I am sure that I am not the only one who feels with or friend, regular contributor, and expert in uncritical thinking, Dana Ullman. His heart-warming defence of homeopathy entirely depends on the notion that homeopathy is nano-medicine. As Dana’s views are more and more discredited, the poor man understandably gets more and more desperate. This development has now gone so far that Dana seems on the brink of cracking up.
Who would not feel with him?
What we urgently need to save Dana’s sanity is a new concept that could be used to defend the indefensible.
In the nick of time, here comes a lone researcher of homeopathy from India. Amarnath Sen has just published his hypothesis that will surely save the endangered mental stage of our friend, Dana Ullman. Here is the abstract:
The apparent absence of drugs in ultra-diluted homeopathic medicines and contested clinical trial results plague homeopathy. In this paper, it is argued that other than drugs, homeopathic medicines contain proteins as components of microbial lysates (products of lysis or disintegration of microbial cells), given that ubiquitous microorganisms from the surrounding environment are unknowingly and unavoidably incorporated into the homeopathic medicines during their preparation and are killed and lysed in ethanol/water drug vehicle forming immunomodulatory microbial lysates during ‘potentization’ (dilution and vigorous shaking) of the medicines. The drugs present in the homeopathic medicines bind to the proteins, which are the major ingredients of the microbial lysates. The drug/protein interaction modulates the conformations and in effect, the immunogenicity of the proteins (designated as modulated proteins). In ultra-diluted medicines even in the absence of drugs, unmodulated proteins are modulated through interactions with allosterically coupled modulated proteins (protein-protein interaction). The modulated proteins of characteristic immunogenicity present in the homeopathic medicines mediate antigen-specific mucosal (sublingual) immunotherapy like vaccine therapy via ‘similia principle’. In addition, immunomodulatory microbial lysates present in the homeopathic medicines mediate non-specific immunotherapy and also provide adjuvants for antigen-specific immunotherapy. The proposed hypothesis without invoking any controversial concept can explain the basic ‘laws’ of homeopathy. Incidentally, immunomodulatory activities of homeopathic medicines reported by different workers support the hypothesis. As immunotherapy in homeopathy is accidental and hence, in crude form, clinical trial results may occasionally show inconsistencies. However, probing and refining homeopathy from the perspective of immunotherapy may bring forth a simple, reliable and affordable immunotherapy for various diseases.
Convinced?
Me neither!
The concept is clearly as bonkers as all the others trying to explain homeopathy. Yet, I am optimistic that it might save our friend Dana Ullman. After all, it is not more silly than the notion that homeopathy is nano-medicine – and remeber: even an US judge certified Dana:
The Court found Mr. Ullman’s testimony to be not credible. Mr. Ullman’s bias in favor of homeopathy and against conventional medicine was readily apparent from his testimony. He admitted that he was not an impartial expert but rather is a passionate advocate of homeopathy. He posted on Twitter that he views conventional medicine as witchcraft. He opined that conventional medical science cannot be trusted.
So, there is hope!
Amarnath Sen and is ‘concept’ might just do the trick and restore Dana’s state of mind.
27 Responses to A new concept that “can explain the basic ‘laws’ of homeopathy”?
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This is nothing but a foul magic trick to distract people from looking at the real thing.
Homeopathy does not work. So it is useless and a waste of time to debate about a working mechanism.
Homeopathy since Hahnemann is based on dilutions. What no-one ever could prove: that higher dilutions are stronger than mild dilutions.
The Indians may say whatever they want, but their crap is crap, and easy to crack.
@ama
Exactly. In well over 200 years, homeopaths have not come up with even ONE product that actually has any clear, consistent and repeatable effect. Any speculation about a mechanism of action should be preceded by actual proof of any action in the first place.
All we have to date is perhaps a couple of hundred studies with (slightly) positive outcomes, none of which could be independently replicated, and with a strong negative correlation between study quality and effect size.
Having said this, it is kind of fun (albeit childishly easy) to shoot down these ‘mechanisms’ as fast as they are presented.
So homeopathy basically works because random microbes end up in homeopathic dilutions? And these somehow activate the immune system? Well, then homeopaths could stop all this shaking and diluting nonsense right now, and simply sell untreated natural water as a ‘medicine’. Oh, wait, someone beat them to it already …
Then there is the problem that many if not most complaints that are ‘treated’ by homeopaths have nothing to do with the immune system or infections.
