UKH

Why do we allow these quacks and vultures to operate under the veil of respectability conferred by a 'professional' status?

Surely it is time to say that this is little short of preying on the vulnerable?

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/27/more-than-120-homeopaths-tr...

PS I include Reiki, Osteopathy, Chiropraty, Reflexology and Aromatherapy in the same class.

How about including all none evidence based therapies

Quite.

Whilst I agree that homeopathy for autism is ridiculous the concept of evidence based isn't straightforward.....not in my field anyway.

Are you a farmer? 

It's appalling.  Apparently they give children a vitamin overdose which makes them very ill with diarrhoea, and claim the autism is better.  What actually happens the child feels ill and distressed and shuts down into themselves and may appear more "normal" to the idiots that thought this was a good idea.  

Most of the crazy autism "cures" involve making the child pretend to be "normal" in an attempt to stop the torturous therapy.   When the therapy stops and the child relaxes it is the perfect time for the snake oil salesmen to claim that it worked until treatment stopped.  

Sometimes I think it is those who don't have autism that are the real problem.  

What about placebos? There is evidence that they have real and measurable effect.

But on  a more serious note; trying to cure autism is offering a false hope, usually in return for a large sum of money. People who offer these 'cures' should be drowned in a bucket of water. After all, water is just diluted oxygen.

Placebos are backed by evidence i understand

Any of you pay for pet insurance?

Part of your premium will be going towards homoeopathic treatments (yes there are fraudsters out there that charge people to do nothing for sick animals)

Edit: same is true of course for Private (Human) health insurance and the NHS

Autism aside a lot of the alternative therapies work for a lot of people. The mind is a powerful thing and a positive frame of mind can be just the thing. 

Unfortunately those of us with sceptical and closed mind's (me included) will never see any benefit because we don't believe it will work. 

Because they spring from the same society that gave us 'Alfie's Army' and ""antisemitism""", that's why.

I was going to say you missed out praying, but then I realised you had just misspelled it.

I think the majority of homeopathic vets, certainly the ones I’ve met, have a sincere belief that they are practicing an effective form of medicine. That makes them wrong*, but not fraudsters.

* wrong on the specific diluted water therapy bit, not wrong on much of the other advice they give.

Maybe so, but the royal college of veterinary surgeons are taking a stand against non evidence based medicine, hopefully the insurance companies might stop including these things. Problem is that "complementary medicine" includes herbals which may have an effect but be inadequately tested, strong placebo/caregiver effects from the time spent with the owner telling them something will work as well as total rubbish.

PS giving high doses of vitamins to cure autism might be unethical but certainly isn't homeopathy!

No, it makes them fraudsters as they have qualified in a rigorous discipline that provides incontrovertible evidence that homeopathy is a fraud.

I presume you've heard of the acronym TEETH?

With respect, it’s been rigorously shown that individual homeopathic treatments are not better than a placebo. Some recent studies have shown that ‘individualised’ homeopathic treatment are no better than placebo, but I’m only aware of a couple of those in my field.

Against that the homeopathic practitioners will often have many years of case experience which is generally positive (as nearly all case experience is as most patients get better). All medical practitioners are susceptible to believing there own experience over the evidence, especially so when there system of medicine differs from the established western model and at times may be difficult to directly compare.

If you accuse the homeopaths of being fraudsters because they believe their clinical experience over the evidence, then I’m afraid a very large number of Doctors and Vets are also fraudsters.

With respect? Do one.

My point is that if it is a placebo then giving it to animals is a fraud.

Doctors giving it to humans is borderline fraud, because I have to accept you need to get the moaning Guardian reads out of your surgery and if the condition will resolve then making them feel better is probably within the proper ethical scope of practice.

On more important matters, the SCUM have just have one ruled out for off side  

I have proof homeopathy works. I went to a homeopath and my horoscope said I'd get better. So there.

Look you thick tw*t. If somebody believes that what they are doing works, but in point of fact they are wrong, then they are not fraudsters, they are just wrong.

suit you better?

Homeopathy cured my dehydration.

Oooh, the oracle speaks.

If a tw*t in a pub tells you it is legal to shoot a Welshman in the confines of the city walls of Chester he is wrong.

If a Barrister tells you the same thing he is lying.

The reason for the difference is that the Barrister knows what he is saying is wrong.

A vet is trained in science and scientific method: if he is selling homeopathy, reiki etc then he knows he is selling quackery and is, in my view defrauding the purchaser.

Like religion?

If they hold the belief genuinely, then it’s not Fraud. It may well be negligent, but that’s quite a different thing.

https://www.walkermorris.co.uk/publications/brief-walker-morris-legal-updat...

The first part of that talks about fraudulent misrepresentation requiring a mind set of being 'reckless as to the truth' which sounds like a pretty fair description of a vet promoting / providing homeopathy.

The problem, as I see it, is that the placebo effect is often only temporary with chronic conditions. This can create a reliance on the clinician's treatment regime to re-enact the placebo effect each time. I personally think any treatment should be encouraging independence as much a possible rather than reliance. 

We have homeopathy because if we didn't, then we wouldn't have the t shirt.

https://www.moretvicar.com/product/homeopathy-mens-white-t-shirt

What have you got against osteopathy? 

Or believing in anything without evidence....

This http://www.sott.net/image/s6/135709/full/nothing.jpg is my version of a homeopathy t-shirt.
Yours for the bargain price of £29.99, postage included.

I got it, after a little while

Because it is pseudo scientific bollockkkkks, it is nothing other than massage with added scientifikky words.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteopathy

People report it being positive so it has some evidence.

Personally I found the best treatment for my sore ankle was a hot bath and blow j*b, but there's no chance of that on BUPA. 

Massage is good even without the blow job. If you pay for it the masseur tends to know what they are doing . 

Like many areas, there has to be a bell curve of practitioners where some provide thoughtful care while others are quite bad. The homeopathic practitioners who make it into the news are probably skewed towards the "bad" side given that the good ones are too "boring" to make the news.

The same holds true across all areas of non-traditional medical care. Anyone who has successfully used a dietary supplement of any kind will tell you that there's something real to them even if traditional medicine does not accept them. For example, the concept of ketosis augmented by supplements such as MCT oils is still not well accepted as helpful in traditional medicine but has found supporters elsewhere:

https://www.bestnutrient.com/best-mct-oil/

From experience, MCT oils and keto diets really do help with optimizing mental states and weight and yet this approach is still considered peripheral to the traditional practice of medicine. Given the way medical research is structured, it can take years before new research becomes accepted as mainstream practice in modern medicine.

You keep saying “traditional” but I think you might be confused.

Modern medicine is really not very traditional, unless you refer to the tradition of believing evidence and eschewing woo.

There's a good one word summary of your post. Claptrap.

If you dilute the insult 100000000000 times you'll get closer to my real views.

Absolutely. 

Yep but the other part pays for him to be stitched back together and dosed up on actual medication when required.

Pet insurance is as much for the owner's peace of mind as for the pet's well being, I can see how people could benefit from doing *something* for their pet when in reality there is nothing more to be done. Personally I'd prefer an opt out to save a few quid a year, better still I'd prefer homeopaths/treatments were properly regulated so as not to be able to make unsupported claims but I'm not that bothered.

jk