Talk:Homeopathy/Archive 13

Some ground rules (please do not delete from top of the page)

Here are some brief comments that I hope will help reinforce our ground rules. I'm sorry I don't have time for more detailed engagement right now. Some Citizens have complained to me that homeopathy's advocates on this page are tending to purge criticisms. On this I will absolutely put my foot down. You may not do so. You may maintain that (and say in the article how) homeopaths reject the criticisms, but you may not simply delete points, and source material, simply because you disagree with them or you think they are misinformed. If you have a strong disagreement about a published criticism, you should voice it in the article, rather than removing the criticism. There may be exceptions to this rule, but (I understand) not in several recent cases in the present article. Of course, the "reply, don't delete" rule assumes that a source and criticism are important enough from the point of view of homeopathy's critics to be included. While they can have input of course, this is not ultimately a matter that homeopathy's defenders are best placed to decide. The word "skeptic" should not be used, pejoratively, to identify those who reject homeopathy in the article. If there is a need repeatedly to identify the skeptics of homeopathy, you may not use a term that the skeptics themselves reject. You must find a mutually agreeable term. I suggest "mainstream physicians." "Allopaths" won't do, either, although it certainly can be introduced, and it should be. It should not be necessary for me to point out that the article can neither endorse nor roundly condemn homeopathy. The article does not take a stand; it presents both (or all) sides on all controversial issues it presents, and leaves it up to the reader to decide for himself. The article does not endorse a position. Precisely because homeopathy happens to be a minority viewpoint when it comes to the health issues it discusses, criticism of homeopathy does not belong in a separate "criticisms" section of the article. I have my doubts whether there is any need for a "criticisms" section at all, but I can't say so until I've read the current version, which I haven't done. Selective and uncritical reporting of references is contrary to CZ's neutrality policy: this makes it appear that we officially think the literature says such-and-such, when there is legitimate disagreement about whether it does say that. When, therefore, a "skeptic" raises a question about a statistic such as 18% of Americans, we must absolutely deal with this question. I am very uncomfortable publishing information about the percentage of Americans who accept homeopathy, when it has not been made clear what "acceptance" amounts to in the survey that was performed. Therefore, either this essential interpretive information must be included in the article, or the information about the statistic must be excluded. Anything else would be, quite simply, misleading and unscientific. More generally, on a topic with this much disagreement, we simply cannot add heaps of studies and statistics to the article without adequate explanation and without critical responses where such may exist or be possible. Uncritical reportage of the results of disputed studies has an inherently biasing effect. Finally, I want to underscore that if anyone repeatedly reverts significant parts of the text without explaining and defending his actions here on the talk page, I will consider banning that person. I would ask those who are following the article more closely to make a list of such unexplained reversions, and provide it to me privately. On the basis of such information I will either issue a warning or, if the problem is very serious, a temporary ban. Let me finish on a positive note. Despite the amount of struggle over this article, or perhaps because of it, this article has grown and in many ways improved, and other articles have spun off. This is a good thing. As I like to say, if everybody is equally frustrated, that means that work is getting done and the article isn't too biased one way or the other. Still, if we can all follow the above ground rules, I think we'll get along quite a bit better. --Larry Sanger 16:22, 20 October 2008 (UTC) I want to add another point. While I do not endorse Wikipedia's inane and abusable rule "assume good faith," I do want to suggest that we need something a little like that. I might say, instead, "Assume your opponent is reasonable enough to be open to compromise." If you make that assumption, you will yourself be much more likely to propose a compromise, and to be open to one. Then, if the other person shows himself to be completely closed to any compromise, whether yours or any that he might propose, the matter suddenly becomes much clearer. Then you can contact me, saying, "Look, I proposed a compromise, so-and-so did not accept it or propose any compromise in response. What do we do?" --Larry Sanger 15:17, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

'Mad' Ennis

Should'nt we have a bit on this?

MADELEINE Ennis, a pharmacologist at Queen's University, Belfast, was the scourge of homeopathy. She railed against its claims that a chemical remedy could be diluted to the point where a sample was unlikely to contain a single molecule of anything but water, and yet still have a healing effect. Until, that is, she set out to prove once and for all that homeopathy was bunkum. Ennis and her team found that ultra-dilute solutions of histamine – so dilute that they probably didn't contain a single histamine molecule – worked on the human body just like histamine. The study, replicated in four different labs, forced Ennis to admit that something inexplicable is going on with homeopathy.

