Recently, I received an email with this ‘special offer’ for purchasing a book and was impressed – but not in a positive sense:
Dr Farokh’s commendable work at upto 22% off – Healing Cancer. For Limited time period only.
Healing Cancer: A Homoeopathic Approach
As a homeopath one should not deter oneself in dealing with any type of cases, be it cancer. But for executing that an ultimate guidance is needed. Cancer is so much prevalent and challenging medical problem of today that a trustworthy source of accurate information becomes pertinent and this work of Dr. Farokh Master immediately propels at the top of quality books for cancer. Based on Master’s 40 years of experience this book was written for students to understand the basis of oncology and for practitioners for brushing-up of their knowledge in this growing discipline. Author says that to get a grasp on cancer cases we should believe in the potential of the homeopathic treatment, that healing from cancer refers to internal process of becoming whole and feeling harmonious with yourself and your environment.To even start with handling the cases of cancer one should be aware of understanding of cancer, its cause, pathophysiology, different types, conventional treatment and their side effects, integrative medicines, social problems in the treatment, such topics are well casted by Volume 1 of the book.
Peak points of Volume 1- • A full chapter is dealing with Iscador, a relatively old method, very effective but unfortunately underemployed.• Published papers about Homeopathy in the treatment of cancer are presented before the last chapter which is on some of most used allopathic drugs in cancer with a focus on their side-effects. After the coverage of basic information on oncology in Volume 1 comes the Volume 2 which explores topics like understanding cancer from homoeopathic point of view, constitutional remedies, therapeutics of individual cancers, nutrition, general management.
Peak points of Volume 2-• A whole chapter on Cadmium salts and cancer.• 51 “lesser known remedies” are briefly quoted and their usefulness in different situations and types of cancer exposed.• A long chapter deals with the “Indian drugs”, it is important that these remedies are used mostly in tincture or low potencies, as herbal or Ayurvedic remedies or food supplements relieving the patients. • The choice and differentiation between the remedies is then helped by the “Repertory of Cancer”, very well compiled and a highly useful section. “Clinical tips from my practice” given as a sub-chapter. • It ends with recommendations on how to deal with radiation illness and the side-effects of conventional treatment, as well as the treatment of pain and help with palliative care.
For fighting and curing cancer and improving the quality and quantity of life of people, knowledge of Homeopathy, both philosophically and scientifically is needed which this work of art portrays delightfully.
About Book Author:
Dr. Farokh J. Master’s birth into homeopathy was in the year 1976, when he joined Bombay homeopathic medical college, after giving up his studies at the orthodox school of medicine. Dr Master was instrumental in starting homeopathic out-patient dept in many allopathic hospitals viz. Bombay Hospital, KEM Hospital & Ruby Hall, Pune. Besides his work as a senior Homeopath of the HHC, Dr. Farokh Master is teaching homeopathy (advanced level) at the Mumbai Homeopathic Medical College, part of Mumbai university. He is also teaching at other homeopathic colleges in India and abroad. He has given seminars in various countries like Austria, Australia, India, Japan etc. Dr Master has written more than 50 books like -The Homeopathic Dream Dictionary, Cross References of the Mind, Perceiving Rubrics of the Mind, The State of Mind affecting the Foetus, Tumors and Homeopathy, The Bedside Organon of Medicine, The proving of Mocassin Snake, Bungarus, etc. Dr. Master is the originator of many recent new approaches and insights in homoeopathy.
Some people claim that homeopaths are not dangerous and argue that their placebos cannot harm patients. I have long disagreed with this position. As homeopathy is not an effective therapy (it has no effects beyond placebo), its use simply means allowing diseases to remain untreated.
- If we are dealing with a common cold, this might be little more than a costly nuisance.
- If we are dealing with a chronic condition such as arthritis, it means causing unnecessary suffering.
- If we are dealing with life-threatening diseases like cancer, it means shortening the life of patients.
This is the politest way I can put it. There are of course other, less polite terms for ‘shortening a life’! Most of us shy away from using them in the context of homeopathy. In the case of the author of this book, we might make an exception. In my view, he is someone who is deluded to the point where he is ready to kill his patients with homeopathy.
PS
Iscador is not even a homeopathic remedy.
75 Responses to Homeopathy kills vulnerable patients
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This is basically a follow-up of a previous post, where my conclusion was that this Farokh Master person appears to be a pathological liar and BSer of almost Trumpian proportions. Almost everything he claims and says seems to be either an outright lie or a wild exaggeration of the truth.
Edzard, why dont you do as I did and go and sit in on Dr Farokh Master’s clinic in Mumbai and read the case histories of his cancer patients. You will see the before and after results, documented in clinical test results. You could even interview his patients directly. This would be better and more convincing than basing your judgements on your imagination of what he is doing in his clinics.
While you are there you could also visit with Dr A.U.Ramakrishnan who wrote “A Homoeopathic Approach to Cancer” and claims very high cure rates for various cancers.
Exactly! EE, Have you booked your flight tickets to Mumbai?
Why would you not follow unsolicited yet brilliant advise from a random internet troll?
I’d rather remove my own appendix
Gee, defame Dr Master on the internet, accuse him of killing people, but by all means dont investigate. Sounds like typical “So-called Skeptic” activity. EE is maintaining the standards.
Investigate what? We already know there is no cure for cancer in homeopathy.
From first hand experience in his clinic I have seen the before and after conventional test results of Dr Master’s cancer cases cured with homeopathy. But by all means just go with your imagination. Please dont investigate. I wouldnt want your cherished mechanical paradigm to be challenged.
Maybe your eyes betrayed you, stan.
