do you know something i dont about those specific universities? or are you just assuming because they are not American/European that they are not reliable? and the conclusion was NOT that the success of the homeopathics were simply a result of the placebo effect... as we all know correlation is not causation.
you cant hold the placebo effect to the tumor implanted rats... and if you keep searching through the studies you will find plenty where the treatment was more successful than the placebo. the FACTS are that there's evidence pointing both toward and against homeopathy, but i think as scientifically oriented individuals we must not simple DISMISS things because they dont fit into our precepts and concepts about what IS and IS NOT. you cant just say "water memory is bs" because it doesnt FIT into what you currently UNDERSTAND. it wasnt too far back that the theory that tiny little living organisms were responsible for illness was heresy, and laughed off as nonsense... or the idea that the world wasnt flat for that matter... so dont be so quick to write things off as nonsense, just because the mechanisms havent been figured out yet.
i consider myself very aware of what does and does not effect my body & mind, and not particularly susceptible to placebo effects especially when it comes to supplements ... and i have used homeopathy successfully, on multiple occasions. as have MANY people all over the world...
Most conditions improve, no matter what you do or don't do, which explains the success of many treatments on individuals. Groups are different, which is why N=1 is not a good basis for generalizing.
The first paper was from researchers at the Amala Cancer Hospital and Research Centre in Kerala, India. They say about themselves on their website:
Amala Cancer Hospital and Research Centre was established in 1978 as nonprofit, charitable institution aimed at treatment and management of Cancer in Central Kerala. Over the years Amala has grown to become one of the major voluntary territory level hospital in India having modern diagnostic, therapeutic and research facilities to combat Cancer and other ailments. This 550 bed hospital complex is unique in having three principal systems of medicine namely Allopathy, Ayurveda and Homoeopathy in the same campus. We are handling an average of 4,000 new Cancer cases and 6,000 Cancer inpatients in an year. The centre manages 35,000 Cancer outpatient visits yearly.
If the authors of a paper have a vested interested in a treatment such as homeopathy, then the paper is not unbiased.
As for effects on rats' tumors, the placebo effect will work on the researchers as well as the rats. If the animals' handlers are not blinded to the treatment, the results are biased. There have been no unbiased studies demonstrating that homeopathy is any more effective than a placebo. Periodically homeopaths attempt to get a paper demonstrating results consistent with the effectiveness of homeopathic treatment or theory into reputable scientific journals. Sometimes they succeed, to the chagrin of the editors.
Nature was taken in by a paper from some French physicians several years ago, creating quite a stir. Homeopaths have even founded journals that publish predominantly legitimate scientific papers, in order to have a platform.
I can say that water memory is BS, because we know the explanation violates basic principles of thermodynamics. Entropy would be reversed if somehow water molecules remembered a previous configuration. This is not to say there is not another explanation, if there were a demonstrable effect to be explained.
In all fairness, some of the most highly regarded procedures of traditional Western medicine are placebos. An example is arthroscopic knee surgery for torn meniscus. A double blind study, using a sham knee surgery in half the cases, found identical outcomes for the groups receiving the actual surgery, as for the mock surgery group (they had an incision under anesthesia, but no debridement or repair of the meniscus.) Shocking. Yet people still perform the surgery, and it continues to work, and insurance companies continue to pay for it. Nothing like surgery to stimulate the self-healing aspects of the placebo effect.
And there is nothing like a comprehensive explanatory theory to entrain the rational hemisphere of the brain, to allow the self-healing capabilities of the mind and body to manifest themselves. Homeopathy does this wonderfully well, but it loses those of us with too much scientific understanding. The water memory theory dates from at least the 1890's. It is badly in need of updating. I suggest an explanation involving quantum states, and the instantiation via quantum effects of past molecular configurations across time and space.
Edited by maxwatt, 06 January 2008 - 04:09 PM.
