to nearly the same degree as by non-homoeopathic colleagues. Vaccines against childhood diseases, risk group vaccinations and vaccinations judged as ineffective are applied and accepted with more restraint by homoeopathic physicians.
End of quote
Freemasonry: It is notable that Edzard mentioned Freemasonry in his book as this gets to the nerve centre of a mindset of 19th century onwards thinking. By objective standards, the precepts and practices of freemasonry qualify as symptoms of psychosis for those that are engaged with it and the only reason that freemasons are not in asylums is because is has historical credibility imparted to it due to its promulgation by the elite of society. By these standards, the two freemasons that I mentioned: Samuel Hahnemann and Joseph Smith were insane. Hahnemann’s insanity was his obsession with homeopathy in that he thought it was the perfect CURE of disease, and Joseph Smith’s insanity speaks for itself as per the quote provided below.
After several years of practising his newfound homeopathy on thousands of patients, Hahnemann realised that many of his sick patients were not getting better so it ‘dawned’ on him that there was an underlying state that he referred to as the chronic miasms that was ‘obstructing’ the cure by straightforward homeopathy (the symptoms patient was presenting with). He came up with the ‘doctrine’ of ‘psora’ (as well as the miasms of ‘sycosis’ and miasmatic ‘syphillis’), a chronic miasm going back thousands of years (original sin of mankind) that he believed is the cause of most (over 90%) of human chronic diseases. It is ironical that someone who who dead against the ‘allopathy’, became the CHAMPION ALLOPATH OF ALL TIME WITH HIS DISCOVERY THAT THE WHOLE OF HUMANITY SUFFERS FROM ONE PRIMARY DISEASE, THE MOTHER OF ALL DISEASES: Psora – ‘the hydra headed monster’.
Question for Mr John Benneth: Mr Mohr reluctantly accepts the existence of nano particles in homeopathic solutions but says so what?; next a person like Mr Mohr will accept that homeopathic dilutions at 30 degree freemason potency has an effect that produces symptoms in human beings and then they will say so what?.
Question for Mr Benneth: What do you think homeopathy can actually treat, do you think it can treat (and cure) the major chronic diseases of our time?
Second freemason loony: instead of summarising, I will extract from the official source:
Quote
Visions of Joseph Smith (http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Visions_of_Joseph_Smith)
See this page in the original 1992 publication.
Author: Porter, Larry C.
Ancient prophets were typically called through a revelatory process-visions and/or revelations: “If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream” (Num. 12:6). The prophet Joel anticipated that visions would increase in the last days, saying, “Old men shall dream dreams, [and] young men shall see visions” (Joel 2:28-32).
The Prophet Joseph Smith had his first vision at the age of fourteen while praying in a grove of trees in western New York (see First Vision). The appearance of the Lord to him, like that to Saul of Tarsus, was attended by a shining light from heaven (Acts 9:3). The Lord spoke face-to-face with Joseph and called him to service. This was the first of a series of visions Joseph Smith received, many of which were shared with other persons. Blessed like John on the isle of Patmos and Paul who spoke of the third heavens, the Prophet Joseph Smith affirmed, “Could you gaze into heaven five minutes, you would know more than you would by reading all that ever was written on the subject” (TPJS, p. 324; cf. HC 6:50). He also declared that “the best way to obtain truth and wisdom is not to ask it from books, but to go to God in prayer, and obtain divine teaching” (TPJS, p. 191).
President John Taylor said that Joseph Smith had contact with prophets from every dispensation: Because he [Joseph] stood at the head of the dispensation of the fulness of times, which comprehends all the various dispensations that have existed upon the earth, and that as the Gods in the eternal worlds and the Priesthood that officiated in time and eternity had declared that it was time for the issuing forth of all these things, they all combined together to impart to him the keys of their several missions [JD 18:326].
A new dispensation requires the conferral of priesthood and keys, in accordance with the law of witnesses: “In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established” (2 Cor. 13:1). During the restoration sequence when priesthood and keys were conferred by angelic ministrants, the Prophet was accompanied by one or more witnesses. Oliver Cowdery was a principal figure in the fulfillment of this law of witnesses (see Witnesses, Law of); others were David Whitmer, Martin Harris, and Sidney Rigdon. Distinguishing dreams from visions and associating visions and visitations, Joseph said, “An open vision will manifest that which is more important” (TPJS, p. 161). Crucial visions received by the Prophet Joseph Smith are the source of many cardinal doctrines and teachings of the Latter-day Saints.
THE FIRST VISION. Lucy Mack Smith recalled that as the Joseph Smith, Sr., family worked their Manchester, New York, farm in the period of 1820, “there was a great revival in religion, which extended to all denominations of Christians in the surrounding country.” Lucy and three of the children joined the Western Presbyterian Church in Palmyra, but Joseph remained “unchurched.” He later wrote, “It was impossible…to come to any certain conclusion who was right and who was wrong” (JS-H 1:8). In answer to a biblical prompting that “if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God” (James 1:5), Joseph retired to the woods and uttered what he termed his “first vocal prayer.” His prayer of faith was answered. Joseph recorded, “I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other-This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him! ” Responding to his inquiry concerning which church he should join, the Lord instructed Joseph to join none of them, saying that he must continue as he was “until further directed” (JS-H 1:17-19, 26). When Joseph left the grove, he possessed the knowledge that God and his Son were actual personages, that the Godhead was composed of separate individuals, and that God hears and answers prayers. He also knew that he must not affiliate with the existing denominations (Backman, 1971, pp. 206-208). This vision set in motion a train of visitations by angelic ministrants directing the young prophet in the process of restoring the gospel of Jesus Christ.
