HOMEOPATHY AND THE POPULAR VOICE

Homeopathy and the popular voice                                                                                

“Our expectation of an explanation for a mechanism of action is that it is both scientifically plausible and demonstrable. We should, however, add that, while we comment on explanations for how homeopathy works, it is not a key part of our Evidence Check. Historically, some medical interventions were demonstrably effective before anyone understood their modes of action. For example, after 150 years of use, there is still debate about precisely how anaesthetics work. It is more important to know whether a treatment works—its efficacy—than how it works.”

Extract from UK Department of Health Evidence Check 2: Homeopathy - Science and Technology Committee (circa 2010) (my bold italics)

The world is a mad place. Tears For Fears weren’t wrong when they penned that massive 80’s hit.  Despite the madness though, it’s still a very compelling and hospitable planet for the most part – some might say despite the human race yet I say, perhaps because of us.
We just haven’t been given our say; perhaps what we say is going increasingly unheard or more optimistically maybe we’re actually starting to be heard.

I recently engaged in a debate on social media about homeopathy, taking a devil’s advocate stance against some pretty heavy hitting ‘sceptics’.

While I firmly accept the crucial role of science in establishing the paradigm in which we exist in this material realm, I think we should take pains to acknowledge that honest scientists are the first to admit they don’t fully understand how certain things work and this may simply be attributable to an inability to adequately measure the efficacy of those things.

I’m neither for nor against homeopathy. However, I am sceptical that the means whereby the benefits of the modality are measured may sit outside the paradigm of the science that would attempt to understand it.

The UK Dept of Health evidence check report makes the point that any effects of homeopathy were placebo effects – it may induce improvement simply through belief in it. There have been exhaustive tests conducted over the years involving RCT’s (Randomised Controlled Trials) usually taking the form of double-blind medical studies, almost exclusively funded by the pharmaceutical industry with, it must be stressed, heavily vested interests in specific outcomes.

The definition of a double blind medical study is given as follows: “An experimental procedure in which neither the subjects of the experiment nor the persons administering the experiment know the critical aspects of the experiment; a double-blind procedure is used to guard against both experimenter bias and placebo effects" All of that makes perfect sense. What doesn’t make any scientific sense, however, are the psychological and psychophysiological impact of the placebo effect in these trials, effects which inevitably occur.

Dr Howard Brody, Director of the Institute of Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch defined the placebo effect as "a change in a patient's illness attributable to the symbolic import of a treatment rather than a specific pharmacologic or physiologic property". In other words, changes take place within a patient’s physiology either for better (placebo) or for worse (the so-called “nocebo” effect) simply as a result of that patient’s belief that a change is inevitable due to the medication that’s being taken.
This is an inexplicable, invisible paradigm that’s occurring that science cannot begin to adequately explain and we certainly don’t have the means with which to monitor or test the placebo effect.

Only one thing is for certain, however, faith, religion and belief often mixed with nutritional regimes – work. The belief in something (a thought sequence) has a manifest physical effect on matter. We can alter our wellbeing and wellness simply through a pattern of belief. It’s never worded that way in the double blind studies but indubitably that’s what’s happening.

It is perhaps most obvious in those who become convinced that their illnesses will kill them. Inevitably, however, all such discussions are cloaked by sceptics who argue against doctors holding strong religious beliefs because such beliefs, lead to patients living longer and so using up more money

Fritz Albert Popp, a bio-physicist, claimed to have discovered and even demonstrated that photons provide the vehicle for information transmission in living systems – “biophotonic” activity took place in specific cell tissues and organs within a patient’s body merely by concentrating one’s thoughts on that particular spot.

The Sceptic movement in its beginning was highly vociferous against such ‘science’ because it posed real problems for the profits of pharmaceutical companies. Sceptics have done everything they could to wreck such theories. The late French scientist, Jacques Benveniste was bitterly attacked when he discovered the invisible bio-messages travelling through water, because it enhanced the idea held by homeopaths that immeasurably small quantities of a substance could affect matter.

The idea of faith or even immeasurable (invisible) quantity may go a long way to beginning to explain the placebo effect (more plainly; mind over matter) and I have no doubt that it will be empirically measurable in time to come, however, it currently obtains as an effect that cannot be adequately measured or explained under the circumstances or with the equipment used in contemporary RCT’s.

Okay, so let’s accept for a moment that homeopathy is nothing more nor less than a placebo form of treatment - to accept this we have to forget about using homeopathic principles with children and animals. If we accept that as offered by the mainstream medical establishment as a dismissal of homeopathy, we see how truly disingenuous that argument appears to be. If the effects cannot be understood or adequately measured during the double blind studies, how can the medical professionals analysing these data, call for the results to be dismissed if there is even the possibility of a placebo effect or, as the homeopaths claim, the stimulation of the body’s self-healing mechanisms? They have no demonstrable way of measuring this unless we begin to introduce the complexity of Popp’s experimental methodology into the mix.