I am pretty sure these homeopathic eye drops will help: https://www.advancedeyecaresolutions.com/eye-care-services/natural-eye-drops/cataract-eye-drops-with-cineraria/
I have seen person blind-as-a-bat regain his eyesight after using those drops.
@stan
Like anyone who claims that they can treat cancer with homeopathy, Farokh Master is a liar, a fraud, and a de facto murderer(*). His ‘case histories’ are probably made up or at the very least incomplete, lacking follow-up (with patients still dying of their cancer at a later point) – just like those American televangelists who claim to ‘heal’ people from cancer, being wheelchair-bound or otherwise seriously disabled/ill/whatever all the time. When you actually follow up no those ‘healings’, it turns out that ALL of those patients either a) died of their cancer after all, or b) could walk just fine, but were just shoved into a wheelchair for the show, or c) did not improve at all.
*: If you claim that you can cure cancer with shaken water, and lots of people believe this, then you are a murderer – because there will inevitably be people who think that they don’t need real medicine any more after you ‘cured’ them.
Everything you say in this post, is purely imagined. I challenge you to actually investigate instead of defaming and accusing him of murder. Unfortunate that he cant take you to court as you deserve.
@stan
I DID investigate the man, much better than you did, and everything suggests that he is a liar and a fraud. There is no independent evidence at all for the vast majority of the claims he makes about himself or his successes, and any western institutes that he claims to have worked with have never heard of the man. And as homeopathy has no effect whatsoever beyond placebo, he is also a murderer when he convinces cancer patients that he ‘cured’ them, and thus need no further cancer treatments. ANY homeopath or other quack who claims to successfully treat cancer patients is a murderer in my opinion.
But tell me, what are your reasons for defending this horrible person? You clearly have no evidence that can disprove my conclusions about him – otherwise you would have come up with it by now. I advise you to do a bit of research of your own, and stop being the gullible believer in alternative nonsense and/or troll.
I spent 6 weeks in his Mumbai clinic and looked at the case reports with the conventional before and after test results of his cancer cases cured with hmeopathy.
@stan
I think you made this up on the spot, for several reasons:
– No legitimate practitioner would grant third parties (let alone an arbitrary internet troll) access to their case files without very good reason. Then again, quacks, charlatans and frauds are of course not exactly known for letting ethical and moral standards, including pesky little things such as patient confidentiality, stand in the way of making a buck.
– And if this cancer quack indeed has thousands of case files with conventional diagnostic data confirming his highly implausible claims, then why hasn’t he had these results studied, evaluated and published by REAL doctors and scientists? The answer is of course simple: there are no real case files, just lies, fabrications and perhaps testimonials from hapless victims who believed this fraud when he told them that they were cured.
– Nothing you have said in the past gives the impression that you are capable of understanding even basic medical or scientific information. You could not recognize a legitimate patient case file if it bit you in the behind.
– Apparently this is his famous ‘clinic’ – a residential building with some small businesses at ground level. And here some pictures of the interior of this ‘clinic’:
https://drfarokhmaster.com/indian-student/
https://www.homeopathy360.com/2020/02/24/workshop-by-dr-farokh-master-at-turkey/
which he apparently shares with his daughter:
http://www.drrukshinmaster.com/gallery.html
And a waiting room ‘that is always full’:
http://www.homeoint.org/site/master/
Yes, if your ‘clinic’ is just two cluttered ten-foot-square rooms, then it will indeed be ‘always full’.
So this decrepit joke of an office is where you spent six whole weeks?
@stan
And oh, if anyone should be taken to court, it would be this Farokh Master person, on charges of fraud, deception, endangering the health of people, and second degree manslaughter. Or perhaps his victims or their next of kin should file a civil lawsuit, like this one against another cancer quack.
Anyway, we all know what happened the last time when a cancer quack tried to silence a critic by means of a SLAPP lawsuit.
Aaaah, Stan, any chance you might actually answer a question I’ve asked you several times about real, proper evidence for homeopathy being able to cure certain chronic, uncurable conditions?
Not just the vague, handy wavy “It’s in the literature!” you’ve given before, as I cannot find that literature.
If you cant find the literature of cured cases using homeopathy you arent looking for it. I have software with 850 books which is just a small selection of what is available from 220+ years of clinical experience. All those books are available in hard copy too. B.Jain publishers has a big selection.
Just like most of conventional medicine is based on clinical experience, so is homeopathy.
‘stan’ wrote “I have software with 850 books and other publishings…”
We addressed that the last time you wrote it: on Sunday 30 October 2022 at 21:01
In due respect, he Association of the Scientific Medical Societies (Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Wissenschaftlichen Medizinischen Fachgesellschaften, AWMF) of Germany included reference to homeopathic treatment as a part of the guidelines for complementary medicine in the treatment of cancer. The AWMF advises on matters and tasks of fundamental and interdisciplinary interest in medicine, develops recommendations and resolutions and represents them at the institutions occupied with such tasks.
The AWMF regularly organizes the best-known cancer institutions in conventional medicine in order to define the state of the art for the treatment of cancer for therapy. Here’s a link to their recent guidelines for complementary medicine in cancer treatment…in German, link to PDF – 630 pages: https://www.leitlinienprogramm-onkologie.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Downloads/Leitlinien/Komplement%C3%A4r/Version_1/LL_Komplement%C3%A4r_Langversion_1.0.pdf ).
This highly respected conventional medical body expresses support for homeopathy in oncology: “There are data from an RCT on the use of classic homeopathy. … due to the strongly positive results of this study, the use of classic homeopathy (initial anamnesis in combination with individual prescription) to improve the quality of life in oncological patients in addition to tumor therapy can be considered.”