Poof, there goes yet another ‘mechanism’.
“a foul magic trick”
cf. Oscillococcinum: a fowl magic trick
It’s sad indeed. We give him love, understanding and support in properly measured homeopathic doses, yet he seems to get worse all the time. What are we doing wrong?
Yep…don’t YOU hate it when I reference solid studies published in high impact journals, such as Nature’s “Scientific Reports”?! I am obviously “desparate” by referencing controlled trials, while the people HERE prefer to engage in weak ad hom attacks against me. I take such attacks as evidence of the cognitive dissonance that people here experience as they realize that they are on the wrong side of science and the wrong side of history.
My sympathies to you all.
thanks, Dana
Dana
I remember the last time you got all excited about a paper favourable to homeopathy getting published in Scientific Reports. Another paper you’d have called “solid” because it came to a conclusion you supported.
What happened?
It got retracted.
https://retractionwatch.com/2019/06/11/permeable-to-bad-science-journal-retracts-paper-hailed-by-proponents-of-homeopathy/
And that Nature paper by Walach et al on homeopathy for ADHD that you worked yourself into a masturbatory frenzy over?
The same. Retracted.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-022-02127-3
Are you seeing a pattern here? I am.
@Dana Ullman
Those ‘controlled trials’ are rubbish that no (real) scientist would want to be associated with. I mean, just look at what those imbeciles you refer to say about their diluted arsenic trioxide:
– On the one hand, they keep claiming that they use a 30C (1:10^60) As2O3 dilution. Fine. But on the other hand, they ALSO claim that they found As2O3 in their 30C dilution. These two claims are mutually exclusive. As in: they can’t both be true at the same time. Either they did their diluting properly, at which point there cannot be even one molecule of As2O3 left; or they messed up their dilution process resulting in As2O3 ending up in their dilution, effectively creating a dilution of maybe 6C or 7C, NOT 30C.
– They also claim that they found As2O3 nanoparticles in their solution – and that it is in fact these nanoparticles that are responsible for the effects they claim to have found. This is a lie. They did NOT find As2O3 nanoparticles in their dilution. They found minute As2O3 nanoparticles AFTER they evaporated the water in their sample – which of course is to be expected: when you evaporate a solution, the solute will tend to crystallize into small particles. But these nanoparticles were NOT present in the liquid solution, nor will they survive as nanoparticles as soon as water is added again. So what they were working with, was basically water with a tiny amount of arsenic oxide dissolved in it – something that millions of people in those regions call ‘drinking water’, and has no special medicinal properties.
No doubt, there is much more wrong with what these people did and claimed, but these two points already utterly destroy any scientific credibility of what they’re doing. And they never even noticed these huge errors, let alone address them.
Yet you can’t seem to get it into your head that these clowns messed up in a way that even a high school kid would be ashamed of – for no other reason than that their failed ‘research’ and unwarranted conclusions support your belief in magic water.
But tell me, if homeopathy so obviously works, then why can’t even YOU come up with one (just ONE) homeopathic dilution that produces clear, consistent and independently repeatable effects? In all its 228 years of its existence, homeopaths have never even managed to produce even one ‘remedy’ that has been found to work reliably in several independent trials or experiments.
What do you think of this new theoretical mechanism of action, Mr Ullman?
Do you drop nano-particles in favour of it? Or do you stick with nano-particles, and continue to reject hormesis, memory of water, and (Hahnemann’s preferred theory) Spiritual Essence, as well as this new theory?
With regard to ‘ad hominem’ attacks, I note that in this blog you have branded me a “fool or liar” and, in the recent thread on homeopathy, a nobody.
Can you please now name the laboratory etc etc, 76th time of asking? And explain why you told an outrageous lie in this Blog, claiming to have done so “many times”, when you have not done so once?
Following an intensive course of alcohol assisted contemplation I believe I have hit upon the true mechanism underlying homeopathy.
Angels.
Or to be precise, nano-angels. As we all know, the universe and all within it is pervaded by angels. And angels, being of spiritual matter, are capable of infinite dilution with no loss of substance. In fact the nano-angels being of infinitely finer substance than natural angels are capable of even greater inter-penetration into the coarse matter of the human body. This is why angelic dilution is also angelic concentration, or potentisation. And hence why homeopathy is effective.
