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Default May 22, 2019 at 12:12 PM
  #21
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Originally Posted by Oliviab View Post
My objections come down to what I consider to be a dishonest or erroneous attribution of cause-and-effect and the underlying mechanism behind the change or improvement. In my experience, practitioners are rarely honest about what we know and don't know, and I have rarely had a practitioner be transparent about the placebo effect. (My therapist was an exception to that, as was my GP, which is probably why I stuck with both of them.)

I, too, am all for harnessing the body's ability to heal itself. I just ask for honesty and transparency about what it is you're selling. Anything else borders on (or crosses over) into fraud, in my opinion.
This is my issue too. It is one thing to offer a placebo knowing full well that is what you are doing. But if you genuinely believe that water has a memory of the good substances you've put into it (but not the salt and the faeces that it has probably had in it at one point or another) seems like self-deception. I agree that placebos do work, but it's a bit condescending to sell someone such an elaborate and expensive health treatment if you know it's just a placebo. In many cases people continue for years taking these things.

In the same way it might make the whole village feel better to sacrifice a goat in order to appease the gods so that you are assured of a good harvest- should we do that?

It doesn't affect the benefit I've gotten from several years of therapy. But it has caused me to reevaluate my relationship and what I should expect from a therapist. I wonder how much I've said of my own beliefs that my therapist has quietly been disagreeing with.
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Default May 22, 2019 at 12:46 PM
  #22
I absolutely take advantage of the placebo effect. But that is for myself, not as a healthcare provider giving it to anyone else, and it would be unethical of me to sell placebos to anyone else as anything other than a placebo.
And even if it doesn't involve profit, there's a difference between being okay with knowingly using the placebo effect and actually thinking that "like cures like" and a million fold dilution is super duper strong. There's just a refusal to accept basic logic there when not even acknowledging that there's unlikely to even be one molecule of the compound left in the super diluted stuff.
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Default May 22, 2019 at 01:21 PM
  #23
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

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Default May 22, 2019 at 04:24 PM
  #24
I actually thought there was some scientific evidence to support homeopathy, even though the notion sounds fantastical. Of course it hasn’t had the financial backing from any of our super douper drug companies to fund research studies x
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Default May 23, 2019 at 01:06 PM
  #25
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Originally Posted by Wild at heart View Post
I actually thought there was some scientific evidence to support homeopathy, even though the notion sounds fantastical. Of course it hasn’t had the financial backing from any of our super douper drug companies to fund research studies x
Nope.
There are some "naturopathic" treatments that may actually have benefits that haven't been fully demonstrated in the scientific literature. A lot of modern medicine is based on chemicals that were originally plant derived, and there are thousands of different chemicals in any given plant or food, so something like turmeric or aloe or whatever is going to have a bunch of different compounds.
The difference between some naturopathic woo treatments and modern medicine is just how much they've been studied and tested. A lot of other treatments have been thoroughly tested and found to have no benefit whatsoever. And a lot are ambiguous.
You also have commonly accepted modern medicine that's useless. Like the expectorant guaifenesin that's in mucinex and a lot of cough medicines is actually pretty useless based on the research that's been done, but it's still used and most docs don't know what the research actually shows.

You might be able to find a few papers alleging scientific support for homeopathy, but not in any credible journals. You can find research articles saying almost anything because of the shady non peer reviewed journals that are "pay to publish." People have published things like papers written by predictive text generators to show that these "journals" will accept and publish anything.
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Default May 23, 2019 at 01:15 PM
  #26

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Default May 23, 2019 at 03:24 PM
  #27
Wow you're right you sure showed me. Those articles are totally representative of the current issues in science and all the nuance thereof. Good thing you were here to educate us all, it's not like there's actually an entire field devoted to studying science as a social construct/through a sociological lens, including historically. It tends not to come in listicle form though.

I'm going to go drink some magic water now.
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Default May 23, 2019 at 03:37 PM
  #28
My point is to show that science is wrong a lot of the time - regardless of papers and juries and so on. Medicine has killed a lot of people and maimed a lot of others with their "science" and they keep on doing it even where some people are helped by it. And some people are neither harmed nor helped.
Western Medicine and its studies and drugs are driven by money. It happens at times where the purported cure will kill quicker than the disease.
Studies are paid for by those with an interest in keeping the drugging/medical machine as it is. Not in healing.

For the record, I am not particularly advocating for homeopathy. I would give it a try but it really hasn't come up for me. I am a huge proponent of acupuncture and eastern healing arts.
But everyone dies from something. I would rather it be from the disease and not the cure western medicine tried to poison me with to further line their pockets.

If I don't mind a therapist who follows a religion or believes in any sort of god, then why would I get worked up about homeopathy?

