Wol

The harm it can do is stopping you getting treatment, I suppose. My guess is that quite a few people try homeopathy as a last resort when medical treatment has not got anywhere.

Wol

>>In India they have been homeopathically treating people with stage 2 (asymptomatic) HIV and stage 3. In a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial an individualized homeopathic remedy was prescribed in each case. The main outcome measure of the study was the patients' CD4-positive T-lymphocyte counts.
The net results of this study was that, in the more severely sick group(stage 3 ) there was a statistically significant improvement for the homeopathically treated group, but no significant change for the placebo group.After the initial six-month trial the 100 participants were joined by an additional 550 HIV-infected patients, who were then all treated. The May 1999 issue of homeopathy today reported on the results. "After a period of 3 to 16 months, many patients gave non-reactive response to ELISA and some gave negative response to western blot test (both standard tests for HIV) indicating effectiveness of the therapy"
<<

Could we have references to the set of experiments please?

georgiagal

It is being marketed as such in the USA.

JaneandJim

Ah, I see. That's wrong.

Jane

Bella Donna

You know, that's exactly what *I* call allopathy....

But then that's viewing allopathy from a homoeopathic viewpoint.

Bella Donna

Are you studying with Susanne, Ange? If so, how are you finding the course? What stage are you at? I was meant to be transferring to SCHM back in February but got a bit behind in my studies, so didn't make it this year. I'd appreciate any feedback you've got.

Sue

Bella Donna

Paul, if you could let me know details of the pharmacies you've found, I'd appreciate it. I know of Greenhills (it's my own homoeopath's pharmacy), and of the one at Mt. Lawley, and other than that I've only heard of Arnica in NZ - although I've been told that they have an excellent mail order service. I'd like to track down some more. Imported my last lot from Helios!

Sue

Wol

I assume you're using the word in a perjorative sense!

Since several folk on here are "studying" homeopathy, perhaps someone can answer the standard and fairly obvious questions about it?

1 How can it be that a solution which statistically contains no molecule of the substance being diluted, works?

2 Since even distilled water will contain the occasional molecule of just about any substance that has been exposed to it, including plastic, glass, seals, airborne particles etc - why do these substances not have an effect, but only the ones being "prescribed"?

3 Exactly why does succussion make water (or other solvent) "remember" one impurity (the prescribed one, in almost infinite dilution) and not all the others?

My understanding is that the "memory" effect only entered the homeopathic lexicon after Mr Avogadro blew a hole in the original "theory" - but I may be wrong.

georgiagal

Actually, I should probably clarify that a little better. We have a homeopathic vet who is also a vendor for the Noni J. You are correct that it is not a homeopathic remedy so I apologise for my faux pas!

arkon

I remember seeing a study on the so called memory effect and it was a categoric no, The water retained no ‘memory’ BUT what it didn’t prove was whether there was some kind of quantum entanglement that had taken place between the H2O and what ever substance they mixed in with it at the beginning. So you never know maybe the original contaminant atoms are still there in the water but actually existing elsewhere. In which case no-one can prove it wrong and therefore I’ve just given a way out for people to still be hoodwinked and defrauded.

Centurion

I found this article interesting and maybe answers at least some of your points raised :-

Thermodynamics of extremely diluted aqueous solutions.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, June 1999
An extensive thermodynamic study has been carried out on aqueous solutions obtained through successive dilutions and succussions of 1% in weight of some solutes up to extremely diluted solutions, (less than 1x10-5 mol kg-1) obtained via several 1/100 successive dilution processes. The interaction of acids or bases with the extremely diluted solutions has been studied calorimetrically at 25ƒC. Measurements have been performed of the heats of mixing of acid or basic solutions, having different concentrations, with bidistilled water or with the extremely diluted solutions. Despite the extreme dilution of the solutions, an exothermic heat of mixing in excess has been found, in about the 92% of the cases, with respect to the corresponding heat of mixing with the untreated solvent. Here [it is shown] that successive dilutions and succussions may alter permanently the physical-chemical properties of the solvent water. The nature of the phenomena here described still remains unexplained, but significant experimental results are obtained.

Because science cannot explain something today it does not necessarily follow that it is incorrect or does not exist. Science at one point believed the world was flat....

Everyone should take or leave any part of complimentary therapies they see fit. At this point homeopathy is not understood by practioners fully never mind scientists. Hopefully that will change and perhaps science can throw new light onto the subject in the future.

arkon

Was it science that thought the world was flat or was it the church? Also even when science does prove something people still don't believe it, for example hasn't science categorically proven that the world took considerably longer than 7 days to create, yet over half the population still think it was.

Centurion

I think that you probably are aware that science and the church were largely intertwined centuries ago since scholars were often clergy as it was they who could afford such luxury. If you really would like an insight into the development of the flat earth theories they are here. In actuality the first theories of round earth were proposed by the likes of Pythagorus in around 550BC, the flat earth theory was generally thought of to have originated from Greek and early civilisation scientific understandings of the world some time before the birth of Christ.

I should of perhaps said that the Science of the Day thought the world was flat....but science by its very nature must evolve and question previous theories.

Wol

The world isn't flat? Where on earth are these theories dragged up from?

It's turtles all the way!

I suppose that, if the hypothesis that the world is curved is accepted, it *would* explain why Australia is so dry - all the water has run off the edge?

Wol

The only reference I can see to that is from the Nation center for Homeopathy.

There *was* something in New Scientist a few weeks ago concerning this subject but I can't remember and my copy has already gone to the library.