Paul Story,which Australian universities runs courses on crystals, magnets and aura massage?

Exactly how many universities have degree courses in homeopathy?

Please name the university and specific subjects that are considered so offensive. With respect, it would make more sense to examine each subject by merit for example are "BMS343 Evidenced based Complementary Medicine" "SOC108 Sociology of Health and Health Care" or "BMS255 Neuroscience for Health Practice" flawed in any way? Which core or elective subject in any university requires revision? Which subjects should be added or removed?

Edward Fearn - what is your opinion of courses like crystal healing or homeopathy being taught in universities? Do you have a model for what would be considered appropriate and what would not?

I would also be interested in Paul Komesaroff's view: would you be happy for university students to be taught the "law of similars" or that water has memory?

In my view, this discussion lacks an understanding of what "evidence-based" means - it does not mean that only practices supported by RCTs are valid - it means that practices should be compatible with what is known of pathophysiology.

I am not claiming that we already know everything, or that there will be no new discoveries. There are, however, many phenomena that have been directly observed and measured. We can image the macro with MRI, the micro with EM. We know about the concentration of potassium inside and outside cells. We know about the structure of cell walls. These directly observed phenomena - like the structure of the earth's crust or the shape of the earth, are no longer subject to review (although other phenomena may be).

How, then, do we justify teaching a theory that is contradicted by this knowledge? I find it highly unlikely that Hahnemann himself (the originator of homepathy in the nineteenth century) or the ancient Chinese or Greek philosophers would advise us to ignore the knowledge we now hold and keep teaching the theories they developed without the benefit of that knowledge.

Paul Komesaroff - what is your attitude to the chiropractors and others who campaign against vaccination, and believe that vaccines produce great harm and no good? Should those principles be taught to students?

Sue

I am not a Homeopath, I don't use homeopathy, and I personally don't think it has a place in Australian universities. That was the point of my last post,

I have nothing against Homeopathy in general or people who use it, My only real problem with Homeopathy in the use of homeopathic vaccines, it is a misleading and dangerous practice. However many Homeopaths would agree with me on this point. Hahneman like Ptolemy before him should respected as great men that got it slightly wrong

"I am not anti-vaccination" I had by own son vaccinated, in fact I thanked you earlier today on another post for the "Arch Intern Med.link which I found quite insightful.

I reread Paul Komesaroffs article and still couldn't find any reference to homeopathy????

Edward,
look here http://www.endeavour.edu.au/homeopathy?gclid=CMiL_fKyn7ECFUskpQodLHhgXw
This degree is accredited through the Office of Higher Education and as such, students are entitled to the Federal Government’s FEE-HELP scheme which is similar to the HECS system.
I have no problem (as stated) with good science investigating any aspect of health care, I think we have relied too heavily on RCT data in the recent past and applaud the use of observational data sets and the application of data analytical software to health data. I fully support the application of common nomenclatures to health data and am actively involved in the application of a numerical health taxonomy (AMT) to pharmaceutical data.
Yet I can do a bachelor degree in Health Science (Homeopathy) and end up with a string of post-nominals such as Greg XXXX, BHSc HOM, Adv Dip HOM, Adv Dip ACU.
This is witchcraft given status, I think you and I will agree that the following, from the Endeavor college of natural health is about as close as you can get to deceptive advertising.
"What conditions are treated with Homeopathy?
Homeopathic medicines have broad effects and homeopaths can choose from thousands of medicines (sic) to accurately match the needs of the patient. Among other conditions, homeopaths frequently treat:
Allergies, Asthma, Eczema, Hay fever, Headaches, Back pain, Childhood illnesses, Emotional instability, Respiratory Infections, Digestive disturbances, Effects of stress, PMS"
"Childhood illnesses???" This is from promotional material for their "degree".
I have nothing against the people who use homeopathy either but seriously an accredited degree? Given that iridology, aura massage and crystal therapy are equally efficacious I don't think you can somehow elevate homeopathy, naturapathy etc above these or blood letting and exorcism come to that.

Paul, "Endeavour" is a private collage not a university? Each time CAM courses at Australian universities becomes a topic of discussion; homeopathy is all that is talked about, But how many universities teach homeopathy degree courses? "0" It seems anti CAM people are obsessed with the practice.

With respect the actual topic "Complementary vs western medicine – both have a role in universities" the question remains does CAM have a role in universities? In order to evaluate this it is important to examine not only each topic but each subject for merit. I don't think the CAM is all bad/evil argument has much value, be critical yes but with a scalpel not a sledge hammer.

Hi Ian

I had read your article when it was first posted, your writing is as always thought provoking and insightful.

Again I am not aware of iridology being taught in any Australian University?

I had some interest in Iris diagnosis back in the 1980s due mostly to the writings of the German "Heilpraktiker J Deck" and his alleged use of autopsies and xrays to confirm his findings (1)(2)

However since that time there have been no valid studies demonstrating effectiveness of this practice as a diagnostic tool

For example in Colorectal cancer results were no better than chance.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18463880

In Identifying hearing loss while found to be statistically significant was inferior to audiological screening procedures.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20162093

So unless future studies demonstrate greater results, its value must be questioned. Another issue however is latent iris markings, who is going to fund a clinical trial that takes 30yrs just to see if a disease manifests. To run clinical studies on every iris marking would be both costly and time consuming.