What do you mean, it’s not effective? Bugger!
That’s made me think of this highly relevant question:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_many_angels_can_dance_on_the_head_of_a_pin%3F
This new hypothesis from Amarnath Sen is way above my level of understanding… and, after reading it, I have to say (to quote Monty Python), my brain hurts!
Since probably only real homeopathy experts can deeply understand wtf Sen is talking about: please, Mr. Ullman, translate this apparent pseudo-medical gibberish for us mere humans!
It appears to be an argumentum technobabble that contains not lies per se, but has wilful obscurantism combined with no regard for the truth — bullshit. Thinly veiled misdirection.
Quoting from my own article from 2021 where you can find the references cited: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/15593258211022983
I look forward to people at THIS website to provide explanations for the mechanism of action for ALL of the drugs and others cited below…and if you cannot do so, I suggest that you clean up your own house before you point fingers at others for not acequately understanding all of the precise mechanisms of action for homeopathic drugs.
“…it is important to acknowledge that modern medical science still doesn’t know how many of their most commonly prescribed drugs work. For instance, despite the fact that acetaminophen is one of the most popularly prescribed over-the-counter drugs for pain and fever, it is still unknown precisely how it works.107 Lithium is one of the most commonly prescribed psychiatric drugs over the past 50+ years, and yet, the specific biochemical mechanism of lithium action in stabilizing mood is unknown.108 Metformin is a first-line medication for the treatment of type 2 diabetes and it has been used in medical care for almost 100 years, and yet, its mechanism of action is incompletely understood. Even drugs for general anesthesia do not have an adequately understood mechanism by which they work.109
Despite the billions and even hundreds of billions of dollars of sales of each of these drugs, this lack of adequate understanding about how these drugs work doesn’t stop physicians from prescribing them or patients from wanting to take them. This acknowledged humility about present-day ignorance about the action of modern drugs is mentioned here because some skeptics assert that the precise mechanism of action of homeopathic medicines is unknown, and they therefore assert that it should be unethical for health and medical professionals to prescribe homeopathic medicines, and for pharmacies to sell them.110 Such points of view represent a double standard that has no place in medicine or science.”
Oh dear, Dana. Trotting out another of your PRATTs again.
So. Once more for the hard-of-thinking and memory-deficient i.e. you, Dana:
The mechanism of action of many drugs may be unclear. What is not unclear is that they work, and have been proven to do so by many robust and replicated clinical trials.
Unlike homeopathy. Which has never been shown to work in any robust and replicated clinical trials.
There is no need to explain the mechanism of action for something which is inactive.
With every post, Dana, all you do is once again demonstrate to us your inability to think. It really is rather pathetic.
And what is YOUR analysis of the study just published in SCIENTIFIC REPORTS?
Are you actually suggesting that this basic science study has NO correlation to the possibility of clinical effects? Curious minds want to know…
Sometimes you know that something does work, but you don’t know why. With homeopathy we know it doesn’t work so the question of how it works doesn’t even arise.
Sometimes you know that something does work, but you don’t know why.
With homeopathy, we know it doesn’t work and we know why.
Precisely.
I love it when someone (including myself) is called “desparate,” especially when not a single example is provided.
Such ad homs stand on jello, especially when it comes as a result of PROJECTION from desparate people.
Projection is a bitch, ain’t it?!
@Dana Ullman
No-one calls you “desparate” – although admittedly, that is mainly because you don’t know how to spell ‘desperate’ correctly.
And your outburst in another thread sounded pretty desperate to me …
The higher the dilution, the higher the delusion.
And the more crude the dose, the more crude is their real results…and the more crude are their advocates.
Two can play THIS game.
Maybe CRUDE doses show CRUDE results sometimes.
But they show results AT ALL.
#sugarmagicians
🤭🤭🤭
Came across some homeopathy merchandise recently (warning, contains language that some may find offensive) https://www.moretvicar.com/search/?q=homeopathy
Unfortunately similar searches for chiropractic direct me to sites selling stuff extolling unfounded positives. Need something with a more truthful message as a gift for a friend considering becoming a chiroquack. Any suggestions?
Why not suggest to him that he trains and qualifies as a Physiotherapist. And buy him a cop of Professor Ernst’s book “Chiropractice; Not all that it’s Cracked Up To Be”.
Sorry, the title is Chiropractic, not Chiropractice.