Homeopathy is the most frequently used complementary therapy in supportive care in oncology (SCO) in France today, and its use in cancer treatment is steadily increasing. Two cross-sectional surveys of French physicians were conducted involving (1) 150 specialist oncologists; (2) 97 homeopathic MD general practitioners (HGPs) and 100 non-homeopathic MD general practitioners (NHGPs) (Bagot, Theunissen, Serral, 2021).
This survey found that 10% of oncologists stated they prescribe homeopathic medicine; 36% recommend homeopathic medicines; 54% think that homeopathic medicines are potentially helpful in SCO. Two-thirds of the NHGPs sometimes prescribe homeopathy in the context of SCO, and 58% regularly refer their patients to homeopathic doctors.
The researchers concluded that homeopathy is viewed favorably as an integrated SCO therapy by the majority of French physicians involved with cancer patients-oncologists and GPs. Symptoms of particular relevance include fatigue, anxiety, peripheral neuropathy, sleep disturbance, and hot flashes. In such clinical situations, response to conventional therapies may be suboptimal, and homeopathy is considered a reliable therapeutic option. These surveys highlight the fact that homeopathy has gained legitimacy as the first complementary therapy in SCO in France.
A survey published in Annals of Oncology, one of the most respected cancer journals, evaluated 647 patients who were included in this cross-sectional cohort study and had to fill in questionnaires [health-related quality of life (QoL) (Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-General Scale), depression and anxiety (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale), fatigue (Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory) and expectancies toward treatment] (Guethlin, Walach, Naumann, 2010).
References:
Bagot JL, Theunissen I, Serral A. Perceptions of homeopathy in supportive cancer care among oncologists and general practitioners in France. Support Care Cancer. 2021 Mar 24. doi: 10.1007/s00520-021-06137-5. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 33763723. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33763723/
Guethlein C, Walach H, Naumann J, Bartsch HH, and Rostock M. Characteristics of cancer patients using homeopathy compared with those in conventional care: A cross-sectional study. Annals of Oncology. 21(5):1094-9, 2010 May. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/38037417_Characteristics_of_cancer_patients_using_homeopathy_compared_with_those_in_conventional_care_A_cross-sectional_study
It seems that many of your medical colleagues disagree with you!
you really have no idea what you are talking about!
Es liegen Daten aus einer RCT zum Einsatz von klassischer Homöopathie vor. Diese
Erstanamnese in Kombination mit individueller Mittelverschreibung kann zur
Verbesserung der Lebensqualität bei onkologischen Patienten zusätzlich zur
Tumortherapie erwogen werden.
what they are saying that there are positive data fo=rom one trial; this is the study by Frass – the study which is no undersuspicion!!!
Only in YOUR world is someone guilty until proven otherwise…and only in your world does someone only focus on 1 of 3 references provided. “How convenient” (for you).
you are fantasizing again; just like when you called me a liar.
Well, in this case, you’ve shown how evasive you are. You claim that I “don’t know what I’m talking about,” even though you cleverly only critique 1 of 3 references…and the one reference that you critique, you deem to be guilty before any judgment is made. Yeah, so you again prove that you’re good at being fuzzy with the facts or just evasive.
and I thought you wanted to apologize for calling me a liar;
as you don’t, I have no choice but to call you a liar.
Mr Ullman, you dare to speak of evasion?
I have asked you FORTY-THREE TIMES to name a laboratory that can distinguish homeopathic water from other water, which you said in this Blog “only fools or liars” doubted could be done. And FORTY-THREE TIMES, you have evaded answering.
‘Fess up man, and admit that you cannot. And have the grace to acknowledge that people who doubt that homeopathic water can be distinguished from other water are not necessarily fools or liars.
I only see red herrings, smoke grenades and moving of goal posts in your answer. You have no proofs or evidences. That is why you constantly resort to baseless accusations and insults against Edzard Ernst. The Emperor Dana is still naked.
@Dana Ullman
You seem to be making the same error over and over again: believing that one-off studies reporting positive effects of homeopathy constitute convincing evidence for its efficacy. The efficacy of a particular treatment or substance is only established when multiple(!) replications of rigorous(!) studies show that most of these studies indeed have the same positive outcomes.
One study with a positive outcome = no study. Two studies with the same outcome = ‘Hmm, there might be something there’. Three studies with the same outcome = ‘OK, let’s see if this is indeed an effect’.
If you do enough studies, there will always be some with a false positive outcome. No doubt, you have a couple of hundred positive homeopathy studies that you can start waving around – but unfortunately, they’re virtually all the one-off kind. So far, you appear to be stuck in the ‘one study’ stage.
And then specifically about your current contributions:
I don’t think that you have actually read this PDF document you refer to. As Edzard already noticed, the only positive result for homeopathy was a highly suspicious study by Frass, which was also categorized as low-level evidence, on which no recommendations should be based (see pp. 104):
“Empfehlungsgrad 0, Level of Evidence 2b: There is data from an RCT on the use of classical homeopathy …”
So this one-off study can be dismissed for several reasons.
Sorry, but this is at best evidence for homeopathy’s popularity, NOT its efficacy. Please remember that surveys generally measure opinions, not facts.
This one can be dismissed too.
Sigh … and another survey … And oh, once again you either failed to read the study or are misrepresenting its purpose and outcomes. This is what the study tried to research (emphasis added):
“The objective of the study presented here was to describe patient cohorts and disease variables of cancer patients who begin classical homeopathy compared with cancer patients who begin conventional treatment.”
Not a word about any efficacy or outcomes of those homeopathic treatments.
And let’s not even get into the foolishness committed by Walach when he excreted a ‘paper’ claiming that Covid-19 vaccination cause twice as many deaths as it prevented.
This study too can be dismissed, as it simply does not even describe what you suggest it does.