(1) Principles of iris diagnosis textbook with atlas and indications to treatment Josef Deck. Published 1982 by J. Deck in Ettlingen

(2) Differentiation of iris markings (differential diagnosis) : textbook II
Rev. English version. Josef Deck ; [translation of the revised English version by R. Freystu ck-Baynham, Ulrike and Hans-Ju rgen Fuchs].
Published 1983 by J. Deck in Ettlingen [Germany] .

Hi Sue,

I just wanted to clarify the statements I made earlier on homeopathy, which were written in haste and without much thought. It was simply my opinion that the current university courses on naturopathy and herbal medicine with their strong focus on EBM was the right direction for the both respective professions. Furthermore to add homeopathy to these courses would have been both a change in the current format and counterproductive to acceptance within the greater academic community.

While I am of the strong opinion that homeopathic vaccinations should not be a replacement for proven conventional immunisation, both the British Homoeopathic Association and the Australian Register of Homoeopaths recommend that people should receive conventional immunisations unless a medical condition precludes this.

Also while I may question the validity of some of Samuel Hahnemann’s theories, I am in no position to judge what treatment a medical practioner for example should or shouldn’t consider as part of their clinical practice or what products a pharmacist should or shouldn’t stock. The majority of people I know with an interest in homeopathy are either medical practioners or pharmacists, if universities choose to teach homeopathy courses to these groups I have no objection. Likewise if universities and homeopaths come to a mutual agreement regarding courses then I offer no argument.

"The majority of people I know with an interest in homeopathy are either medical practioners or pharmacists"

Edward - I can understand why retail pharmacists might be interested in homeopathy, but I have met and worked with hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of medical pratitioners and never heard anyone who thought that the underlying theories of homeopathy held any validity.

Dale, do you mean eat healthily and exercise regularly should be the first step rather than a pill that makes me slim and a band surgically implanted around my stomach?

That's just so crazy it might work.

Despite what all the critics like to think, practitioners of "modern medicine" would be extremely happy if people would keep themselves healthy in whatever way they could - be it diet, exercise, not smoking, not drinking too much, not playing contact sports - etc. There is no shortage of work for clinicians.

People who do not wish to - or are unable to - make personal changes to improve their health select themselves out to attend doctors.

It is important to realise also, though, that not all illness can be avoided by simply doing "the right thing". The human body is an imperfect organism - whether we are looking at childbirth, coronary disease or arthritis - we can't diet or exercise away every condition.

Readers of medical history will know that the Flexner report (1910) available here: http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/publications/medical-education-united-states-and-canada-bulletin-number-four-flexner-report-0
advocated basic entry level requirements for medical degrees and the strict adherence to the protocols of mainstream science in medical teaching and research. Published as it was in 1910 it was hardly a tool of the pharmaceutical industry used to subvert legitimate study, rather it was a highly effective weapon against the rampant quackery and charlatanism of the day and led ultimately to the most effective delivery of quality population health.
There has been some excellent research done on the placebo effect you may care to read some. I would simply prefer that the placebo effect was combined with evidence based treatment, not quackery masquerading as legitimate treatment options. see http://whatstheharm.net/homeopathy.html

John writes

"Zyprexa, 2,962 Distinct Adverse Reactions
Xanax, 1,356 Distinct Adverse Reactions
Risperdal, 1,935 Distinct Adverse Reactions"

This is meaningless without data on positive patient outcomes to compare against.

You can not give one just side of the equation.

Severe psychotic illness, including schizophrenia, is one area where modern pharmacotherapy has made an enormous difference to both wellbeing and mortality. Severe psychotic illness is not amenable to counselling, exercise or dietary manipulation (at least, not in its acute stages). Victims can commonly become addicted, homeless or incarcerated, and have a high suicide rate.

"Traditional" treatments for severe psychotic illness included segregation and attempted exorcism. The first effective groups of drug treatments (phenothiazines) caused an unacceptable range of side-effects and long-term complications. Modern antipsychotics are improving all the time.

John Mills, ask someone with severe schizophrenia (or their family) whether they are better off unmedicated.

Hi Sue! what you call severe psychotic illness,is in your imagination of what that is,the same as it would be for you me or the next bloke, whats mad, whose mad, is or can be often seen differently by anyone,thats another story,but what right wrong, good, or more to the point, bad, that the person imagining is doing for, and to their imagined sufferer/victim, is another matter, again im talking temporary drug induced psychosis, im not talking severe psychotic permanent, ones more than likely, real, ones more than likely not,you don't treat someone with a more than not real, but drug induced psychosis, by adding more drugs,(hallucinatory ones) to drugs that need to leave the body of your patient, full stop.
In the same way you wouldn't add alcohol to a drunk, mind you narcane to bring down a heroin overdose, or vitamins and sleep,and if sleeps not happening, benzodiazepams to get you to sleep in order to bring down a meth overdose,eliminate the drug from the sufferers body,

