It is hard to believe that the largest professional organisation of UK homeopaths, the ‘British Homeopathic Association’ (BHA), can be so irresponsible as to publish this on their website under the title ‘Coronavirus – advice from the UK homeopathic Community‘:
Can homeopathy help?
Homeopathic medicines have been used extensively for flu-like symptoms and in epidemics around the world. If you decide to take a homeopathic medicine, this should be in addition to the various measures outlined above and should not be your only approach. Selection of the most appropriate homeopathic medicine is based on an individual’s unique symptoms. However, Gelsemium 30c and Bryonia 30c are commonly used for flu-like symptoms and have a long-established, traditional usage over many years.
Homeopathic options can form one part of your approach to the current Covid-19 outbreak but should always be used alongside other measures. If you have current symptoms or are concerned that you may have been exposed to coronavirus, it is important to call 111 to seek appropriate advice, in keeping with current guidelines.
As though this would be not enough, the BHA also provided a link on facebook to this information in relation to the corona pandemic:
You start to feel internally very cold and suddenly pretty unwell – Aconite 30c
You have flu with stomach upset, your body is hot but you feel cold; you are better being warm and are
mentally restless and anxious – Arsen alb 30c
You have a raging hot temperature, a red face and a cold body – Belladonna 30c
Everything aches, especially when you move and you want to be left alone in bed with the curtains drawn –
Bryonia 30c
You are ‘wiped out’, have no energy, droopy eyelids and are feeling shivers up and down your spine –
Gelsemium 30c
With the flu you have great sensitivity to noise and touch, are worse for the slightest uncovering: it is as if you
have a hangover – Nux vomica 30c
You have aching and restlessness, are better moving around, yet worse on continued exertion and much worse
in the cold and damp, much better for heat – Rhus tox 30c
In later stages of the illness, the medicine may change, for example:
Your head feels congested when you are up and about but is better lying down – Natrum carb 30c
Your sinuses are blocked and painful – Hepar sulph 30c
You feel very low and the slightest thing can provoke tears – Pulsatilla 30c
This is, in my view, not just stupid, it is dangerous, unethical, reckless and in no way compatible with the responsibility of a professional organisation of a healthcare profession.
65 Responses to Coronavirus – advice from the UK homeopathic community
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You are too generous in calling this a healthcare profession. There is nothing professional about it, and it does nothing for health. I have already reported this to the ASA using their quick report form.
I agree with Les 100%.
There is no evidence whatsoever that the the BHA represents a “healthcare profession.”
Whoever wrote this is wasting their time, and might be fraudulently gaining financial advantage from earnings derived from gullible ‘members’ who have been inveigled to join the AHA by false promises.
Indeed the BHA’s own web site poses the question:
“Can homeopathy help?” (Deal with Covid-19; caused by the Sars-Cov-19 virus).
The answer is, by inference: “No.”
Its actual answer is more opaque, but they know what the answer is, as we all do.
They say: “Homeopathic medicines have been used extensively for flu-like symptoms and in epidemics around the world. If you decide to take a homeopathic medicine, this should be in addition to the various measures outlined above and should not be your only approach. Selection of the most appropriate homeopathic medicine is based on an individual’s unique symptoms. However, Gelsemium 30c and Bryonia 30c are commonly used for flu-like symptoms and have a long-established, traditional usage over many years.”
Which is a coy way of saying: “No – homeopathy has been used but is useless for treating ‘flu. And yes, we are aware that argumentum ad populum is a logical fallacy.”
Thousands of us in the homeopathic community agree with this BHA article. No one is forced to go to the BHA website and then start going to any links .
So report it to the ASA but nothing is being marketed with no links to any supplier.
I would be really concerned about how UK evidence based medicine is doing right now for the treatment of Covid compared with many other countries.
“No one is forced to go to the BHA website and then start going to any links ”
YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS!?!
Nobody is forced to go to paedophile websites either, yet …
“I would be really concerned about how UK evidence based medicine is doing right now for the treatment of Covid compared with many other countries.”
I think we are all really concerned; which is why we are trying to develop vaccines and treatments based on science and evidence.