So what do you think? Did I address your contributions in a thorough enough manner?
https://edzardernst.com/2018/03/i-smell-a-rat-something-extremely-odd-about-the-positive-studies-of-homeopathy/
https://edzardernst.com/2016/05/conspiracy-theories-assumptions-opinions-evidence-and-scientific-facts/
https://edzardernst.com/2012/11/what-is-and-what-isnt-clinical-evidence-and-why-is-the-distinction-important/
https://edzardernst.com/2018/01/but-my-therapy-does-work-only-recently-it-cured-a-patient/
Dana may or may not have read the studies he cites – I don’t think that matters. All he’s doing is listing superficially impressive sounding papers in the expectation that at least some readers unable or unwilling to read them for themselves will assume there must be something in his claims. It’s a technique I frequently encounter with the Steiner cultists around my town, and the depressing thing is that it works.
The funniest was in support of Steiner’s claim that the heart is not a pump but that the blood circulates of its own ‘vital force’. I think the paper was by a French doctor and of course it made no such claim. But it did say something to the effect that the heart should not be thought of like a central heating pump in a totally passive system. Hardly the same!
Dana
Those were studies of homeopathy as supportive therapy, not as cancer treatment. You’re an insignificant, laughable clown.
Yes…and research consistently shows that patients who ADD homeopathic treatment to their care get BETTER RESULTS than patients who get conventional treatment AND a homeopathic interview (but no homeopathic medicine). Thanx for confirming that homeopathic treatment does provide a benefit beyond the homeopathic interview.
PLUS…even David Gorski acknowledges that ASCO “endorses integrative oncology” which includes homeopathy. Gorski also mentioned that the recent past-President of the Society for Integrative Oncology is an advocate for homeopathy. Thanx David. https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/asco-endorses-integrative-oncology-quackery-for-cancer-pain/
hello, liar
at it again?
Have you read it to the end, liar?
I’ve written on a number of occasions before how ASCO has increasingly embraced the nonsensical pseudoscience behind quackery like acupuncture, reflexology, and more. I was first gobsmacked by the blatantness of its embrace eight years ago, when I attended an ASCO meeting that featured a major session on “integrative oncology” full of credulous acceptance of alternative medicine modalities. Then, a few years ago, ASCO endorsed guidelines for the use of “integrative therapies” in the treatment of breast cancer patients, thus leading to a post by me explaining just how harmful this embrace of quackery was to cancer patients. I supposed that I shouldn’t have been too surprised, given that in 2010 JCO published a very disappointing editorial about a cancer treatment that was obviously rank quackery.
Unfortunately, ASCO and its journal JCO are not alone, as this sort of “integration” of quackery with medicine is finding its way into many journals, academic medical and cancer centers, and even NCI-designated comprehensive cancer centers. There are even, increasingly, training programs claiming to produce the next generation of “evidence-based” integrative practitioners, despite the inherent contradiction between “evidence based” and “integrative” practice.
It’s hard for me not to see a connection between the infiltration of the Trojan horse that is “integrative medicine” into academic medical centers and the tsunami of COVID-19 misinformation that we’ve been enduring. “Integrative medicine” trains physicians to ignore prior plausibility and embrace treatments that are wildly implausible from a basic biology perspective, and we’ve now seen a disturbingly large minority of doctors do the same thing with respect to COVID-19. You might think I’m overreaching, and it’s possible that I am, but when you embrace unreality in one area of medicine, how do you prevent that unreality from metastasizing to other areas of medicine? We normally expect professional societies like ASCO to be champions of science- and evidence-based medicine. Unfortunately, we are not living in normal times, and haven’t been since before the pandemic. The pandemic just accelerated the embrace of unreality.
@Dana
Unlike you, Dr. Gorski is a real doctor with a medical degree and a PhD: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/editorial-staff/david-h-gorski-md-phd-managing-editor/. So you should really be addressing him as Dr. David Gorski or Dr. Gorski. Not David or David Gorski or Gorski like you did in your comment.
Forget about reading the entire article, we know you cant read beyond the abstract. But in this case did you even read the title/summary of the article?
“ASCO endorses “integrative oncology” quackery for cancer pain
Last week, the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the Society for Integrative Oncology published guidelines for treating cancer pain. These guidelines endorsed quackery like reflexology and acupuncture. The infiltration of quackademic medicine continues apace in oncology.”
Dr. Gorski mentioning something in a negative sense does not support your argument for that very thing, Dana. His entire article argues against integration of quackery into medicine.
Gad. I never said that Gorski “endorsed” anything to do with integrative medicine. I just noted that he acknowledged that ASCO endorsed integrative oncology for pain management AND that he acknowledged that the former President of SIO was an advocate for homeopathy.
I never said or implied that Gorski endorses integrative medicine (this could not be further from the truth…and that is why I never said it!). #DUH.
The statements were verifiable…and are clear facts.
Anyone who claims otherwise has a problem with facts and truth, a common problem with people at this website.
The Dull-Man Law: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-dull-man-law/ strikes again!
Dana says:
If anyone with a working brain cell read my last post, they will conclude that I never claimed the above. Either you have a deficit in reading comprehension, or you are pulling a Trump by claiming something that is easily proven to be false.
… or both
@Dana
When you are caught in a falsehood, misstatement or half-truth, you always try to wriggle out of it like a slimy eel, claiming that it was meant differently. But you are not even particularly good at it.
BTW Dana, your comment is a prime example of what they refer to as The Dull-Man Law over at SBM: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-dull-man-law/
Disingenuous, as Orac/Dr David Gorski will acknowledge that someone does or says something and then eviscerate them for doing so, which he does repeatedly with “integrative” medicine, especially if it concerns oncology.