Obvious genetic schizophrenia, the real one, is another story again, i have nothing but respect for anyone who is giving or getting relief from a medicine that helps them with a real mental illness, but Ive got nothing but contempt for the same people, oppressing others who haven't got permanent diseases in their brains, destroying their lives, and their minds with poisons that help others but are killing them, and their life and mind, and killing their family as well. "Victims can commonly become addicted, homeless or incarcerated, and have a high suicide rate." Victims are incarcerated by psychiatry,made addicted to and tied up with psychotropic addictive anchors that cause suicide ideation, and after they try to escape or the combination they're on stops working, and they have tried(been forced on) many more debilitating combinations,are then injected every fourteen days with a highly addictive poison,that they will always try and need to escape from, like a100 kilo weight on their back, so that nobody escapes and gets UN-addicted, or together enough, for long enough, sane enough, to offer any sort of decent challenge to the people torturing them( who are the judge and jury)at their own mental health court, where you can take the offender,criminal, run by the very criminal, killing you daily,with psychotropic insanity they've anchored you with and on, indefinately----- or at least until you have built up "resistance to all the combinations" they're going to put you on, over the years ahead,and that your going to be their prisoner for and on,until you will inevitably be electrocuted, which is really to finally shut you and your families years of complaints down, and an admission that they have failed with drugging you. You see, your talking about people who believe in their mental illness, and their doctor and their medicine. I love them, and feel for them, but im talking about people who don't believe in the poison, or their doctor, or that they've got a mental disease, do you know any of them? they (the victim and their family if they support their loved one against the dealers, sorry poisoners))are arrogantly called the "non compliant" or "The uninsightfull" or if they want to talk really professionally, "people who suffer with "anosognosia" .The difference between me and people like you and the others that gave me 5- votes, is that we believe in you and your suffering,but you don't believe us and our suffering, but thats probably because either your being drugged, or your loved one is being drugged, and in amongst your insecurity or guilt(like the psychiatrist, you have failed to impart comforting words to your loved one to ease their overworked thinking) and need to belong or believe in someone, something, that shifts the blame to a chemical imbalance, and shuts them down enough with a poison so that you don't have to deal with it or them, and their troubled thinking so much), you are acting like them, so all these negative voters are flag flyers for the psychiatry they support,or and "need" to believe in. either as carers,believer users/ compliant patients, nurses, psychiatrists, drug company(money) people,the tga and fda who pass these deadly and debilitating poisons, a government who sits on its hands whilst its people are in despair, screaming and crying out for help to get away from these psychiatric drug pushers,and all the puppets in the world who believe whatever someone in a white coat tells them, and all thats fine, that you believe, but for the non believer who is suffering, you negate their pain or even worse deny their pain,or their belief that they're "not permanently mentally ill",or that they never have been, like you have basically done to me in your letter.how does it feel when i deny your reality, and what you believe, your insanity, which is the same as you denying our reality, belief in our sanity,and belief that that sanity is being stolen by psychiatry, you believe in people who kill one person a day in their care nationally, and thats just deaths, imagine how many people they are injuring if they're actually "gung ho"killing one a day, take your blinkers off. come out from that cloud of illusion, delusion. ("Traditional" treatments for severe psychotic illness included segregation and attempted exorcism.) thats exactly what im saying , look where these people come from, and what they used to do, sorry still doing, segregation is standard, like barbarian witchdoctors,drilling picks into brains, electrocuting their victims,burning their brain cells, message centre, and memory out, tying them up in straight jackets and injecting them when its the last thing they need,etc etc etc etc, too many to mention. I'm glad for your predicament, in that you feel helped, how glad are you for ours, that we feel abused, poisoned and alienated, i see no expression about that in your response,
Sue ask someone who is called schizophrenic, who is nothing like schizophrenic to them and their family, and who is adversely poisoned for it, this (imagined) disease, without any known escape from what is making you insane, and extremely depressed,and their family as well, how "they would feel" if they didn't have to take "their doctors" medication/poison. They wouldn't know would they!!!!? .neither would you!! Why Sue? Because they're not allowed to know.The doctors wont let them come away slowly and carefully to put themselves and their patients real reported experience claim to the test. How convenient is that?.

John - I had to skip your middle paragraph because it was too dense for me. But the rest of your post shows that you have no direct experience in trying to help a person with severe schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is a real illness - it is not just being "eccentric". Untreated schizophrenics and their families can be forced into miserable lives, but can achieve fulfilling and productive lives with some of the newer medications, especially the less sedating ones.

You clearly also have no idea that schizophrenics often do stop their own medication, only to end up severely ill again. As it happens, I have seen this - many times - and seen the distress of the families trying to get help for these people. Your "The doctors wont let them come away slowly and carefully to put themselves and their patients real reported experience claim to the test." is uninformed nonsense.

Very few "CAM" practitioners engage in reflective practice in any systematic way. Where do they publish their audit data? How many missed diagnoses? How many cures delayed by ineffective "remedies"?

Your "arrogant blowhards" are actually held accountable for their outcomes. Surgeons must audit their practice. Hospital employees must report adverse events.

Homeopaths only have to pay the water bills.

If you were actually a registered member of any CAM discipline you would realize that there was plenty of "reflective practice" and continuing education going on. You would be better off making sure that you stay up to date in your own profession and avoid speculating about what practitioners in other health disciplines do. Moreover, there are many jurisdictions in which your comments about other health professions would be considered a breach of ethics. Come to think of it, it may be that you are contravening your medical association's ethics with your comments on these blogs.
Time to find out.

This is a spurious accusation Chris.

CAM modalities have been studied and found to not do anything. They have been studied for possible mechanisms of action and found to have none. The entire theory surrounding them is nothing more than superstitious belief and not based in reality.

To try and draw historical analogues and appeal to grander ideals (we cannot know yet how it works) is to ignore that fact that all evidence shows it can't and doesn't. I notice that two of the references you cite start with an interesting supposition: that Avagadro's number is wrong. I'm sorry, but for that to be the case you would need a lot of proof, because this is a base physical constant, not something you can just dismiss because you don't like it.

