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These questions were posted by Dr. Joe Schwarcz to Dr. André Saine as a follow-up on the Debate held at McGill University on November 27, 2012.
Homeopaths claim that even after a substance is dissolved in water or alcohol and diluted to such an extent that there is not a single molecule of the original solute left, the solution still retains some memory of the solute. But this solution is then impregnated into a sugar pill and the water is evaporated. What then is left behind? And how does whatever is left behind have anything to do with healing?
Homeopaths are actually not making such a claim, but have instead been reporting a series of very important experimental observations that are, first, sick people are sensitive to remedies that can produce a similar state as their sickness1)]; second, patients usually experience an initial aggravation when remedies are precisely prescribed to them according to this principle of similarity2); third, to avoid this initial aggravation, Hahnemann did what any logical physician would do, he diminished the dose.
At first, he used simple dilutions3), and only many years later he began using serial succussed dilutions4)], a process he had previously used in chemistry5)] and which had been known at least since Paracelsus6); fourth, Hahnemann noticed that patients responded better and longer the higher the potency was, a fact that is confirmed daily by every practicing homeopath; and fifth, Hahnemann slowly pursued this upward process of serial dilution and succussion over the next forty years as he never stopped observing increasing benefit in the sick7). To illustrate how slow this process of progressive rise in serial trituration/succussion and dilutions was, Hahnemann recommended prescribing Aurum metallicum in the first and second attenuations in 1820, the 12th in 1825, the 30th in 1835 and by 1840 he was consistently using the 200 centesimal potency8)].
In view of these experimental facts, Hahnemann logically assumed that durable, physical changes were occurring in the vehicles due to this process of serial trituration/succussion and dilutions, a phenomenon that can absolutely not be explained with the theory of Avogadro's limit9). In 1825, he wrote, “By the succussion and trituration employed, a change is effected in the mixture, which is so incredibly great and so inconceivably curative, that this development of the spiritual power of medicines to such a height by means of the multiplied and continued trituration and succussion of a small portion of medicinal substance with ever more and more dry or fluid unmedicinal substances, deserves incontestably to be reckoned among the greatest discoveries of this age10).”
In the same article, Hahnemann responded to the skeptic's arguments about the implausibility of the higher attenuations as followed, “But there are various reasons why the skeptic ridicules these homeopathic attenuations. First, because he is ignorant that by means of such triturations the internal medicinal power is wonderfully developed, and is as it were liberated from its material bonds, so as to enable it to operate more penetratingly and more freely upon the human organism; secondly, because his purely arithmetical mind believes that it sees here only an instance of enormous subdivision, a mere material division and diminution, wherein every part must be less than the whole—as every child knows; but he does not observe, that in these spiritualizations of the internal medicinal power, the material receptacle of these natural forces, the palpable ponderable matter, is not to be taken into consideration at all; thirdly, because the skeptic has no experience relative to the action of preparations of such exalted medicinal power. If, then, he who pretends to be a seeker after truth will not search for it where it is to be found, namely, in experience, he will certainly fail to discover it; he will never find it by arithmetical calculations11).”
We could indeed speculate that beyond the twelfth centesimal dilution there isn't any molecule left from the original substance. However, no one can in fact prove the absence of any molecules of the original medicinal substances in ultra-molecular preparations (UMPs12)), unless they are able to investigate them with methods capable of detecting the presence of the smallest concentrations of molecules. It was not until the 1950's and 1960's that scientists conducted experiments with radioisotopes, which permitted the detection of molecules of the original substances in UMPs of up to the 10-2,000 (Korsakoff)13). The presence of the original medicinal substances have since been detected by more refined spectrometric measurements and most recently by scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology, who have detected asymptotic amounts of nanoparticles and nanobubbles in UMPs of up to the 10-400 14).
Also, measurable changes in the physico-chemical properties of UMPs began to appear in the 1940's with wavelength changes of the light passing through them15). Different teams of scientists corroborated other measurable physico-chemical changes of UMPs in the early 1950's16). During the 1960's, it was found by high-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy that differences existed in the alcohol phase spectrographs of UMPs17). The advent of more refined spectroscopic equipment is now permitting scientists to push investigation further and discover many new, greatly unexpected physico-chemical properties of UMPs.18) 19) 20)
In 1984, Scofield reviewed much of the pre-Benveniste research on the physico-chemical properties of UMPs21). We find that already in the 1960's, Barnard had developed the idea of the “memory of water,” or in other words, something of the original substances is ingrained in the vehicles, which had in fact been considered by homeopaths since Hahnemann22).