First of all I would follow advice from many working in CAM and review the use of paracetamol and ventilators for this virus.
What do you mean “follow advice from many working in CAM”? There are more than four hundred different flavours of make-believe health care that have been defined under the fictional construct some people still call “Complementary and Alternative Medicine”. Which one should we take advice from??
Why are you telling us to take advice from amateurs when there is a serious pandemic going on!? This is not a time for amateurs and idiots playing doctor.
Please note that the term CAM is a meaningless oxymoron.
We now call it SCAM – So Called Alternative Medicine to be accurate, as there is no true medicine involved
“This is, in my view, not just stupid, it is dangerous, unethical, reckless and in no way compatible with the responsibility of a professional organisation of a healthcare profession.”
Ceterum censeo:
“I think it is DANGEROUSLY UNETHICAL to withhold ANY (!) POTENTIALLY (!) EFFECTIVE, ADDITIONAL (!) (!) therapy from a purely dogmatic stubbornness, especially under the given dramatic circumstances.”
https://homoeopathiewirkt.wordpress.com/2020/04/10/update-10-4-20-covid19-updated-suggestions-for-genius-epidemicus-can-homeopathy-which-we-therapists-use-responsibly-help-when-conventional-medicine-reaches-its-limits/
……WHICH WE THERAPISTS USE REPONSIBLY, WHEN CONVENTIONAL MEDICINE REACHES ITS LIMITS” (for example shortness of breath before ventilation is needed).
If you (and anyone) will ever have felt the RELIEF from shortness of breath causing fear of death PROMPTLY after a homeopathic remedy, you (he) will never ever say something like the obove again in his LIFE!
you know of course that the UK homeopaths promoting this nonsense are not doctors; they are therefore likely to use homeopathy as the SOLE treatment.
Such an exclusive therapy never makes sense [from neither side!] and is not necessary from an undogmatic homeopathic point of view…..
yet, it is what Hahnemann, your guru, insisted upon over and over again in his writings. he called those who mix homeopathy with other treatments ‘traitors’.
maybe you should read his books, maybe you would realise how mistaken he and homeopathy are.
https://edzardernst.com/2018/04/its-hahnemanns-birthday-today-so-lets-honour-him-by-quoting-his-words/
and anyway, Dr H H, your statement ” an exclusive therapy never makes sense” is an indirect admission that homeopathy is ineffective, isn’t it?
Loathesome vile bloodsuckers. The virus is their friend.
And btw, I didnt ask for any payment for treating the girls. I guess we are not all loathsome bloodsuckers. Bad reviews travel fast. If clients were not getting results we would have been out of business 200 years ago. We are still here and will continue long after the sad joke of conventional medicine either cleans up its act are is consigned to the dustbin of history.
appeal to tradition = logical fallacy
go and have some blood-letting, that has been around for much longer
You are not loathsome. You are loathesome.
The placebo effect was and will always be with us. Homeopaths’ worst nightmare is science developing a vaccine for Covid19. Bloodsuckers.
This vaccine is going to be Your worst nightmare when it rolls out. Its going to be poorly tested and marginally effective, with long term health consequences AND required. Watch the Corbett Report on the Corona World Order.
I’ll watch what happens when scientists decide that they have a vaccine safe enough for use.
What are we supposed to make of Con-Med that kills close to a quarter million people every year and is the major cause of bankruptcy in the USA, without a peep from the FDA or CDC? Lets talk about the REAL bloodsuckers, dickhead.
https://edzardernst.com/2017/05/a-method-of-ending-discussions-with-belligerent-twits/
Roger
The same fallacies, time and time again.
If you to try to bring up iatrogenic harm, please only do so if you can also detail the numbers of lives saved by conventional medicine, the number of people living longer and with a higher quality of life because of conventional medicine, the number of babies who survive birth because of conventional medicine and the number of those who are suffering less and in less pain because of conventional medicine.