"an attitude (pre-judgement about what is 'plausible') is itself highly unscientific" - No. Of course we work from well-established "knowns" to pursue unknowns. Hume's razor - simply put that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, is a basic assumption in the principles of science and intrinsic to ideas like Baysian analysis. The idea that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof means that we have to assign (sometimes implicitly) a priori probabilities to claims about what is plausible in light of what is known. If someone applied for research grant in geology built on assumptions that the Earth is flat it would rightly be rejected out of hand, this is the approach that should be taken to someone seeking to research a treatment where all molecules of a previous substance are diluted out the substance leaving nothing but pure water as is done in homeopathy.

Christopher Johnson - you do realise, don't you, that many homeopathic "remedies" contain not a single molecule of the alleged "therapeutic substance"?

Proponents then invoke the argument that "water has memory". If that is the case, how do we know which of the infinite number of substances it has had contact with before it still remembers?

It's not feasible, and it doesn't work. Some nineteenth century German made it up. He turned out to be wrong. Time to move on.

Chris,

thanks for your perspective and the references. I am actually gobsmacked that the *scientists here have ignored their conclusions off hand. I would have though by reading the abstracts only that any scientist worth their salt would question the much imposed conventional anti-homeopathy view.

I was especially interested in the paper "The defining role of structure (including epitaxy) in the plausibility of homeopathy." because I have used Nat Mur and related cell salts successfully, for more than 30 years. Personally I didn't need science to tell me how or why it works, that it does is enough. But now that you have provided several supporting papers we can expect the real scientist to read and examine them carefully and come back to you (us) on the *plausibility of homeopathic theory.

I share your amazement "that many so called scientists on this discussion talk about homeopathy in the same vein as 'crystal healing' - considering it 'unscientific'. I am even more amazed that they do the same for Chiropractics, Osteopaths and Naturopaths, all of whom have done their share of science to get their qualifications. Many go even further.

I wonder if Sue thinks her Homeopathic remedies that have no "therapeutic substance" have been tested using Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), electron diffraction and (or) chemical analysis by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES)"?

Thanks for your post!

"I wonder if Sue thinks her Homeopathic remedies that have no "therapeutic substance" have been tested using Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), electron diffraction and (or) chemical analysis by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES)"?

I've looked at nanotechnology studies of homeopathic water. IF they are in glass bottles and are banged on a hard surface, they have been found to contain nanoparticles of silica (from the glass bottle). IF they are not in glass, or not banged, they are found to contain only hydrogen and oxygen, in the ratio of 2 to 1.

Sue, the papers cited by Chris demonstrate:

electromagnetic waves at high aqueous dilutions, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20640822

materials such as silver aquasols and homeopathic remedies can be easily distinguished from the pure solvent, and from each other, by the use of UV-VIS and Raman spectroscopy, while FTIR is insensitive to these differences. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20165549

Using market samples of metal-derived medicines from reputable manufacturers, we have demonstrated for the first time by Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), electron diffraction and chemical analysis by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES), the presence of physical entities in these extreme dilutions, in the form of nanoparticles of the starting metals and their aggregates. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=bellare%20homeopathic

No mention of Silica, Hydrogen or Oxygen, or for that matter, banging or not banging glass bottles!

I've read that third paper before in detail - the one from which you cut and pasted the abstract.

Perahps you didn't read beyond the abstract:

Methodology: "The liquid dilutions and the potentization steps (including
succussion) were done manually during manufacturing, wherein the entire mass of the liquid in the glass container was pounded against a rubber stop 10 times, " - that's the banging part.

Then the results: "We have found that the concentrations reach a plateau at the 6c potency and beyond. Further, we have shown that despite large ifferences in the degree of dilution from 6c to 200c (1012 to 10400),
there were no major differences in the nature of the particles (shape and size) of the starting material and their absolute concentrations (in pg/ml)."

In other words, the dilutions that were meant to contain no origianl molecules did contain something, and the concentration bore no relationshp to the alleged dilutions.

Did you find this convincing?

The silica paper is here:

International Journal of High Dilution Research, Vol 10, No 37 (2011)
evidence for these solutions having a therapeutic effect.

I'd be interested in your thoughts about their methodology and results.

“the one from which you cut and pasted the abstract” LOL, should I have retyped it?

No I didn’t read beyond the abstract, I don’t have access to the journals at the moment and probably wouldn’t bother even if I did. Theoretically I should be able to read the abstract as a concise and accurate summary of the research. I let academics like the peers that review or the editors that publish to decide whether the research is publishable or not. Something about that which I find very curious in these sorts of discussions is that the design of research that disagrees with one’s viewpoint is ALWAYS suspect, yet those that agree are ALWAYS just fine. Or, maybe you are suggesting that not all published research is adequate, even accurate? That maybe researchers, peers and/or journal editors are biased for one reason or another?

Re the silica paper, I'm not exactly sure what your concerns are?