And Dana “Captain Insignificance” Ullman does it again
(Ad Hom? No. Statement of empirical, evidenced fact)
So why isn’t homeopathy a part of oncological care in all hospitals?
Because doctors know that homeopathy is nonsense and that the “research” you so triumphantly honk about is a heap of specious, pleading bollocks.
All this petulant stamping, shouting and handwaving you do, Dana. It achieves nothing other than further demonstrating your foolishness.
Oh and the laboratory which can tell homeopathic water from water. We’ve even given you a list from which you can choose. Yet you still remain silent because you’re a pathetic, inconsequential, busted flush.
Here’s the list again:
QUOTE Alan Henness on Sunday 26 December 2021 at 01:14
Since this is the season of goodwill, let me give additional help to our friend Dana.
Here’s the list of those 23 IITs along with the name and email address of their director. All you need to do, Dana, is tell us the number of the IIT so DavidB can send his email to the right person…
IIT Names Directors’ Name Email
1 IIT Kharagpur Prof. Virendra Kumar Tewari [email protected]
2 IIT Bombay Professor Subhasis Chaudhuri [email protected]
3 IIT Madras Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi [email protected]
4 IIT Kanpur Prof. Abhay Karandikar [email protected]
5 IIT Delhi Prof. V. Ramgopal Rao [email protected]
6 IIT Guwahati Prof. Dr. T. G. Sitharam [email protected]
7 IIT Roorkee Prof. Ajit K. Chaturvedi [email protected]
8 IIT Bhubaneswar Prof. R. V. Rajakumar [email protected]
9 IIT Hyderabad Professor B S Murty [email protected]
10 IIT Patna Prof. Pushpak Bhattacharyya [email protected]
11 IIT Gandhinagar Sudhir K Jain [email protected]
12 IIT Jodhpur Professor Santanu Chaudhury [email protected]
13 IIT Ropar Prof. Rajeev Ahuja [email protected]
14 IIT Indore Prof. Neelesh Kumar Jain [email protected]
15 IIT Mandi Prof. Ajit Kumar Chaturvedi [email protected]
16 IIT (BHU) Varanasi Prof. Pramod Kumar Jain [email protected]
17 IIT Palakkad Prof. P.B. Sunilkumar [email protected]
18 IIT Tirupati Prof. K. N. Satyanarayana [email protected]
19 IIT (ISM) Dhanbad Prof. Rajiv Shekhar [email protected]
20 IIT Bhilai Professor Rajat Moona [email protected]
21 IIT Goa Prof. B. K. Mishra [email protected]
22 IIT Jammu Prof. Manoj Singh Gaur [email protected]
23 IIT Dharwad Prof. P. Seshu [email protected]
@Dana Ullman
Really? What research would that be, exactly? Why don’t you provide, say, a small list of 10 RCT’s supporting your claim?
Here’s what I could find:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=homeopathy+%22attention+deficit%22
39 results – not exactly impressive, but OK, let’s take a closer look:
#1, PMID: 28700715: not explicitly positive for homeopathy(*)
#2, PMID: 22214252: not explicitly positive for homeopathy
#3, PMID: 17943868: negative for homeopathy
#4, PMID: 25875125: protocol description, not relevant
#5, PMID: 35701608: positive for homeopathy
#6, PMID: 32305638: not explicitly positive for homeopathy
#7: PMID: 32332462: negative for homeopathy
#8: PMID: 16296913: negative for homeopathy
#9: PMID: 20402610: negative for homeopathy
#10, PMID: 18061787: description of treatments offered, not relevant
#11, PMID: 21779824: negative for homeopathy
#12, PMID: 21718557: negative for homeopathy
#13, PMID: 19445793: negative for homeopathy
#14, PMID: 10570700: not explicitly positive for homeopathy
#15, PMID: 11795624: not explicitly positive for homeopathy
#16, PMID: 19105161: not explicitly positive for homeopathy
#17, PMID: 16047154: positive for homeopathy
#18, PMID: 15977318: not explicitly positive for homeopathy
#19, PMID: 33294627: description of treatments used, not relevant
#20, PMID: 13679122: description of treatments used, not relevant
#21, PMID: 17285788: negative for homeopathy
#22, PMID: 25755852: negative for homeopathy
#23, PMID: 25427521: slightly positive for homeopathy (note: pilot study, unblinded, A vs. A+B)
#24, PMID: 22732637: not explicitly positive for homeopathy
#25, PMID: 21733480: negative for homeopathy
#26, PMID: 11680800: editorial, not relevant
#27, PMID: 11680802: positive for homeopathy
#28, PMID: 31020392: not explicitly positive for homeopathy
#29, PMID: 16815512: editorial, not relevant
#30, PMID: 25744374: commentary, not relevant
#31, PMID: 19489708: not explicitly positive for homeopathy
#32, PMID: 20471578: not explicitly positive for homeopathy
#33, PMID: 19135960: negative (irrelevant nonsense about obtaining homeopathic ‘symptoms’)
#34, PMID: 17227746: negative (insufficient and confusing data)
#35, PMID: 16815520: positive for homeopathy
#36, PMID: 29511570: methodology discussion, not relevant
#37, PMID: 16566666: comment, not relevant
#38, PMID: 27211327: slightly positive for homeopathy (note: very low quality)
#39, PMID: 18657769: discussion about data collection, not relevant
Summarized:
– Only 5 positive ADD homeopathy trials could be identified, three of which can be discarded because they are pilots, low quality and/or at high risk of bias (e.g. #5, from our pseudoscientific friend Walach).
– No less than 23 ADD homeopathy trials fail to find positive effects for homeopathy.
Conclusion: your vehement claim of ‘… consistently show … BETTER RESULTS’ is untrue.