VISITATIONS OF MORONI. The Prophet continued to pursue his common vocations until September 21, 1823, while “suffering severe persecution at the hands of all classes of men,” in part as a result of his claims concerning his first vision (JS-H 1:27). As he prayed that evening that he might know his standing before God, an angel appeared at his bedside, saying that he had been sent from the presence of God and that his name was Moroni. He explained “that God had a work for [Joseph] to do; and that [his] name should be had for good and evil among all nations” (JS-H l:33). He instructed Joseph concerning a book that was written on gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of the continent. The fulness of the everlasting gospel was contained in the record as delivered by the Savior to these people. Joseph was also shown a vision of a nearby hill and the place where the plates containing this record were deposited.
The next day, Joseph went to the hill, subsequently known by his followers as Cumorah, removed a stone covering, and viewed the contents of the box beneath, the plates, the Urim and Thummim, and a breastplate. The angel reappeared and informed him that the time for the removal of the plates had not arrived and that he was to meet him for further instruction at that same site over a succession of four years (JS-H 1:53). A further vision was opened to Joseph’s view, and he saw the “prince of darkness, surrounded by his innumerable train of associates.” The heavenly messenger said, “All this is shown, the good and the evil, the holy and impure, the glory of God and the power of darkness, that you may know hereafter the two powers and never be influenced or overcome by that wicked one” (Messenger and Advocate 2:198).
From 1824 to 1827, Joseph returned to the hill each year as specified. On September 22, 1827, he met the angel and received final instructions regarding the record. Moroni gave the record to the Prophet to translate. Joseph said, “The same heavenly messenger delivered them up to me with this charge: that I should be responsible for them; that if I should let them go carelessly, or through any neglect of mine, I should be cut off; but that if I would use all my endeavors to preserve them, until he, the messenger, should call for them, they should be protected” (JS-H 1:59). The messenger did not limit his instruction solely to these annual meetings, but made contact with Joseph on numerous occasions (Peterson, pp. 119-20). In all, the angel Moroni visited Joseph Smith at least twenty times (see Moroni, Visitations of). Joseph informed associates that other Book of Mormon prophets also visited him, including Nephi, son of Lehi (Cheesman, pp. 38-60). Lucy Mack Smith recalled that her son Joseph was enabled from this tutoring to describe “with much ease” the ancient inhabitants of America, “their dress, mode of traveling, and the animals upon which they rode; their cities, their buildings, with every particular; their mode of warfare; and also their religious worship” (p. 83).
JOHN THE BAPTIST. While translating the Book of Mormon at Harmony, Pennsylvania, on May 15, 1829, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery became concerned about baptism for the remission of sins as described in 3 Nephi 11.They went into the woods to pray for enlightenment. Both record that a messenger from heaven, identifying himself as John the Baptist, laid hands on them and ordained them to the Aaronic Priesthood, saying, “Upon you my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah, I confer the Priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; and this shall never be taken again from the earth until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness” (JS-H 1:69; D&C 13; cf. TPJS, pp. 172-73).
PETER, JAMES, AND JOHN. John the Baptist also informed Joseph and Oliver that “this Aaronic Priesthood had not the power of laying on hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost, but that this should be conferred on us hereafter.” John stated “that he acted under the direction of Peter, James and John, who held the keys of the Priesthood of Melchizedek, which Priesthood, he said, would in due time be conferred on us” (JS-H 1:70, 72).
This restoration occurred during the latter part of may or early June 1829, someplace between Harmony and Colesville on the Susquehanna River (see Melchizedek Priesthood: Restoration of Melchizedek Priesthood). Of this visitation, Joseph Smith later testified, “The Priesthood is everlasting. The Savior, Moses, & Elias-gave the Keys to Peter, James & John on the Mount when they were transfigured before him…. How have we come at the priesthood in the last days? It came down, down in regular succession. Peter, James & John had it given to them & they gave it up [to us]” (WJS, p. 9).
THREE WITNESSES OF THE BOOK OF MORMON. By revelation Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris were selected to be witnesses of the plates and the authentic translation of the Book of Mormon (2 Ne. 11:3;27:12; Ether 5:2-4; D&C 5:11-18; D&C 17). During the latter part of June 1829, in company with Joseph Smith, these three men went into the woods adjacent to the Whitmer home in Fayette, New York, and knelt in prayer. When the promised revelation was not immediately received, Martin Harris stated that he felt he might be the cause of their failure. After Martin Harris withdrew, the others knelt in prayer again. David Whitmer described the visitation of Moroni: The angel stood before us. He was dressed in white, and spoke and called me by name and said “Blessed is he that keepeth His commandments….” A table was set before us and on it the Records of the Nephites, from which the Book of Mormon was translated, the breast plates [and also the Urim and Thummim], the Ball of Directors [Liahona], the Sword of Laban and other plates. While we were viewing them the voice of God spoke out of heaven saying that the Book was true and the translation correct [quoted in “Letter from Elder W. H. Kelley,” Saints’ Herald 29 (Mar. 1, 1882):68].
Afterward, Joseph found Martin Harris, and together they experienced a similar manifestation. The Three Witnesses later endorsed a statement describing their experience that has been appended to all copies of the Book of Mormon. They swore that they had seen the angel and the plates and that “we also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice hath declared it unto us” (see Book of Mormon Witnesses). Subsequently, eight others were privileged to see and handle the plates, but without the presence of the angel or having heard the voice of God.