Oh, and thanks for cutting and pasting those extracts from the study;)

Read any pharmaceutical drug compendium and you will find "mechanism of action unknown" for hundreds of drugs. Show us the "mechanism of action" for anaesthetics? Still unknown. Mechanism of action for aspirin -- unknown until the 1990s. RCTs for vaccines? None. RCTs for surgery? None. RCTs for psychiatry (not to mention it was the laughing stock of the medical profession for years and still is in many circles)? None.
Wake up and smell the coffee, Tim. Entire societies worldwide are not going to dump Homeopathy, Naturopathy, Osteopathy, Chiropractic and TCM/Acupuncture because a handful of groupies belonging to pseudo-skeptic clubs are parroting anti-CAM nonsense. In many jurisdictions these are registered health professions along with the mainstream and are relied upon by millions of patients daily -- many of them being mainstream health care practitioners and their families.
FYI professional Homeopaths, Homeopath MDs and lay Homeopaths very often prescribe remedies way below Avogadro's number and have been for hundreds of years. Recent studies at ITT Bombay have detected starting materials in remedies at 200C, with more research on the way.
Your opinion that "all evidence shows it can't and doesn't" work is complete nonsense.

Sue, do you have any idea about how distilled water is created? Just basic GMP.
Prof. Rustum Roy at Penn State settled the issue about the differences between Homeopathic remedy content and plain distilled water ages ago.
Jacques Benveniste's experiments into the "memory of water" have been replicated at about 5 different labs including the University of Toronto under Dr. Bruce Campbell.
Research at the ITT Bombay has detected starting materials in remedies as high as 200C SO FAR.
You really don't know much about Homeopathy beyond what you've read on "science blogs".
Suppose you engage in whatever form of medical practise you've been trained in and leave the practise of other forms of health care to the experts in those fields.

See www.extraordinarymedicine.org
The notion that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" is nothing but a rephrasing of Carl Sagan's comment that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" which became the signature line of self-styled paranormal/psychic/UFO "debunkers". Kind of a funny hobby, but to each his own...
Speaking of geology, there sure was a hue and cry when Tuzo Wilson first proposed, then proved, the concept of continental drift. C'mon Guy. Stop trying to promote the assumption that the existing status quo is open-minded and welcomes new theories that challenge the existing ones. Albert Einstein sure wouldn't agree with you.
"Science advances -- one funeral at a time."

Matter is neither created nor destroyed.

You appear to be obsessed about "science blogs"- I'm not - I read the actual homeoapthic publications, including the memory of water stuff and the nanoparticles stuff from India.

Time to move on. Perhaps do some journalism and give up on the losing battle of acting as an apologist for Big Tincture. Perhaps there's some work you could do in Germany - "German Homeopathy Companies Pay Journalist who Smears UK Academic" .

Lisa - your comments reflect a lack of knowledge of how to evaluate research.

Mere publication of a scientific paper does not guarantee any sort of validity or "correctness"- the sort of peer review that gets a paper published means that it is of publishable quality for that particular journal.

Real peer review occurs when a paper is critically evaluated by an informed group of peers - that is what publication is for. People put their research out where colleagues can analyse it.

Competence in critical analysis of medical research takes a lot more than just knowledge of the English language. As well as understanding the underlying scientific principles, and the principles of research methods and data analysis, it is important to have an understanding of the professional practice in the area. To maintain research literacy, clinicians go to journal clubs, workshops, seminars and conference in which research is presented and discussed. Presentation of a paper at a conference is another way of getting peer review - the audience looks at the methods and results and questions them.

So, no - there is no "those that agree are ALWAYS just fine". There are a great many medical papers with poor methodology - not because of fraud, but simply because of lack of skill. But the results of all these papers don't change practice.

In order to assess whether a published paper has valid results and conclusions, you need to start by identifying the primary research question. Then you need to see whether the methodology and study design adequately addresses the research question. You need to read and evaluate how measurements were taken, or how subjects were chosen, including numbers (power of the study), randomisation, blinding, confounding factors, inclusion and exclusion criteria, normal and non-normal distributions, area under the curve, confidence intervals, NNT...and so much more.

Your response above about not reading the paper is glib - it was easy to access. You made a point of stating above that there was no "banging glass bottles"- but, if you had bothered reading the paper, you would have found that there was.

So, what are my concerns about the silica paper? I'm not so much concerned as amused. Those investigators took glass bottles of water and banged them, and then found particles in the solutions - but not particles of any therapeutic substance - particles of silica from the glass. Interestingly, they found no silica in the solutions that were not in glass or that were not banged.

If you want to learn something about critically evaluating scientific research, I'm sure there are some courses around that you could take.

Sue, you have no idea what my background or education is. You dearly want my comments to reflect the lack of knowledge that you keep accusing me of. You assumptions make a complete ass of you. I am beginning to to think you may not be a very nice person.

I am well aware of the process involved in research publication thanks. All of that instruction was a complete waste of time.

A clearer reading of what I said was that I only read the abstract from Chikramane PS, Suresh AK, Bellare JR, Kane SG. I glanced at the silica paper. Silica WAS found in the plastic agitated condition albeit in lower levels. I read nothing about the non agitated in plastic having no Silica. Perhaps you could copy and paste what it actually said for me?

You might be getting paid to write here all day every day but I am not. I have work to do.

"If you want to learn something about critically evaluating scientific research, I'm sure there are some courses around that you could take." (shakes head in disbelief at the sheer arrogance)

From what I gather Sue, if you were required to do some research on some CAM modality. Your literature review would be so biased as to render it unpublishable.

" Show us the "mechanism of action" for anaesthetics? Still unknown. "

Perhaps unkown to Laurie Willberg, but not to everyone:

http://pharmrev.aspetjournals.org/content/24/4/583.short

Hi Sue,

I'm glad your still there. I just wanted to show you something that fell in my lap today http://share.banoosh.com/2012/07/26/harvard-study-finds-fluoride-lowers-iq-published-in-federal-govt-journal/ I guess that makes you a fluoride apologist? Now you know why most naturopathic practitioners advise to minimise fluoridated water? The NEUROTOXIC EFFECT of fluoride makes it absolutely unhealthy. Funny, it's not something I've ever heard from my doctor.

