case report
It been reported that the German HEILPRAKTIKER, Holger G. has been sentenced to serve a total of 4 years and three months behind bars. He made himself a pair of glasses out of aluminum foil and appeared at the start of his trial wearing a Corona protective mask. The accusations against him were fierce: He was accused of having issued false Corona vaccination certificates en masse in Munich and of having given medication to patients. A woman, who had contracted Corona and had been treated by Holger G. with vitamin solutions, had died last year.
According to the verdict, Holger G. had violated the German Medicines Act. The court announced he was also convicted of 96 counts of dangerous bodily harm and 102 counts of unauthorized trading in prescription drugs. In addition, the court ordered the HEILPRAKTIKER to be placed in a rehab facility.
The 71-year-old MAN had issued Corona vaccination cards since April 2021, without actually vaccinating the people concerned. For the forged vaccination cards, he charged several tens of thousands of Euros. In addition, the former HEILPRAKTIKER illegally sold prescription drugs. The judgment is so severe because Holger G. has form. He also ordered to bear the costs of the proceedings.
___________________________
I have long criticized the German HEILPRAKTIKER. In my recent book on the subject, I make the following points:
– Today, no one can provide reliable data on the number of HEILPRAKTIKER in Germany.
– The training of HEILPRAKTIKER is woefully inadequate.
– The far-reaching rights of the HEILPRAKTIKER are out of proportion to their overt lack of competence.
– This disproportion poses a serious danger to patients.
– This danger is further increased by the fact that there is no effective control of the activity of the HEILPRAKTIKER does not take place.
– Existing laws are almost never applied to the HEILPRAKTIKER.
– Most HEILPRAKTIKER mislead the public unhindered with untenable therapeutic claims.
– The federal government seems to put off over and over again any serious discussion of the HEILPRAKTIKER.
Cases like the one above show that it is high time for reform – or, should that prove impossible, the discontinuation of this utterly obsolete and highly dangerous profession.
An impressive article by John Mac Ghlionn caught my attention. Allow me to quote a few passages from it:
The U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate recently reintroduced legislation to increase access to Medicare-covered services provided by chiropractors. Last year, the US chiropractic market size was worth $13.13 Billion. By the end of the decade, it will be worth over $18 billion. Each year, a whopping 35 million Americans seek chiropractic care.
But why? It’s a questionable science full of questionable characters.
Last year, a Georgia woman was left paralyzed and unable to speak after receiving a neck adjustment from a chiropractor. She’s not the first person to have had her life utterly ruined by a chiropractor, and chances are she won’t be the last. Many patients who visit chiropractors suffer severe side effects; some lose their lives…
As Dr. Steven Novella has noted, what used to be fraud is now known as holistic medicine. Dr. Edzard Ernst, a retired British-German physician and researcher, has expertly demonstrated the many ways in which chiropractic treatments are rooted not in science, but in mystical concepts…
Spinal adjustments, also known as “subluxations,” are also common. A dangerous practice that has been heavily criticized, spinal manipulations are associated with a number of adverse effects, including the risk of stroke. As Dr. Ernst has noted, the cost-effectiveness of this particular treatment “has not been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt.”
Not content with spinal and neck manipulations, some chiropractors offer to treat other conditions — like diabetes, for example. They are not trained to treat diabetes. Other chiropractors appear to take joy in torturing infants. In August of 2018, a chiropractor made headlines for all the wrong reasons when a video emerged showing him hanging a two-week-old newborn upside down by the ankles…
Finally, as I alluded to earlier, the chiropractic community is full of fraudsters. In 2019, in the US, 15 chiropractors were charged in an insurance fraud and illegal kickback operation. More recently, in February of this year, a New York federal judge sentenced Patrick Khaziran to 30 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to being part of a widespread scheme that defrauded the NBA out of at least $5 million. In recent times, the chiropractic community has come under scrutiny for abusive care and illegal billing practices. When it comes to instances of healthcare fraud, chiropractic medicine is unrivaled.
None of this should come as a surprise. After all, the entire chiropractic community was constructed on a foundation of lies. As the aforementioned Dr. Ernst told me, we should be skeptical of what chiropractors are offering, largely because the whole practice was founded “by a deluded charlatan, who insisted that all human diseases are due to subluxations of the spine. Today, we know that chiropractic subluxations are mere figments of Palmer’s imagination. Yet, the chiropractic profession is unable to separate itself from the myth. It is easy to see why: without it, they would at best become poorly trained physiotherapists without any raison d’etre.”