You are a liar.
And that’s all folks!
*: ‘Not explicitly positive for homeopathy’ means that homeopathy is mentioned as a treatment, but without any positive conclusions as to its efficacy. So these should count as negative.
alternatively, one could just have a look at one of the many reviews; here is one by myself:
“There is no evidence at all that homeopathic remedies can change the natural history of any cancer. The few rcts of homeopathy are in the realm of cancer palliation and supportive care and have not generated convincing evidence of a beneficial effect.”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17710204/
Hmm, I see I made a really dumb mistake. I misread Dana’s statement as propaganda for homeopathic treatment of ADD (attention deficit disorder) as one of his usual diversions – but he simply meant to emphasize the word ‘add’ … My bad.
My sincere apologies, I wasn’t paying close attention; my comment may be disregarded or even deleted (and of course you are right about those reviews you mention).
Homeopathy supporters seem to have Mural Dyslexia –
Cannot see the writing on the wall
Thomas Edison tested hundreds (and perhaps thousands) of substances to see which would work in his invention of the light bulb…and he finally found tungsten!
And the bottomline is that for every “negative” result in a homeopathic study, there are many many more with positive results.
In conventional medical research, there are many many more negative trials than positive trials…and even those with seemingly “positive” results have been later shown to be much more dangerous than beneficial…and that is why 90%+ of drugs from 1990 are not in usage today.
So, my friends, please explain to me how these cells were able to respond to a “placebo”? I’m very curious…
https://www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejournals/html/10.1055/s-0041-1740967
Mr Ullman, please name a laboratory that can distinguish between homeopathic water and other water. You said in this Blog that ‘only fools or liars’ doubt that this can be done.
Forty-fourth time of asking.
@Dana Ullman
Alas, reality tells us that for every ‘positive’ result in a homeopathic study there are almost certainly innumerable more negative results – which turn up when people attempt to replicate a positive study. And this simply means that those positives are false positives, and that homeopathy doesn’t actually work.
Has this study been independently replicated a couple of times with the same results? No? Then by far the most plausible and at the same time simplest explanation is that these people made mistakes along the way. Just like other cell culture studies such as the ones from Montaigner and one or two others, which also failed to be replicated.
And oh, by the way, I also tried verifying your earlier claim:
I could only locate ONE positive study with a strong effect: the highly dubious (and possibly fraudulent) one from Frass. So where are all those studies that consistently show cancer patients doing better with homeopathy as an additional treatment? You should be able to come up with at least a dozen references to make a claim like this. Just PMID’s are OK. If you can’t come up with several such trials, then you have proven yourself a liar. It’s as simple as that.
Finally, let me give you a bit of advice here: stop waving around all those one-off studies, because it makes you look like a total imbecile. Every scientist knows that you can’t base any conclusions on singular results – no, not even if the stack of singular results reaches all the way to the moon. You and your fellow homeopaths have been mistaking statistical noise, occasional flukes and other incidental false positives for ‘effects’ for way too long already.
Independently replicated studies is what you should look for. Please come back when you find them.
For starters…
Palm J, Kishchuk VV, Ulied À, Fernández JP, De Jaegere S, Jong MC, Keller T, Kosakovskyi A, Kompaniiets K, Mityuryayeva-Korniiko I, Pukhlik SM, Tretiakevych Z, Weber S, Wienhold K, Klement P; TocTo Research Group. Effectiveness of an add-on treatment with the homeopathic medication SilAtro-5-90 in recurrent tonsillitis: An international, pragmatic, randomized, controlled clinical trial. Complement Ther Clin Pract. 2017 Aug;28:181-191. doi: 10.1016/j.ctcp.2017.05.005. Epub 2017 May 22. PMID: 28779928. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28779928/
This article describes 3 such studies:
Jacobs J, Jonas WB, Jiménez-Pérez M, Crothers D. Homeopathy for childhood diarrhea: combined results and metaanalysis from three randomized, controlled clinical trials. Pediatr Infect Dis J. 2003 Mar;22(3):229-34. doi: 10.1097/01.inf.0000055096.25724.48. PMID: 12634583.
Frass M, Linkesch, M, Banjya, S, et al. Adjunctive homeopathic treatment in patients with severe sepsis: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in an intensive care unit. Homeopathy 2005:94;75–80. At a University of Vienna hospital, 70 patients with severe sepsis were enrolled in a randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial, measuring survival rates at 30 days and at 180 days. Those patients given a homeopathic medicine were prescribed it in the 200C potency only (in 12 hour intervals during their hospital stay). The survival rate at day 30 was 81.8% for homeopathic patients and 67.7% for those given a placebo. At day 180, 75.8% of homeopathic patients survived and only 50.0% of the placebo patients survived (p=0.043). One patient was saved for every four who were treated.
Effects of pre-defined Homoeopathic medicines to mitigate adverse dermatological effects of radiotherapy and vomiting of chemotherapy in breast carcinoma: A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, pilot trial in the context of usual care
January 2020Indian Journal of Research in Homoeopathy 14(3):189
DOI: 10.4103/ijrh.ijrh_8_19
Purnima ShuklaChaturbhuja NayakMajor Mirza Qaiser BaigMajor Mirza Qaiser BaigPurak Misra
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345747966_Effects_of_pre-defined_Homoeopathic_medicines_to_mitigate_adverse_dermatological_effects_of_radiotherapy_and_vomiting_of_chemotherapy_in_breast_carcinoma_A_randomised_double-blind_placebo-controlled_p
Gaertner K, Müllner M, Friehs H, Schuster E, Marosi C, Muchitsch I, Frass M, Kaye AD. Additive homeopathy in cancer patients: Retrospective survival data from a homeopathic outpatient unit at the Medical University of Vienna. Complement Ther Med. 2014 Apr;22(2):320-32. doi: 10.1016/j.ctim.2013.12.014. Epub 2014 Jan 8. PMID: 24731904. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24731904/
Now…one would think that you and others wouldn’t ask this same question over and over again…and THIS is the common modus operandi…to pretend that there isn’t a body of evidence for homeopathy. “How convenient,” says the ChurchLady!