The concluding dig of the UKDOH report runs: “Our expectations of the evidence base relevant to government policies on the provision of homeopathy are straightforward. We would expect the Government to have a view on the efficacy of homeopathy so as to inform its policy on the NHS funding and provision of homeopathy. Such a view should be based on the best available evidence, that is, rigorous randomised controlled trials and meta-analyses and systematic reviews of RCTs. If the effects of homeopathy can be primarily attributed to the placebo effect, we would expect the Government to have a view on the ethics of prescribing placebos.”

Indeed and why not, with costs to consider one might have imagined that this was, in the absence of scientific ‘proof’ one of the first principles of policy?

It goes on: ‘Homeopathy is a 200 year old system of medicine that seeks to treat patients with highly diluted substances that are administered orally. Homeopathy is based on two principles: "like-cures-like" whereby a substance that causes a symptom is used in diluted form to treat the same symptom in illness and "ultra-dilution" whereby the more dilute a substance the more potent it is (this is aided by a specific method of shaking the solutions, termed "succussion"). It is claimed that homeopathy works by stimulating the body's self-healing mechanisms.’

My own experience of homeopathic remedies utilising these solutions (not to be confused with herbal or natural remedies) was one of distinct success when I sought them out to aid with seasonal allergy problems and viral conditions such as colds and flu. They appeared most efficacious, however, that could simply have been my belief in the remedies or even my own natural immune system kicking into gear or my focus on my personal restoration in the vogue of Fritz Albert Popp – through thought and intention. I don’t really know but the results were always more rapidly efficacious than the conventional meds my buddies were taking. Or at least that’s how it appeared to me.

The point is, one cannot rule out the importance of the symbolic and psychological factors on the outcome. They’re manifestly evident. To this end, we had forgotten the popular voice on these matters – had that is until the populist call in Switzerland circa 2005 and again in 2016 (intended to be reintroduced in 2017) demanded that homeopathic practitioners and medications be included in their national health care system and subsidised accordingly.

This simply reveals that there is a significant number of people who either know it works or at very least believe it does, which, if it’s merely a placebo dynamic, should surely be sufficient. In Switzerland, according to a recent article on the topic, “homeopathy, holistic medicine, herbal medicine, acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine will acquire the same status as conventional medicine by May 2017 when it comes to health insurance. 

“After being rejected in 2005 by the authorities for lack of scientific proof of their efficacy, complementary and alternative medicines made a comeback in 2009 when two-thirds of Swiss backed their inclusion on the constitutional list of paid health services.”

Let me reiterate that statement - two-thirds of the population backed the move. Unlikely that it was an initiative of a financial thrust alone – this is health management we’re talking about.

People have a voice and they are making it heard when it comes to health and wellness.
We cannot and must not lose sight of the significance of that collective popular lay voice.

Two of the largest consumer organisations on the planet – viz: McDonalds and Coca-Cola have been forced through public demand to offer healthier options to their consumers. It isn’t that they grew a conscience overnight – their businesses are still driven by profit – the crux is though, that the people spoke in sufficient numbers to make that demand viable on the balance sheet and more importantly, we started to make better choices about our health. We forced a change.

Another manner in which people lack the insight into their innate power is to apply the don’t-go approach. You want to make people change a pricing structure or a service offering? Then simply boycott that business. Collectively, if people did this, businesses would have no choice but to accede to these ‘demands’ or face financial ruin. We have that power. We don’t use it. We tend to make much more acquiescent choices in our daily lives.

That said; many are starting to make the same noises about vaccines and demand that they be made safer and that all information being suppressed regarding that safety should be made public so that ‘informed consent’, a fundamental democratic right, can be realised instead of the medical fascism that currently obtains in the US, UK and Australia to name but three modern democracies forcing unsafe vaccines on their populations against threat of financial punishment or even incarceration.

I’m not for one moment advocating that we suspend our faith in medical science or technology but I am saying – use your voice and demand that what we partake in and of, is designed to be safe and the best it can possibly be.

Medication is understandably crucial in aiding the correction of imbalances in the body but there is a growing consensus of people who posit that one’s health is more holistically maintained through proper balanced nutrition and healthy lifestyle choices, which more often than not is distinguished by a marked absence of prescription drugs.

At the very least, you should be able to make up your mind about what goes into your body regardless. Remember well - there are corporations out there relying on you not making that choice.