… Dr. William T. Jarvis famously referred to chiropractic as “the most significant nonscientific health-care delivery system in the United States.” Comparing the chiropractic community to a cult, Dr. Jarvis wondered, somewhat incredulously, why chiropractors are licensed to practice in all 50 US states. The entire profession, he warned, “should be viewed as a societal problem, not simply as a competitor of regular health-care.”
___________________________
In my view, this is an impressive article, not least because it is refreshingly devoid of the phenomenon known as ‘false balance, e.g. a chiropractor being invited to add his self-interested views at the end of the paper claiming, for instance, “we have years of experience and cause far less harm than real doctors”.
Guest post by Ken McLeod
Readers will have no trouble recalling that crank ‘naturopath’ Barbara O’Neill has graced these pages several times. She is subject to a Permanent Prohibition Order by the New South Wales Health Care Complaints Commission. It goes like this:
“The Commission is satisfied that Mrs O’Neill poses a risk to the health and safety of members of the public and therefore makes the following prohibition order:
“Mrs O’Neill is permanently prohibited from providing any health services, as defined in s4 Of the Health Care Complaints Act 1993, whether in a paid or voluntary capacity.’ 1
Evidently Ms O’Neill has scrambled her chakras or muddled her meridians because she continues to forget the Order. For example;
O’Neill did a video interview concerning the Prohibition Order and that has been posted online at YouTube.2 The video was posted ‘1 year ago,’ has had 323,000 views and had 1,598 comments. She goes into great detail what she regards as the appalling treatment at the hands of the HCCC.
In the video she admits that she has continued to travel the world spreading her lies and misrepresentations. Some of the lies are that she is a naturopath, and was a nurse, and ‘I used to work in the Operating Theatre as a psychiatric nurse….’
In the video at 53:20 in the video she refers to an aboriginal man ‘Dan’ who works at her Misty Mountain Lifestyle Retreat, (note the present tense), who is in his 50s was obese and recently had a heart attack, ‘was on a lot of medications,’ ‘was a bit scared of coming off medications,’ ‘I said Dan, I think it’s time to stop your blood pressure medications, you’re going too low, you’re a 100 over 60,’ ‘three days later his blood pressure was 100 over 75,….’ 3
Call me a cynic, but that strikes me as rather dangerous advice, worthy of an investigation by the HCCC. Meanwhile, there is no sign of ‘Dan ‘ in Misty Mountain’s ‘About page.’ Dan’s brother Dave appears, but no Dan.4 Could it be that O’Neill’s advice led to some incapacity? Tips are welcome.
Meanwhile, readers could learn much more about Barbara O’Neill at Wikipedia.5
This article first appeared in the June issue of the Australian Skeptic Magazine,6 reprinted with kind permission.
REFERENCES
1 https://www.hccc.nsw.gov.au/decisions-orders/public-statements-and-warnings/public-statement-and-statement-of-decision-in-relation-to-in-relation-to-mrs-barbara-o-neill
2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsbK5TLdAPo
3 This was dangerous and reckless advice. The full transcript is here
4 https://www.mmh.com.au/our-story
5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_O%27Neill
6 https://www.skeptics.com.au/magazine/
Guest post by Norbert Aust, Udo Endruscheit, and Edzard Ernst
How do we know whether a treatment is reasonable or just some so-called alternative medicine (SCAM) that is at best useless? A simple answer is that the former is evidence-based, while the latter is not. But how can we tell the difference? High-quality studies, with independent replications or even a systematic review, are the sort of things we are usually looking for. But there is an underlying assumption, namely that, in science, bogus studies are prevented from polluting the scientific database or, if such trials have emerged, there are ways to identify and eliminate them.
And what if this assumption is wrong?
What if respectable universities and research organizations venture into the realm of pseudoscience either knowingly or because it had slipped their attention?
What if the editorial board of a top journal passes bogus studies to peer review?
What if such a paper is eventually reviewed by a proponent of the implausible therapy?
What if the readers of the article, once it is published, are too lethargic to object and do not write letters to the editor in protest?
And what if skeptics do formulate a protest but the journal editor refuses to publish it?