And now some eminent chemists are weighing into the debate, claiming that our “understanding” of the properties of water is based on false assumptions: water, they say, has such peculiar quantum mechanical properties that we really do need to go back to the drawing board when it comes to our understanding of this root of life.

• As a chemist who (co)authored some papers on the quantum mechanical properties of water, I'm naturally interested in the names of the eminent chemists who are weighing into the debate and also where this debate is taking place. Thank you in advance for your giving me the names and place(s). --Paul Wormer 10:25, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

[summarised from '13 Things that Don't Make Sense', (2008) by Michael Brooks]

I see the 'other place' mentions Ennis but dismisses her research in line with the BBC's 'debunking'. Brooks is linked to the BBC.

I read an article 'somewhere' about two weeks ago on good, solid evidence of 'memory' in liquids - but blow me - now I can't find it!

Martin Cohen 17:22, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Welcome Martin!

Yes, Ennis' work IS important for several reasons. First, initially, she was a skeptic. Second, her study was replicated by 3 other university laboratories. And NO (!), her work was NOT debunked by the BBC or ABC News. For details about this "TV junk science," read Ennis' letter to me about how different this tv "study" was from hers: http://www.homeopathic.com/articles/view,55 and see also http://www.homeopathic.com/articles/view,58

As for articles on the memory of water in liquid, there are several good articles, though I am not certain to which you refer. I am certain that you will find whatever you may want on THIS subject here at the site of Professor Martin Chaplin: http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/memory.html Dana Ullman 17:55, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

This work is already covered in Memory of waterGareth Leng 13:06, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Net problems

Hit technical problems at the weekend - first CZ went down here just as I was starting, then my net service went down, so apologies - I'd scarcely begun; I'll get vback when I can but life is now tight for the next week or so. However, the article is too large in my view and I'd suggest moving the bulk of material on the efficacy into a focussed article on Testing the efficacy of homeopathy. Comments?Gareth Leng 13:04, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi Gareth (and everybody), whenever CZ goes down, please send me an e-mail ASAP. Often I'm the only person available who can do anything about the problem, and while I typically visit CZ several times a day, there are often gaps of many hours... --Larry Sanger 14:41, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Gareth's extensive editing

A very nice job! As you know, I had given up on this article several weeks ago and proposed that it simply be put in mothballs for at least a year. Thanks to the goodwill on many people's part, and particularly your own expertise in rewriting, I may have changed my mind. A *fine* article may yet come out of this.... Hayford Peirce 02:49, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Gareth, I have only just begun to review your work, though my initial review is also quite positive. I am, however, concerned that the section "Contrasting views of homeopathy and conventional medicine" is placed even before "The basics of homeopathy." It seems odd to provide a critique of homeopathy BEFORE describing what homeopathy is! Dana Ullman 03:20, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree - I've been more concerned not to lose text that I take out of sections and haven't given close thought to the order of sections.Gareth Leng 17:24, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

On Testing - I've moved this, agree fully with Chris that there needs to be a succinct summary here, that should also be the lead of the new article.

There is still a lot to be done, especially reorganisation! I have just started really, but will have to do my bit intermittently. Gareth Leng 17:49, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree the organisation needs some work. The "Professional homeopaths: who are they?" section is currently a hodge podge of stuff that does not necessarily connect well. Chris Day 18:04, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Several things in this section need to be written carefully. While there are homeopaths with full medical credentials, there are also CAM practitioners that have only classical homeopathic training. When physicians express concern about homeopaths, the concern is most likely about pure homeopathic approaches; it is not fair to imply that all homeopaths are medically qualified and only select homeopathic treatment after a considered balancing of approaches.

Again, there may be much valuable material available in the interpersonal dynamics. Howard C. Berkowitz 18:12, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Safety and Vaccine Issues

Under the section on "Safety," there is this paragraph which I recommend that we delete, except for the 1st sentence (or that we rewrite entirely. The reference does not say that the chickenpox vaccine reduces incidence of herpes zoster (there seems to be a separate vaccine for that).