VISION OF GLORIES. While preparing the text of his translation of the Bible, Joseph Smith, with Sidney Rigdon, moved to the John Johnson home in Hiram, Ohio, on September 12, 1831. As the two men worked on the Gospel of John, it became apparent to them that many important points concerning the salvation of individuals had been lost from the Bible. Joseph wrote, “It appeared self-evident from what truths were left, that if God rewarded every one according to the deeds done in the body the term “Heaven,’ as intended for the Saints’ eternal home must include more kingdoms than one” (HC 1:245). On February 16, 1832, in an upper room of the Johnson home, while he and Sidney Rigdon were examining the passage from John 5:29,they saw a multifaceted vision (D&C 76), commencing with a vision of the Father and the Son in the highest glory. This scene was followed by a series of visions, including Perdition and the sons of Perdition and then the celestial, terrestrial, and telestial kingdoms of glory. One witness, Philo Dibble, present in the room recalled that the two men sat motionless for about an hour. One would say, “What do I see,” and describe it, and the other would say, “I see the same” (Juvenile Instructor 27 [May 15, 1892]:303-304).
It is apparent that the Prophet Joseph Smith did not impart all that he saw in vision, for he later said, “I could explain a hundred fold more than I ever have of the glories of the kingdoms manifested to me in the vision, were I permitted, and were the people prepared to receive them” (TPJS, p. 305).
KIRTLAND TEMPLE VISIONS. From January 21 to May 1, 1836, many of the Saints in Kirtland experienced an outpouring of the Spirit, a “Pentecostal season.” On January 21, the Prophet assembled with others in the west schoolroom on the third story of the Kirtland Temple. Here Joseph beheld a vision of the Celestial Kingdom of God (D&C 137). He beheld the Father and the Son and several ancient worthies, including Adam, Abraham, and his own mother and father (both still living), and his brother Alvin, who had died in 1823 (verse 5). As Joseph marveled over Alvin’s station in the Celestial Kingdom, the voice of the Lord declared, “All who have died without a knowledge of this gospel, who would have received it if they had been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the Celestial Kingdom of God” (verse 7). He was also instructed concerning the destiny of little children. The Prophet recorded, “I also beheld that all children who die before they arrive at the years of accountability are saved in the Celestial Kingdom of heaven” (verse 10).
During the dedication of the Kirtland Temple on March 27, 1836, many testified of the presence of angels. The Prophet specifically identified the ancient apostles Peter and John as present among them (Backman, The Heavens Resound, 1983, pp. 299-300; cf. JD 9:376).
One week later, on April 3, 1836, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery had retired to the Melchizedek Priesthood pulpits on the west side of the first floor of the temple. The curtains were dropped around the pulpit area as the men prayed. “The veil was taken from our minds, and the eyes of our understanding were opened” (D&C 110:1). The Lord stood before them on the breastwork of the pulpit. “His eyes were as a flame of fire; the hair of his head was white like the pure snow; his countenance shone above the brightness of the sun; and his voice was as the sound of the rushing of great waters, even the voice of Jehovah” (D&C 110:3). The Savior accepted the newly completed structure and promised that his name and glory would be present and that thousands of persons would receive an outpouring of blessings because of the temple and the Endowment received by his servants in that house (D&C 110:6-9).
Following the Savior’s appearance, three other messengers presented themselves. Each bestowed specific priesthood keys on the two leaders. Moses came and “committed [to them] the keys of the gathering of Israel” (verse 11). As Moses departed, Elias, possessing the keys of “the gospel of Abraham,” appeared and administered the keys of this dispensation, saying “that in us and our seed all generations after us should be blessed” (verse 12). Further priesthood keys were restored by Elijah, who declared, “Behold, the time has fully come, which was spoken of by the mouth of Malachi-testifying that he [Elijah] should be sent…to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers” (verses 14-15; see also Abrahamic Covenant; Gospel of Abraham).
OTHER HEAVENLY MANIFESTATIONS. A variety of accounts affirm that other persons also witnessed such appearances not only in association with the Kirtland Temple but in an earlier period during meetings in the log schoolhouse on the Isaac Morley farm and in the School of the Prophets, held in the Newel K. whitney store (K. Anderson, pp. 107-113, 169-77; Backman, The Heavens Resound, 1983, pp. 240, 264-68, 284-309).
The visions discussed herein are but a few of the myriad manifestations that gave the Prophet direction. Joseph mentions having seen others in vision, including Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, but does not detail their association (D&C 128:20-21). President John Taylor identified yet others who ministered to the Prophet, notably Adam, Seth, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (JD 17:374; 18:325-26; 21:65, 94, 161; 23:48).