Why, we can ask, is the outcome of this research on the physico-chemical properties of UMPs so unwelcomed by skeptics but, at the same time, so welcomed by homeopaths? First, skeptics tend to approach homeopathy from a purely theoretical point of view, as it had been done for twenty-five centuries previous to the advent of experimental medicine. They have thus not been at all able to appreciate the facts presented by homeopaths, as they don't even bother examining them. Their whole argumentation lies on the theory of Avogadro's limit, and on the placebo response. They have never yet argued against the principle of similia, which is the fundamental basis of homeopathy. They believe so strongly in their theoretical argument that they don't even take the trouble to enquire into what homeopathy really is, or to examine the enumerable, wonderful facts reported in the vast homeopathic literature, which they perfunctorily reject with dismissive arrogance. Their theoretical scheme takes precedence over any fact, thus sacrificing truth at the altar of prejudice. Unfortunately, things have not changed much since 1828 when Jean Paul Ritcher said that homeopathy was more “detested than examined23)].”
On the other hand, homeopaths approach medicine as a natural science, which has as its basis the study of phenomena through observation. Observations reported by Hahnemann who was known to be an extremely meticulous and conscientious scientist have since been corroborated by hundreds of thousands of physicians and can be found throughout the vast homeopathic literature of more than 25,000 volumes.
The hypothesis of the memory of water is consistent with the series of experimental observations reported above. However, homeopaths are not claiming that there are no molecules left in UMPs, as insinuated by this question. We just couldn't have a clue until the 1950's when scientists began tracing radioisotopes in UMPs, which revealed the presence of the original substances in potencies up to the 1,000 centesimal Korsakoff. Scientists have so far detected at least two very important phenomena in UMPs, first, asymptotic amounts of nanoparticles and nanobubbles and, second, durable, physico-chemical changes of their vehicles.
In science, when a large body of evidence contradicts a theory it is time to change or adapt the theory, as Claude Bernard said so well in his Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine, “In these researches, I followed the principle of the experimental method that we have established, i.e., that, in the presence, of a well-noted new fact which contradicts a [prevailing] theory, instead of keeping the theory and abandoning the fact, I should keep and study the fact, and I hastened to give up the theory, … even when the theory [Avogadro's limit] is supported by great names and generally accepted24).” Hahnemann preceded Claude Bernard in introducing the experimental method in medicine by more than a half of a century25)] and pointed out in 1819 something very pertinent to our current discussion with skeptics, “How insignificant and ridiculous is mere theoretical skepticism in opposition to this unerring, infallible experimental proof26)!”
A very important factor that skeptics tend to not address in their calculation based on the theory of Avogadro's limit is the potential effects of the force of trituration and succussion applied in the preparation of UMPs. Rustum Roy and colleagues at the Materials Research Institute of Penn State University estimated that pressure shock waves generated by the process of trituration and succussion used in the preparation of UMPs can caused localized pressure inside the water, alcohol and sugar molecules to reach over 10,000-15,000 atmospheres (150,000-225,000 pounds per square inch), which is powerful enough to trigger fundamental changes in the properties of these vehicles27), 28).
Regarding the last part of this question, namely, “But this solution is then impregnated into a sugar pill and the water is evaporated. What then is left behind? And how does whatever is left behind have anything to do with healing?” When British astronomer Sir Patrick Moore wanted to emphasize that our comprehension of the universe is often quite incomplete, he would simply say, “We just don't know!” And this is exactly what the situation is at this point in time regarding this question, as the fundamental research on UMPs has so far been conducted with solutions only. To my knowledge, UMPs in solid forms have not yet been studied.
It is important here to point out here that fundamental research in homeopathy progress very slowly, as there are very few researchers studying this quite intriguing but extremely promising field of investigation, and also it is supported by minimal research grants. The worldwide budget for all the research in homeopathy is likely to be less than two million dollars per year. Funding usually comes from private foundations and homeopathic laboratories, and typical grants are of the order of $10,000 to $30,000. In comparison, funding for biomedical research in 2007 was over $100 billion for the US alone, which is about half of the total worldwide funding29). How ironic and sad it is that homeopathy, without any doubt the most important of all medical disciplines, receives less than 1/100,000 of all the moneys allocated in the world for bio-medical research!