Well, if all the checks that should prevent faulty results from entering the scientific knowledge fail, we have fake evidence: a study that looks like sound science but that, in fact, is invalid. It is not hard to imagine what would happen if SCAM therapies are supported by seemingly respectable studies published in top journals. The fake evidence would accumulate as part of the body of evidence and eventually enter mainstream clinical practice, education, politics, etc., etc. Thus the reputation of bogus therapies would grow unjustifiably.
If you think this cannot happen, you are in the wrong. After the infamous study by Frass et al about homeopathy as an add-on treatment for lung cancer, another homeopathy paper was published in 2022 by Gaertner et al. in Pediatric Research (PR), a Medline-indexed journal with a two-year impact factor of 3.95 belonging to the nature-group of journals. According to this meta-analysis ‘individualized homeopathy showed a clinically relevant and statistically robust effect in the treatment of ADHD’. Shortly after the publication of this paper, we sent a letter to the editor to point out the shortcomings of this study. Here it is:
Sir,
with this letter we like to comment on the systematic review and meta-analysis on childhood ADHD by Gaertner et al. recently published in your journal.
First off, we are surprised, that your journal that is connected to nature does publish a paper on a treatment that has no a-priory probability at all and thus can only contain false positives if any. And this review is no exception as will be seen presently.
Our concerns are:
Out of the six studies included three were mere pilot trials (Fibert_2019, Jacobs_2005, Oberai_2013, ) which cannot provide any evidence for the shortcomings involved in pilots. Three of the six trials show severe issues in blinding (Fibert_2016, Fibert_2019, Oberai_2013), with two of them concerning both of the participants and the test personnel. This usually leads to massive bias in favour of the treatment [Zitat Cochrane Handbook].
Then we compared data from two trials with the data reported in the review and found some major misrepresentations:
(1) Jacobs et al. report an improvement in the T-score of their main outcome (CGI-P) of 4.1 for homeopathy and 9.1 for controls, that is placebo outperformed the homeopathic intervention. But the authors give an effect size of 0.272 in favour of homeopathy which is the opposite of the findings in the trial.
(2) Oberai et al. report effect sizes for their three main outcomes of 0.22, 0.59 and 0.54 (CPRS-R, CGISS, CGIIS repectively). There is no way that this yields a pooled effect size of 1.436 as given in the review.
We conclude that the positive result obtained by the authors is due to a combination of the inclusion of biased trials unsuitable to build evidence together with some major misreporting of study outcomes.
Our recommendation would be that the authors reconsider their review and improve their report. Maybe the editors would like to add a caution-notice to the paper – if not to withdraw it completely.
In June 2023, a full year after our submission, we were informed that Pediatric Research would not publish our criticism because the priority given to it was not sufficient to justify publication. But we were assured, that the journal would take the matter seriously, that they will investigate this matter and take appropriate editorial action. But as of today (End of June 2023) no expression of concern has been published.
Did the journal receive other comments or criticisms related to the paper in question? No, apparently there were none, at least none was published and the paper remains unchallenged to this day. This means that it might be taken for reliable evidence on the effectiveness of homeopathy and mislead patients, carers, practitioners, decision-makers, etc.
We feel this is unacceptable and therefore again wrote to the editors asking to reconsider their decision. Here is our letter:
Dear …
together with my co-authors we would like to comment your decision about our letter to the editor about an extremely faulty and misleading paper that may well create harm to patients. In fact we find it very hard to accept your decision not to publish our comment.
We understand that Pediatric Research is a high impact journal with a 2-year IF of nearly 4. Your journal is member of COPE and is indexed with quite a few first rank institutions. By all standards, any reader will be convinced that a paper published in Pediatric Research is based on solid research and the results are derived by rigorous methodology and are as reliable as can be. Especially if this paper remains unchallenged by any reader’s comments for a full year after publication. This is your responsibility to the scientific community. And to the children that might receive treatment based on knowledge spread through your journal.
How then can it be, that an article about homeopathy, a thoroughly implausible lore, in the treatment of ADHD is published in Pediatric Research, where the authors come to the conclusion “that individualized homeopathy showed a clinically relevant and statistically robust effect in the treatment of ADHD”?
In our comment we point out that the authors made a lot of errors – to say it mildly. They deny the doubtful quality of the studies they included in their meta-analysis, they did not stick to their own exclusion criteria, the data the authors report do not resemble the findings of the studies they were allegedly taken from, the one study setting the results is a mere pilot study.
The reason you give for our letter not being published is that it was not given enough priority to justify publication. We would like to know: Which issues can conceivably receive higher priority than the fact that a paper in your journal is downright wrong and misleading?