One writer has commented, “He had visions of the past as well as of the future. As a seer, he knew things about the past that are not part of our own scripture, but which he spoke of in discourse” (Madsen, p. 44). “I saw Adam in the valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman” (TPJS, p. 158). To Joseph Knight, Sr., the Prophet commented on the vistas opened to him through the Urim and Thummim, which he found deposited with the gold plates. Knight explained, “He seemed to think more of the glasses or Urim and Thummim…says he, “I can see anything; they are marvelous”‘ (Jessee, 1976, p. 33). Accordingly, after reading Foxe’s Book of the Martyrs, Joseph remarked that he had “seen those martyrs, and they were honest, devoted followers of Christ, according to the light they possessed, and they will be saved” (Stevenson, p. 6). He saw in vision marchers in Zion’s Camp who had perished from cholera in Clay County, Missouri. He related their condition, observing to the survivors, “Brethren, I have seen those men who died of the cholera in our camp; and the Lord knows, if I get a mansion as bright as theirs, I ask no more” (HC 2:181n). The organizations of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the First Quorum of the Seventy were made known to him “by vision and by the Holy Spirit,” and he established those priesthood offices in February 1835 (HC 2:182). In an earlier vision, he “saw the Twelve Apostles of the Lamb, who are now upon the earth, who hold the keys of this last ministry, in foreign lands, standing together in a circle, much fatigued, with their clothes tattered and feet swollen, with their eyes cast downward, and Jesus standing in their midst, and they did not behold Him. The Savior looked upon them and wept” (HC 2:381). He saw a vision enabling him to designate the “central place” in Independence, Missouri (TPJS, p. 79). Of a vision of the resurrection of the dead, he explained, “So plain was the vision, that I actually saw men, before they had ascended from the tomb, as though they were getting up slowly” (TPJS, pp. 295-96). He also saw the Kirtland and Nauvoo temples in vision before their construction and gave detailed instructions to the architects, describing the windows and their illumination (JD 13:357; 14:273; HC 6:196-97). He foresaw the struggles of the Saints in crossing the plains, their establishment in the Rocky Mountains, and the future condition of the Saints (HC 5:85n-86n).
He remarked late in his life, “It is my meditation all the day & more than my meat & drink to know how I shall make the saints of God to comprehend the visions that roll like an overflowing surge, before my mind” (WJS, p. 196).
End of Quote
Story of the Masonic third degree: Hiram Abiff (Wikipedia)
Quote
The tale of Hiram Abiff as passed down in Masonic Lodges underpins the third degree. It starts with his arrival in Jerusalem, and his appointment by Solomon as chief architect and master of works at the construction of his temple. As the temple is nearing completion, three fellowcraft masons from the workforce ambush him as he leaves the building, demanding the secrets of a master mason. Hiram is challenged by each in turn, and at each refusal to divulge the information his assailant strikes him with a mason’s tool (differing between jurisdictions). He is injured by the first two assailants, and struck dead by the last.[1] His murderers hide his body under a pile of rubble, returning at night to move the body outside the city, where they bury it in a shallow grave marked with a sprig of acacia. As the Master is missed the next day, Solomon sends out a group of fellowcraft masons to search for him. The loose acacia is accidentally discovered, and the body exhumed to be given a decent burial. The hiding place of the “three ruffians” is also discovered, and they are brought to justice. Solomon informs his workforce that the secrets of a master mason are now lost. He replaces them with substitutes (based on gestures given and words spoken upon the discovery of Hiram’s body).[2] Such is the general legend as related in the Anglo-American jurisdictions.
End of quote
The ancient virus of freemasonry thinking needs to be cleared to enable clearer scientific thinking about matters such as homeopathy: if Edzard can achieve this then indeed, even as its adversary, he would have achieved something positive towards its understanding.
Greg, you don’t provide enough information for any response. Please could you make your comment about five times longer than this one (and then continue to wonder why no-one responds)?
If you have difficulty with reading a short text Frank, then maybe this blog is not the place for you to be commenting. Based on what you have stated, I doubt that you have read any of Hahnemann, Kent or any other founder of homeopathy’s books. It shows that you are out of your depth.
Courtier’s reply plus failure to recognize sarcasm, Greg
Attempting subtlety, nuance and wit with Greg will always be doomed to failure. To understand such things requires an ability to conduct thought processes which he clearly lacks.
I agree with Frank, there is not enough information in Greg’s post. It should be 10 times longer.
For political reasons The Grand Master of Illinois made the mistake of invoking his power by making Joseph Smith a Mason at sight. The Mormons, with three Masonic lodges in Illinois subsequently incorporated much of the Masonic ritual into Mormonism. It was a disaster.
As a 32nd degree member of the Craft, who has been through the chairs of the Blue Lodge, in its defense I should point out that Joseph Smith was killed by a Masonic lynch mob, led by a man coincidentally named John Bennett, an instrumental Freemason who was the editor of the Nauvoo Expositor, a newspaper dedicated to exposing Smith, who had violated a Masonic oath by screwing their wives. We Masons take an oath not to violate the chastity of another Mason’s wife mother, sister or daughter. Having been made a Mason at sight, it’s reasonable to suspect Smith never took the oath. Smith burned the newspaper down and met the consequences.
Freemasonry is coincidental to my interest in homeopathy, one did not lead to the other.
To answer Greg’s question about what homeopathy can cure, read the FDA statute’s recommended literature on homeopathy by Clarke, in which the word “cured” is used more than 1500 times.
John, thank you for providing this response.
You, as a Mason, have confirmed the penalty for ‘violating’ a Masonic oath: death.
Joseph Smith knew that he had to go to Carthage, Illinois, because otherwise Nauvoo was going to be attacked. In classic mafia style, he left his personal belongings at home and went to Carthage where he was whacked. It was not a quick one behind the ear for him, the local prison where he was being held was stormed and the mob did the business. I did not know the reason that they killed him was because he was ‘screwing’ other Masons wives.
‘The shedding of the blood’ of Joseph Smith probably cemented the myth of the man and the origins of the religion that he created. Joseph’s Smith advice on health still stands today: The Word of Wisdom.