If a patient is diagnosed with bacterial pneumonia would you recommend a homeopathic regimen or antibiotics?
If patients diagnosed with pneumonia of any sort consult me, it is very likely that they are making an informed choice to be treated with homeopathy. After all, doesn't the ultimate choice of treatment belong to patients?
However, aside from the question of freedom of choice, it is an extremely pertinent question, because, first, pneumonia represents a public health problem of substantial magnitude, carries a significant mortality and has been associated in recent decades with an increasing morbidity; second, data clearly shows that homeopathy is the treatment of choice for patients with pneumonia of all types, and that innumerable numbers of lives would be saved daily if genuine homeopathy was used as the first line of treatment; and third, by using homeopathy, all the undesirable side-effects of antimicrobial therapy would be completely avoided.
This is such a vital subject that it obliges elaboration. The 2003 Pneumonia Fact Sheet of the American Lung Association reported, “In 1996 (latest data available), there were an estimated 4.8 million cases of pneumonia resulting in 54.6 million restricted-activity days and 31.5 million bed days [in the US alone]30).” In 2005, pneumonia and influenza together represented a cost to the US economy of $40.2 billion31). The age-adjusted mortality rate for pneumonia/influenza has steadily been rising over the last few decades, while pneumonia consistently accounts for the overwhelming majority of deaths between the two. It was 11.2 in 1979, 13.2 in 1998 and 15.7 per 100,000 persons per year in 201132), 33). In the past two decades, individuals older than 65 years of age have experienced a 20% increase in pneumonia-related hospitalizations with a concurrent increase in mortality34), 35). Microbes associated with pneumonia have become more resistant to antibiotics, making treatment much more difficult for allopathy, and multi-drug resistant bacteria are commonly endemic in ICU36). It is also important to point out that there is no generally effective treatment in conventional medicine for most types of viral pneumonia37).
Pneumonia is one of the ten leading causes of death and the number one cause of death due to an infectious disease in the US. Untreated “lobar pneumonia has a mortality of about 30 percent,” and “with antibiotics, fatalities are reduced to a varying extent, depending on the underlying condition of the patient, but in persons over 12 years the mortality is at least 18 percent and in immunocompromised persons it is much higher38).” Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) remains a major cause of mortality at 14%39). Mortality rate for older patients with CAP is around 30%. 72% of patients with CAP will require hospitalization40), making pneumonia the second leading cause of hospitalization (after childbirth) in the US, with 1.2 million hospitalizations in 200641). For nursing-home acquired pneumonia, mortality rates reach 57%42). If pneumonia develops in patients already hospitalized for other conditions, the mortality rates range between 30 to 70%43).
Pneumonia is the leading cause of death in children worldwide. An estimated 1.2 million children under the age of five years die every year from pneumonia—more than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined44). An estimated 1 in 3 children die in developing countries from or associated with acute respiratory tract infections45).
Throughout the nineteen and the first half of the twentieth centuries, which was before the advent of antibiotics, the average mortality for pneumonia for hospitalized patients was uniformly at about 30%. In 1912, Dr. William Osler wrote, “Pneumonia is one of the most fatal of all acute diseases, killing more than diphtheria, and outranking even consumption as a cause of death. The statistics at my clinic at the John Hopkins Hospital from 1889 to 1905 have been analyzed by Chatard. There were 658 cases with 200 deaths, a mortality of 30.4 percent. … Greenwood and Candy in a study of the pneumonia statistics at the London Hospital from 1854-1903, a total of 5,097 cases, conclude that the fatality of the disease has not appreciably changed during this period. In comparing the collected figures of these authors with those from other institutions, there is an extraordinary uniformity in the mortality rate46).” This uniformity of mortality during that period remained the same as well in non-hospitalized patients. In England and Wales, the annual death rates per million of pneumonia for children younger than 9 years old remained the same between 1848 and 190547). During WWI, the great majority of the casualties of the US army were due to pneumonia. Major J. Harold Austin of the US medical corps reported, “About 65 percent of the deaths in the army in this country in 1917 were due to pneumonia48).”