What do you need to deem a comment important? Up to now the paper is unchallenged by any reader’s comments, so apparently there was no other letter to the editor that might be given higher priority than ours.
We ask you to review your decision, or better still, consider a retraction of the paper altogether. If so, an expression of concern should be issued at once. After all, the COPE-guidelines for retraction state “clear evidence, that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of major error (…), or as a result of fabrication (…) or faslification (…)’ as a reason to consider retraction.
Otherwise the malpractice of homeopathy will have a first class evidence that will be helpful to promote homeopathy to parents and their children.
Watch this space!
It has been reported that a GP has been erased from the medical register after a disciplinary tribunal concluded yesterday that her statements on vaccines amounted to misconduct.
Dr Jayne Donegan, who no longer works as an NHS GP, was found by the tribunal to have ‘encouraged parents to mislead healthcare professionals about their children’s diet or immunization history’. The UK General Medical Council (GMC) brought several allegations against Dr Donegan, about statements made between 2019 and 2020, however, the determination of impaired fitness to practise (FTP) and subsequent erasure was based solely on her suggestions to parents.
The tribunal determined that her misconduct ‘posed an ongoing risk to patient safety given her lack of insight and lack of remediation’ and that ‘public confidence would be undermined’ if such a doctor was allowed to remain in practice. An immediate order of suspension was imposed, which the tribunal determined necessary for the ‘protection of the public’. Other GMC allegations, such as Dr. Donegan’s statements failing to ‘give balanced information on the risks and benefits of immunization’, were proved true by the tribunal but were not determined to be serious misconduct.
Dr. Donegan works as a homeopathic and naturopathic practitioner and has been ‘researching disease ecology and vaccination since 1994’, according to her website. The tribunal considered statements made by Dr. Donegan in a consultation with an undercover reporter and during her lectures on vaccination. She had said that the historical decline in deaths from whooping cough was because of sanitation and surgeons, not vaccinations. She had also suggested to audiences at her lectures that they could avoid answering questions from healthcare professionals about their child’s immunization history. When asked by an audience member about this, Dr. Donegan had said: ‘I thought what am I going to do because if I were you, I could just forge something but I can’t do that because I am a doctor and I would get struck off and I really would get struck off. What can I do? I thought maybe I can do something homeopathic because they are not having it. In the meantime, I wrote “Yes, I’ll get it done” thinking what will I do and they never came back to me, so when the next one went I just said “yes. The main thing is, don’t stick your head above the parapet because you make it difficult for them. If you say they are not vaccinated, they say they can’t go on the trip or they say “They could but the insurers won’t insure us”, so just keep saying “yes” but don’t say I said that.’
The tribunal concluded that comments like this made it clear Dr. Donegan was aware this was a ‘serious matter that could result in her being struck off’, despite her defense that she was simply ‘making people laugh’. The MPTS tribunal chair Mr Julian Weinberg said: ‘The Tribunal considered that honest and accurate communication of an individual’s medical history forms an essential part of ongoing patient healthcare and that any attempt to undermine this risks the safety of patients. It noted that whilst no dishonesty was found against Dr. Donegan, the Tribunal has found that she encouraged parents to be dishonest with healthcare professionals by, for example, forging medical documents/records, thereby undermined this essential quality of the doctor/patient relationship.’ Mr Weinberg highlighted that the tribunal’s findings did not concern ‘the rights or wrongs of her views on immunization’ but rather her encouragement to parents to mislead healthcare professionals.
Dr. Donegan said in response to the decision: ‘I boycotted the GMC’s political show trial against me which ended today. Serious irregularities include bogus dishonesty charges and bogus accusations that I put newborns at risk of serious harm.’ She added: ‘Being struck off by a corrupt GMC is a small price to pay for taking a lawful ethical stand for the safety of British children.’
Apparently, Dr. Donegan even claimed that she is delighted to be struck off the register of medical practitioners – and so, I presume, are many of us reading this post!
A German paper reported the following horrific story about a Heilpraktiker, an alternative practitioner without a medical degree:
Starting July 7, Torben K. (46) from Solingen will have to answer to the Wuppertal Regional Court. The Heilpraktiker is said to have injected silicone oil into the penis and testicles of a man († 32) at his request. Shortly thereafter, the patient developed health problems and later died.
The prosecution accuses the Heilpraktiker from Solingen of bodily injury resulting in death and violation of the Heilpraktikergesetz.