Tell us more John.
John, the USA is a Freemason capital of the world, is it possible that John Henry Clarke was a freemason and was able to use connections in the FDA to get this ‘statute’ on its register?
John, if you don’t mind enlightening the readers of this blog: please would you let us know what it is about Masonry that attracts you? Is it the philosophy of masonry or the benefits of having the social connections out there that can assist you in getting along? Also, what is the interrelationship of freemason philosophy and homeopathy, is there a ‘common field’ of thinking?
I declined the offer by a brother to introduce me because I know that the upper echelon in the group would expect more than a pound of flesh for this ‘privilege’.
John, I am hoping that you will share your insights here, they will clarify much. Thank you.
John, I commented on another blog that it would be good to have you back on this blog to continue our discussion. It is possible that you may not read the comment where I posted it, so I have placed it here. I mentioned that your Masonic oaths are not legally or morally binding, and here is an old text that discusses the Masonic oaths and why they are legally invalid.
Moses Thacher: Masonic Oaths Neither Morally Nor Legally Binding (1830)
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mou.010507038466;view=1up;seq=1
Hi John, I am glad that you are back. You are the ‘subject’ that has knowledge of two domains: homeopathy and freemasonry, and the link between them goes right back to Hahnemann.
John, I disagree that the creation of Mormonism was a ‘disaster’: the freemasons created Mormonism as part of the western expedition to open up the frontiers of the West. The ‘Golden Bible’ (Book of Mormon) was created to evangelise the native Indian inhabitants (Jesus was their man too) so actually the ‘white man’ and indigenous Indians were actually blood brothers. (see Book of Mormon for details of the journey from the Holy Land to the American Indian continent and Jesus’ visitation there). Some things got out of control between the Mormons and freemasons because Joseph Smith started developing big political ambitions and the Lord revealed the ‘doctrine’ of ‘plural marriage’ to him. Around 1875, there was a war looming between the Union and Utah over this issue and Utah backed down, and issued a prohibition against polygamy, and subsequently received Statehood. See; the freemasons are a scheming group but time reveals all.
By the way, the ancient story of the Israelites being led out of captivity from Egypt links to the Mormon expedition to their own Holy Land of Utah. Then lo and behold, in the turn of the century, Zionism developed and prepared for the creation of Israel that would be achieved post WW2.
So, I do disagree on your view of Mormonism as being a ‘disaster’. I don’t know if this is your actual view, or another Masonic dissembling of untruth? Would you mind clearing this up before we move on to Masonry and Homeopathy.
Thank you John.
this is off topic and I will not allow further discussion of this subject.
Greg writes “John, the USA is a Freemason capital of the world, is it possible that John Henry Clarke was a freemason and was able to use connections in the FDA to get this ‘statute’ on its register? ”
No. Credit goes to Sen. Royal S. Copeland, MD, chief sponsor of the US FDCA, author of “The Scientific Reasonableness of Homeopathy” https://www.homeowatch.org/history/copeland.html
This 1909 article is the first known reference to molecular dissociation and an ionized solute in homeopathic remedies, imploding Avogadro’s molecular limit for a solute null hypothesis.
Clarke was British.
We’ll, Copeland confuses Atoms with ions and molecules, thus demonstrating he did not grasp the theory of infinite solutions. This is the disadvantage of being a scientific analphabet. You can not detect scientific nonsense.
There’s nothing particularly mysterious about ionic solutions, which Arrhenius had proposed in 1884, being awarded a Nobel prize for this in 1903. An ion is simply a charged atom or molecule. There is nothing about ionisation that would enable such particles to be divided indefinitely, or allow solutions of them to be serially diluted indefinitely while retaining particles from the starting solution.
Greg, it has been explained already by Lenny. Do you need everything told twice ? Where is YOUR qualification ???
“Greg” the not Cope one, still trying to make an issue out being asked if that was its surname 😀
Such perseverance might be admirable if used for something useful.
(Greg Cope is the name of a well known quack down under: http://www.news.com.au/national/homeopaths-hit-by-critical-report/news-story/d7cbd6a8608017069ca75f5bc5bf7619 )
It is hypocritical for one to point out balderdash of the belief systems that other people hold but reverently hold on to our own balderdash belief systems.
Hahnemann wrote a lot of stuff that I don’t agree with and his theory of chronic miasms is one of them: in the end, he was giving almost all his patients Sulphur because it is the remedy for the primary miasm of Psora. A complete contradiction of ‘homeopathy’ this was and within the definition of ‘balderdash’. Freemasonry was common to the high society in those days and lots of ‘secret societies’ borrowed from it as years went by so no surprises that Hahnemann was one. The Mormon Church adopted the signs and symbols for their temple ceremonies (founder Joseph Smith was a freemason).
Critical thinking is essential for human wellbeing and progress so if Dr. Rawlins needs the link to reply to my view of Freemasonry being outdated and outlandish, here it is:
http://edzardernst.com/2017/05/use-of-alternative-medicine-is-associated-with-low-vaccination-rates/
Also in the post cited here, no commenters responded to my pointing out the weakness in the argument that homeopaths are AGAINST vaccinations: the EVIDENCE of this is in the link you provided.
Frank Odds: Religious Discussion in the Mix
I am not sure that HealthWatch is the appropriate forum for discussions of religious belief. But the die has been cast, and I cannot let James May’s article (Scepticism and Religion, HealthWatch Newsletter issue 99, Autumn 2015) pass without comment.