"Such advice is generally considered irresponsible by public health professionals. Adult herpes zoster infection is a reactivation of childhood chickenpox, which recurs along nerve paths, affects 1 in 3 adults, and can cause chronic, severe nerve pain of postherpetic neuralgia in 10-18% of cases, and eye involvement in 10-25% of cases. Chickenpox immunization prevents adult herpes zoster; a herpes zoster vaccine is now recommended for all adults 60 years and older. [69] Childhood immunization against chickenpox prevents herpes zoster. Measles is not a major killer in the western world, where the vast majority of children are vaccinated against the disease at about two years old. However, in less developed countries the death toll is much higher, and in 1999 there were 875,000 deaths from measles worldwide, mostly in Africa. In 2001, a "Measles Initiative" was initiated involving organisations such as the American Red Cross, UNICEF and the World Health Organization, and between 1999 and 2005 more than 360 million children across the world were vaccinated. By 2005 the death toll had dropped by 60% to 345,000. [70]" Dana Ullman 05:38, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

To clarify the specific, herpes zoster is a reactivation of childhood chickenpox, where the virus has entered cutaneous nerves and become dormant. If chickenpox is prevented, than the vulnerability for adult herpes zoster never develops. Both vaccines target the same virus, but in different manifestations — symptom complexes if you will. Now, Neustadter, a homeopath, wrote that the only benefit for chickenpox immunization is economic, variously keeping parents from losing time from work, and generating revenue for vaccine makers.

Neustadter, although well published in non-scientific circles as a critic of vaccines, does not, in any of his material I have read, seems to understadnd the relationship between herpes zoster (chickenpox) and herpes zoster (shingles). His biography shows training in oriental medicine and homeopathy, but nothing from a biomedical perspective. I didn't bring in his work in the first place; homeopaths did. His work, stands as a very good example of the sort of thing that frightens medical scientists and physicians about alternative practitioners that do not have the knowledge to understand the potential implications of what they claim. Now, if Neustadter had denied the relationship between these different viral diseases, it would be one thing, but it is, to me, telling that a prominent homeopathic author doesn't even seem to know it exists.

Dana, are you saying the materials about more generic anti-vaccine claims also be dropped? It was my understanding that Neustadter objected to it because "in part because some childhood infectious diseases may actually strengthen immune response, thereby reducing the incidence of certain chronic ailments such as asthma." Now, if he were to say "strengthen vital force", I'd say that is homeopathic art and I'd accept it as valid within the homeopathic system. As soon as the words "immune system", however, are mentioned, that seems far to ask about precisely what measurable immune factors are improved by childhood diseases. Generically, for example, are some protective of T4 lymphocytes? To deal with asthma specifically, I'd certainly hesitate to say a "strengthened" immune response reduces asthma, because the mechanism of asthma is hyperreactivity in immune system cells called basophils and mast cells, or their hypersensitization by immunoglobulin-generating lymphocytes. Conventional treatment deliberately weakens these hypersensitive immune components, blocking the release of histamine and other inflammatory factors that cause, among other things the bronchospasm of asthma. How does not giving childhood vaccines reduce inappropriate immunoglobin production or basophil/mast cell degranulation? If I made comments about similliums, a homeopath would have every justification to demand I explain my apparently superficial reason. Turnabout seems perfectly neutral fair play, presenting a claim in the context of the other discipline.

So, after all this time the assorted vaccine-related things have been brought in as homeopathic arguments, and not removed, or even questions raised from concerned homeopaths, these words seem a perfect example of the sort of issue that concerns physicians about homeopaths objecting to treatments that may very well have long-term serious consequences. Further explanation might help, but removing the material now would appear covering up very public homeopathic statements that show a lack of understanding of the knowledge a trained conventional physician should have. Howard C. Berkowitz 07:43, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I can't get back to consider this before the weekend; for now I've done some trimming and tightening; whether its needed depends on phrasing elsewhere I think. Gareth Leng 08:51, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Question: is there no homeopathic pollution problem?

I often wondered what happens to the medicinal water that is necessarily discarded during the preparation of a, say, 30C solution. I would guess that this water, having medicinal/healing properties, is not safe to simply flush into a city sewer system. Isn't there a pollution problem here? Storing and saving the whole batch cannot solve the problem either, because, suppose we start preparation from 1 (one) microliter (10⁻⁶ L) of tincture, then a 30C dilution, i.e., dilution by a factor 10⁶⁰, gives 10⁵⁴ L. The volume of the Earth is 10²⁴ L, so we need 10³⁰ times the volume of the Earth to store all the succussed water that has been in contact with the medicinal substance during preparation. Hence it seems to me that discarding large volumes of the intermediate solutions is the only way out.