It's always worth looking at the actual research paper rather than the newsppaper reports. The study can be found at: http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1289%2Fehp.1104912.

The authors performed a meta-analysis of studies specifically located in rural China where natural levels of fluroide in well water are substantially above the 1 mg/L.recommended by the Australian NHMRC (water fluoridation at 1ppm provides a 20-40% reduction in caries).

In the Chinese groups studied the people had access to drinking-water with a natural fluoride concentrations up to 11.5 mg/L!

The authors noted that the estimated decrease in average IQ associated with increasing fluoride exposure was small and may be within the measurement error of IQ testing. (The standardized weighted mean difference in IQ score between exposed and reference populations was -0.45 (95% CI -0.56 to -0.35) using a random-effects model).

The authors rightly concluded that more research is required.

Calcium fluoride, found in groundwater, is a far cry from sodium fluoride which is toxic waste. Sodium fluoride is what's added to tap water. It's also implicated in atherosclerosis and other degenerative conditions.

I agree that dose is the measure of what determines the safety of any substance, However with fluoride in particular there is some debate as to what constitutes a safe level,(1)

http://www.jpands.org/vol10no2/kauffman.pdf

(1) Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons Volume 10 Number 2 Summer 2005

Hi Ian,

may I take your silence as agreement with my arguments that fluoridation of our water cannot control for dose, neither in its administration i.e. average air temperature, nor its uptake, i.e. amounts consumed. Nor can it account for variability in consumer age, weight, sensitivity etc. I think you are a reasonable man. That and your expertise suggest to me that you know its wrong to medicate under these conditions. Not just professionally but ethically and morally wrong.

You might be fearful of your job security if you speak out? It's understandable given the commercial and political influence that academics are now under. I sincerely ask you Ian is your job, your career worth the millions of collective IQ points potentially lost over the next generation of Australians? Are dental caries more important than IQ points or hip fractures or cancer?

I've had a superficial look at the NHMRC review. It completely fails to address total F burden. The research questions appear to be designed to avoid that very question? I.e. F in water, F in milk and topical F. Even so, the F water and hip fractures, osteoporosis and cancer were not good evidence for the safety of F. I intend to read more thoroughly.

Graeme,

You must have a very difficult-to-treat back problem if you haven't even received relief from massage. Statistically I reckon that makes you an outlier.

I too have used all of the treatments you mention with pretty good results. I have been seeing a chiropractor for years and am happy with that choice. The money I've spent has been well worth it compared to the money I might have otherwise spent on anti-inflammatories, pain-killers and eventually surgery and anti-depressants. I also get to not experience the side effects of these options.

I have never been lied to or deceived by any of these practitioners, and I have made my choices as an informed consumer.

I am offended on behalf of my chiropractor and naturopath by your accusation of sham treatments and fraud. Both are eminently trained. My chiropractor has extended her training to include neurophysiology.

Graeme, please don't assume that you know what's best for people better than they do themselves. I do not want you to advocate on my behalf thanks. Given that your experience has been extraordinary you might come to realise, yours does not represent the experience of many.

Your comments are interesting Lisa in light of the outcomes of the many quality trials that have been performed on CAM that tend support my anecdotal experience rather than yours?

From your comment 'I am offended on behalf of my chiropractor and naturopath by your accusation of sham treatments and fraud. Both are eminently trained. My chiropractor has extended her training to include neurophysiology', may I suggest that you have an emotional attachment to your belief that perhaps impairs your judgement.

Graeme, if it makes you feel better about yourself, and if you think it strengthens your anecdote by questioning my emotionality and suggesting my judgment is impaired go right ahead.

I don't have to try very hard to find numerous research papers demonstrating the positive effects of chiropractic on a variety of problems. Why don't you give it a go?

The point of my post was to demonstrate that your anecdote can be easily nullified by mine. I take exception to hypocrisy and inconsistency. On this subject it is around one group of highly educated professionals questioning the education and ethics of another group of highly educated practitioners. It is also around selective scientific reading so as to continually discount what is already written in favour of several CAM modalities.

For you Graeme, as a happy and informed consumer of CAM therapies I reject the notion that you have any right what-so-ever to advocate on my or other CAM consumers behalf. We are more than half the adult population of Australia.

If your beloved practitioners are ethical in their work and have the evidence to support their claims, they have absolutely nothing to fear from regulation, which is all that I am advocating.

The CAM industry at this point in time has a reputation lower than used car sales, so I would think practitioners would welcome the opportunity to weed out the crooks.

Or are you suggesting that we remove regulations from all industries and leave it up to the 'caveat emptor' principle?

OK, so you weren't actually talking about "chiropractic, osteopathy, homeopathy, naturopathy, acupuncture and massage when you mentioned being deliberately deceived and lied to, and sham medical treatments and fraud?

Can you comment on the ethics around highly educated professionals continually grouping legitimate evidenced-based alternative therapies with practices such as crystal gazing and magic?

Lisa - you will indeed have to try hard to find postive papers on chriropractic treatment.

Take a look at the Cochrane review. The only strong evidence for chiropractic therapy is for low back pain - where it is equally efficacious with other standard therapies.