Dana, the church lady who has no real evidence and plenty of belief?
Mr Ullman, please name a laboratory that can distinguish between homeopathic water and other water. In this Blog some time ago you said that “only fools or liars” doubted that this could be done. I doubt, so you brand me a fool or liar. I can’t sleep at nights.
Forty-fifth time of asking.
Perhaps Dana “not the brightest bulb in the chandelier” Ullman thinks citing the following unpublished, unregistered, pilot study somehow provides evidence for homeopathy:
Dana, did you even read the abstract of Gaertner K et al study? They don’t claim homeopathy increased survival time. On the contrary, they explicitly mention that a larger, better designed study is necessary to make that conclusion. The moral of the study is: correlation is not causation.
Bolding mine.
This is the third time in a week, you unwittingly supplied more evidence in support of The Dull-Man Law: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-dull-man-law/
Dana
You have cited the Jacobs studies many times. Why they are garbage has been explained to you. They have been ignored. Frass’ risible piece of Texas sharpshooting has similarly been recognised for the nonsense it is. What you seem to think is a body of evidence is nothing of the sort. The only way any of those studies will be used in healthcare is if they’re printed on absorbent, flushable paper because wiping arses is all they’re good for.
You never understood Dana. You never learn. This is why you’re a fool. And a fool of no consequence. All your histrionic bloviations do nothing. Run along, now.
Virtually EVERY meta-analysis on homeopathy, including many conducted by non-homeopaths, have ranked Jacobs’ trials as “high qualilty” with little or no risk of bias. Therefore, it is now clear that EVERYTHING THAT YOU SAY AND WRITE IS GARBAGE. GIGO=garbage in creates garbage out.
I couldn’t help but notice that neither you or anyone else has disputed my assertion that Jacobs’ research on childhood diarrhea has consistently been ranked as a “high-quality” clinical trial. In fact, not a SINGLE meta-analysis has described this trial in anything other than high-quality.
You can chose to deny this…but in so doing, here’s where I would call you and/or anyone else as not being a truth-teller.
I couldn’t help but notice that you still owe me an apology
I couldn’t help but notice, Mr Ullman, that you haven’t yet named a laboratory that can distinguish homeopathic water from other water, despite my politely asking you forty-six times to do so. You said in this Blog that “only fools or liars” doubted this could be done. Asking again now; forty-seventh time.
Dana
Given the supposed “high quality” of the Jacobs papers, can you explain, then, why homeopathy is not now a frontline tool used in the treatment of diarrhoea? Surely if the Jacobs studies are so highly-regarded, clinicians would have taken notice? Maybe others would have replicated the results in other studies? Twenty years have passed, Dana.. plenty of time..
Harsh reality once again interferes with your fervid masturbatory fantasies of significance.
Lenny wrote “Maybe others would have replicated the results in other studies?”
I pointed out the necessity of replication to Dana Ullman on Saturday 20 August 2022 at 19:02.
The quality of an unreplicated trial is irrelevant.
See “Non-reproducible single occurrences are of no significance to science”. The example of the homeopathic diarrhoea trials
https://edzardernst.com/2018/07/non-reproducible-single-occurrences-are-of-no-significance-to-science-the-example-of-the-homeopathic-diarrhoea-trials/
Liar Dana is deliberately misleading or too stupid to understand or both. This is from the systematic review (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17285788/) that included the 3 Jacobs studies:
“Three RCTs,32-34 which were similar in design and from the same research group, tested individualized homeopathy in acute childhood diarrhea. Two RCTs33,34 (N=92 and 126, respectively) reported effects in favor of homeopathy for the duration of diarrhea and the number of unformed stools, whereas another RCT 32 (N=34) failed to show intergroup differences for these outcome measures in its main analysis.”
32. Jacobs J, Jimenez LM, Gloyd SS, Casares FE, Gaitan MP, Crothers D.
Homoeopathic treatment of acute childhood diarrhoea: a randomized clinical
trial in Nicaragua. Br Homeopath J. 1993;82:83-86.
33. Jacobs J, Jimenez LM, Gloyd SS, Gale JL, Crothers D. Treatment of
acute childhood diarrhea with homeopathic medicine: a randomized clinical
trial in Nicaragua. Pediatrics. 1994;93:719-725.
34. Jacobs J, Jimenez LM, Malthouse S, Casares FE Gaitan MP Crothers D.
Homeopathic treatment of acute childhood diarrhea: results from a clinical trial
in Nepal. J Altern Complement Med. 2000;6:131-139
@Pete Attkins
Precisely. And even if the Jacobs trials + subsequent meta-analysis could be called ‘high-quality’ (which it can’t for reasons already mentioned by you and Edzard), AND shows a real, replicated effect (which it almost certainly doesn’t) then it would still be useless.
The very small effect size (0.66 day or 16% reduction in duration of diarrhoea) does not justify the high cost of homeopathy – individual homeopathic consultation costs something between 100 and 150 euros (or its regional equivalent) for a first visit, whereas oral rehydration costs less than a euro, or mere cents in poor countries.
Only a deluded fool would suggest that individual homeopathy should be considered based on this research. Oh, wait:
A href=”https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12634583/”>”Homeopathy should be considered for use as an adjunct to oral rehydration for this illness.”