For how long will our society tolerate such horrible statistics, while the best available method of treatment for patients with pneumonia is being repressed in many parts of world, as it is currently in Canada? How long will Canadian medical students tolerate the bias that they are fed in medical schools, instead of being taught the best that science has to offer, as it will now be illustrated? I conducted a literature search on the results obtained by homeopathy in patients with pneumonia. The final results have not yet been fully tabulated, but the data is overwhelmingly clear regarding the benefits societies would obtain by institutionalizing homeopathy. To provide an idea of this review and its conclusion, I will begin by listing here the first four chronological entries:
In 1829, Dr. J. F. Herrmann took over an Infantry Hospital in St. Petersburg where he homeopathically treated 71 patients with pneumonia without a single loss and without bloodletting49).
In 1843, Dr. Carl Heinrich Rosenberg reported collections of cases of pneumonia treated in allopathic and homeopathic hospitals in major cities in Europe. Allopaths treated 760 cases of pneumonia with 286 deaths, a mortality of 37.63 percent. Homeopaths treated 390 cases with 14 deaths, a mortality of 3.59 percent, or more than a ten times lower mortality50)!
In 1846, Dr. Bosch wrote, “Out of one hundred cases of pneumonia, I have lost three; a man of fifty-eight who had long had a vomica [an abscess cavity] in the left lung, to which during the last year dropsical symptoms were added; a child of nine months afflicted with rickets, and a man of sixty-eight years51).”
Between 1843 and 1848, Dr. Reiss reported having treated at the Sisters of Mercy Hospital in Linz, Austria 88 cases with pneumonia with one death, a mortality of 1.14 percent52).
I will now jump forward to 1928 and bypass close to one hundred years of accumulated data. We find here a survey conducted among homeopathic physicians in the US, which reported a death rate of 2.8 percent among 11,526 patients with pneumonia who were treated with homeopathy53).
The same year, in 1928, Drs. Alfred and Dayton Pulford of Toledo, Ohio wrote in their monograph on pneumonia:
It has been stated, and we have every reason to believe truly, that fully 80 percent of all pneumonia cases would get well without any medical interference whatever, under proper nursing, so that any system or method of medical healing that cannot lower the death-rate to less than 20 percent would seem rather a menace than a blessing to pneumonia patients.
After treating 242 cases of pneumonia, of all types and degrees of severity, some coming directly from and others having been confirmed in the diagnosis by allopaths, with but 3 deaths, a rate of but 1.4 percent, we can hardly understand a fixed minimum death-rate of 25 percent, much less a maximum rate of 95 percent, in a disease as readily amenable to the proper remedy as is pneumonia. The death rate under the homeopathic simillimum should at no time exceed 5 percent, a higher rate would rather reflect on our ability54).
As the results obtained by homeopathy greatly depend of the ability of the physician to apply its principles to practice, the venerable Dr. P. P. Wells of Brooklyn, New York commented in 1885 that a death rate of even 2 or 3 percent is still too high under “right” homeopathy and gave the example of Dr. Reiss, who in his practice between 1843 to 1848 in the hospital of Linz, Austria, had a 1 percent mortality rate. He continues, “We believe this because we have the proof of this in our own experience. In a practice of this system which reaches forty-three and two-thirds years, which most of the time has been very large, and of a general character as to the diseases treated, of which, no doubt, pneumonia has made an average part, I have not lost one case55).” Pneumonia was quite common in the days of Dr. Wells, for the simple fact that many acute infectious diseases, common to his time and place, such as influenza, diphtheria, measles, rubella, whooping cough, typhus and typhoid fever, would end up in pneumonia. If we assume that he saw at the very minimum one patient a month with pneumonia during his career, he would have had no deaths in well over 500 cases.
