Not a bad idea if they paid the homeopaths in homeopathic money.

(One method would be to take slips of paper, mix them with some real money so they get the essence of the money and then give them to the homeopaths.)

On the subject of quack physicians, check this out.

No worse than the "real" doctors when I got my undergrad. One of them diagnosed a sprained ankle as mono.

This always reminds me of That Mitchell and Webb Look: Homeopathic A&E, which unfortunately isn't that far off from the truth.

Why not offer homeopathic treatment to kids?

Schools are already offering homeopathic knowledge.

Wow, some great witty comments on this post.

Y'know, I think you guys are too eager to make fun.

A lot of pain in our lives is made to go away by feeling a sense of connection to someone else who knows what he's doing.

If he doesn't, but the pain goes away anyhow, who gives a fuck? A lot of you are so eager to appear hyper-rational that you'll consign vast populations to lives of lonely suffering.

When you get to be this snotty about it, it's obvious that you're the ones who are whistling in the dark.

Being lectured by Crid on snottiness is like being lectured by Lindsay Lohan on substance abuse.

Granted, a lot of our pain can be eased by human contact, whether it be with a paid therapist, a clergy-critter, an astrologer, a homeopath, a heteropath, a transpath, or a bubble path.

But if we're going to pay money for someone to come in and treat kids in school, are we wrong to ask for evidence that such paid treatment show better results than the free modes of human contact that are already available to students?

"Ting, tang, walla-walla bing bang..."

All, hell, Crid, just have a sawbones prescribe them some saccharose tablets and all will be well.

> if we're going to pay money for someone to come
> in and treat kids in school, are we wrong to
> ask for evidence

No, I just think sometimes the rhetoric on this gets all defensive and mean-hearted and reactionary. (Favorite line from a favorite film.) There's a lot more pain out there than modern medicine has learned to balm.

The chorus here is correct on the larger point: Universities are too concerned with the emotional lives of their students. But we've seen that they're responding to their market, right? They're being stupid about it because they have no choice.

At some meeting of the Board of Regents, someone from some-committee-or-another interrupts the agenda to cry out But what are we doing for our student's feelings???

In a better world, parents lovingly teach their children to stoically anticipate stress and disappointment. (I, personally, have no idea how they do that.)

I don't know either, Crid. I think the best thing we can do is teach by example.

Patrick wins the thread.

Other People's Life Choices
If you don't like 'em, maybe you shouldn't opt for 'em.

What Crid said.

Fact is, placebos work. If a student is having a lot of stress, and needs some help and support, this may do the job.

The only valid criticism is this: the homeopathic "doctors" themselves do not understand that they are serving primarily as therapists. They actually think their sugar pills and bottles of distilled water have medicinal effects. As such, they do not readily accept when *real* medicinal intervention is necessary.

> the best thing we can do is teach by example.

Absolutely. This one of Cridmo's Top 70 Stolen Aphorisms (soon to be published as a trade paperback [with 107 illustrations, including 20 color plates] by HarperCollins, just as soon as the lawyers work out a way around that whole "stolen" thing): #14— The most powerful tool we have for the formation of good character in others is example.


> Patrick wins the thread.

Well, Meeeee-yow!


> The only valid criticism is this: the homeopathic
> "doctors" themselves do not understand that they
> are serving primarily as therapists.

I dunno about that... Listen, there are shysters out there, and there are quacks. We all dislike these reckless people, and our Earth would be a better planet if they all got new jobs delivering pizza or painting auto bodies.

But I think a lot of talented homeopathy types are consciously aware that many of their clientele will have better results from ANY treatment as long as it's delivered with a convincing social connection.

And let's face it, we've all dealt with board-certified doctors (and other medical pros) who weren't good at listening. This is the best book I've ever read that I can't give to people I love: A central theme is that medical pros tend to engage their patient's illness as a sporting challenge, a plaything for their own cleverness.