There are many competent chiros who are good at manipulative therapy - as are good physios. The theory of "subluxation" affecting other organ systems has been de-bunked, however.

Hard? I already said not. Yes the Cochrane Review showed 'strong' evidence for the efficacy of chiropractic on lower back pain. It also cited evidence for mechanical neck pain which is pretty much my problem. What you don't realise Sue is that I didn't need the Cochrane Review evidence to know that it worked.

What I also found on the Cochrane Review site was 'evidence' FOR the efficacy of:
Homeopathy for chronic asthma, adverse cancer treatment effects
Acupuncture for post operative nausea, lower back pain, chronic neck pain, assisted conception, tennis elbow, migraine, labour pain, osteoarthritis, adverse cancer treatment effects, cancer related pain,
Massage/Acupressure for lower back pain, development of premature and low birth-weight infants
TCM for chemotherapy side effects, eczema, menstrual pain, glucose intolerance/diabetes (“The available evidence suggests that Chinese herbal medicines are able to lower and normalise high blood glucose.”), IBS, sore throat, endometriosis, PMS
Herbal medicines for viral myocarditis, benign prostatic hyperplasia, anxiety, chronic heart failure, rheumatoid arthritis, depression, high cholesterol

Other ‘low quality’ or weak evidence was also cited for many other instances of CAM. So can we please stop with the denial of evidence of CAM when it is right under your nose? Cochrane also rejected concluding on many other CAM treatment because of lack of evidence. Happily they ALWAYS (as is proper for any self respecting scientific organisation) recommend further research. I doubt if I need to remind you Sue that lack of evidence is not equal to evidence of lack of efficacy.

No Ian, Lisa said:

Cochrane says on homeopathy and chronic asthma (2008) "The review of trials found that the type of homeopathy varied between the studies, that the study designs used in the trials were varied and that no strong evidence existed that usual forms of homeopathy for asthma are effective. "I should have left that one with the hastily collated 'weak' evidence group. Please accept my humblest apology. Is that the only example you had a problem with?

Heaven forbid that the two of us should be confused!

Lisa - you won't be finding any decent evidence for homoepathic "remedies" doing anything, although a sympathetic talk with a friendly provider might be of some benefit.

Homeopathic remedies consist of water and/or alcohol if they are liquid, or "pillules"of lactose or sucrose if they are solid. They contain no therapeutic substances. Even if "water memory" was a feasible concept, the water would contain the memories of the infinite number of things it has been in contact with before.

Hahnemann was wrong.

"What you don't realise Sue is that I didn't need the Cochrane Review evidence to know that it worked. " That's because you are making your conclusions from faith, not science.

Do you mean this one Ian? "Homeopathic medicines are used by many patients with cancer, usually alongside conventional treatment. Cancer treatments can cause adverse effects, and one of the reasons patients use homeopathic medicines is to help with these symptoms. This review looked at whether these medicines could help patients with problems caused by cancer treatments. Eight studies with a total of 664 participants were included in this review. Three studied adverse effects of radiotherapy, three studied adverse effects of chemotherapy and two studied menopausal symptoms associated with breast cancer treatment. Two studies with low risk of bias demonstrated benefit: one with 254 participants demonstrated benefits from calendula ointment in the prevention of radiotherapy-induced dermatitis, and another with 32 participants demonstrated benefits from Traumeel S (a complex homeopathic medicine) over placebo as a mouthwash for chemotherapy-induced stomatitis. These trials need replicating. Two other studies reported positive results, although the risk of bias was unclear, and four further studies reported negative results. The homeopathic medicines used in all eight studies did not seem to cause any serious adverse effects or interact with conventional treatment. No cancer treatments were modified or stopped because of the homeopathic interventions." Do you not see evidence here?

Sue, you pointed me to the Cochrane review where I found "Homeopathic medicines for adverse effects of cancer treatments" Are you now saying the Cochrane reviews are suspect? I've found quite a few others from 2011-2012 that the Cochrane review doesn't include. Shall I post the references for you?

"although a sympathetic talk with a friendly provider might be of some benefit." Now you are resorting to passive aggressive ad hominem. Most unbecoming and adding no weight to your arguments.

"the water would contain the memories of the infinite number of things it has been in contact with before." This is a common assertion that has as much basis in reality as water actually having memory.

"That's because you are making your conclusions from faith, not science." Really Sue, for the sake of argument lets assume you are right. Who cares whether its faith or fact or fiction? Who cares if I am only getting a placebo effect? I'm not getting unwanted side effects! If I get consistent pain relief, avoid taking toxic pharmaceuticals and avoid surgery from my treatment of choice, that's great! I am less of a drain on the increasingly expensive and unsustainable practice of conventional medicine!

Again for the sake of argument, assuming you are wrong and my response to CAM treatment is completely genuine and valid, you as a practitioner would be denying your patients valuable, economical treatment options because of some myopic view that conventional medicine and pharmaceuticals are best.

I win either way, I worry for your patients though.

The problem is there is insufficient evidence to distinguish chiropractic, osteopathy, homeopathy, naturopathy, acupuncture, massage from crystal gazing and magic.

Yes despite your one eyed view of beloved your CAM practitioners, in my experience they do deceive and lie and I suggest knowingly. The chiropractor particularly so.

Cherry picking the 'evidence' that supports your preconceived ideas and ignoring the stuff that says its nonsense is not science but I suspect that you have heard all this before and prefer to remain wilfully ignorant.

