If only the debate were really over

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Ah; Vodka! The water that takes away memory.

[umslopogaas]

It definitely works and messrs Stolichnya and co wouldnt be in business if it didnt. Of course, I would be delighted if someone could alert me to a homoeopathic vodka, because then I could get mellow for nothing and have money to spare for other things. But alas, tis but a dream.

[Richard Barrett]

a reasonably large number of medical professionals

In 2011, 400 (out of a total of 41000) GPs "used homeopathy in their everyday practice" according to the British Homeopathic Association. That's slightly less than 1%.

[teamsaint]

Only 15 % of PCTs allow spending on homeopathy, so that is a badly skewed statistic, I suggest.

BMA poll was 3 to 1 against NHS spending....which still means an awful lot of doctors didn't vote against it.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/health/news/article2579291.ece

Interesting poll in GP magazine.

http://www.gponline.com/pcts-abandon-funding-homeopathy/article/1154606

70 % in favour of NHS spending. ( not sure of the provenance of GP magazine, but it looks legit !)

[ahinton]

Only 15 % of PCTs allow spending on homeopathy, so that is a badly skewed statistic, I suggest.

So for what reasons don't the other 85% of them do so?

BMA poll was 3 to 1 against NHS spending....which still means an awful lot of doctors didn't vote against it.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/health/news/article2579291.ece

Interesting poll in GP magazine.

http://www.gponline.com/pcts-abandon-funding-homeopathy/article/1154606

70 % in favour of NHS spending. ( not sure of the provenance of GP magazine, but it looks legit !)

If these statistics are to be believed, the question "what's in it for them?" inevitably springs to mind...

[Richard Barrett]

http://www.gponline.com/pcts-abandon...rticle/1154606
70 % in favour of NHS spending. ( not sure of the provenance of GP magazine, but it looks legit !)

70% of whom? of how many people? how did they find out about the poll? That's not really a meaningful statistic at all.

So, to recap: the arguments in favour of retaining homeopathy in the NHS are that significant numbers of doctors are in favour of it and that it's relatively inexpensive, while the arguments against are that extensive scientific trials have found that it confers no medical benefits and that any expenditure on something that has no medical benefits isn't an appropriate use of any NHS funding. I guess we could go round in circles with this for ages!

[teamsaint]

70% of whom? of how many people? how did they find out about the poll? That's not really a meaningful statistic at all.

So, to recap: the arguments in favour of retaining homeopathy in the NHS are that significant numbers of doctors are in favour of it and that it's relatively inexpensive, while the arguments against are that extensive scientific trials have found that it confers no medical benefits and that any expenditure on something that has no medical benefits isn't an appropriate use of any NHS funding. I guess we could go round in circles with this for ages!

we have !

statistics in cases like this are always going to be tricky, and open to manipulation, and so can only really be indicative of postions held. I don't think the "400 GPs" statistic is meaningful either, for the reasons I mentioned and linked.

I happen to think that it is important that the NHS, which takes a big chunk of public spending, is seen to be responsive to its users, employees, and those who fund it.
Actually , I think the current token level of funding does that, when put in the context of the quite widespread demand for Homeopathy.
But that isn't an absolute, its just an opinion.
Questioning why there is this demand might be a more useful approach than just taking a majority view and banning it in the NHS.
Study of The way in which homeopathy is offered, for instance in the London Hospital, might be instructive, and help improve outcomes elsewhere.

[MrGongGong]

statistics in cases like this are always going to be tricky, and open to manipulation, and so can only really be indicative of postions held

100% of anvils dropped on feet (on the earth) will hurt

There are always people who believe all sorts of things BUT we usually don't make them 'scissor monitor'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_topics_characterized_as_pseudoscience

I happen to think that it is important that the NHS, which takes a big chunk of public spending, is seen to be responsive to its users, employees, and those who fund it.

How about this on the NHS ?



it seemed to work for them

[Richard Barrett]

just taking a majority view

But the point is it isn't "just a majority view"! It's the verdict of every accurate large-scale experimental trial that's been carried out. Remember that the recently-published Australian result was a meta-analysis which collated the results of 176 individual studies on 68 different medical conditions. Remember also that the results, the "opinions" if you like, of research scientists have been subject to a level of rigour, through experimental method and peer review, which the opinions of medical practitioners haven't. Interestingly the first time homeopathy was debunked by a disciplined experimental trial was in 1835. It's been failing the test ever since. There is also the fact that if it did work, there would be something very wrong with fundamental science as a whole (since all sciences are interlinked at various levels) despite the enormous successes in many areas of proper science, including of course in medical progress, which would seem to indicate that it's basically on the right track, to say the least. Also if it did work how come the effects of "molecular memory" aren't seen in any other area of human experience or research (either)? I find these very convincing arguments.

[teamsaint]

Richard, I think we are talking about completely different things.

My point and yours are about very different aspects of the subject.

Mine is not about the science, (as you will see from my other posts,) its about the way medicine is run, at ground level.

This has to do, just in part , with people being offered inappropriate treatments, whether conventional or otherwise.As I said above this is about opinion as much as fact.

[MrGongGong]

Mine is not about the science, (as you will see from my other posts,) its about the way medicine is run, at ground level.
.

So how far would your (fetishisation of?) belief in choice over evidence go?
I mean, if I demanded that my doctor examined a chickens entrails as part of the diagnostic process would that be ok as long as I "chose" it?