("Busty Milfs on a Crazed Sex Rampage Volume 3" was another great read that didn't work too well as a holiday gift. A central theme is that... Well, never mind. That's not important now.)

So if these homeopathy people don't charge outrages prices, and they don't sit on festering conditions that medical science could better treat, and they reduce suffering, can't we be grateful? Do we have to hate them because they aren't neatly understood on a dryly rational level?

Truth is, most human beings aren't neatly understood on a dryly rational level. The most intelligent, coherent man you ever met had a large region of his interior life that was completely illogical. He had nightmares and crazy desires and weird hesitations and inexplicable enthusiasms: They call that "a spirit", and everybody has one.

More to the point, this has been going on for thousands of years. Acupuncturists and chiropractors and sincere village wise-men and thoughtful neighborhood gossip-women have been giving attention to relieve sufferers since the dawn of time... Anesthesia is the new kid on the block.

In the present example, if the University of Stirling gave free professionally-certified psychotherapy to every student for four years, do you think they'd be any healthier at graduation?

Me neither.

Anxiety, acne, and insomnia can be symptoms of larger, more serious, medical issues. So those herbs and conversation might work as a placebo for others, but if you've got something a little more serious...you're screwed.

If it's all in your head and you think it helps, then it helps. I found studying worked well for exam stress, but that's just me.

Some people believe in astrology, and some believe in homeopathy, and some believe in government.

I'm mixed on the homeopathy thing. I don't say use homeopathic methods to cure cancer, but don't discount all homeopathy. My daughter loves honey in her tea when she's not feeling well. Quinine has long been used for muscle cramps as a homeopathic remedy. For my neuro-muscular disease, it is the only thing that brings relief. It was only through a doctor who is board certified but occasionally thinks there's something to be learned from Eastern beliefs that I learned of the quinine.

Crid may cringe that we're on the same page again, but he's right. If the price is right, it brings some sort of relief or eases stress, and isn't a life threatening condition, what's the harm to turn to alternative methods to alleviate a problem?

As long as there are those with more money than brains, someone will be available to take advantage. Such is the law of the jungle and the way the cookie crumbles.

Wish this had been my first comment: The problem with this Stirling story is NOT that homeopathy doesn't work, even though (or when) it doesn't.


Best wishes with the muscles, Kristen.


Years ago I dated this nurse whose father died of cancer. In those days, medicos were hesitant to proscribe opiates even in terminal cases, fearing addiction. This woman raided every locked storeroom to which she had access, stockpiling pharmacy-grade heroin (etc.) to protect her father from suffering as necessary.

Pain sucks.

Then, in his final hour, he wanted some ice cream. She knew he was too sick to swallow correctly, and was going to aspirate it. But she fed him some fucking ice cream with a fucking spoon. He coughed. Minutes later, he died.

Cruelty sucks more than pain.

PrEscribe. Sorry.

Maybe relevant, haven't followed the link yet.

("Busty Milfs on a Crazed Sex Rampage Volume 3" was another great read that didn't work too well as a holiday gift. A central theme is that... Well, never mind. That's not important now.)

That was one of those rare instances where the movie was better than the book.

So if these homeopathy people don't charge outrages prices, and they don't sit on festering conditions that medical science could better treat, and they reduce suffering, can't we be grateful?

But they do charge outrageous prices for their magic water, they do sit on festering conditions that medical science could better treat, and while I dont doubt that in some individual cases they reduce suffering I doubt their overall tally puts them in the ruduction cloumn

"Quinine has long been used for muscle cramps as a homeopathic remedy."

Quinine is homeopathic in exactly the same sense that aspirin is homeopathic. Not everything old is eastern.

People end up at alternative medicine when nothing else has helped them. My dad got cancer, his chemo had the nasty side effect of viral encephalitis which left him disabled from traumatic brain injury. Oncologist says, well my job is done! Neurologist says, you're as good as you're gonna get, be grateful you aren't dead. The only health care professional who's been actually helpful is his hippy chiropractor. My dad can walk, talk, drive, and live safely in our home. Worth every fucking penny.

