That wasn’t actually one study; it was a meta-review of many studies of homeopathy.
The only studies out there that show that homeopathy has any effect beyond placebo are poor quality studies. There are countless high quality studies showing that homeopathy is not effective at treating any medical condition.
I refer you to what
#25 DavidMcCann said: The traditional testing methods are almost impossible to apply to any system of therapy which is patient-specific.
If these studies proved that homeopathy is not effective at treating any medical condition then no medical conditions would ever be cured by homeopathy, but such is not the case. You cannot say that all these cures were from the placebo effect. Nobody would use homeopathy if it was not curative.
Makes sense that treating his asthma with water didn’t work.
It is not just water. It is a substance that has a lot of power to cure.
By the way, my husband has not been “cured” by any of the conventional medicines he has been taking for the last 25 years. All they do is maintain his condition so he can breathe and not die, but he still suffers a lot. Why is it that conventional medicine has not found a cure for asthma, cancer, and other diseases? Because it does not have the potential to cure jack squat. All conventional medicine does is manage symptoms, with rare exceptions.
They can do considerable harm, actually:
- they often lead to delay of real treatment, since many homeopathy fans will try homeopathy for a while before seeing a real doctor. Over that time, the person’s condition can worsen. People have died because of this.
People have also died from conventional drugs. I almost died one, wound up in the hospital from a combination of antidepressant drugs prescribed by a psychiatrist.
- because homeopathic “remedies” aren’t subject to the normal government oversight and regulation that real medications have, they often have poor quality control, resulting in things like bacterial contamination, dangerously high levels of toxic ingredients, and undeclared active ingredients:
Massive recall of homeopathic kids’ products spotlights dubious health claims
Food agency warns of belladonna danger in US homeopathy product
Homeopathic Nasal Zinc Linked to Loss of Smell
homeopathic medicinal products: Topics by Science.gov
I do not consider any of these products to be homeopathy. These are products that are called homeopathic but they have other ingredients. Homeopathic remedies are not packaged and sold on shelves with labels that make claims to cure specific conditions.
Hopefully. In the worst cases, the homeopathic preparation causes real harm, or the person’s condition gets worse because of lack of real treatment and is much harder to treat once they get seen by real doctors.
Actually, it is the exact opposite situation. After five years on antidepressant drugs that did not do a thing for my depression, I finally tried to get off the drug I was on and I could not get off of it; I had severe withdrawal symptoms and became suicidal. These little things that psychiatrists omit telling patients is about the side effects and how difficult it will be to get off these drugs. Thank God I met a Baha’i in my community who had been seeing a homeopathic doctor who cured the manic-depression he had for 30 years prior. Within a month, I was able to get off the antidepressant drug with no withdrawal symptoms, and I was not depressed at all. I will never forget that because it was the first time I was ever really happy in my life. And that was only the beginning, because I continued to improve over the years.
Most people want a quick fix for depression and anxiety and that is why they go for psychotropic drugs. Little do they know the dangers because most people do not even bother to do any research, they just “trust the doctor.” I did a lot of research on psychotropic drugs while I was taking them. This was back before there was any internet and so I spent my time in the library reading the PDR, detail by detail. I knew what I was taking and what it was for and I knew all the side effects, but at that time I did not know of any alternatives.
Psychiatric drugs are serious business that need care when prescribing them, but they’re only prescribed when they’re better than the alternatives.
Better than what alternatives? According to people I know who are on them they are prescribed as soon as someone complains of being depressed. It is called “symptom management” but it cures nothing. Sadly, my best Baha’i friend went to the psychiatrist and said he was depressed even though he never even met any criteria for depression. He was just having a few bad days. The psychiatrist put him on some dangerous drugs and now he cannot get off of them. Like most people, he was not going to try homeopathy because he wanted a quick fix and he trusted the psychiatrist.
If someone does need psychotropic medication, telling them to switch to homeopathy instead is effectively telling them to go off their mess altogether. This is unethical, especially when it’s done by someone who purports to being a medical professional.
Never would a competent homeopathic doctor tell anyone to go off their psychotropic medications. Just like any other doctor, they would wean them off and monitor them closely. There was even a time when I was going through a rough patch that my homeopathic doctor suggested my going on an antidepressant.
Of course homeopathic preparations have no side effects; they have no active ingredients (if you don’t count the quality control issues I mentioned earlier). They also have no treatment effect.
That they have no treatment effect is patently false, as many people will attest to. Active ingredients, lol. It is not the molecules of the substance they start with that is curative, it is the preparation. It would not require a lot of research on the internet to understand how remedies are prepared and how they work.
You don’t think that homeopathic companies make big money as well?
No, they do not. I purchased a kit of 100 common homeopathic remedies from my doctor for about $30. When I went to an appointment and a remedy was prescribed it cost $5 and that lasted for eight weeks, till my next appointment. My naturopath sold me the remedy I was on for $5 for a vial that has lasted indefinitely. Moreover, homeopathic remedies do not ever expire. I still have it after over 10 years, because it lasts that long. Compare that to the cost of allopathic drugs, even just the copays when one has good health insurance.
And you say that the drug industry has suppressed positive studies about homeopathy... so you do agree that the scientific literature does say that homeopathy doesn’t work (even if you think this is because of a conspiracy)?
I am not really aware of any of what is going on with the drug or homeopathic industry. I completed my degree in 1997 and I have not kept up on things. But I have no doubt that there is a lot of corruption in the drug industry, because wherever there is big money, there is corruption.
Except for a few things, such as homeopathy, everything that’s sold for human consumption is inspected and confirmed to be safe, whether it’s the medicine you take or the food you eat. Homeopathic “remedy” producers generally don’t even have to go through the checks that, say, bottled water would have to go through to confirm that it’s being produced in a way that contaminants or undeclared ingredients won’t make it into the product.
Maybe that is because there is nothing in it that could be harmful, since there are no molecules of the original substance left in a remedy after it has been prepared.
And you don’t know anyone who ends up taking homeopathic preparations long term?
Of course they do, but there is absolutely no harm caused by homeopathic remedies long term, as there is with psychotropic drugs. It is often necessary to be on remedies long term for people like me who have serious issues from childhood and have had depression and anxiety since they were a child. Cure does not happen overnight but after cure occurs there is no need for a remedy or any psychotropic drugs ever again. I have one homeopathic remedy I use now and sometimes I take it but only about once a year. All it does is stimulate the vital force and get me back on track if I have been going through a really difficult situation in my life.