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Last edited by stopdog; May 23, 2019 at 04:12 PM..
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Default May 23, 2019 at 03:47 PM
  #29
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Originally Posted by LabRat27 View Post
...You also have commonly accepted modern medicine that's useless. Like the expectorant guaifenesin that's in mucinex and a lot of cough medicines is actually pretty useless based on the research that's been done, but it's still used and most docs don't know what the research actually shows...
What?! I love my guafinesin!
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Default May 23, 2019 at 03:47 PM
  #30
There are different degrees of certainty. Unfortunately much of that is lost when it gets communicated to the world beyond those closely involved. Lots of things get reported as fast but omitting all the caveats and clarifications about the scope. If you want an actually relevant recent example, the way we think about depression from a neurobiological perspective has been changing dramatically. The focus on serotonin because of SSRIs really led the field in the wrong direction imo and in the opinion of many people who are in that field (I'm not even in neuro let alone that subfield so my opinions are just opinions and I'm by no means an expert)
But, for the most part, responsible scientists have been clear about the lack of certainty. And even when not stated explicitly in every single paper, it's something that comes up about a field as a whole.

Homeopathy having an effect would require our most fundamental understanding of some very basic concepts to be completely wrong. Water molecules having memory might as well be magic. I can't say it's impossible, but it's the same way I can't say it's impossible that the world is controlled by faeries.

Empirically speaking, homeopathy has not demonstrated an effect over placebo. So there's no reason to believe it works in practice or in theory. There's no compelling evidence whatsoever, or any unexplained phenomenon being explained.
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Default May 23, 2019 at 04:08 PM
  #31
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Originally Posted by stopdog View Post
My point is to show that science is wrong a lot of the time - regardless of papers and juries and so on. Medicine has killed a lot of people and maimed a lot of others with their "science" and they keep on doing it even where some people are helped by it. And some people are neither harmed nor helped.
Western Medicine and its studies and drugs are driven by money. It happens at times where the purported cure will kill quicker than the disease.
Studies are paid for by those with an interest in keeping the drugging/medical machine as it is. Not in healing.
Those are absolutely valid critiques of certain aspects of science and medicine. But claiming that we can't know homeopathy is ******** is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Skepticism is good. Refusing to believe anything doesn't help anyone.
Things like megadosing vitamin C seem to not actually do much good for cancer, but I would not say that with any degree of certainty.
Things like apple cider vinegar are, imo, stupid. But, once again, there's little that can be said with absolute certainty. (Though one must also consider potential risks, not all of these treatments are harmless)

The fact that homeopathy doesn't work is something that can be said with as close to certainty as we can get.

Some studies are driven by money. A lot are done in academia by research scientists who are not funded by drug companies and actually want to help people. Not to say that financial interests don't still exert some indirect influence. It sets conventions and blind spots for academic researchers.

Also medicine as a research field is not the same as medicine that happens in a doctor's office, and is also not the same as the more basic or even translational research that occurs in academic institutions. They're all interconnected, but they're also different worlds.
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Default May 23, 2019 at 04:14 PM
  #32
Again, I don't really care one way or the other about homeopathy. It is no odder to me than letting big pharma poison you or believing in a god, or whatever else someone wants to do. I don't know why you are so worked up about it. No one is making you use homeopathy.

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Default May 23, 2019 at 06:52 PM
  #33
If my therapist truly believed in homeopathy (i.e. that diluting something makes it stronger) as something more than harnessing the placebo effect, I'd question his judgment.

If he didn't believe in it but was peddling it to people, I'd question his ethics.

Either way, I'd have a really hard time continuing to see a therapist who practiced homeopathy, but if they were otherwise a really good therapist, I'd probably talk to him about it before quitting.
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Default May 23, 2019 at 08:21 PM
  #34
I honestly don't see what difference it would make. It isn't like therapy is a real science either - even those guys talk about it being "an art"
For me, once someone has decided to become a therapist, the boat has already sailed.

