Monday, November 29, 2010

Homeopathy overdose update: Homeopathic Educational Services can't read

In my previous post I showed that instead of taking my overdose seriously (which you would expect, given I'm playing about with my sleep here. Am I going to be safe to drive, or operate heavy machinery?), the British Homeopathic Society chose to label me as mentally ill. (I emailed Lisa for any comment, she replied "Dear David, I have no comments to make about your blog. You will see in my signature my role in the BHA/Faculty and I have no opinions on the matter. Lisa Peacock, Education & Web Administration Officer").

The Homeopathic Educational Service demonstrated their inability to read and follow links:

David,

Anyone who engages in a "homeopathic proving" (an experiment in which a HEALTHY subject is given continual doses of a potentized homeopathic medicine with the intent to discover what symptoms it will cause) must not have any health issues at present and must NOT know what medicine they are taking. It is intriguing that Martin Robbins, who has previously demonstrated an unscientific attitude, does not follow these basic scientific guidelines. I am also guessing that the "insomnia" remedy he plans to take is a homeopathic combination remedy (a remedy with multiple ingredients)...THAT is another no-no, further evidence of the straw man Martin is famous for creating...and it is probably a lower potency than 30C.

One should take a 30C of a remedy once or twice daily until symptoms emerge (up to 30 days).

Please note that homeopaths do not find that every subject will experience symptoms of a proving, though the majority of people experience symptoms of the medicine ingested as determined by Kent's REPERTORY, a list of symptoms that each medicine has previously been known to cause and/or cure.

I give you this advice without any encouragement from me for you to engage in a homeopathic proving. It is your experience and your risk.

Dana Ullman

Notice how Dana thinks it is Martin who is overdosing, and not myself.

I linked to the product I am taking, Boots insomnia tablets. They are indeed a combination remedy, as you can see (active ingredients Kali brom, Coffea, Passiflora, Avena sativa, Alfalfa and Valeriana). No guessing needed.

So, this leads to some questions:
If combination remedies do not work, why can I find no evidence of homeopathic organisations complaining that they are selling useless remedies? Indeed, I have found support for Boots and their homeopathic range.

It's also interesting that homeopathy doesn't work in combination. Caffeine for example isn't a pain killer, but when added to aspirin, can make it more effective. One wonders why combinations of homeopathic remedies don't work.


UPDATE: Dana pointed out, correctly, that he wasn't saying they didn't work, but that combinations shouldn't be used in a proving (which makes sense - unless you want to test known remedies in combination, to see if they can have compound effects like aspirin and caffeine). It does appear, however, that he doesn't quite grasp that I'm here to overdose on homeopathy, and not to undertake a "proving"

My tablets are 6C (though this info is on the box, and I couldn't find it on the web link, to be fair), which we are told, is not potent enough. So where is the evidence that 6C isn't as good as 30C or above? Isn't this also important information to have, and very relevant, to working out what safe and unsafe doses of homeopathy are? Also, if 6C isn't potent enough, again, where are the homeopaths bemoaning the poor products from Boots?

Also, given their lack of rigour in reading just one blog post, I am left with a lack of confidence in their ability to assess peer reviewed journals.

They finish with "It is your experience and your risk." Which does really back up Martin's original post that started this all off. There is, as they say, a risk to homeopathic overdose. So why does no one explain what one is, and what one should do if you overdose by accident, or on purpose?

1 comment:

  1. "So where is the evidence that 6C isn't as good as 30C or above?"

    Not actually evidence, but the Prophet Hahnemann prescribed proving using 30C remedies. See The Organon, 5th edition, aphorism 128, where he wrote:

    "The most recent observations have shown that medicinal substances, when taken in their crude state by the experimenter for the purpose of testing their peculiar effects, do not exhibit nearly the full amount of the powers that lie hidden in them which they do when they are taken for the same object in high dilutions potentized by proper trituration and succussion, by which simple operations the powers which in their crude state lay hidden, and, as it were, dormant, are developed and roused into activity to an incredible extent. In this manner we now find it best to investigate the medicinal powers even of such substances as are deemed weak, and the plan we adopt is to give to the experimenter, on an empty stomach, daily from four to six very small globules of the thirtieth potentized dilution of such a substance, moistened with a little water, and let him continue this for several days."

    "The thirtieth potentised dilution" is a 30c remedy.

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