Wells' success is corroborated by my own experience. In over 30 years of private practice that include over 180 cases with pneumonia, some of which were treated on their death bed56), many having failed under allopathy, there has not been a single death under homeopathic treatment. It is in fact hard to imagine a person dying of pneumonia with a physician experienced in genuine homeopathy at the bedside, even in the worst and most hopeless circumstances, whether it is in an infant in the last stage of viral pneumonia in an ICU, a centenarian in a very weakened state when all hopes are given up, a wasted and incapacitated middle-age man with a four-year refractory Aspergillus pneumonia, a patient with advanced lung cancer, or a comatose patient in the last stage of AIDS. However, a great number of people will continue to unnecessarily die of pneumonia until the most efficacious treatment in existence is requested by the tired victims of the politics of medicine. Such sterling results obtained with genuine homeopathy in patients with pneumonia point out the invaluableness of this system of medicine, in which statistics become basically useless, as Sir Ernest Rutherford remarked, “If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.”
It is important to point out that skeptics like Oliver Wendell Holmes57) have been very influential in their campaign to denigrate homeopathy and have greatly slowed down the progress of science and limited its potential benefits to reach suffering humanity. Contrary to general expectations, skeptics approach homeopathy with unwavering conviction instead of the completely unbiased mind required in science. The good news however is that facts are more stubborn than prejudices; at the end, truth shall prevail; and as Lincoln said so well, “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” Utter ignorance58), lack of scholarship, contradictions59), misinformation60), gross distortions of historical facts61), sophistries62) and far-fetched analogies63) displayed by skeptics about homeopathy will in due time be fully uncovered, and, unleashed, medical science will finally be able to continue its march forward without the skeptics' spokes in its wheels. During the time of Hahnemann literally hundreds of books and pamphlets and even a journal64) and an anti-Organon65) were published by skeptics. Despite these intensive campaigns of denigration, homeopathy has continued its march forward, slowly but surely. What is true and good will remain true and good, despite what well-known communicators and supposedly men of science write against it. It is interesting to note how unwavering is the skeptics' stance despite mounts of evidence. This phenomenon seems to not be so uncommon in science as Max Planck once remarked, “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” Hahnemann in its turn remarked that it is impossible without virtue to be a true man of science.
Reports similar to Wells' experience described above are commonplaces in the homeopathic literature. However, in the face of such spectacular statistics, one wonders whether any allopath of high reputation has had the courage to openly try homeopathy in a public institution and publicly report in details the results of his experiments in the treatment of patients with pneumonia. Well, at least one allopath did it. Between 1847 and 1849, Dr. Jean-Paul Tessier, “one of the distinguished practitioners of medicine in Paris,” conducted at the St. Marguerite Hospital experiments to investigate homeopathy in the treatment of patients with cholera and pneumonia66). He wrote that he presented himself “neither as a partisan or opponent of homeopathy but as a scientist guarding himself against the misguiding bias of blind passion,” and he will “endeavor to strictly adhere to the legitimate demands of a scientific inquiry67).”
He choose pneumonia to conduct his first trial, as he said, “Pneumonia is a disease of frequent occurrence, acute, serious, with well-defined characteristic symptoms; it is on this account that I have selected it as the first example of an application of Hahnemann's method to the treatment of disease. No physician will dispute either the frequency or the acute nature of pneumonia; … the signs by which this disease is recognized, are generally very striking, and easily distinguished; and if I admit that we might be mistaken on a first examination I make all the concessions that can be legitimately claimed. No physician can possibly mistake a case of pneumonia when he sees his patient every morning and evening, auscultates him carefully, and watches all the evolutions of the disease with the intention of determining its true character68).”
However, instead of applying the principles of homeopathy as they were clearly spelled out by Hahnemann, he applied his own version by prescribing for localized pathologies with alternation of remedies in very low potencies. Despite these three major departures from the practical rules of homeopathy, he was still able to observe a significant positive outcome in both patients with pneumonia and cholera compared to all other methods of treatment used in the hospital and more particularly to the ones used during the cholera epidemics of 1832 and 1849.
Regarding the results obtained in patients with pneumonia in particular, he reported 40 detailed cases with 37 recoveries and 3 deaths, a mortality rate of 7.5%. This means, by simply switching halfway between allopathy to homeopathy, he was able to save 23 more lives out of 100 patients compared to the constancy of 30% of his previous allopathic practice. It is a strange fact about human behavior that this incredible, well-publicized reduction in mortality was not followed, at the very least, by more trials or even, until proven otherwise, by institutionalization of homeopathy in the St. Marguerite Hospital or in every other hospital worldwide. Instead, when Tessier presented his results before the Academy in Paris he aroused a storm of protest. It again confirms how prejudice tends to be such a stubborn thing. Luckily for humanity, facts are even more stubborn.