The article rehearses the tediously familiar tropes of those who wish to justify their superstitious beliefs held in the absence of evidence, right down to listing great scientists of the past who were Christians. Great: so now argument from (long dead) authorities is the sort of thing we can look forward to in future issues of Healthwatch?
Like most defenders of a Christian faith, May does not deign to enlighten us why he believes in the Jesus trinity, and not Allah, Yahweh, Vishnu, Shiva, Lakshmi and the rest. Nor does he advise us exactly what his faith consists of. If, like most Christians of my acquaintance, he believes in a personal god who responds to prayer with miraculous interventions then he needs to explain why he associates with an organization dedicated to evidence in medicine.
There can be no scientific medicine if a god can intervene supernaturally to influence the outcome of disease.
Most concerning of all is May’s assertion that “science is not the only field of knowledge”. One is used to hearing that religious belief is somehow a different form of knowledge (Gould’s ‘nonoverlapping magisteria’), but history, law, politics and economics?! History and law ever-increasingly turn to science to solve their problems, because of the unreliability of personal testimony as evidence. Economists also base their work on the scientific method; it’s just that their hypotheses have yet to reach the strength of a decent scientific theory.
If politics is a ‘systematic field of knowledge’ then surely we should accept every opinion of David Tredinnick as a valuable insight into the field of medicine. Indeed, it is surprising that ‘medicine’ was not included on May’s list of different fields of knowledge.Those who favour homeopathy, acupuncture, chiropractic and the rest often argue their systems represent a different type of knowledge. Why should they not have equal access to the pages of Healthwatch?
“Poetry, music or visual arts often communicate true knowledge far more profoundly and economically than science”? No: they communicate emotions, not truth or reality; so does religious faith. Emotions are the product of the nervous system; the province of neuroscience.
HealthWatch stands for the real world, for people with their feet on the ground who favour robust clinical evidence over testimony, anecdote and superstition. Throwing religious discussions into the mix opens the door to every kind of evidence-free irrational belief and certainly drives a coach and horses through my perception of
the organization.
End of quote
Could this article be more concise and to the point?
“Could this article be more concise and to the point?” I’m sure it could, Greg, though you yourself might well learn a few lessons from it on making a clear point.
BTW, for those who wonder where Greg picked up this (off-topic) piece, it was a letter I wrote in the winter of 2015 to the editor of Healthwatch Newsletter — the quarterly publication of a charity devoted to evidence-based medicine. I wrote in response to an article by James May, the Healthwatch Chairman, explaining why he was a christian.
You can link to the Healthwatch website from the home page of this (Edzard Ernst) blog. It’s among the links at the top left of the home page.
I’m currently working on a piece subtitled, “how to persuade me,” so this thread’s showing itself to be a useful vein of information.
For many years, I’ve been drawn to the notion that Ignorance, Incompetence and Intent summarise how misinformation and error spread. Those defending homeopathy, its many siblings of CAM and religion (psychics, astrology, dowsing…) all too often sculpt their arguments with tools of I, I or I. There’s nothing in the presentations that suggests Truth in their claims.
No doubt many – but clearly not all – of those who’d have us buy into these distractions from appropriate methods against the enemies of health and welfare are people of integrity who invest themselves therein. However, none of these realms of “alternative knowledge” demonstrate aught other than marketing techniques that encourage folk to repeat, repeat, repeat the mantra of woo until the opinions expressed become over-valued treasures of the mind. When an opinion is more valuable than enquiry – honest enquiry exposes all views to correction / rejection – it’s disappointing, at best.
We’ve an NHS that wastes resources on CAM and religious salespeople (£30m+ pa on “chaplains”), industries that need a population’s understanding stifled by I, I or I to keep leaching off us.
This has been an entertaining and frustrating chain of words: an education for which I thank all contributors.
Frank fails to address the substance of the comments and this is the hallmark of the robots commenting on this site. Is Frank a robot? I don’t mind because I get my points in for readers and now that the nerve centre of the freemasons influence over healthcare is being discussed it gets even better to go unchallenged.
My dream debating opposition team is: ‘The Dumbos’.
I am having some difficulty, due to the paucity of comments, in determining who is running at the top of the table.
Greg
I am becoming slightly concerned at your increasingly demented and incoherent ramblings. You need to go and talk to someone. Preferably not John.
Lenny: I’d be interested to see what an outsider would make of the posts in this thread
Why don’t you contact an outsider to find out?
John mentioned that Mr Joseph Smith Jr. had a thing for the ladies vis a vis ‘screwing’ other Masons wives (a dumbo thing to do).
I see now where John is coming from. You have to see this:
Camera inside Masonic Lodge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks_D2drIs6E
Edzard, the sociological and political culture is the base from which specific disciplines such as medicine develop. You mentioned freemasonry, Steiner etc in your book, if it is ‘off topic’, why put it in your book?
it’s not the topic of this post
Ok, can you recommend one of your posts from the past where it may be relevant to the topic of the post?
“Application of the term troll is subjective. Some readers may characterize a post as trolling, while others may regard the same post as a legitimate contribution to the discussion, even if controversial. Like any pejorative term, it can be used as an ad hominem attack, suggesting a negative motivation.” (Wikipedia)
In my own subjective opinion, Greg meets all the criteria for an internet troll. However, the patience shown to him by people who have responded to his comments on this is remarkable. However, today’s burst of inanity confirms my view. I think he is ripe for forcible encouragement to take his trolling elsewhere.