@Roger
Yawn. Debunked years ago: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/917696
Homeopathy has extensive well documented cures in epidemics, including the Spanish Flu where they documented a 1% mortality rate compared to Con-Med’s 10-30% mortality. And there is no harm in taking a homeopathic remedy first and if there is no improvement in a reasonable time, people can go on to more invasive approaches like ventilators at the hospital (which dont actually help in this CoVid epidemic.) I had a client who was a nurse at a hospital in Berekely CA who knocked on my door late one night with her 4 year old screaming in pain with inflamed ear drums. I gave her the remedy Pulsatilla and we drove 10 minutes to the ER. When we arrived, the nurses there asked why we brought her because by then there was nothing wrong; she had completely recovered. At no point was she in danger by taking homeopathy. Homeopaths around the world are documenting cures of CoVid which help others cure their cases.
you are really clueless, aren’t you?
https://edzardernst.com/2017/02/homeopaths-love-it-the-epidemiological-evidence-suggesting-that-homeopathy-works/
“and anyway, Dr H H, your statement ” an exclusive therapy never makes sense” is an indirect admission that homeopathy is ineffective, isn’t it?”
What a strange, confused conclusion you draw. With this logic, you might as well conclude that conventional medicine is ineffective.
It is not, as I can say from my long experience in intensive care units and as an emergency doctor. But there are areas where she is completely helpless – as is currently the case with the shortness of breath of SARS-CoV-2 patients. And if we homeopaths can help here, then the patients experience this as an immediate relief from the fear of death …
you seem to have the need to repeating that you once have been a real doctor.
so tell us: where and why would homeopathy work as only an adjunct and not as a sole treatment?
and what about you being a traitor in Hahnemann’s eyes?
@Roger. Thanks for your comment!
From Wikipedia on the treatment of acute otitis media:
Looks like Roger’s patient was one of the 82%, then. Spontaneous drainage via the eustatian tube once the internal pressure reaches a certain level causes the symptoms to resolve rapidly. Roger’s sugar pills would have been of no consequence, much as you would love to dream otherwise.
Amazing how many rapid spontaneous cures occur when taking these homeopathic placebos. Had this Nurse known this she could have just slapped her kid upside the head and not bothered to see me.
I am sure the Con-Med doctors wish they could have so much luck, especially with all chronic disease for which they have such abysmal results.
Edzard:
You know very well that Hahnemann was a brilliant analyst and innovative scientist and thus way ahead of his time and the medicine at that time.
But he also was an angry dogmatist like you, who tolerated no other opinions besides him. He was never a guru for me as he was for Mrs. Grams, so I coudn´t be disappointed with him.
Undogmatic I take the best of him, but I have always preferred to think for myself and believe what has been reproducibly proven FOR ME…
And I am still a real doctor, who has not the SEN (Sceptic evidence neglect) but looks openminded at what and how it works. I take the best of both!
Isn´t that what makes a real doctor and nor a theorizing gentlemen in the ivory tower….
Bravo!
I one single comment, you managed to include a record number of falsehoods:
1) Hahnemann was not brilliant nor innovative.
2) I am not an angry dogmatist.
3) Hahnemann was never a guru to Natalie Grams.
4) ‘Mrs Grams’ has a doctor title in front of her name – not that this is important for most of us, but for you it seems to be, ‘Dr. Heinrich Huemmler’!
5) You seem to imply that homeopathy is reproducibly proven.
6) You seem to suggest that people who disagree with you are ‘theorizing gentlemen in the ivory tower’.
WHAT A BONANZA OF FALLACIES!
Thank you – I enjoyed them.
Indeed, Roger. And it’s amazing how the quacks always attribute it to their nostrums rather than the natural progression of the disease.
And it’s amazing how these supposed miraculous powers of homeopathy do not show themselves when subjected to proper clinical trials.
If it were that powerful, that miraculous, the effects would have been demonstrated unarguably in trials. Proper trials often get stopped because the benefits of the intervention are so clear that to continue to apply the placebo arm is unethical. Has this ever happened in a trial of homeopathy, Roger?
No. And it never will.
All you have are your worthless anecdotes and dreams of significance, Roger.
It’s Berkeley you berk. Is your opinion that ventilators do not help to keep Covid19 patients alive yours alone or are you voicing the general opinion within the bloodsucking community? Homeopaths around the world are brain-dead bloodsuckers.