(I hope you have stocked up on this for tomorrow

http://www.zajac-homeopath.co.uk/fil...troduction.pdf)

[teamsaint]

So how far would your (fetishisation of?) belief in choice over evidence go?
I mean, if I demanded that my doctor examined a chickens entrails as part of the diagnostic process would that be ok as long as I "chose" it?

its not fetishisation. that is your word, and relates to your own views.
I'm sure you are happy with being able to have choices in many circumstances.

example: I do have a problem with my teenage child being offered oral drugs, and no alternative, with really potentially bad side effects for a minor skin complaint. I don't have a problem with me being offered as well as a homeopathic remedy for another minor condition.

That isn't fetishisation, not least since I have never asked a doctor for a Homeopathic remedy.

[MrGongGong]

its not fetishisation. that is your word, and relates to your own views.
I'm sure you are happy with being able to have choices in many circumstances.

example: I do have a problem with my teenage child being offered oral drugs, and no alternative, with really potentially bad side effects for a minor skin complaint. I don't have a problem with me being offered as well as a homeopathic remedy for another minor condition.

That isn't fetishisation, not least since I have never asked a doctor for a Homeopathic remedy.

Choice is very useful in many circumstances BUT not all.
In your example there are many other alternatives , why insist that your doctor provides them all?

If you hurt yourself playing tennis then you would probably be better off having a massage rather than go to your doctor who could prescribe you with a very strong painkiller that would take the pain (but not the cause of the pain) away.

I do think there is a 'fetishisation' of choice and in many of the examples of this it comes out (the Youtube clip with Richard Dawkins for example)
If it's what people "want" then as they pay tax then they should have it?

Rather dangerous way to proceed IMV

SO why not the sacrifice of the goat? or holy water ritual?

[Richard Barrett]

not about the science

Well if you say so, but it's the science that ultimately is the best guide of whether a treatment works or not, and it's whether it works or not that is the best guide of whether it ought to be administered. Everything else is superstition surely. I presume I'm agreeing with you in saying that GPs should take a more holistic attitude to their patients, but I do also think that if the "opinion" you're talking about isn't based on rigorously-tested evidence, or is a last resort as for example in the case of experimental treatments for otherwise terminal conditions, then it should be kept out of medical practice. (Medical practice, to echo MrGG.)

[ahinton]

statistics in cases like this are always going to be tricky, and open to manipulation, and so can only really be indicative of postions held. I don't think the "400 GPs" statistic is meaningful either, for the reasons I mentioned and linked.

On this much I would agree with you in principle, but for the reason that, in this particular context, they are not and cannot be of anything like the same degree of importance as the results of properly conducted research, tests and the like, of which none has yet demonstrably proved tangible, identifiable and definable benefits of homœopathic treatment for any patient.

I happen to think that it is important that the NHS, which takes a big chunk of public spending, is seen to be responsive to its users, employees, and those who fund it.

But also proportionately so, wouldn't you say? - and, even then, NHS has no business spending any taxpayers' money - howevef small the sums may be - on anything that is of no demonstrable benefit to anyone!

Actually , I think the current token level of funding does that, when put in the context of the quite widespread demand for Homeopathy.

But surely the allocation of a mere c.0.004% of the NHS budget to it is hardly representative of a "quite widespread demand" for it? In fact, as a statistic (for what any such things can ever truly be worth), it suggests that those who decide on that budget and how it is allocated appear to believe that the total amount of expenditure merited by all homœopathic services to be provided by NHS (i.e. including all adminstration and other ancillary costs as well as all treatment costs) is such as to warrant its effective availability to no more than around 2,572 of UK's men, women, children and babies; that's not something about which I would use the word "widespread"...

But that isn't an absolute, its just an opinion.

The above paragraph would appear to suggest that it is a largely unfounded one...

Questioning why there is this demand might be a more useful approach than just taking a majority view and banning it in the NHS.

Indeed, but how would you advocate going about this? Would you have groups of people - some of whom have received such treatment and others of whom have not - surveyed about their opinions on it and, if so, what kinds of conclusion would you anticipate being drawn from the results and what specific values might be identifiable in such results that might contribute meaningfully towards efforts to determine the appropriateness or otherwise of the continued supply of homœopathic services by NHS?

Study of The way in which homeopathy is offered, for instance in the London Hospital, might be instructive, and help improve outcomes elsewhere.

But what kinds of study, in what ways might it prove instructive and which possible outcomes of what might it hope to help to improve? You specifially refer here not to homœopathic treatment itself but to the way in which it is offered and, whilst that might indeed be of interest insofar as it goes, it seems far from obvious that meaningful conclusions could be drawn about the value of homœopathic services purely from an in-depth investigation of how they are offered to patients, especially if only to patients in a single hospital rather than across the board.

The only improvements in outcomes that can hope to matter to patients are purely medical ones - do any such patients believe that their health has materially improved as a direct and sole consequence of receiving homœopathic treatment and, if so in any cases, can they and/or their homœopathic practitioners prove beyond reasonable doubt that such treatment has been solely responsible for such improvement?

Regardless of the outcomes of such questioning, to what extent will any discoveries made as a consequence of it be any more meaningful or instructive than could be expected from the provision of yet more "statistics in cases like this"?

I'm not seeking to go round in circles here or advocate that other members do so, but the circles that anyone still opts to go round on this one do seem very much to be of the ever-decreasing variety (even if not in quantitative terms!)...

Having said all that, I for one do not wish in principle to see all "alternative" medical practice excluded from NHS. Osteopathy, for example - of which I have no personal experience - was once widely frowned upon by the majority of NHS practitioners and adminstrators butg is far less so these days; chiropractic, of which I do have considerable personal experience, was likewise largely scorned by NHS but this attitude, too, has changed considerably. Acupuncture is still largely off limits within NHS but that might likewise change. The question to ask about this is not so much whether the science and practice of these "alternative" treatments has changed but whether they have provable scientific benefits for patients and this, I believe, is what seems to separate at least the first two from homœopathy.