Professor Odds: ‘forcible encouragement’ sounds like a threat, are you being threatening?
‘MY OWN SUBJECTIVE OPINION’ is a hyperbole of your right to state your view. My response is that you don’t like something that I have written, why don’t you respond to that rather than making up your ‘troll case’? Surely, if you have been on this site for some time, you must know that some discussions are extensive, and if I am defending homeopathy from attack and misunderstanding, I may well be one of few on this site to be doing so. Would you prefer I just go away and let the anti homeopathy commenters just trash it anyway they wish to?
To be fair, none of the arguments, claims, data or anecdote I’ve encountered in support of homeopathy (or any CAM with the possible exception of acupuncture & aroma “therapy” – I’ve not read much on these) offer anything to persuade me of efficacy to anyone other than those selling it.
As is oft the case with woo, the marketing is asserted as being substantial yet scrutiny exposes too many examples of folk being anchored by their prior investment of time, money, emotion and expressed opinion.
Sadly, nothing new’s arrived in this thread (apart from details of history and the lengths to which homeopaths will strive to defend their “profession” and customer base.
It’s bunk
John, are British freemasons not respected as equals in the USA?
It is intriguing as to how homeopathy was accepted by the FDA as part of the medicines registers that they monitor. I am aware of Lenny’s comment relating to their disclaimer of efficacy but this disclaimer is based on the fact that none of the homeopathic remedies have been scientifically proven to be efficacious for any medical condition. John, just because Clarke recorded all those ‘cures’ does not make them truths: I asked you before: what do you think about the current evidence base of homeopathy – does it hold up to scientific scrutiny regarding its claims to treat illnesses?
John, Professor Odds requested that I be ‘forcibly encouraged’ to be evicted from this site due to conforming with his interpretation of trolling but I understand that it is something I wrote that he is annoyed about but has not yet said what it is. By his definition, it would seem that HE is a troll, one who comments regularly on a variety of Edzard’s posts whereas I primarily comment on the homeopathy blogs in order to defend homeopathy.
However: Thomas, Frank and I am asking the same question (guys from opposing camps asking the same question): how is it that the FDA refer to homeopathy classification and information using Clarke’s text? John, why is it that there is no current evidence base for homeopathy documenting all the marvellous homeopathic cures in 2017, and not those of 1917 or earlier? This is something that needs to be addressed by homeopathy if it has any intention as being recognised as a medical practice rather than by some other designation?
Greg writes, ” John, why is it that there is no current evidence base for homeopathy documenting all the marvellous homeopathic cures in 2017, and not those of 1917 or earlier?”
Considering that human afflictions have not changed much over the course of time, there is a huge evidence base for homeopathy documenting homeopathic cures of present afflictions in 2017, semiological registers called “materia medica”, of which Clarke’s is one among many, fairly consistent with one another, new and old. The beauty of semiological prescribing is that it requires no etiology of the symptoms to produce the remedy.
Of course, pathological skeptics will dismiss the Materia Medica for one reason or another in favor of clinical trials they can pick apart and dismiss on the basis of unnamed criteria, which has left you with the impression there is no evidence base for homeopathy. However, the homeopathic evidence-base sans Materia Medica is huge and growing every day.
Try this on for size
Con and pro https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=homeopathy
Oh, and Greg, you are no troll.
John, why don’t you inform yourself what is generally considered to be EVIDENCE in healthcare?
John, thank you for confirming that I am not a troll.
Aetiology is an important part of understanding the totality of symptoms presented by the patient so I do not follow what you mean by your statement:’The beauty of semiological prescribing is that it requires no etiology of the symptoms to produce the remedy.’
Arnica is generally considered as a remedy for ‘Bruising’. However, the etiology of bruising in an Arnica case is injury with contusion. There are several remedies to consider for bruising resulting from injury but if the etiology does not involve injury and the patient presents with bruising this would need further investigation to establish cause (underlying illness associated with blood clotting?). Etiology is important. I am interested to find out about ‘semiological prescribing’, how does that work John?
Also, you use the term ‘Materia Medica’ like a lawyer would refer to the volumes of cases that contain precedents produced by trials. You referred to Clarke as one of the homeopathic authorities of ‘Materia Medica’, which other people are, in your opinion, also authorities of ‘Materia Medica’.
Lastly, this is a blog so the standards of discussion are more relaxed than they would be commenting in an academic journal. So, I would like to ask you: I am interested to know what is your top of the list example of case/type of illness that you believe proves the case for homeopathy. The issue that I have John is that if homeopathy was clinically proven to make sick people well then doctors would be more than happy to help their patients by using these remedies.
BTW, I find your comments informative and I am learning more about homeopathy and other things from reading them.
who is pulling whose leg here?
Greg asks three questions:
1. “Etiology is important. I am interested to find out about ‘semiological prescribing’, how does that work John?
The Materia Medica are referenced by what are called repertories, in which remedies are listed under their associated symptoms, sign, behavior, condition and cause. So under influenza you may find a dozen remedies listed as being associated with it. Which one do you use? What stage is it in? Is it hemorrhagic, like Ebola? By making a matrix of semiotics and their remedies, the most relevant remedies emerge. Usualy the case requires three semiotics to elucidate the right remedy. Some homeopaths become so good at this they can identify an individual’s constitutional, or core remedy, before the patient sits down, without even hearing the complaint. Sometimes it’s simpler than that. Here is Crotalus horridus, the FDA’s referenced traditional cure for Ebola: “It causes bleeding from all orifices and surfaces, and it corresponds to the hæmorrhagic diathesis;” http://homeoint.org/clarke/c/crot_h.htm
2. “Also, you use the term ‘Materia Medica’ like a lawyer would refer to the volumes of cases that contain precedents produced by trials. You referred to Clarke as one of the homeopathic authorities of ‘Materia Medica’, which other people are, in your opinion, also authorities of ‘Materia Medica’?