No, its the opinion of a NYC ER doc who posted a video, along with many other doctors. The ER doc has treated thousands of patients and realized that it is not a typical pneumonia where the patient weakens and needs the ventilator to support their breathing. What he is seeing is their blood is not absorbing oxygen due to destruction of the hemoglobin, evidenced by high ferratin levels in the blood and cyanosis. The ventilators my be actually worsening the problem by damaging the alveoli.
Low dose Chloroquine and Zinc may be a more effective solution because Zinc interferes with the virus in the cell and the Chloroquine is a Zinc ionophore that transports the Zince into the cell.
Leigh Jackson is definitely brain dead, accepting the conventional wisdom like a drone. What he knows about homeopaths would fit on his pin-head.
Thanks @Roger Your explanation why ventilator use is not more effective makes pefect sense. Thanks.
Please, Roger. This is getting rather boring. When you cite something you found, that you think is important enough to tell us about, you need to support it with a reference so we can evaluate the source.
Otherwise it is just yet another something, jolly old Roger misunderstood, misread, hyped up or just dreamed up. We cannot try to take you seriously if you do not heed the red banner above.
Here is the first video by the ER doc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWaq8HoEROU
The doctor says that ventilators are needed for patients with Covid19. He says that protocols need to change. He does not say that they don’t work for this virus.
@Roger
This is my understanding also Roger, like I was stating to Dr. JMK, this virus attacks the cell differently. Your version is somewhat simplified, but in short…. correct.
Perhaps you are referring to Dr Zelenko who has claimed very good results using that treatment in a Jewish community in New York.
He says that the ultimate way to beat the coronavirus is herd immunity and a vaccine.
It may be that Chloroquine/Zinc treatment will over time prove to be the best treatment until we have herd immunity and a vaccine. However, it is being used to treat a completely new disease. Only time will tell what the medium to long term consequences of the treatment will be.
Leigh Jackson,
you should get more up-to-date information instead of using dirty terms, otherwise you will only discredit yourself
as a serious discussion partner
“Some doctors moving away from ventilators for virus patients”
https://apnews.com/8ccd325c2be9bf454c2128dcb7bd616d
Heinrich not-a doctor,
Did you read all of the article, and it is an article, not a study?
I was too hasty, it seems. HH’s title hould not be mistaken for what in the UK would mean medical doctor? That’s a relief.
he claims to be a real doctor who previously worked in real medicine.
So Dr? HH. Is it just me but I have lost the correction window over the last few days?
Here you can find more about Dr. Heinrich Hümmer.
https://donotlink.it/GlLKm
He first graduated as a civil engineer before he decided to study medicine and then switched to the pseudo-medicine homeopathy.
A German proverb says:: “Schuster bleib bei deinen Leisten” (A cobbler should stick to his last). It would have been better if he had heeded this advice and remained an engineer.
Promoting and practicing homeopathy signifies serious lack of analytical intellectual capacity, blind religious fixation or both. Whether the cause is that the homeopathist got stuck under a heavy load of cognitive dissonance and acts in some kind of intellectual locked-in state, or is simply sub-intelligent, is dificult to tell. It probably differs among the homeopathists. As we have seen examples of here, many of them are definitely not the sharpest knives in the drawer.
Alas, genuine medical schooling and postgraduate training-tenure is not a guarantee against a seriously delusional mind. Getting into and through medical school needs a modicum of intelligence so I guess MD-homeopathists are of the religious zealot type?
What I find extremely disturbing is when authorised medical doctors, whom people trust with their health problems, practice make-believe services like homeopathy.
It is certainly not compatible with good medical practice for MD’s to apply fake medicine of this kind.
It is of course impossible to get rid of fake and fraudulent health related “services altogether, but t is important that legislation be adjusted to offer protection against fake and fraudulent health care provided by accredited health care personnel.
Bjorn, you should actually sit in on a homeopathic clinic, meet some homeopaths (Not homeopathists, btw) and experience homeopathy directly instead of pulling your baseless speculations out of your nether regions. I would say that you are worshiping at the narrow range of what you conceive to be science i.e. what fits in your paradigm.
