Charlieās ****ed then. 
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Thereās a very good chapter about this in Ben Goldacreās book āBad Scienceā. In fact the whole bookās worth a read.
The thing is placebos are undeniably useful, but they have to be used in an ethical way:
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Pushing homeopathy for financial gain without proof of benefit to the recipient is (I believe) immoral.
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Pushing homeopathy as a genuine alternative to proven medicines is downright dangerous.
Hereās a fun quote from Tim Minchin:
By definition, alternative medicine has either not been proved to work or been proved not to work. Do you know what they call alternative medicine thatās been proved to work? Medicine.
Iād conclude by saying that the distribution and usage of homeopathy should be properly regulated. If you want to be seen as medicine, you need to be treated like medicine is. You wouldnāt throw a random slew of chemically-formulated pills at a problem and hope that it solves things - thatās not how evidence-based medicine works. So why would you do it with homeopathy?
Itās hardly a ban thatās in the offing, simply that it wil no longer be prescribed by NHS doctors. Anyone who really want to use homeopathy will still be able to do so; theyāll just have to pay for it.
Does this mean I can get a refund on the disgusting tasting tea I bought for fifty quid and have never used?
Ah, I see. Yes, the actual story is that homeopathy could be blacklisted from the NHS and GPs banned from referring to homeopaths. Very different.
Done some more digging and this appears related to a government report from 2010.
Thereās some good quotes in there, e.g.
We do not doubt that homeopathy makes some patients feel better. However, patient satisfaction can occur through a placebo effect alone and therefore does not prove the efficacy of homeopathic interventions.
For patient choice to be real choice, patients must be adequately informed to understand the implications of treatments.
For homeopathy this would certainly require an explanation that homeopathy is a placebo. When this is not done, patient choice is meaningless. When it is done, the effectiveness of the placeboāthat is, homeopathyāmay be diminished. We argue that the provision of homeopathy on the NHS, in effect, diminishes, not increases, informed patient choice.
When the NHS funds homeopathy, it endorses it. Since the NHS Constitution explicitly gives people the right to expect that decisions on the funding of drugs and treatments are made āfollowing a proper consideration of the evidenceā, patients may reasonably form the view that homeopathy is an evidence-based treatment.
I have mixed views on this. Whilst there will be a lot of snake oil sellers out there, there are some that whilst not yet been scientifically proven do offer benefits (maybe the science isnāt good enough to identify why these alternative medicines work) From personal experience, the Ayatollah was having a lot of stomach issues. The docs diagnosed various ailments such as IBS, coeliac and crones disease (I was convinced they got it right with this one ) Still not convinced, she had a Vega test which can in theory detect allergies although it is not recognised by the NHS. She got an off the scale hit on wheat indicating a huge allergy to it. She cut it out of the diet and was feeling better almost immediately. The point is the nhs may have got there eventually, however by there she had had all sorts of avoidable procedures when if they had started with a Vega test they could have saved a load of time, money and more importantly discomfort for my wife.
Originally posted by @CB-Saint
The point is the nhs may have got there eventually, however by there she had had all sorts of avoidable procedures when if they had started with a Vega test they could have saved a load of time, money and more importantly discomfort for my wife.
Itās fantastic that it worked for your wife, CB Saint - but a testimonial does not equal scientific evidence. Itās entirely plausible that this was a false-positive or a coincidentally correct result. The manufacturers of those machines donāt even claim them to be accurate. Sometimes they claim dozens of allergies are present.
So I suppose my counter-point is that if the NHS relied upon such technology, theyād have to be certain that they work as intended for a statistically significant proportion of the population. Otherwise those extensive tests and procedures you mention sadly remain the only safe option.
Need to be clear on āalterniative therapiesā v homeopathyā¦ which is the absolute bonkers con artists selling water. Yes water because the successive dilutions they claim in some cases mean that there is actually perhaps only 1 molecle left in a volume of water the size of the atlantic oceanā¦ but its the ātraceā that is claimed to have benefitā¦ total and utter dangerous bollox. dangerous because despite the the placebo benefit a few folks get, some folks stop taking their prescribed medication.
I am all for any treatment being looked into and investigated, which would demonstrate no benefit to homeopathic remedies beyond placeboā¦
I get where you are coming from, however, say the test did throw up a dozen allergies, those could have been immediately cut out and slowly reintroduced into the diet and we would have still got to the answer quicker that we did and without a whole load of invasive bullshit. It doesnāt have to be conclusive, but there is a big arguement for using it as a guide.
Your assumption there is that any of that theoretical dozen was an allergy present within the person; it could just as well be that none of them are. Thatās not even pseudo-science - itās guesswork.
Isolating an allergy is quite often a process of elimination. If it was none of the allergies suggested then the symptoms would persist, however you will still have eliminated what itās not. When you are trying to find a needle in a field of haystacks, I would use anything which might point me in the direction of the right haystack.
Been through many false dawns over the last 35 yearsā¦my wife has MS. From Gluten Free diets to Hypobaric Oxygen all of which have their advocates but non of which has stood up to double-blind testing over the years. Sheās not tried any of themā¦just a healthy diet which has kept her on her feet and in full time employment until her early retirement (not on health grounds) in 2003.
After being told at the time that most MS sufferers live into their '60s and manage to stay wheel-chair free into their '40 and with all the āgreatā homespun remedies, you get used to being fed BS at regular intervals.
Jeez. Itās 2015 guys and gals. If people want to give and take in the pooper or flick the bean and rug munch, please, let them get on with it. Putting them on some sort of racist register isnāt doing anyone any favours.
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