@Dana Ullman
#1, PMID: 28779928: One-off, A vs. A+B -> conclusion: rubbish.
#2, PMID: 12634583: seriously flawed -> conclusion: rubbish.
#3, PMID: 15892486: One-off, no indication that differences in mortality (which did not materialize in 30 days, and only emerged after 180 days) can be attributed to homeopathy six months earlier. No causes of death mentioned. And oh, it’s by Frass. -> conclusion: rubbish.
#4: One-off weak pilot(!) trial from homeo-paradise India. Conclusion: rubbish.
#5: PMID: 26860806: One-off, weak study. And oh, it’s by Frass. -> Conclusion: rubbish.
Oh, there is a body of evidence for homeopathy. Although ‘corpse of evidence’ is probably a better description, given what it looks (and smells) like.
The point, Mr Ullman, is that this simply will not do. Homeopathy is so utterly implausible, and violates so many laws of chemistry, physics and medical science, that you have to come up with EXTREMELY good evidence for its efficacy or viability, before any scientist or doctor in their right mind will be convinced that there is actually something to it.
Instead, you just come up with exceedingly weak rubbish. Yes, I realize that this is indeed the common modus operandi of homeopaths: selling the emperor’s medicine, to use a succinct metaphor.
So it once again boils down to this: come up with just ONE 12C+ homeopathic preparation that can be recognized as such in any independently repeatable experiment, or admit that there is no good, hard evidence that homeopathic preparations actually do something.
Richard, You WIN…for providing the WEAKEST rationale for critique of clinical trials! I bow to your great innatity! I am humbled by your lack of light and wisdom.
Mr Ullman, I should be glad if you would take the time to name a laboratory that can distinguish homeopathic water from other water. You said in this Blog that ‘only fools or liars’ doubted that this can be done.
This is my FORTY-SIXTH time of asking. Don’t brand me a fool or liar without making good with evidence.
And again Dana stamps and shouts because what he imagines to be evidence of homeopathy’s efficacy is shown to be anything but.
His selective powers of reading and comprehension mean that the fact that the papers he cites have had absolutely zero effect on healthcare continues to escape him. I’m sure if the opposite was true, he would be trumpeting loudly.
He remains an insignificance. The only place he receives any attention is on blogs and discussion forums, and then only as an object of ridicule. Anything he gets published is of interest only to the steadily narrowing circle-jerk formed by his fellow loons.
He is a strange, seriously deluded and very, very foolish little man.
@Dana Ullman
Let’s put it like this: if pharmaceutical companies would produce with the same quality of evidence of efficacy that you keep coming up with, none of their products would ever be approved for use.
In fact, I would very much like to see homeopathic products being held to the same standards as real medicines before being allowed onto the market. Because that would mean the end of more than 200 years of deception, delusion and quackery.
And oh:
Nope, wrong again. It wasn’t Edison who came up with tungsten light bulb filaments, but one William David Coolidge.
Mr. Dull-Man does not even manage to research and correctly reproduce simple facts. Such as that Thomas Edison is not the inventor of the light bulb, but merely improved it. The first patents for commercially viable light bulbs were held by the English physicist and chemist Joseph Wilson Swan.
Christopher Columbus discovered America so this means 3 x flowerpot = hatstand and my friend knows it does as well look here he done an experiment what showed it.
Lightbulbs work, Dana. Homeopathy doesn’t.
Loads of homeopathic remedies have been shown unarguably to be ineffective. Why haven’t homeopaths stopped using them? Proper medicine responds to evidence. Homeopaths do no such thing.
We’re also curious to see why the cells appeared to respond to a placebo. We’ll possibly think about it when others replicate the results. In the meantime we’ll regard this as standard specious homeopathic nonsense. I’ll leave it to others who understand in vitro trial design much better than I do to rip the paper to bits.
It’s inconsequential nonsense, Dana. Like you’re an inconsequential fool.
@Lenny
After careful reading of this study I think I identified several major concerns:
– In all, no less than 4 metrics x 5 dilutions (including water and untreated) = 20 comparisons are made. This is almost certain to generate some positive outcomes, making it basically a fishing expedition.
– The homeopathic preparations still contained 0.06% alcohol, the control only pure water. The claim is made that this alcohol concentration (about the equivalent of the legal driving limit) has no consequences, but literature says that intoxication is associated with apoptosis in certain cells.
– The apparently positive outcomes are for apoptosis (cell death) and HER-2 expression. Other metrics either show nothing, or are all over the place.
– However, the apoptosis result cannot be correlated to homeopathic dilutions: 12C suggests a moderate effect, 30C appears to have clear effects, but then 200C has almost no effect. No matter how you look at it, this is inconsistent with one of homeopathy’s founding principles – there goes the law of infinitesimals out the window.
– HER-2 expression OTOH, apparently shows the strongest effect for C200, but nothing whatsoever for C12 and C20.
So no, even this singular result this does not seem like a good study. But perhaps I’m wrong.
Thank you, Richard for your expert input. Will Dana take this on board? Will he arse.
“… 20 comparisons are made. This is almost certain to generate some positive outcomes, making it basically a fishing expedition.”
As illustrated by: Green Jelly Beans Linked to Acne.
https://xkcd.com/882/
No, Edison tested the charring of a large number of organic materials and found in 1879 or 1880 that bamboo gave him the best carbon light bulb filaments.
Edison was also not the first to invent a carbon filament incandescent bulb. There were many earlier carbon filament bulbs, though Edison made some of the earliest practically usable ones.
The first tungsten filament patent was awarded to Sándor Just and Franjo Hanaman in 1904.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb#History
See the following article, which includes the exquisite 15 kW xenon short‑arc lamp used in the IMAX projection system.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_lamp