According to the report, the victim had traveled to Solingen in June 2019, where the defendant had given him the injection in his apartment.
Back home, the 32-year-old patient suddenly developed shortness of breath, had to be hospitalized, then transferred to the university hospital in Giessen. Seven months after the injection, he is dead. According to the indictment, the patient suffered multiple organ failure as a result of blood poisoning.
Three days of trial are scheduled. The defendant faces up to 15 years in prison.
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I had never heard of intra-testicular injections. So, I did a Medline search and found just two papers of the procedure in human patients:
Blunt trauma is the most common mechanism of injury to the scrotum and testicle. Surgical exploration with primary repair, hematoma evacuation, and de-torsion are common surgical interventions. A 20-year-old male with no previous medical history presented after a high-speed motor vehicle collision. Ultrasonography demonstrated heterogeneous changes of the tunica albuginea and decreased arterial flow to bilateral testicles. He was subsequently taken to the operating room for surgical exploration, which revealed bilateral mottled testes with questionable viability. Papaverine was injected into each testicle, which resulted in visibly increased perfusion and subsequent preservation of the testicles. Conclusion: Current evidence on the use of papaverine is isolated to testicular torsion. Additional research should be conducted on the use of papaverine in blunt testicular trauma. Papaverine injection may be a valuable treatment option when inadequate perfusion is observed intra-operatively.
No 2:
Purpose: We describe a simple technique to deliver local anaesthetic for percutaneous testis biopsies.
Materials and methods: With the testis held firmly, a 25 gage needle is used to inject lidocaine, without epinephrine, into the skin and dartos superficial to the testis, then the needle is advanced through the tunica albuginea and 0.5 mL to 1.0 mL of lidocaine is injected directly into the testis. The testis becomes slightly more turgid with the injection. A percutaneous biopsy is then immediately performed.
Results: Intra-testicular lidocaine, (without the need of a cord block or any sedation) was used on a total of 45 consecutive patients having percutaneous testicular biopsies. Procedure time was short (averages less than 5 minutes) and anaesthesia was profound. There was no change in the number of seminiferous tubules for evaluation compared to biopsies on men using a cord block. Only 1/45 men had a post-procedure testicular hematoma (this resolved in 4 weeks).
Conclusions: Intra-testicular lidocaine appears to be a simple, rapid and safe method to provide anaesthesia for a percutaneous testis biopsy.
All the other papers on intra-testicular injections were about animal experiments, mostly for exploring means of castration. This renders the above case even more unusual. The Heilpraktiker’s defense might stress that the patient wanted the treatment. That may be so but is it a valid excuse? No, of course not. In my view – and I am just a medic, not a lawyer – the Heilpraktiker is responsible for the treatment regardless of how much the patient insisted on it.
Yesterday, I was alerted of this remarkable tweet. 
Yes, you guessed correctly, it is indeed a horoscope that the ‘Astro Dienst’ did on me. And it seems to conclude that I am an ‘injured and unhappy’ man which, in turn, is said to explain my skepticism.
So, it is all written in the stars!!!
Fascinating!
Who would have thought?
Inspired by such profound insights, I went on Medline and looked for evidence on the subject of horoscopes. Here is a recent article that I found:
Purpose of the study: Established over 2000 years ago, horoscopes remain a regular feature in contemporary society. We aimed to assess whether there could be a link between zodiac sign and medical occupation, asking the question-did your specialty choose you?
Study design: A questionnaire-based study was distributed using an online survey tool. Questions explored the zodiac sign, specialty preferences and personality features of physicians.
Results: 1923 physicians responded between February and March 2020. Variations in personality types between different medical specialties were observed, introverts being highly represented in oncology (71.4%) and rheumatology (65.4%), and extroverts in sexual health (55%), gastroenterology (44.4%) and obstetrics and gynaecology (44.2%) (p<0.01). Proportions of zodiac signs in each specialty also varied; for example, cardiologists were more likely to be Leo compared with Aries (14.4% vs 3.9%, p=0.047), medical physicians more likely Capricorn than Aquarius (10.4% vs 6.7%, p=0.02) and obstetricians and gynaecologists more likely Pisces than Sagittarius (17.5% vs 0%, p=0.036). Intensive care was the most commonly reported second choice career, but this also varied between zodiac signs and specialties. Fountain pen use was associated with extroversion (p=0.049) and gastroenterology (p<0.01).
