Charlies dodgy influence strikes again

[amateur51]

I suppose the NHS could provide sugar pills and tell people that they're something that will help them. Hardly ethical, but they'd have a similar success rate to homeopathy, and they'd be much cheaper. Trouble is, the moment something goes wrong, it'll be the NHS's fault.

OR (what about this?) we scrap NICE (savings there!) and have a series of phone-in votes on premium lines* to decide what medicines the NHS uses.

* Linked to the National Lottery. The votes could take place on TV each Saturday evening.

A lovely Orwellian touch Pabs - many thanks

[Pikaia]

And so at a stroke discounting the views of all those patients who believe that homeopathy helps them get better.

Suppose that someone has cancer and is prescribed sugar pills on the NHS. The patient believes that they are helping him to get better. Does that make it acceptable to prescribe sugar pills?

[teamsaint]

We should be wary of placing unquestioning belief in NICE, professional medics, homeopathy, oral retinoids, drugs companies or anything else. They are all potentially fallible, and open to unacceptable outside influence.

Our beliefs about things, including the medical treatment that we pay for and receive, actually are important. Everybody's not just our own. That has been thoroughly demonstrated on this thread.

Anyway, back to the tax question, and how to get that exemption...

[Vile Consort]

The NHS is not in the business of giving people what they want. The NHS is in the business of making people well. It certainly should not be giving people treatments for which there is no evidence of efficacy. Treatment that is statistically no more efficacious than a placebo is no treatment at all.

Of course many people who take homoeopathic "medicines" will get well. So will many people who treat their illnesses with liquorice all-sorts. That's not the issue. The issue is whether the one causes the other.

[teamsaint]

The NHS is not in the business of giving people what they want. The NHS is in the business of making people well. It certainly should not be giving people treatments for which there is no evidence of efficacy. Treatment that is statistically no more efficacious than a placebo is no treatment at all.

Of course many people who take homoeopathic "medicines" will get well. So will many people who treat their illnesses with liquorice all-sorts. That's not the issue. The issue is whether the one causes the other.

It should be. People pay for it.

[MrGongGong]

It should be. People pay for it.

You ARE joking aren't you ?

[Vile Consort]

It should be. People pay for it.

People pay for it in the expectation that they will be given effective treatment when they are ill.

[MrGongGong]

Stepping away from the superficial matter of the NHS for a moment
and on to something really important
if "paying for it" means that one should have choice in the details, should we all be
given a voting slip with concert tickets that allows us to choose between
A=440 vs A=442
and gut strings or not ?
tempi ?
on the beat vs behind the beat ?
soloists fees ?

and so on

[Vile Consort]

Voting would be no good. Everybody has to get what they want. Apparently.

[amateur51]

It should be. People pay for it.

No-one is stopping tax-payers from getting homeopathy, teams but it has not been shown to be effective using the accepted procedures and is therefore not available from the NHS.

I find it most unusual that if this is the crux then why have wealthy proponents of homeopathy not come up with the funding to demonstrate how effective it is? You can rest assured that if there were to be clinical trials that demonstrate and prove its efficacy, BigPharma would be in like a shot to develop and promote it

[Vile Consort]

No-one is stopping tax-payers from getting homeopathy, teams but it has not been shown to be effective using the accepted procedures and is therefore not available from the NHS.

I find it most unusual that if this is the crux then why have wealthy proponents of homeopathy not come up with the funding to demonstrate how effective it is? You can rest assured that if there were to be clinical trials that demonstrate and prove its efficacy, BigPharma would be in like a shot to develop and promote it

That's quite simple Am. They don't accept the definition of efficacy as "significantly better than a placebo" (where I use the word "significantly" in the statistical sense). And at least one of them appears not to accept that evidence of a statistical nature has any validity anyway.

[teamsaint]

You ARE joking aren't you ?

The NHS should provide the sorts of treatments that people want. They should be informed by, by not dictated by, drugs companies, professionals and so on.
Its choice. Its not a difficult or radical proposition.
At least 10 % of the population want access to Homeopathy on the NHS,and they have every right to have that option made available.
As I have said before, if it could be demonstrated that most of those people, having received homeopathic treatments, then return for conventional treatment, then there would be a very strong case for discontinuing homeopathy on the NHS.
People do not always get what they want on the NHS. I had a serious and potentially life threatening condition,(which stopped me working when I was self employed) and received no help at all , other than a consultation with another patient in the same room. Honestly.
So , I am well aware that money is short. But that does not mean that available choice inside the NHS shouldn't recognise the desires of those who use and pay for the system. All of them., or at least those who form a substantial group.

[teamsaint]

That's quite simple Am. They don't accept the definition of efficacy as "significantly better than a placebo" (where I use the word "significantly" in the statistical sense). And at least one of them appears not to accept that evidence of a statistical nature has any validity anyway.

Statistics must well know, to be treated carefully.
By one set of reliable statistics, air travel is the safest means of transport. But by another equally valid set, (deaths per journey) it is one of the least safe. I accept the validity of those Wiki stats, but how we use or interpret them is critical
Statistics need using carefully, and can, as we all know, be used to our disadvantage.

[Resurrection Man]

What's 'tolerance' got to do with it? Do you think that the NHS should be dispensing Dragons' bones, or tiger penis? As ams says, it's evidence that should determine what treatments are used, based on exhaustive trials.

That's just silly. We both know that tigers are endangered species. Bit like rational argument in this thread.

[amateur51]

That's just silly. We both know that tigers are endangered species. Bit like rational argument in this thread.