LOL, you might not be able to distinguish the modalities Graeme, you actually don't need evidence to do it.

The rest of your post is one great big projection.

Thanks Lisa, you summed up your approach perfectly with 'you actually don't need evidence to do it'.

I am sorry but I expect credability and accountability from the people that deal with my health issues and we are just going to have to agree to disagree.

"although a sympathetic talk with a friendly provider might be of some benefit." Now you are resorting to passive aggressive ad hominem. Most unbecoming and adding no weight to your arguments.

Truly - so you disagree with Jon Wardle's theory?

Lisa Hodgson - do whatever you like - I don't care at all if you pay out of pocket for whatever your faith leads you to. Just don't claim that's it's based on science, or that it's effective for anyone else. I am not denying anyone anything - but I am PROVIDING effective treatment. How would I stop anyone buying magic water even if I wanted to?

Either way, you and all Australians have effective medical care available at any time of day or night when you need it. When the time comes, you might appreciate it. But you will get access to it anyway. You win either way.

Don't worry for my patients - I work in a highly governed system, in a regulated profession. My patients are free to complain.

Do you provide any health care, Lisa?

Allow me to clarify . . . "you actually don't need evidence to *distinguish the modalities Graeme. Didn't I already say that? You could read about the theories of each to *distinguish the modalities without reference to any science.

You are free to choose your preferred system of health care. As I have been emphasising to you, you have no right or mandate to question or attempt to remove my choice. Thank you for not interfering on my behalf.

Lisa regardless of regulation there will always be quacks that cater to people like you who cherish the lack of evidence and insist in believing in magic.

I want regulation to protect people like me who were ignorant of the facts and were tricked into paying for sham medical treatments.

“Truly - so you disagree with Jon Wardle's theory?” Which is?
“I don't care at all if you pay out of pocket for whatever your faith leads you to.” You’re missing a very important point here. Adoption of so-called alternative therapies has the potential for huge savings in our national health care bill a la the new Swiss model. Most of these saving will be at the expense of pharmaceuticals – which is a good thing. I think I have already saved on the extreme costs of conventional care, not to mention the side-effects that seem to be sooo necessary to demonstrate the efficacy of pharmaceuticals.

“Just don't claim that's it's based on science, or that it's effective for anyone else.” Do you reject the Cochrane review I posted?

“How would I stop anyone buying magic water even if I wanted to?” Just because *we don’t understand how it works does not make it magic. By that definition you would have to say that the mechanisms of many pharmaceuticals is magic too.

“Either way, you and all Australians have effective medical care available at any time of day or night when you need it. When the time comes, you might appreciate it. But you will get access to it anyway.” Rightly so, I pay my taxes. I guess that makes me your employer. I already appreciate our health care system. There are many areas where conventional medicine excels. What seems to peeve you is that I know its limitations. Limitations that you don’t seem to appreciate.

"Do you provide any health care, Lisa?"

Yes I do as a matter of fact. To myself and my family. We hardly ever need a doctor and have avoided potential doctors visits many times with herbal and homeopathic remedies. You should be thanking me for contributing to your wages and not putting an unnecessary strain on the system.

Michael - you ask people to be fair minded and consider without pre-judgement, so I was, and I did - and I found this "How is FMS compared with fundamentalism in religion?"

What?

Then this: "While medicine certainly needs to be informed by science, this has to be done cautiously. Medical science can be fickle and has brought us many treatments such as thalidomide, hormone replacement therapy and Cox 2 inhibitors, which have been shown to be potentially more harmful than helpful."

I would ask what should medicine be informed by? If we go by anecdote alone, the the observed effect of our treatment on patients, then surely this is unethical experimentation of the worst kind.

and then this "and just because acupuncture meridians cannot be found anatomically, does not mean they are not useful. Similarly, you will never find the equator or the earth’s lines of longitude or latitude by digging, yet they are still useful constructs for navigating the planet"

I haven't heard anyone suggest you can find find equatorial, lat or long lines - they are representations, arbitrary in some cases, but useful in that they correspond to known facts about the dimensions of the earth, facts that can be observed, measured and confirmed. Those lines can be used repeatedly to navigate safely over and over again. Trials of acupuncture have shown an effect even who the meridian are completely ignored and sham needles such as toothpicks are pressed in random locations - this is not new research or unknown amongst the acupuncture community - they even quote it themselves at times.

A final quote that caught my attention was "Certainly if science shows that a traditional medicine cannot be backed by irrefutable evidence once research has been objectively undertaken then FSM can argue against its use."

This has happened repeatedly where CAM is concerned - the outcome is always the same, CAM modality ignores the evidence, claims special privilege and continues.

All of authors in the piece you provided went off on their merry way without even one directly addressing the principles and commitments publicly stated by FSM on their website - that is an appalling display of shooting the messenger and ignoring the message.

Hello Grendelus Malleolus.
Thank you for reading my comparison between the opinions of some of the FSM’s and religious dogma and fanaticism.
It seemed singularly apt then and it still seems an amazingly apt comparison, especially after reading this last post of yours. You are simply highlighting my point.
It does seem that their are some people that are soooo convinced of their own opinions, they they don’t actually look at anything else except their own prejudices.
It truly is amazing how ‘one eyed’some people can be. Even professionals who are supposed to be looking at all sides of a discussion.
But we do have some things in common, I love coffee as well and the firefox on your Twitter page is very cute.