Conclusions: Personality types vary in different specialties. There may be links to zodiac signs which warrant further investigation.
Now I am even more fascinated!
Horoscopes are for real?
They actually predict things accurately?
Hold on, in my case, the horoscope was totally wrong!
The thing about me being ‘injured’ they clearly got from Wiki and similar accounts of the old tale with Chucky Windsor etc. But what about the claim that I am ‘unhappy’? I feel happy as a lark!
Perhaps I delude myself?
As a true skeptic, I conducted a quick survey with people who know me well. It turns out that 0% of them think I am unhappy!
And then it dawned on me: the methodology of the horoscope is, of course, entirely correct but they supplied it with the wrong data: the birthday and place are correct. However, the time of day is incorrect.
The only possible conclusion is that the incorrect time must be the reason why an otherwise fool-proof method failed.
PS
No, I will not provide the correct time; it would enable the ‘Astro Dienst’ to disclose all my deepest secrets.
This article by a Postgraduate Trainee (Dept. of Case Taking and Repertory, National Institute of Homoeopathy, Govt. of India) an Assistant Professor (Dept. of Surgery, National Institute of Homoeopathy Govt. of India) and another Assistant Professor (Dept. of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Midnapore Homoeopathic Medical College & Hospital, Govt. of West Bengal) might not be available online (Clinical Medicine and Health Research Journal, Volume 03, Issue 03, May – June 2023 Page No. 444-446) but it is I think worth discussing. Here is its abstract:
Warts are one of the common dermatological disorders caused by human papilloma viruses encountered in our day to day life. These are cutaneous or mucosal infection needs proper care and treatment to prevent its transmission and complete healing. Although mostly warts are dealt with the therapeutic approach, i.e. on the basis of its peculiar type and location but it can even be successfully treated by constitutional approach. This article is regarding a case of warts treated successfully with Rhus Tox followed by Ferrum Met selected as the simillimum and proved its effectiveness in a short period of time.
As the abstract is not very informative, let me show you also some sections from the paper itself:
The patient presented with warts on right wrist for 1 year. There were plane warts at back of wrist, which was smooth, slightly elevated and skin coloured. There was no history of warts or other benign skin disease in the family. This case treated with individualized homoeopathic medicine showed complete resolution of the warts. There is no cure for wart in conventional medicine except removal of them with various methods. Although it does not rule out the chance of recurrence, later on may deep organic disease. That is why a substantial number of warts patients resort to Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM), especially homoeopathy.
In this case, Ferrum Metallicum 0/1 was selected as a ‘similimum’ based on totality of symptoms, repertorial analysis and consultation with Homoeopathic Materia Medica, which was given more priority in this case. After seeing improvement, succeeding potency was prescribed. After Ferrum Met 0/4 all her complaints including warts disappeared. Thus, the outcome of this case of Plane Warts of the lady shows the success of individualized homoeopathic medicine in treatment of wart.
Conclusion:
This case report suggests homoeopathic treatment as a promising complementary or alternative therapy and emphasizes the need of repertorisation in individualized homoeopathic prescription. This case shows a positive role of homoeopathic in treating Warts. However, this is a single case study and requires well designed studies which may be taken up for future scientific validation.
This case report reminded me of an exciting and quite lovely story: at Exeter, we once conducted a wart study. It was a placebo-controlled, double-blind trial where the verum group received distant healing and the controls nothing at all. After planning the study, I was no longer involved in its running. As I happened to have a wart at the time, I offered myself to my team as a patient. They checked me out and admitted me into the study. For the next weeks, I either received the distant healing energy or nothing; neither I nor my team knew which. My wart was photographed and measured regularly.
And then it happened: shortly after the treatment period was over, my wart had gone. Everyone was excited, especially the UK healing scene. But we had to wait until the trial was finished, the results were calculated, and the random code was opened. The result: no difference between verum and placebo! We concluded that distant healing from experienced healers had no effect on the number or size of patients’ warts.
And my own, very personal wart?
It had disappeared spontaneously – I had been in the control group!
I know Indian homeopaths have a thing about healing warts (we discussed this before) but I am afraid the conclusions of this new paper ought to be re-written:
This case report does not suggest that homeopathic treatment is a promising complementary or alternative therapy. It shows the natural history of the condition in the disappearance of warts.
