Bristol Homeopathic Hospital

[Psudopod]

I've discovered that not only is there a homeopathic hospital near to where I live, but it's funded by the NHS. This makes me very angry, the NHS has much more important things to spend money on than magic sugar pills.

Maybe as it's an election years I should start writing to political partys saying they'll get my vote if they scrap rubbish like this.

 

[Gracchus]

I've discovered that not only is there a homeopathic hospital near to where I live, but it's funded by the NHS. This makes me very angry, the NHS has much more important things to spend money on than magic sugar pills.

Maybe as it's an election years I should start writing to political partys saying they'll get my vote if they scrap rubbish like this.

Look on the bright side. It will provide one more selective pressure against stupidity.

 

[HappyCat]

When I raised the issue of Academy schools, which receive public funding, teaching Creationism as science with my MP and the then Secretary of State for Education, I got a mealy-mouthed, evasive reply that didn't even acknowledge that it's a problem. My follow up, an attempt to find out what my MP herself thought on the subject, didn't even get a reply.

If you're lucky enough to get to speak to any of your candidates, you might be able to pin them down with a specific question. I've never been canvassed for my vote in my life, hope you fare better!

I'd love to know what targets that NHS hospital's performance is assessed against.

 

[mont974x4]

homeopathic medicine is not about magic sugar pills. It is about using natural remedies. This is not a creation vs evolution or faith vs science type of issue. The fact is, plants have things in them that are useful to treat many ailments, and they are generally much safer than the man-made meds.

 

[ThankGodforGod]

homeopathic medicine is not about magic sugar pills. It is about using natural remedies. This is not a creation vs evolution or faith vs science type of issue. The fact is, plants have things in them that are useful to treat many ailments, and they are generally much safer than the man-made meds.

As usual you are factually wrong. Homeopathy and it's philosophy are not at all based on fact but on belief, as such they fail miserably in double blind testing.

1 drop of arsenic in 10,000 gallons of water IS JUST WATER. The idea that the water "remembers" the arsenic is absolutely ludicrous and again, not at all based on facts or even logic.

 

[Pete Harcoff]

homeopathic medicine is not about magic sugar pills. It is about using natural remedies. This is not a creation vs evolution or faith vs science type of issue. The fact is, plants have things in them that are useful to treat many ailments, and they are generally much safer than the man-made meds.

Homeopathy is about deluting these supposed "natural remedies" into nothingness. The end result is something with no active ingredients (which is why you can't overdose on homeopathic remedies). It's just a placebo.

 

[mont974x4]

Lol Ok.

 

[ThankGodforGod]

Lol Ok.

Feel free to prove me wrong, I mean if it works it should be easy to observe the results. You could also explain how the methodology is based on fact rather than something someone made up.

 

[plindboe]

homeopathic medicine is not about magic sugar pills. It is about using natural remedies. This is not a creation vs evolution or faith vs science type of issue. The fact is, plants have things in them that are useful to treat many ailments, and they are generally much safer than the man-made meds.

Homeopathy is not herbal medicine. Homeopathy is based on the belief that if you dilute something enough times, then it will start gaining the opposite effect of the undiluted product. Hence why the undiluted product of their "sleeping" pills is coffeine.

Most people would stop using homeopathy if they knew how crazy it was. Most people simply think of it as an alternative to western medicine, without realizing how incredibly silly it actually is.

Peter

 

[sbvera13]

It tends to be marketed as a "natural alternative", without explaining the nonsense that goes into it. Thus the confusion with potentially useful natural alternatives, like herbal therapy.

 

[yasic]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWE1tH93G9U

 

[yasic]

homeopathic medicine is not about magic sugar pills. It is about using natural remedies. This is not a creation vs evolution or faith vs science type of issue. The fact is, plants have things in them that are useful to treat many ailments, and they are generally much safer than the man-made meds.

Question: if you buy a homeopathic remedy, what percentage of the pill will not be water?

 

[JGL53]

Well, how many people believe in a god of their imagination? Does it make a lot of them feel better? Durned right it does. It's a great sugar pill.

Placebos work. It's been proven scientifically. Belief in the non-existent works! It's called mind over matter. We can't understand it, we just must accept it.

 

[Belk]

homeopathic medicine is not about magic sugar pills. It is about using natural remedies. This is not a creation vs evolution or faith vs science type of issue. The fact is, plants have things in them that are useful to treat many ailments, and they are generally much safer than the man-made meds.

Are you sure you are not thinking of naturopathy?

Naturopathy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[LifeToTheFullest!]

Yeah, homeopathy is a bust. No better than placebo.

 

[Ryal Kane]

I wonder if the hospital has tiny, tiny beds so as to be more comfortable.

There are two face-palm facts that I seem to remember (could be wrong) about the guy who founded the homeopathic movement.

1 - He theorized that by providing small amouts of a toxin that causes the same symptoms, you could cure an illness. Remarkably, his research proved this to him.
The smaller the doses of poison he gave, the faster they recovered.

2 - Since the treatments caused symptoms similiar to the illness, it would be hard to determine which in particular was causing them.
Solution? Do all your trials on people who aren't sick.

 

[Psudopod]

What I want to know is: if homeopathy works, how do they wash out the bottles?

 

[Psudopod]

homeopathic medicine is not about magic sugar pills. It is about using natural remedies.

No, it’s all about the magic sugar pills, or magic drops of alcohol. Homeopathy is two principles – like cures like, and diluting a substance increases its potency. In any remedy, there is not trace of the original compound. Neither of these principles have any evidence and no valid studies have ever found homeopathy more effective than placebo. (There are occasionally trials touted as showing it is effective, but these tend to either be methodologically very poor, or things like customer satisfaction surveys.)

This is not a creation vs evolution or faith vs science type of issue.

It’s very much a faith versus science thing, though not a religious faith issue. There’s no evidence for homeopathy, there’s no science, but you still find people who believe in it.

The fact is, plants have things in them that are useful to treat many ailments, and they are generally much safer than the man-made meds.

Your first clause is completely correct and drug companies are well aware of it. From aspirin derived from willow bark to Tamoxifen (breast cancer drug, I think that’s the correct spelling), derived from the Pacific Yew, many drugs have their origins in plants. Indeed there is even a term for the searching out of new and valuable compounds – bio-prospecting. However your second statement is wrong. Let’s consider aspirin vs willow bark. If you take a pill of aspirin, you know exactly how much of the drug you are getting. You are also getting it in a form which is more soluble that salicylic acid, so your body can take it in better. If you chew willow back, or drink a willow bark tea, you have no much of the compound you are actually taking into your body. You are also going get other compounds from the bark which may be harmful. Chemistry can alter the active compound to make move effective, or reduce side effects, something you cannot do on the straight plant.

 

[yasic]

Just one small correction.

Most homeopathic mixtures do actually contain traces or a decent chance of containing a trace of the original material. It is once you get to 30X and high solutions that there is virtually no chance of having a molecule of the active ingredient within.

If I remember right, popular homeopathic products like HeadOn (yeah, that annoying thing from the TV) are 12X or 14X, so they have a very small but detectable trace of the active ingredient within.

 

[Psudopod]

Heh, just goes to show that even the homeopaths don't believe the rubbish then if they are bringing out lower dilutions. Even at 12x there isn't going to be much of a dose.