Unless you believe that you are nothing more than a bag of chemicals, then you are operating under cognitive dissonance every time you go to a Con-Med doctor and are treated as such.
Why dont members of the SS (socalled skeptics) like you just stick to managing your own health care instead of advocating authoritarian control of other peoples’ healthcare? When we need the nanny state controlling our health care we will be sure to let you know.
@Roger
I have first hand experience of how homeopaths operate: https://majikthyse.wordpress.com/2018/05/12/going-undercover-homeopathy/
Yes we are more than “bags of chemicals”, we are a complex system of biochemical processes, developed by natural selection over a very long time. If you are suggesting that there is something supernatural or intangible about how the body works, then you are deluded.
Nobody is telling you what to do. Is it not reasonable to expect evidence for implausible claims? You obviously have a different definition of what evidence is, one that is not supported by the overwhelming majority people who work in science. But I doubt you will rely on homeopathy when you have that heart attack.
Brilliant, Les! You, but no one else on the planet has figured out how Consciousness works! Congratulations! Its all just a bunch of chemical reactions. Thanks for revealing that to us! So all these random chemical processes define who you are. Well I guess that settles it. Dont be surprised when you get woken early in the morning for the Nobel prize announcement.
Bjorn and the rest of the SS, Do want to tell us what to do. They want the government to decide what form of medicine we have to take. If we dont want to be bankrupted, poisoned even killed by conventional medicine, tough luck. They in their infinite wisdom have decided we are not capable of making our own decisions on this score.
Homeopaths have lots of evidence. Just like Con-Med doctors who rely on well documented case histories for a large part of their medical practice, homeopaths do the same. We have 200+ years of well documented case histories of cures. Its just not the type of evidence that you think we should show you.
Fortunately I havent had to use homeopathy for a heart attack. But I havent used conventional medicine in 28 years except for testing and dental work. I have used homeopathy for jet lag (multiple times), dysentery (twice), malaria (no relapse, India 1995, 10k deaths in that epidemic), sprained ankle, poison oak (three times), food poisoning, blunt injury traumas (many times), parasites (both tested and symptoms), severe URT illnesses, digestive problems, carpal tunnel syndrome, 1st&2nd degree burns (many times) and abscesses. Most of these conditions resolved immediately or over night, except the malaria which took 3 days and the digestive stuff that took longer. Thats just what I can remember for myself and doesnt include my clients.
“Homeopaths have lots of evidence. Just like Con-Med doctors who rely on well documented case histories for a large part of their medical practice, homeopaths do the same. We have 200+ years of well documented case histories of cures. Its just not the type of evidence that you think we should show you.”
AND I HAVE LOTS OF CAVIAR IN MY FRIDGE – EXCEPT, LIKE YOU, I ALLPY MY OWN DEFINITION AND CALL CEDDAR CHEESE ‘CAVIAR’.
Methinks Roger doth protest too much. A very long comment often signals little substance. So let me respond briefly, in terms which even he should be able to grasp.
1. I did not use the word random. This is a common misunderstanding of evolution. Mutations are random, selection is not.
2. Physicians use case reports as signposts towards proper trials that need to be done. They are not used as the sole source of evidence.
3. Thanks for the long list of mostly self-limiting conditions. Worthless as evidence.
And your short comment indicates that you havent thought it through. Tell me how saying that our consciousness is caused by chemical reactions and evolution, explains anything. Since it obviously doesnt explain anything, there has to be something more involved that we dont understand, something beyond our physicality, whether you want to accept it or not.
Contrary to your idealized world, Con-Med doctors dont base most of their decisions on trials. EBM (Evidently Baseless Medicine) fanatics like to think so, but its not the case. Then of course we have to consider maybe half the trials are performed so poorly as to be useless, according the the editor of Lancet in a 2015 editorial.
Let me know when you can cure a sprained ankle, dysentery, poison oak and 2nd degree burns over-night and deadly malaria in 3 days.
@Roger
“Tell me how saying that our consciousness is caused by chemical reactions and evolution, explains anything”.