The ‘American Heart Association News’ recently reported the case of a 33-year-old woman who suffered a stroke after consulting a chiropractor. I take the liberty of reproducing sections of this article:
Kate Adamson liked exercising so much, her goal was to become a fitness trainer. She grew up in New Zealand playing golf and later, living in California, she worked out often while raising her two young daughters. Although she was healthy and ate well, she had occasional migraines. At age 33, they were getting worse and more frequent. One week, she had the worst headache of her life. It went on for days. She wasn’t sleeping well and got up early to take a shower. She felt a wave of dizziness. Her left side seemed to collapse. Adamson made her way down to the edge of the tub to rest. She was able to return to bed, where she woke up her husband, Steven Klugman. “I need help now,” she said.
Her next memory was seeing paramedics rushing into the house while her 3-year-old daughter, Stephanie, was in the arms of a neighbor. Rachel, her other daughter, then 18 months old, was still asleep. When she woke up in the hospital, Adamson found herself surrounded by doctors. Klugman was by her side. She could see them, hear them and understand them. But she could not move or react.
Doctors told Klugman that his wife had experienced a massive brain stem stroke. It was later thought to be related to neck manipulations she had received from a chiropractor for the migraines. The stroke resulted in what’s known as locked-in syndrome, a disorder of the nervous system. She was paralyzed except for the muscles that control eye movement. Adamson realized she could answer yes-or-no questions by blinking her eyes.
Klugman was told that Adamson had a very minimal chance of recovery. She was put on a ventilator to breathe, given nutrition through a feeding tube, and had to use a catheter. She learned to coordinate eye movements to an alphabet chart. This enabled her to make short sentences. “Am I going to die?” she asked one of her doctors. “No, we’re going to get you into rehab,” he said.
Adamson stayed in the ICU on life support for 70 days before being transferred to an acute rehabilitation facility. She could barely move a finger, but that small bit of progress gave her hope. In rehab, she slowly started to regain use of her right side; her left side remained paralyzed. Therapists taught her to swallow and to speak. She had to relearn to blow her nose, use the toilet and tie her shoes.
She was particularly fond of a social worker named Amy who would incorporate therapy exercises into visits with her children, such as bubble blowing to help her breathing. Amy, who Adamson became friends with, also helped the children adjust to seeing their mother in a wheelchair.
Adamson changed her dream job from fitness trainer to hospital social worker. She left rehab three and a half months later, still in a wheelchair but able to breathe, eat and use the toilet on her own. She continued outpatient rehab for another year. She assumed her left side would improve as her right side did. But it remained paralyzed. She would need to use a brace on her left leg to walk and couldn’t use her left arm and hand. Still, two years after the stroke, which happened in 1995, Adamson was able to drive with a few equipment modifications…
In 2018, Adamson reached another milestone. She graduated with a master’s degree in social work; she’d started college in 2011 at age 49. “It wasn’t easy going to school. I just had to take it a day at a time, a semester at a time,” she said. “The stroke has taught me I can walk through anything.” …
Now 60, she works with renal transplant and pulmonary patients, helping coordinate their services and care with the rest of the medical team at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “Knowing that you’re making a difference in somebody’s life is very satisfying. It takes me back to when I was a patient – I’m always looking at how I would want to be treated,” she said. “I’ve really come full circle.”
Adamson has adapted to doing things one-handed in a two-handed world, such as cooking and tying her shoes. She also walks with a cane. To stay in shape, she works with a trainer doing functional exercises and strength training. She has a special glove that pulls her left hand into a fist, allowing her to use a rowing machine and stationary bike….
Adamson is especially determined when it comes to helping her patients. “I work really hard to be an example to them, to show that we are all capable of going through difficult life challenges while still maintaining a positive attitude and making a difference in the world.”
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What can we learn from this story?
Mainly two things, in my view:
- We probably should avoid chiropractors and certainly not allow them to manipulate our necks. I know, chiros will say that the case proves nothing. I agree, it does not prove anything, but the mere suspicion that the lock-in syndrome was caused by a stroke that, in turn, was due to upper spinal manipulation plus the plethora of cases where causality is much clearer are, I think, enough to issue that caution.
- Having been in rehab medicine for much of my early career, I feel it is good to occasionally point out how important this sector often neglected part of healthcare can be. Rehab medicine has been a sensible form of multidisciplinary, integrative healthcare long before the enthusiasts of so-called alternative medicine jumped on the integrative bandwagon.