I wonder, are by any chance the more concentrated intermediate solutions less powerful so that flushing them is safe? Or do the concentrated solutions lose their essential healing properties sooner than the "beyond Avogadro" solutions? Or is there some mechanism in the sewer that annihilates the healing property of concentrated solutions and makes them safe? I hope that the homeopathic industry investigated this and found a solution (no pun), I don't like my drinking water contaminated with medicinal water. --Paul Wormer 13:31, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Paul, no one knows with certainty what good or bad that dispensed homeopathic water has, though the premise of homeopathy suggests that only those biological systems that will react to a specific homeopathic medicine will be those that have some similarity or resonance to it. Also, heat and extreme cold as well as various fragrant substances have been known to neutralize homeopathic medicines, so whatever effects may happen in nature are usually undone. I file this subject under: interesting to investigate (if possible) but probably no big deal. Dana Ullman 06:32, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I am not clear how long the below paragraph has been in this article as is, but it is full of spectulation and straw man thinking. A weak and incorrect description of the memory of water theory is provided. Also, whoever wrote this does not seem to understand that ALL homeopathic medicines are made with a double-distilled water. This pharmaceutical grade water creates a standard for water which responds to the unsubstantiated concerns about "pollution" in the water used in homeopathy. Further, the ideas expressed below about the extreme views of the "memory of water" are quite slopply intellectually and have no basis as being a problem. The statement about memory from "contact" is not even accurate because homeopathic medicines are made by contact, dilution, and succussion (vigorous shaking). Because of all this, I have deleted this paragraph because it seems not worthy.

"Non-homeopaths question if homepathic theory is logically consistent, pointing out what appear to be inconsistency. The theory assumes that water is imprinted by the properties of molecules that it once came in contact with, even when the molecules are diluted away. If so, then where did the pure water used in this process come from? The water that homeopaths use was once in contact with other chemicals, including chemical wastes, radioactive metals, dinosaur urine, and various poisons. According to this interpretation of homeopathic theory, all water in the world should remember its contact with millions of chemical substances and not just the properties of the chemicals that the homeopath claims will be useful.[61] Homeopaths respond by asserting that homeopathic manufacturers use a double-distilled water which may clear the "memory" of past water history." Dana Ullman 07:03, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Has anyone studied the half life of homeopathic medicines? How long can they stay on a stores shelf before they become inactive? Chris Day 13:36, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Half-life determinations, normally part of FDA Good Manufacturing Practices, are explicitly waived for homeopathic medicines. Howard C. Berkowitz 13:39, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

So the homeopathic medicines don't become inactive? Or does FDA just classify them as inactive? As for the latter, is that why the FDA does not regulate homeopathic medicine or is their stated reason that there are no serious side effects? Chris Day 13:47, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, and without trying to be snarky, this is politics rather than science. The enabling legislation was enacted in 1938, when there was very little science of pharamacology. There was the Elixir Sulfanilamide disaster, which was the trigger. During debate, Sen. Royal Copeland, a homeopathic physician but apparently an objective man, did not want to see homeopathic medicines that had "passed the test of time" be subject to the the newfangled rules. As FDA and related regulatory organizations passed Good Manufacturing Processes, New Drug Application clinical trials, and the rest, homeopathy always managed to be grandfathered; I can't testify if that was a scientific determination of stability, a scientific determination that there was nothing to degrade, or a political maneuver.

In other words, Chris, there's never been a serious U.S., scientifically mediated discussion about the points you raise. It is clear that homeopathic drugs, for whatever reasons, are in a sanctuary from oversight except in egregious cases of misbranding. To some extent, the laws of other Western countries have some parallels. Is this valid material for the article? Should there be a stronger link to New Drug Application with compare-and-contrast?Howard C. Berkowitz 13:59, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

5-45

In "with 5-45 minute follow-up consultations" does this mean there are typically five consultations that are 45 minutes long, or that there is an indeterminate number of follow-up consultations that range from 5 to 45 minutes long? --Larry Sanger 18:13, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

It was meant as 5 to 45 minute follow-up consultations (some consults are very short and others take more time). Dana Ullman 06:25, 4 December 2008 (UTC)