James Tyler Kent, Constantine Herin, Boericke among others: http://homeoint.org/english/index.htm
3. “I would like to ask you: I am interested to know what is your top of the list example of case/type of illness that you believe proves the case for homeopathy?
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, epidemics prove the superiority of homeopathy, as seen in smallpox, influenza, leptospirosis, whooping-cough and Ebola, among others such as dengue fever, polio, AIDS and malaria.
“Beyond a shadow of a doubt, epidemics prove the superiority of homeopathy, as seen in smallpox, influenza, leptospirosis, whooping-cough and Ebola, among others such as dengue fever, polio, AIDS and malaria.” ONLY IF YOU ARE TOO DAFT TO ENGAGE IN CRITICAL THINKING… http://edzardernst.com/2017/02/homeopaths-love-it-the-epidemiological-evidence-suggesting-that-homeopathy-works/
Hi John, Edzard answered point 3.
Point 1: ‘three semiotics’ is Constantine Hering’s 3-legged stool for quick prescribing.
Point 2. where are the today’s ‘authorities’? John, what homeopathy urgently needs is a verified database of evidence, not authorities. John, there is so much error incorporated in Materia Medica that it would take another hundred years to filter it. Why not let science step in to get this straightened out?
Greg makes a vailid point but it has already been answered. Science stepped in many years ago and showed homeopathy to be utter nonesense. There is no need to waste further time and effort further disproving that which has already been repeatedly and reproducibly disproved. That John and his ilk choose to put their fingers in their ears and shout “LALALA” whilst attempting to contort reality to support their long-destroyed notions of clinical efficacy is their problem, not one of science.
Quote: “Considering that human afflictions have not changed much over the course of time, there is a huge evidence base for homeopathy documenting homeopathic cures of present afflictions in 2017, semiological registers called “materia medica”, of which Clarke’s is one among many, fairly consistent with one another, new and old. The beauty of semiological prescribing is that it requires no etiology of the symptoms to produce the remedy.”
documenting homeopathic cures ? Like for instance this pearl by the master himself:
Quote: “An actor, 33 years old, married. 14th January, 1843 . For several years he had been frequently subject to sore throat, as also now for a month past. The previous some throat had lasted six weeks. On swallowing his saliva a pricking sensation; feeling of contraction
When he has not the sore throat he suffers from a pressure in anus, with violent excoriative pains, the anus is then inflamed, swollen and constricted; it is only with great effort that he can then pass his faeces, when the swollen hemorrhoidal vessels protrude.”
after a lot aof treatment by trial and error the master comes to this conclusion:
” Third March – No more sore throat. On going to stool a bloodless haemorrhoidal knot comes down (formerly this was accompanied with burning and raw pain), now with merely To smell Acid nitric and then to have milk-sugar in seven. Almost no more pain after a motion; yesterday some blood along with the motion (an old symptom). Throat well; only a little sensitive when drinking cold water. Olfaction of Acid nitric (Olfaction is performed by opening small bottle containing an ounce of alcohol or brandy where one globule is dissolved, and smelt for an instant or He remained permanently cured. *
In other words, it took almost exactly 6 weeks to cure the throat and the hemorrhoid still persists. We have NO follow-up and it is very likely that this patient of Hahnemann’s did NOT come back when the hemorhoid became active again. Is that your “evidence” John ? You don’t recognize scinetific evidence even if it is tatooed across your face, John.
John: at this stage of the discussion, I would appreciate it if we could be as precise as possible with terms used. You stated: pathological skeptics will dismiss the Materia Medica for one reason or another in favor of clinical trials they can pick apart and dismiss on the basis of unnamed criteria, which has left you with the impression there is no evidence base for homeopathy.
John: your conclusion should read: left you with the impression there is no evidence base for CLINICAL homeopathy. The evidence base of ‘Materia Medica’ is based on INDIVIDUAL OUTCOMES and NOT general outcomes of use of a remedy. The GRADE of a symptom is upgraded if there is a repeat of a symptom ‘cure’ with a remedy (this is how the clinical evidence base of materia medica is developed). In the proving route of materia medica development, the higher the frequency of a particular symptom is amongst all the provers in a group, the higher the grade for that symptom. John, scientific investigation MUST be used to VERIFY the materia medica. Your approach relies on AUTHORITY (and John Henry Clarke being a respected Mason: good to his word reinforces this for you, he would not lie, would he?).
As far as I am aware, scientific investigation has not yet come up with strong evidence for clinical homeopathy (the use of homeopathic remedies to treat clinical conditions). Please do provide us with your top example of this evidence so we may discuss it.
I look forward to your response John.
In the video posted above (Camera inside Masonic Lodge), the man sitting next to the Worshipful Master (Masons call the guy in charge of the lodge: ‘Worshipful Master’ or ‘Right Worshipful Master’. So why do homeopathic critics have a problem if the founders of homeopathy are called ‘masters’ by some followers of homeopathy?) looks a bit like John?
Where is John lately? I hope that he is ok and rejoins the discussion here.