Regarding antimicrobial therapy, homeopathic physicians have traditionally never been against their use but have been opposed to their undesirable side-effects, which include the permanent disruption of the flora of the body, increased susceptibility to opportunistic infections, development of more resistant strains of microbes, and pollution of our streams and waterways and poisoning of the body of life therein. It is also noteworthy to mention two extra advantages of being treated with homeopathy for patients with pneumonia above and beyond antimicrobial therapy, which are that with homeopathy we witness an improvement of the health of the person on all levels, and a decreased susceptibility to develop pneumonia in particular and of being sick in general.
Can you provide a peer reviewed, randomized, blinded trial that has been duplicated at least once and appears in a mainstream journal of any specific homeopathic remedy that has been shown to be beneficial in any specific disease?
As homeopathy is based on individualized medicine your request for “specific homeopathic remedy” “in any specific disease” is an oxymoron. However, there are some studies that did in fact examine the use of one remedy in one potency for patients presenting with one similar complaint. In 1989, Fisher et al. published in the British Medical Journal the results of a non-individualized, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, crossover trial on the use of Rhus toxicodendron 6 C in patients with primary fibromyalgia. Despite important departures from genuine homeopathy, some of the findings of this research were, “The patients did better in all variables when they took active treatments rather than placebo. The number of tender points was reduced by about a quarter (p < 0.05). … If the null hypothesis were correct the direction of change after placebo and active treatment would be randomly distributed. Analysis showed a significant difference in favour of the homoeopathic medicine69).”
In 2004, Bell et al. published in Rheumatology their results of the individualized double-blind, randomized, parallel-group, placebo-controlled treatment of patients with fibromyalgia in a study that was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). Their main finding and conclusion were, “Participants on active treatment showed significantly greater improvements in tender point count and tender point pain, quality of life, global health and a trend toward less depression compared with those on placebo. This study replicates and extends a previous one-month placebo-controlled crossover study in fibromyalgia that pre-screened for only one homeopathic remedy. Using a broad selection of remedies and the flexible LM dose (1/50 000 dilution factor) series, the present study demonstrated that individualized homeopathy is significantly better than placebo in lessening tender point pain and improving the quality of life and global health of persons with fibromyalgia70).”
In 1993, Jacobs et al. published in Pediatrics the outcome of a RCT on the homeopathic (individualized) treatment of children with diarrhea in Nicaragua. The treatment group had a statistically significant decrease in duration of diarrhea (p < 0.05) and in the number of stools per day between the two groups after 72 hours of treatment (p < 0.05)71).
In 2000, another RCT was published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine on the treatment of children with diarrhea, but in Nepal this time. The outcome of this study was consistent with the previous mentioned RCT72).
In 2003, the combined results and meta-analysis from three RCTs on the homeopathic (individualized) treatment of children with diarrhea were published in the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal. The main findings of this meta-analysis showed a duration of diarrhea of 3.3 days in the homeopathy group compared with 4.1 in the placebo group (P = 0.008), and consistent effect-size difference of 0.66 day (P = 0.008). It was concluded that the results from these studies confirmed that individualized homeopathic treatment decreases the duration of acute childhood diarrhea, and that homeopathy should be considered for use as an adjunct to oral rehydration for this illness73).
If we look at RCTs evaluating non-individualized use of UMPs, we find that in 2000 Taylor et al. published in the British Medical Journal a meta-analysis of four randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials conducted in patients with hay fever. Their findings were, “Addition of these results to those of three previous trials (n = 253) showed a mean symptom reduction on visual analogue scores of 28% (10.9 mm) for homoeopathy compared with 3% (1.1 mm) for placebo (95% confidence interval 4.2 to 15.4, P = 0.0007). Objective results reinforce earlier evidence that homoeopathic dilutions differ from placebo.” To the question whether the evidence for homeopathy was reproducible? Reilly et al. answered, “Either answer suggested by the evidence to date—homoeopathy works, or the clinical trial does not—is equally challenging to current medical science74).” Two of the previous three RCTs had been published in the Lancet in 1986 and 199475), 76).
Given a vial of sugar pills provided by a homeopathic supplier, can you in any way determine whether or not the pills have been “activated” by being impregnated with a homeopathically prepared solution?
