Friday 23 May 2008
Commercial Fraudsters - Homeopathy
At last, another syndicate widely known for conning customers has been realised as a fraud - Homeopathy. Boots did themselves an injustice when they sold bottled water in a spray flask as a revitalising life-juice, but they have done themselves even greater harm with their stocking of homeopathic 'medications'. Of course, there is wide scientific support for the 'placebo effect' but homeopathy relies on this psychosomatic afterthought far too heavily. Lest we forget that Boots has probably made a fair few bob well beyond the actual price of those balls of crushed sugar. My mother once took me to a homeopathic distributor, a very nice lady with a reassuring voice and a cosy little house in rural Buckinghamshire. It was during a rather severe bout of tonsillitis at a time when I was willing to try anything, but I knew the game was up when she began quizzing me - questions included: "What side do you tend to sleep on?" and "How much orange juice do you drink?". I'm willing to concede that this can build up a holistic picture, but you and I both know that this was only a front to superimpose some psychological benefits onto her pills. The whole experience reminded me of the doctor sketch in Chris Morris' cult television comedy, Jam, where the doctor asks the patient to drop his trousers and jump up and down (watch on YouTube). How humiliating.
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2 comments:
Your characterization of Homeopathy as relying too heavily on "placebo afterthought" is incorrect and, despite the current medial anti-Homeopathy blitz, I am not at all certain that placebo has anything at all to do with the numerous Homeopathy successes which are reported
every day both in clinics AND in the double blind placebo testing laboratories whose rigourous tests Homeopathy has passed for many illnesses.
That there may be opportunists who exploit alternative medicine comes as no surprise since there are plenty of them in STANDARD medicine as well, but this may be indicative of the growing acceptance of Homeopathy as it slowly becomes theoretically confirmed and enters the mainstream.
If you can name a single incident where Homeopathic treatment cured an ailment that could not have been cured, or cured as effectively, by "standard" medication, then I will concede your point. But, as yet, I cannot find one.
Regarding your point about the unsurprising exploitation of alternative medicines, I would ask whether a certified doctor of medicine would prescribe such treatment beyond those confirmed by the MHRA. As the dialogue between the MHRA and the British Association of Homeopathic Manufacturers shows, no such correlation currently exists between the proposed successes of homeopathic treatment and confirmed results. Indeed, as recently as May last year, there were calls to place heavier restrictions on the marketing of such products, which resulted in necessitating greater transparency of test results. And so, my summation of homeopathy as relying heavily on the "psychosomatic" placebo effect is justified, until you can demonstrate otherwise.
The reason homeopathy has seen an increase in retail lately is due in part to desperation (where "standard" medication fails, who are we to question the individuals who look elsewhere?), but also to growing suspicion of the medication industry. As we've recently seen with the declining uptake of vaccinations, particularly in America, clinical normalcy no longer controls the cultural mindset.
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