Hard to respond to such gobbledegook, but I’ll try. For a start, how do you define consciousness? Your argument seems to be that we don’t have an explanation for consciousness, so it must be supernatural. That is very close to `the god of the gaps’ argument. Part of the problem is that we think we have free will, but maybe we don’t. Have a look at the work of Bruce Hood; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Hood_(psychologist). I am not trying to explain consciousness, you brought it up not me. I am just saying that we know a lot about information processing in the CNS and while there is a lot we don’t know, there is no need to invoke imaginary actors to explain that. Occam’s Razor.
“Con-Med doctors don’t base most of their decisions on trials.”
Do you have evidence for that?
You can make all the claims you like, but without evidence they are worthless. Don’t forget that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
“Let me know when you can cure a sprained ankle, dysentery, poison oak and 2nd degree burns over-night and deadly malaria in 3 days.”
Let me know when you supposedly cure something which isn’t perfectly capable of self-resolution. Your tiresome anecdotes are just that, Roger. Do you want me to tell you about all the patients whose toothache I have cured with my remote powers? You really need to look up the natural progression of certain pathologies in different individuals. But you won’t because it would interfere with your delusions of significance.
Roger stated bluntly and in no uncertain terms that ventilators were no use for the Covid19 virus. I asked if that was the general opinion in the bloodsucking community. Roger says that it is not, but that it is the opinion of some doctors.
Perhaps it will become evident that ventilators are a danger and not a help to patients. As of this moment however, you would have to be a complete idiot as a non-doctor to pontificate on the question.
Bloodsucking idiot or otherwise.
Okay. Having listened to a doctor on Roger’s link; Roger having claimed that some doctors were saying that ventilators were no help for Covid19; having found that the doctor on the link said the exact and precise opposite – VENTILATORS ARE NEEDED FOR COVID19; I hearbye declare Roger to be not a liar.
Roger, you are a complete, utter and total fool.
That being so, and feeling sure that you are one who must, will and shall always have the final word, please go ahead, or at least prove me wrong on this one, if nothing else.
As a doctor you would do well to practice what you preach. Catch up on two hundred years of more up-to-date medical information. Otherwise you only make a fool of yourelf.
Leigh Jackson.
Here is a doctor’s take on how to treat CoVid:
Dr Klinghardt discusses Chloroquine with Zinc and Azithromycin. He also discusses herbal approaches that accomplish the same thing. He works with other doctors around the world that are using his protocols: http://www.sophiaeducate.com/emerging-issues-re-the-outbreak-dr-dietrich-klinghardt/ this talk is aimed at his patients but he references the research papers that underlay his protocol.
Your prejudice is really ugly. Like all prejudice it is based on ignorance. You have no understanding of the homeopathy community. When this CoVid event is over, why dont you take a vacation and go to Mumbai, India and sit in on a busy clinic at the homeopathic medical school or Dr Farokh Master’s office. They use all the same medical testing that regular docs use to gauge their results, and they treat the full range of illnesses that regular docs see, which is quite extreme in India. They will let you look at their patient records and see their results.
@Roger
Dr Farokh Master does not have any publications on PubMed.
@Roger
You are citing is a brass-necked quack’s unevidenced and untested notions on how this should be treated. In his own words: “this is based only on my prior clinical experience with SARS and MERSA”
He’s not been anywhere near a Covid-19 patient.
Truly pathetic.
@Roger
“You have no understanding of the homeopathy community.”
Is the collective noun a charlatanry?
I’ve been ill in India. Delhi belly is well named. Ignorance, poverty and faith underlies homeopathy’s common use there. I knew perfectly well that the only cure for my illness was to be even more scrupulous in how and what I was eating and and to wait for my body’s own defences to do their work. I did not need a placebo. I got better.
You are a brain-dead bloodsucker Roger.
You have form on your links Roger. The other one did not back up your claim that ventilators were no use for Covid19.
I know all that I need to know that homeopathy is complete bunk. Basic science and lack of any good evidence tell me so.
And hilarity ensued:
https://www.timesnownews.com/india/article/prince-charles-was-cured-of-coronavirus-through-ayurveda-homoeopathy-ayush-minister/573108