There is a number of ways that could be used to differentiate a verum homeopathic remedy from a placebo, and even one potency from another of the same remedy. First, it is quite easy for an experienced clinician to differentiate the omnipresent placebo response in any doctor-patient encounter versus the patient's response to a simillimum verum homeopathic remedy. Their respective response curves are completely different. The placebo response is characterized by an immediate improvement that tends to be minimal, rarely substantial and of a short duration, particularly in patients suffering from serious diseases. The response to a simillimum verum homeopathic remedy is completely different and is characterized by an immediate, short-lasting and of minimal intensity aggravation, which is followed by a prolonged, durable and progressive state of improvement.
In the placebo response, subjective symptoms especially the ones patients are consulting for tend to be most affected, and most other collateral symptoms remain typically unchanged. Contrarily, in the response to the simillimum verum homeopathic remedy, we observed an improvement of the whole person, which include most of the chief complaints of the patient, as well as moods, disposition, social behavior, sensitivities, energy level, sleep, appetite, food cravings, menses, etc.
Second, well-conducted provings of verum homeopathic remedies should show the difference between one remedy from another, and remedies versus placebo. It was found out that in a three armed, double-blind, placebo controlled randomized experimental pathogenetic study homeopathic remedies produce more specific symptoms as compared to the non-specific symptoms common to the placebo response77).
Third, many in vitro, plant, animal and human models could be used to differentiate one remedy from another and one potency from another. For instance in one study, a well-known model of restrained-induced catalepsy (RIC) was used in white rats, in which the duration of the effects of different UMPs in the 30 C and 200 C potencies was measured. The higher potencies (200 C or 10-400) showed significant longer RICs. The authors concluded, “The technique of RIC could, therefore, be employed to differentiate between the four homoeopathic drugs tested and also between the two potencies of each drugs78).”
Fourth, with refined spectroscopic analysis such as thermoluminescence, UV–visible spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy, scientists are reporting that it is possible to observe clear differences between two different remedies and different potencies of UMPs79), 80).
Fifth, the presence of nanoparticles will be obviously detected in verum UMPs versus placebos with refined spectroscopic analysis81).
Given that the water used to prepare homeopathic solutions has been in contact with all sorts of substances as it cruised through lakes, rivers and sewage systems, why does it remember only what homeopaths would like it to remember?
At least, two factors must be considered in the fabrication of homeopathic remedies to answer your question. First, pure substances are used in the preparation of homeopathic remedies, which must be in accordance with the official pharmacopeia of the country in which they are made. Canada doesn't have its own pharmacopeia but recognizes official pharmacopeias of other countries, such as the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) and Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States (HPUS)82). The HPUS has been in continuous publication since 1897, and since the creation of the FDA by the US Congress in 1938, it has been recognized along the USP as one of the two official drug manuals. Aqua distillata, alcohol fortior, alcohol officinale and glycerin are the four liquid vehicles permitted by the HPUS and they must all meet the tests for identity and purity described in the USP.
Purity of the vehicles and medicinal substances is important for the production and longevity of homeopathic remedies, which must afterward be stored and handled properly, as a number of factors could destroy them after fabrication, such as too high or too low temperatures83)], microbial contamination, and various forms of ionizing radiation84).
Second, it is important to remember that great force is used in the process of trituration and succussion during the preparation of homeopathic remedies. Rustum Roy, one of the fathers of materials science, estimated that 10,000 to 15,000 atmospheres are applied during this process. According to Roy, it shouldn't be surprising that these exceptional great forces can produce durable changes in the properties of the vehicles used and even permit metal to become colloids. This is the reason why it has been asserted that Hahnemann is the actual founder of colloid chemistry85).
Obviously, as no water in our waterways is pure or is submitted to a process of serial dilution and succussion particular to homeopathy, the question of a prior memory of water has never ever been considered.
Source: | http://www.homeopathy.ca/debates_2012-11-27_FromDrSchawrtz-to-DrSaine.shtml |
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Description: | Questions posted by Dr. Joe Schwarcz to Dr. André Saine as a follow-up on the Debate held at McGill University on November 27, 2012. |
Year: | 2013 |
Editing: | errors only; interlinks; formatting |
Attribution: | Legatum Homeopathicum |