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Default May 24, 2019 at 07:33 AM
  #35
I am a biomedical scientist and can confidently say that a lot of things drive (and distort) science that have little to do with objectivity and a desire to discover/create something useful. And I think many therapists and therapy-related theories claim far more bizarre things than homeopathy as "treatment". I am certainly not surprised if someone who decides to be a therapist has other woo-wooish interests and offerings as well - it is kinda consistent.
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Default May 24, 2019 at 03:57 PM
  #36
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I am a biomedical scientist and can confidently say that a lot of things drive (and distort) science that have little to do with objectivity and a desire to discover/create something useful. And I think many therapists and therapy-related theories claim far more bizarre things than homeopathy as "treatment". I am certainly not surprised if someone who decides to be a therapist has other woo-wooish interests and offerings as well - it is kinda consistent.
Exactly what Xynesthesia2 said is what I wanted to say, also. That a lot of supposedly peer-reviewed scientific studies have been distorted/manipulated to prove a certain hypothesis also.
With that in mind: it would not be a deal breaker for me if a therapist used homeopathy in his/her treatment. On the other hand: if he/she comes up with all kinds of over-the-top invalid claims concerning this treatment with homeopathy it would be a different story for me.
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Default May 24, 2019 at 07:55 PM
  #37
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I honestly don't see what difference it would make. It isn't like therapy is a real science either - even those guys talk about it being "an art"
For me, once someone has decided to become a therapist, the boat has already sailed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xynesthesia2 View Post
I am a biomedical scientist and can confidently say that a lot of things drive (and distort) science that have little to do with objectivity and a desire to discover/create something useful. And I think many therapists and therapy-related theories claim far more bizarre things than homeopathy as "treatment". I am certainly not surprised if someone who decides to be a therapist has other woo-wooish interests and offerings as well - it is kinda consistent.
I agree that there's a pseudoscientific streak in a lot of therapy that makes some therapists particularly prone to stuff like homeopathy. But to me therapy is questionable like some poorly regulated, poorly studied herbal remedies are questionable, not like homeopathy is questionable. There are some herbal remedies that have been shown scientifically to work quite well, others that are useless, others that are harmful--and they might even all be labeled the same thing, and you can't necessarily know which you're getting based on what it's called.

Meanwhile, the homeopathy equivalent of therapy would be paying a therapist, then going and sitting in an empty room by yourself for an hour every week. And the therapist saying that it's more effective the further away they are from the empty room. Which I suppose could be true in a sense if the therapist is terrible, but that doesn't make the empty room not empty, and it doesn't mean I think it's ethical for the therapist to expect payment for staying far away!
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Default May 24, 2019 at 09:02 PM
  #38
Juat adding my two cents-

All the poor and biased research is leading to worse outcomes than no research. How research is applied makes all the difference. If not applied intelligently, it's useless; even harmful. It's a dire situation. in my experience.
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Default May 25, 2019 at 01:50 AM
  #39
One reason I think homeopathic remedies have taken hold is the distrust and fear of "Big Pharma". People are quick to discount all research out of a fear or a conspiracy by the drug companies to "drug us" or have all of us on meds vs. natural treatments. I am not sure why this has become a thing lately. Yes, drug companies have a financial stake in things but that doesnt mean their research or drugs are useless. It doesnt mean that homeopathy is better than drugs or research. Many homeopathic remedies and supplements are unregulated and have little to no research to back up their claims of safety and efficacy. Someone who is suspicious of drugs will then say its because the natural companies can't afford a corporate sponsor or arent allowed to compete with medications. I do not believe that drug companies all have a bottom line of keeping us sick or having us all on meds. The review process for drugs and research is pretty extensive. The fact that the FDA has not made it a law that natural companies prove their claims I think lends further legitimacy to the idea that drugs companies are not evil. I think any claim or remedy should have to have evidence and peer reviewed, cite research to back up their claims.
I take issue when homeopathic "experts" tout claims of curing or treating illness and sickness by natural methods because they can often influence people to look elsewhere for valid treatments when those people desperately need medical intervention. In my area there is a woman who advertises her services in naturopathy for things like cancer and other diseases. Her selling point is "treatments that the drug companies do not want you to know". My neighbors' cousin went to her when she felt like chemo was worse for her than the cancer. Her cancer spread and she was very lucky to have decided to treat it after the natural remedies because those remedies didnt do jack for her. She is lucky that her cancer wasnt more aggressive.

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Default May 25, 2019 at 08:09 AM
  #40
I have only tried one homeopathic "medicine" so far, it was originally recommended by a doctor before I had a minor surgical procedure on my eyelid, to prevent bruising and the formation of a blackeye post-procedure. I was first skeptical but then thought why not, it might not help but probably would't hurt either and it was cheap. Not sure if that's what helped but I had almost zero bruising and the doctor was impressed as apparently that is rare with that kind of surgery. Later used it again when I had an injury, and my bruises disappeared really fast. One could think maybe I am just naturally not and easy bruiser but that has not been the case in other situations, so I am inclined to give credit to that stuff and would use it again in the future. In contrast, I can't easily foresee trying therapy again as that was mostly useless for me and quite expensive for a hobby.

I think, with these kinds of "mysterious procedures" (therapy included), it is unpredictable how someone will react, but the fact that they have survived for decades and there are positive reports to me indicates that they can help some people, somehow. I've personally figured that therapy is not for me but would experiment with homeopathy in the future for minor things or if traditional medicine does not help, it does not bother me that there is no hard science evidence if I recognize benefits. On the other hand, it bothers me a lot when a profession touts the power and efficacy of its approach/product, makes me pay $$$ and invest a lot of energy and time, and most of what I get out is either nothing or frustration.
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