Rapid Responses to:
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Rapid Responses: Rapid Responses published:
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![[Read Rapid Response]](/icons/misc/sectionDOWN.gif)
Are you serious?
- Bob Leckridge (13 June 2009)
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Sorry, but magic is outwith the rules
- David Colquhoun (19 June 2009)
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Maybe we do need tougher laws.
- Brian Kaplan (19 June 2009)
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Homeopathy and faith
- Matt Lewis (19 June 2009)
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Homeopathy is effective and saves money for the NHS Research Published by my Practice
- Andrew Demetriou (20 June 2009)
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Homeopaths panic
- David Colquhoun (21 June 2009)
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Bob Leckridge, Locum Consultant Physician Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital. G12 0XQ
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Sometimes, I'm not sure if DC's tongue is firmly in his cheek when he writes such things. "Arnica 30c" is exactly what it says it is. Not "arnica" the plant, not a distillate of "arnica", but a product created in a specified manner to the standards of a Pharmacopoeia, which has put a "mother tincture" of "arnica" through 30 stages of dilution and succussion. So you can't object to the label and you wouldn't expect to find molecular "arnica" in the bottle. Would you? I know I wouldn't! Secondly, the claim for "symptomatic relief" is exactly what it says on the tin. If I have a symptom, let's say, a pain, and I take "arnica 30c" and the pain goes away, I'm sorry Professor, but that counts as "symptomatic relief". I'll be the judge of whether or not a product does what it claims for me thankyou. Just as I do when I take, say, "Askit" and find it doesn't actually "fight the miseries", so I try something else instead. Competing interests: Full-time physician at Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital |
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David Colquhoun, Research professor UCL WC1E 6BT
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I'm grateful to Dr Leckridge for reinforcing my points so eloquently. The labelling regulations, unfortunately for him, depend on chemical analysis of the product. They do not allow for his invocation of black magic, even when the magic is disguised with expressions like "30C". And the time is long gone when you can get away with simply asserting that it provides "symptomatic relief". That sounds like the attitude of an 18th century physician claiming, ex cathedra, the virtues of blood letting. These days you have to provide evidence. That evidence is missing. It seems to me that it is time that the Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital went the same way as the Tunbridge Wells homeopathic hospital. If it were closed, the money could be spent on real medicine. That could do nothing but good for the reputation of Scottish medicine. Competing interests: None declared |
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Brian Kaplan, Solo practitioner London, W1G 7LE
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I do understand that Prof. Colquhoun needs to use every weapon imaginable to try to damage homeopathy. Obviously a Stalinistic control over all of medicine would make anything he doesn't approve of illegal. In his view, society clearly needs to be protected from its self by more draconian laws. We might also seriously consider locking up homeopathic doctors in mental institutions. Surely belief in homeopathy is sufficient evidence of severe psychosis? We could start by criminalising the doctors who believe in homeopathy which has no evidence showing that it works.* When that's done we can deal with the patients who irrationally and insanely believe they have been helped by homeopathy. Then we can move on to 'dealing' with people who have other irrational belief systems such as religion and so on. But perhaps Bob Leckridge is right and the good professor is having us on. In which case the joke is on me. * Unlike purely conventional medicine of which a whopping 13% is supported by incontravertible evidence. See: http://clinicalevidence.bmj.com/ceweb/about/knowledge.jsp Competing interests: None declared |
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Matt Lewis, Freelance medical writer Home, Macclesfield, SK10 1DE
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Brian Kaplan refers to ‘incontrovertible evidence’. There is no such thing as incontrovertible evidence. Appeals to ‘incontrovertible evidence’ or ‘scientific proof’ are characteristic features of non-scientists. They are faith positions, and have no overlap with science. I think failure to see this distinction is at the root of the homeopathy debate. Competing interests: Freelance medical writer |
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Andrew Demetriou, GP/Homeopathic Physician Huntley Mount Medical Centre BL9 6JA
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I would like to reasure colleagues' fears that Homeopathy drains the NHS financially. In my practice of 3500 patients I demonstrated a reduction of £113,000 out of a prescribing budget of £530,000 a saving to the NHS of 21% in just one year. In my 2-doctor practice (with personal lists) the non-Homeopathic doctor retired and I took over the prescribing for the whole practice in the following year achieving the 21% saving by prescribing Homeopathic Remedies in an Integrated Holistic approach. This significant and considerable saving to the NHS therefore funds the Homeopathic hospitals as several hundred of my GP/Homeopath Colleagues practice Integrated/Holistic care. Experience from my practice needs further Audit/Research to confirm these significant findings. In addition the expertise of colleagues in Medical Research such as David Colquhoun with experts in Homeopathy and other Holistic therapies in Medical Research should be welcomed in their contribution to this debate. It is now time to invite doctors and Medical Reseachers from both Conventional and Complementary Medicine to pool experience and plan the Research needed to settle the debate in a scientific manner. I have no doubt whatsoever that the benefits of Homeopathy will be demonstrated , if only we invested the patience and time to pool resources and expertise together My practice website www.huntleymountmc.com contains details of the prescribing audit in our book 'Integrating Complementary and Conventional Medicine' Myra Coyle-Demetriou & Andrew Demetriou foreword by Michael Dixon. All royalties from the book are being donated to an Orphanage in Uganda-therefore I declare there are no competing interests. Dr Andrew Demetriou MBChB DRCOG DCH MRCGP MFHom Competing interests: None declared |
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David Colquhoun, Research Professor UCL WC1E 6BT
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It will not escape the attention of the reader that Brian Kaplan has accused me of saying a lot of things that I didn't say and don't for a moment believe. He seems that he thinks laws that are designed to stop unfair trading are somehow Stalinist, though that can't be a very common view. I think that we are seeing signs of severe panic among homeopaths as it begins to dawn on them that the easy ride they've had for the last 30 years is coming to an end. People are now looking at the evidence and they find it isn't there. The bad side of this is that it seems to drive those who continue to believe in the magical approach into even more extreme positions. We see, for example, homeopaths in Africa, treating malaria, AIDS and TB with sugar pills. Perhaps Dr Kaplan would like to defend them too? Another odd thing about Dr Kaplan's letter is that he overlooks the fact that the only people who have actually used the law to silence critics are the alternative medicibe advocates (though they use defamation law not the Fair Trading law). The Society of Homeopaths has used it to have critical web pages removed. Most recently of course, chiropractors have used it to try to silence their critics, by suing Simon Singh. I imagine they must now be feeling rather nervous since the result of their legal action has been a close inspection of what they consider to be evidence, and consequently the submission of over 500 formal complaints to the General Chiropractic Council. Competing interests: None declared |
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