At first glance, the article entitled ‘Homeopathy: A State of the Science Review With Recommendations for Practical Therapies in Midwifery Practice‘ looks interesting and fairly solid; it was published in a mainstream, peer-reviewed midwifery journal; it is lengthy and thus seems thorough; it cites 125 references; and its two American authors have respectable affiliations (Art of Nursing Care Inc., Playa del Ray, California. Sonoran University of Health Sciences, Tempe, Arizona.). Yet, it does not take long to discover that ‘solid’ is not the term to describe it accurately. In fact, the paper is one of the worst examples of pseudo-science that I have ever come across. Let me just show you its conclusions:
This state of the science review has explored the history of homeopathy, its evidence base, manufacturing, regulation, and licensure. We have examined some of the controversies between homeopathy and conventional medicine in an effort to provide an overview and understanding of homeopathic science. Suggestions for practical therapies for use in midwifery practice have been given.
Despite misperceptions, homeopathy has become a well-established global practice with a growing body of research to support its benefits. Homeopathic medicines provide a comprehensive treatment approach to the myriad of conditions encountered in the midwifery practice model of care. With homeopathy’s generally accepted safety profile, low risk of side effects, few drug interactions, and low risk of overdose, midwives educated in homeopathic science can be confident that homeopathy provides a satisfactory complement for patients seeking alternative practices.
Increased opportunities for clinical research of homeopathic medicines by large funding organizations is recommended to advance patient care, understanding, and acceptance of the whole person and inform future health policy. Researchers around the world have begun to investigate the unanswered questions verifying the safety and efficacy of homeopathic treatment and the future of homeopathic research is promising. As homeopathic science continues to evolve, many health care professionals, including midwives, now seem open to adding homeopathy to complement their system of care for the whole person.
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In the article, we find two short paragraphs dealing with the effectiveness of homeopathy:
Essential to these debates are questions surrounding theories of homeopathy, such as the Law of Minimum Dose, like cures like, nonstandardized dosing, and symptom evaluation in a manner different from that of conventional medicine. It has been argued that the homeopathic paradigm is different from conventional scientific concepts associated with evidence-based medicine such as independent replication, confirmation of findings, measurement, and interpretation of results based on homeopathy’s reliance on individualized treatments and it basic tenets of the Principle of Similars and Law of Minimum Dose.69, 68 Conventional medicine practitioners find it counterintuitive that further dilution of a substance is believed to enhance its healing power when compared with a less dilute substance.65 For example, if the level of dilution is unmeasurable, how can the active ingredient be found, and is it even there?22 Recent research using nanopharmacology is beginning to uncover, identify, and characterize these ingredients in ultradiluted remedies and may help to answer these questions.39, 70 Debates arise concerning why individuals with similar symptoms often receive different treatments.22 Others ask whether homeopathic remedies perhaps inadvertently lead consumers to forgo conventional treatments that have been proven to work.5, 21, 22, 65
Interestingly, studies examining placebo therapies have appeared in scientific literature with increasing frequency, and some have compared the effectiveness of placebos with homeopathic remedies.68, 71–73 Multiple studies that have examined homeopathic treatments have found them equivalent to or no more effective than placebo,65, 68 whereas other studies found either measurable success or that patients perceived their outcomes as improved following homeopathic treatment.26, 75, 74 Mathie et al conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis focused on randomized controlled trials of nonindividualized homeopathic treatments. Authors reported that the quality of evidence was too low to determine whether homeopathic treatment results were distinguishable from those of placebo.72 These issues cited above represent some of the inconsistencies surrounding the theoretical basis and effectiveness of homeopathic therapies.
WHY WOULD ANY RESPECTABLE AUTHOR WRITE SUCH MISLEADING NONSENSE?
WHY WOULD ANY RESPECTABLE JOURNAL PUBLISH IT?
The answers to these questions might be found at the end of the paper:
Support for this supplement has been provided by Boiron USA. Boiron representatives provided no input into the article content.
Sharon Bond, CNM, PhD, who was an Associate Editor of the Journal of Midwifery & Women’s Health during the initial drafting of the manuscript, received compensation from Boiron USA for the assistance she provided the authors with editing and proofreading of the manuscript. Dr. Bond was not involved in the editorial review of or decision to publish this article.
The findings and conclusions in this supplement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the host organizations, the American College of Nurse-Midwives, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., or the opinions of the journal editors.
I would argue that publishing such an article is unethical and amounts to scientific misconduct!
