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The point of homeopathy practiced today, by licensed doctors, is to administer placebo in cases where it is likely to help. Placebo is amazingly powerful--in pa

The point of homeopathy practiced today, by licensed doctors, is to administer placebo in cases where it is likely to help. Placebo is amazingly powerful--in particular when prescribed by a doctor. Funny enough, one of the most helpful medicines is seeing a doctor. Seeing a doctor has been proven to correlate very well with curing many diseases--independant of whether medication was prescribed. Keep that in mind when spreading FUD about homeopathy. Yeah, it has no medicinal effect. But that does not make it worthless, if handled properly by a trained doctor. There aren't too many ways for a doctor to prescribe placebo...

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
Luc 15y ago
Friends of mine took their baby to a chiropractor when it had a cold. The chiropractor put a sugar cube on the baby's head and the baby got better in a couple of days. It works! The baby grew up and started suffering from what I presume is an allergy of the airways. They still take this kid to the chiropractor because he's such a nice and understanding man, and they have lots of self-deluding stories about how the kid's condition often improves after visits. Draw your own conclusions.
CJefferson 15y ago
That is far too kind to the homeopathics, who are also licensed doctors. In particular, they: 1) Will often charge more than licensed doctors who don't do homeopathy. 2) Advise people not to go to their regular doctors. See the many homeopathics who claim they can cure cancer or HIV. Now, I'm not sure how many homeopathics are just very misguided, and how many are outright charlatans, but they are certainly not just helping.
m_for_monkey 15y ago
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.” R. P. Feynman
rimantas 15y ago
The point of homeopathy is to take your money for fooling you. And if placebo is likely to help won't real medicine help more?
- Derbasti 15y ago
  There are plenty of cases where there is no real medicine. In many cases, all they can do is administer painkillers. Take a bad joint, lower back pain, migraine. In a good percentage of these cases, placebo works really well. If you don't believe me, ask a specialist. Pain specialists (trained doctors, mind you) often prescribe homeopathy, biofeedback, acupuncturing and the like, simply because it works. Also, long time medication is rarely desirable. Treatment gets less effective, there can be addiction issues and not least of all, it's expensive. This is particularly important for chronical diseases. If placebo, in whatever form, helps some ten or twenty percent of people (and it does!), why not try it?
YmMot 15y ago
This is just wrong on so many levels... That is absolutely not the "point" of modern homeopathy... The point of modern homeopathy is to spread a lot of nonsense about water with memory and other such bunk. Secondly, you seem to have some funny ideas about the placebo effect. Placebos are used to try and measure peripheral factors. It could be that just going outside is what is curing the patient, and not the new drug you are giving them.... Or maybe spraying anything up the nose will help some symptoms, not the new nose spray you are testing. That's the whole point of a placebo...if your medicine is only working as well as the placebo, it's not working at all. It so happens that additionally, sometimes you can get what is called "the placebo effect" where just the idea of being treated can help somewhat...but generally only in certain cases and for subjective things, like pain. It makes sense that people feel a little better subjectively when they are treated. However, not all placebos cause the placebo effect and if a placebo helps it is not necessarily because of the placebo effect. Using placebos in the way you suggest is not good medicine, they are not reliable enough and require some dishonesty with the patient, a serious ethical concern. Furthermore, you should be able to get similar or better results from a variety of real treatments! Outside of research, there may be occasionally a reason for a doctor to dispense a placebo...but overall they are not good medicine and neither is homeopathy. > Yeah, it has no medicinal effect. But that does not make it worthless, Actually, yes...that's exactly what it does. That's the whole point. If something only works as well as a placebo, it's literally worthless.
- Derbasti 15y ago
  Sorry, you are wrong. Placebo is astonishingly powerful. Read up about it. Clinical trials usually test three cases: No medication, placebo and actual medication. Placebo usually works really well compared to no treatment. Not for a broken bone, of course, but for a huge range of illnesses, including cancer. Of course it is especially potent for illnesses with a psychosomatic angle, which is just about anything except flesh wounds. A healthy, optimistic mindset is tremendously efficient medicine. Feeling like you are being helped is, therefore, very important. Don't get me wrong: I am not proposing to actively try to cure stuff using placebo. But judicious use of placebo, particularly in cases where tradinional medication has been proven to be ineffective or has too many unwanted side effects, is a valid course of action, if done professionally.
Karellen 15y ago
"Placebo is amazingly powerful" Not really. http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/spin-city-placebos-and-asthma/ http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/spin-city-plac... Placebo mostly just /feels/ amazingly powerful. For some symptoms, like pain, this is good enough. But it doesn't really have much of an effect in terms of treating an actual physiological problem. A lot of homeopathy/other placebo is administered by CAM "doctors" who think that it actually works! The idea that someone with that little real knowledge and a wealth of misinformation about how the human body works (ditto biology, basic chemistry, or the scientific process) is trying to treat medical problems is, frankly, terrifying. See also: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/benedetti-on-placebos/ http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/benedetti-on-p... http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-rebranding-of-cam/ http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-rebranding...

