Peter wrote:
One could narrow it down by removing the homeopathic bit and leaving the rest. A fairly easy test I would think…
As Alexis pointed out, that has been done. Many times.
As Alexis pointed out, that has been done. Many times.
By Mooney Driver? I was answering his post.
If you live off research funding, probably better to not try this experiment with statins 
One could narrow it down by removing the homeopathic bit and leaving the rest. A fairly easy test I would think…
Homeopathic “medicines” ARE the rest. You don’t have to do do anything. Dosages like “C200” contain ZERO *molecules* of the ingrediant on the bottle (google it). “Belladonna C200” and any other one (there’s thousands) … are exactly the same, pure sugar. Which you can get much cheaper in every supermarket.
When you try to talk about this with people who are into this strange belief than they will tell you “ah, that’s right, but the sugar (or water) molecules remember the original substance before it was dilluted” :-)
@Peter: I find your view on Science depressing, and I don’t share it. Science, and nothing else, is responsible for the fact that you and/or me will probably live close to 80 or even many more years … and that number was around 30 only about 100 years ago.
Placebo: It is the state of science that placebo works with babies, and animals.
Science, and nothing else, is responsible for the fact that you and/or me will probably live close to 80………
No effect from increased wealth and education?
I find your view on Science depressing
I have no problem with that. I don’t work in academic research. Justine knows quite a bit about it though, having been in the system for a bit. Brexit and the loss of EU funding has exposed a lot of stuff… Much research is compromised because the researchers were “bought”.
It is the state of science that placebo works with babies, and animals.
You missed my point.
Isn’t science “increased education” ?! Isn’t “increased wealth” a result of applying scientific progress ?!
Peter wrote:
No effect from increased wealth and education?
Increased wealth and education didn’t give us antibiotics and vaccines. Science did.
A few hundred years ago, wealth and high education didn’t help if you got an bad infection.
Alexis wrote:
are exactly the same, pure sugar. Which you can get much cheaper in every supermarket.
The thing we were given is called osanit, it is a registered and approved medicine with a PZN Number and only available in pharmacies. I checked out the info sheet which comes with it and it lists the ingredients, which in order to get approved, must be crosschecked by the medical authorities. So it can’t be just sugar, apart from the fact that it does not even contain sugar but xylit.
When we got it, we did not check it out at all but simply used it. Personally I did not expect any effect as both toothing paste and even painkiller hat failed. When we first used it, she had not had either of those for about 2 days, so completely clean of any medicines. Within 10 minutes of giving her the dose, our daughter calmed down and relaxed for the first time in about a week really, as well as stopped crying and rubbing her gums. That effect was completely reproducable as we did not feed her the stuff when she doesn’t need it. I only later checked the package and saw that it’s classified as homeopathic.
I further checked with a good friend who is a licenced pharmacist. He said to me that in Switzerland ALL homeopathic as well as every other medicine get checked by laboratories before they are allowed to be sold. That is why quite a lot of stuff which may have fraudulent content information as you suggest is not available here. He also knows this product and sais it is basically standard today to be given to teething kids and has a very good record.
This is one product out of many. I have no opinion on this because I know nothing about it, but I can see what it did. So maybe not all of those products are just rubbish.
Airborne_Again wrote:
Increased wealth and education didn’t give us antibiotics and vaccines. Science did.
Fairly obviously, without money to buy the results science is completely useless…. which is a point often lost on scientists. The process of turning science into something useful and affordable is called engineering. The process of efficiently distributing the results of engineering is called business. Societal and individual wealth is the product of all three, and health is therefore (in the real world) a corollary of wealth, which also pours more money into education and research to repeat the cycle.
Peter wrote:
It quickly becomes a game of who can get funding for what, and let’s all jump on that one while the funding is there.
Exactly. And in order to maintain or expand funding, they have to present results which scare the bejazis out of people so they are willing to pay more.
The bad about this is that important issues can get totally blown out of proportion and consequently fought by other interest groups instead of the original valuable research producing reasonable response.
Peter wrote:
Any research funded by say drug manufacturers is inherently flawed simply because, no matter how “proper” the researchers are, everybody knows that if the outcome is not the “desired” one, the next grant won’t be coming.
I would have thought that the problem is predominant in research done within governmental, political and university organisations, who rely on those monies and also have agendas behind every research grant they hand out.
We have to be careful not to generalize as well. Of course there is vital and honest science still around and the advances in medicine and other subjects are important and vital for all of us. But science has become a bit like news at times… there is honest and dedicated research and there is biased and bought b.s. coming out of corrupt research organisations and folks whose goal is not to advance mankind but either advance themselfs no matter how or to press a political agenda. And unfortunately in recent years, politics and science have become enthusiastic bedfellows when it comes to changing society. Which, I may add, is not the job of say atmospheric science nor of medicine and a lot of other subjects.
Peter wrote:
Everywhere you go, you see babies screaming until they get picked up.
Of course and that is something ours is good at. But teething is a different thing, very easy to identify once you know what to look for. We know by now, as it happens every few weeks when the next tooth comes along…
Peter wrote:
One could narrow it down by removing the homeopathic bit and leaving the rest
As it was at the time the only product she was getting, as everything else had failed to produce a result, I reckon that test was done without intention 
And you know what, in the end I don’t really care as long as it does the job and prevents me from needing a hearing aid soon.
Actually, this case may well serve as a good example how the overflow of “research” has affected our trust in science to the point where we may reject sound products or ideas for the fact that previous science has “proven” them invalid. What do we know about that research? What if it too was corrupt because it would damage someone? Like homeopathy vs “school medicine” which in practice means drug companies? Again, I am neither a “believer” or proponent of this kind of medicine but sometimes I wonder on other such issues too.
Yes to everything you wrote Mooney_Driver
