7/5/2009 7:46:31 AM #

It seems to me that comment about Lyn Brierley-Jones's paper is premature. We've yet to know exactly what's in it, exactly what the claims are, or on what basis the claims are made.

I do, though, agree with the thesis as it applies to a different modality - acupuncture. As it's now being used in the NHS by allopathic practitioners, it's being perverted. A woman I know has been suffering because she was given acupuncture with electricity applied to the needles - most assuredly not a traditional acupuncture method. There are other tales I've heard from patients who's had "acupuncture" applied by NHS allopathic practitioners, each described to me as being done by someone who took no care in siting the needles, said it didn't matter if they were in exactly the right spot, and pulled them out rapidly - all counter to traditional acupuncture methods. This sort of thing demonstrates the likelihood of Brierly-Jones' thesis being accurate.

To those who write angrily against homeopathy with statements of how it doesn't work and can't work and hasn't been proven to work, along with those who think their jokes are clever: Why are you so interested in something that you seem to think is nonsense?

Certainly the trust in allopathic medicine and its Big Pharma drugs and treatments is misplaced. Genuine science is almost nonexistent, replaced by money-driven pseudo-researchers who will produce whatever results they're paid for.

The faith in double blind randomly controlled trials is certainly misplaced, as can easily be demonstrated by the drugs that have been approved through such techniques, then withdrawn or fallen out of favor because of lack of efficacy and horrific harm done by them. Vioxx. Celebrex. Statins. Now the FDA is going after acetaminophen. It seems to me that supporting this sort of thing is foolhardy, at best.

Dyson, you're quite mistaken about there being no reproducible in vitro results. John Paterson's studies of bowel nosodes and their effect on feces demonstrated in thousands of examples that nosodes (homeopathic preparations) resulted in consistent changes in bowel bacteria.

I agree with David Hartley that true science has no agendas and no fixed opinions.

Heidi Stevenson | Reply