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

Luc 15y ago

Friends of mine took their baby to a chiropractor when it had a cold. The chiropractor put a sugar cube on the baby's head and the baby got better in a couple of days. It works! The baby grew up and started suffering from what I presume is an allergy of the airways. They still take this kid to the chiropractor because he's such a nice and understanding man, and they have lots of self-deluding stories about how the kid's condition often improves after visits. Draw your own conclusions.

CJefferson 15y ago

That is far too kind to the homeopathics, who are also licensed doctors. In particular, they: 1) Will often charge more than licensed doctors who don't do homeopathy. 2) Advise people not to go to their regular doctors. See the many homeopathics who claim they can cure cancer or HIV. Now, I'm not sure how many homeopathics are just very misguided, and how many are outright charlatans, but they are certainly not just helping.

m_for_monkey 15y ago

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.” R. P. Feynman

rimantas 15y ago

The point of homeopathy is to take your money for fooling you. And if placebo is likely to help won't real medicine help more?

Derbasti 15y ago
There are plenty of cases where there is no real medicine. In many cases, all they can do is administer painkillers. Take a bad joint, lower back pain, migraine. In a good percentage of these cases, placebo works really well. If you don't believe me, ask a specialist. Pain specialists (trained doctors, mind you) often prescribe homeopathy, biofeedback, acupuncturing and the like, simply because it works. Also, long time medication is rarely desirable. Treatment gets less effective, there can be addiction issues and not least of all, it's expensive. This is particularly important for chronical diseases. If placebo, in whatever form, helps some ten or twenty percent of people (and it does!), why not try it?

YmMot 15y ago

This is just wrong on so many levels... That is absolutely not the "point" of modern homeopathy... The point of modern homeopathy is to spread a lot of nonsense about water with memory and other such bunk. Secondly, you seem to have some funny ideas about the placebo effect. Placebos are used to try and measure peripheral factors. It could be that just going outside is what is curing the patient, and not the new drug you are giving them.... Or maybe spraying anything up the nose will help some symptoms, not the new nose spray you are testing. That's the whole point of a placebo...if your medicine is only working as well as the placebo, it's not working at all. It so happens that additionally, sometimes you can get what is called "the placebo effect" where just the idea of being treated can help somewhat...but generally only in certain cases and for subjective things, like pain. It makes sense that people feel a little better subjectively when they are treated. However, not all placebos cause the placebo effect and if a placebo helps it is not necessarily because of the placebo effect. Using placebos in the way you suggest is not good medicine, they are not reliable enough and require some dishonesty with the patient, a serious ethical concern. Furthermore, you should be able to get similar or better results from a variety of real treatments! Outside of research, there may be occasionally a reason for a doctor to dispense a placebo...but overall they are not good medicine and neither is homeopathy. > Yeah, it has no medicinal effect. But that does not make it worthless, Actually, yes...that's exactly what it does. That's the whole point. If something only works as well as a placebo, it's literally worthless.

Derbasti 15y ago
Sorry, you are wrong. Placebo is astonishingly powerful. Read up about it. Clinical trials usually test three cases: No medication, placebo and actual medication. Placebo usually works really well compared to no treatment. Not for a broken bone, of course, but for a huge range of illnesses, including cancer. Of course it is especially potent for illnesses with a psychosomatic angle, which is just about anything except flesh wounds. A healthy, optimistic mindset is tremendously efficient medicine. Feeling like you are being helped is, therefore, very important. Don't get me wrong: I am not proposing to actively try to cure stuff using placebo. But judicious use of placebo, particularly in cases where tradinional medication has been proven to be ineffective or has too many unwanted side effects, is a valid course of action, if done professionally.

Karellen 15y ago

"Placebo is amazingly powerful" Not really. http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/spin-city-placebos-and-asthma/ http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/spin-city-plac... Placebo mostly just /feels/ amazingly powerful. For some symptoms, like pain, this is good enough. But it doesn't really have much of an effect in terms of treating an actual physiological problem. A lot of homeopathy/other placebo is administered by CAM "doctors" who think that it actually works! The idea that someone with that little real knowledge and a wealth of misinformation about how the human body works (ditto biology, basic chemistry, or the scientific process) is trying to treat medical problems is, frankly, terrifying. See also: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/benedetti-on-placebos/ http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/benedetti-on-p... http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-rebranding-of-cam/ http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-rebranding...