They say, one has to try everything at least once – except line-dancing and incest. So, when I was invited to co-organize a petition, I considered it and thought: WHY NOT?
Here is the text (as translated by myself) of our petition to the German Medical Association:
Dear President Dr Reinhardt,
Dear Ms Lundershausen,
Mrs Held,
Dear Ms Johna,
We, the undersigned doctors, would like to draw your attention to the insistence of individual state medical associations on preserving “homeopathy” as a component of continuing medical education. We hope that you, by virtue of your office, will ensure a nationwide regulation so that this form of sham treatment [1], as has already happened in other European countries, can no longer call itself part of medicine.
We justify our request by the following facts:
- After the landmark vote in Bremen in September 2019 to remove “homeopathy” from the medical training regulations, 10 other state medical associations have so far followed Bremen’s example. For reasons of credibility and transparency, it would be desirable if the main features of the training content taught were not coordinated locally in the future, but centrally and uniformly across the country so that there is no “training tourism”. Because changes to a state’s own regulations of postgraduate training are only binding for the examination committee of the respective state, this does not affect national regulations but is reduced to only a symbolic character without sufficient effects on the portfolio of medical education nationwide.
- Medicine always works through the combination of a specifically effective part and non-specific placebo effects. By insisting on a pseudo-medical methodology – as is “homeopathy” represents in our opinion – patients are deprived of the specific effective part and often unnecessarily deprived of therapy appropriate to the indication. Tragically, it happens again and again that the “therapeutic window of opportunity” for an appropriate therapy is missed, tumors can grow to inoperable size, etc.
- Due to the insistence of individual state medical associations on the “homeopathic doctrine of healing” as part of the medical profession, we are increasingly exposed to the blanket accusation that, by tolerating this doctrine, we are supporting and promoting ways of thinking and world views that are detached from science. This is a dangerous situation, which in times of a pandemic manifests itself in misguided aggression reflected not just in vaccination skepticism and vaccination refusal, but also in unacceptable personal attacks and assaults on vaccinating colleagues in private practice.
Responsible:
Dr. med. Dent. Hans-Werner Bertelsen
Prof. Dr. med. Edzard Ernst
George A. Rausche
You can sign the petition here:
13 Responses to Petition to the German Medical Association
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Signed!
Signed
Sure! Limit other peoples’ ability to get their desired form of medical treatment. I would expect nothing less from the SS (So-called Skeptic) cohort. Way to go!
what a moronic comment!
What else do you expect from Roger?
quite so
@Roger
Homeopathy is not medical treatment, it is a form of deception, fraud if you will: people pay for something that they never receive, i.e. a proven effective treatment for their ailments. The ‘success’ of homeopathy is based on the fact that the vast majority of ailments that people have resolve naturally, after which homeopaths take the credit and of course their customer’s credit card – and then of course lure other customers by trumpeting their ‘success’.
And no, the fact that many homeopaths first and foremost deceive themselves is not a mitigating factor any more. Especially the past few decades, scientific research has made it abundantly clear that there is not even a single condition for which homeopathy can offer an effective treatment – except hyperpecuniosis, of course. Homeopaths really should know better these days.
Unless homeopathy can produce solid, independently repeatable evidence that at least some of their concoctions have a significant therapeutic effect, homeopathy is nothing but a cult, a system of belief, and not medicine.
If you don’t agree with the initiative to judge homeopathy by the same standards that apply to real medicine, then feel free to start a petition of your own, explaining why homeopathy should continue to enjoy the curious privileges it still has today. Because any homeopathic concoction can simply be registered as a ‘medicine’, even though it is never tested for efficacy or even safety. Any normal pharmaceutical company would be forced to shut down immediately if they would operate in the same manner.
And oh, your thinly veiled comparison of scientists and sceptics with Nazi criminals is unacceptable. I’d almost suggest that you get a permanent ban for this. Then again, I am a great proponent of freedom of speech, especially when that enables people like you to show their true character.
Roger has previously been warned by others responders in this Blog, about his use of ‘SS’. It is disgraceful, not in the slightest witty or funny, and I for one think it should lead to a ban.
@Richard Rasker
“The ‘success’ of homeopathy is based on the fact that the vast majority of ailments that people have resolve naturally, after which homeopaths take the credit”
Just think about what you just admitted … Richard.
Why can not the same thing be said with regard to CONmed ?
I’ll phrase it for you….
The success of CONmed is based on the fact that the vast majority of ailments that people have resolve naturally, after which CONmed takes the credit”
If it’s true for homeopathy, it’s true for CONmed also.
@Listener
Following comment by Richard clearly implies that conventional medicine is based on evidence and homeopathy is not.
To no ones surprise, you go to great lengths to take Richard’s comments out of context before making asinine assertions like this:
@Listener
As usual, you miss the point. Yes, most ailments resolve naturally, regardless if someone with one such condition consults a quack or a real doctor. And yes, the placebo effect often applies, regardless if the patient consults a quack or a real doctor.
But no, real doctors usually don’t take the credit if someone’s complaints resolved naturally – because contrary to quacks, they KNOW what (probably) works and what doesn’t, and they are honest in telling this to their patients.
– If real doctors think that a problem is not serious, they usually tell patients to just wait and see if things get better by themselves. They don’t come up with completely made-up diagnoses and they don’t tell patients fairy tales and nonsense that homeopaths and other quacks so often come up with to ‘explain’ what they’re doing.
– If patients with a more or less innocent condition are suffering nonetheless, e.g. because of pain, itch, or other discomfort, real doctors can usually offer relief. Homeopaths can’t really help here, as their sugar crumbs don’t do much, apart perhaps from eliciting a placebo effect (but that will also happen with real medicine).
– Quacks are by definition medically incompetent, and will often fail to recognize serious problems that require the intervention of a real doctor. I witnessed someone die because the quack lady he consulted never recognized a condition that even a second-year medical student would have diagnosed within a minute.
@Richard Rasker
Here Richard
I give you some much needed reading material.
Study and learn.
https://www.learning-mind.com/having-the-last-word-important-deal/
https://scienceblogs.de/gesundheits-check/2021/10/16/kurz-gemeldet-bayerischer-aerztetag-beschliesst-weiterbildungsordnung-ohne-homoeopathie/