And on the extreme far side of reason, we find gold-covered roasted fetii useful. Somehow.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/18/world/asia/thailand-fetuses-black-magic/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

> The only health care professional who's been
> actually helpful is his hippy chiropractor.
> My dad can walk, talk, drive, and live safely
> in our home. Worth every fucking penny.

There are participants in this message stack who'd rather have your father suffer... He fucks up their snotball model of the universe.

This idea that hyper-rational policies can improve all lives at great distances leads to fuckups like this.

These people KNOW what's best, OK Sam? They just KNOW....

Charging money for something you know won't work pretty fucked up.

Charging money for something that will work because the patient thinks it will, even if it has no basis in reality...less fucked up. Problem solved is problem solved, how you get there matters rather less.

The problem comes in with the cold hard truth that the vast majority of homeopathic remedies are pure hokum. A hippie fairy tale with underpinnings of reason and science just this side of tossing a woman in a lake to determine whether or not she's a witch by whether or not she drowns or floats.

A fool and his money are soon parted, a fool and his health are likely equally so.

I don't really care about either one, because people deserve whatever consequences they bring down upon themselves.

But what troubles me is when morons who have children with treatable forms of cancer go to homeopathy.

Sure homeopathy has a sweet nice story, and most modern medicine is harsh and clinical, and sometimes not very pleasant to experience. And people have a tendency to avoid unpleasant things and to blind themselves in favor of the sweet pretty story about how a few molecules of duck liver tonic will cure what ails them.

Its not surprising to a cynic like me that homeopathy thrives. Its not even a surprise that the odd treatment here or there has some form of actual merit. A good apple buried in a barrel of bad ones if you will.

But would it be so terrible if any form of promised treatment was required to PROVE IT WORKS? Why should any form of promised cures be exempt from the same rigorous standards that modern medicine is subjected to?

Homeopathy gets its pass because lets face it, at worst it is by itself mostly harmless. How bad can a bottle of water be for you after all?

I say, don't give it a pass, prove in clinical trials that it works, or stop selling it. I wouldn't even require they explain WHY it works, just that it does.

If they want to keep selling it, go ahead, just be required to put on the label in big bold letters: FAILED ALL CLINICAL SCIENTIFIC TESTING.

If someone buys it after that...well you can't save stupid people from themselves.

"but don't discount all homeopathy. My daughter loves honey in her tea when she's not feeling well. Quinine has long been used for muscle cramps as a homeopathic remedy."

Honey wouldn't cause that kind of not-feeling-well in a normal person, nor would quinine cause cramps. They're not homeopathy--they're folk medicine. And while folk medicine doesn't always work, sometimes it does (willow bark was used for pain long before it was discovered to contain aspirin-like substances). It all depends on just how accurate/lucky the observations of the "folk" were (or as Linus once said: "Some of those old wives were pretty sharp!)

> as Linus once said: "Some of those old wives
> were pretty sharp!

Yes; Yes they were.

"Quinine has long been used for muscle cramps as a homeopathic remedy."

Just to make sure this horse is dead:

Quinine is NOT homeopathic. It is an active ingredient.

Homeopathy is the idea that dilution of a substance in water does not affect efficacy, or in fact enhances its powers. People which make claims about this instantly demonstrate that they don't know the first thing about the physical sciences, and so cannot name the mechanism by which the supposed cure is obtained. When this is pointed out for physically obvious situations, such as the concentration of solvents, acids or bases, handwaving is all that results.

Just offer them a beer Radwaste. Then pour a full glass for yourself, and pour them a glass of water, then add 3 drops of beer, cover the top of the glass, shake it up a few dozen times, then hand them the glass and ask if they're sure they haven't had to much to drink after their first few sips.

Quinine is NOT homeopathic. It is an active ingredient.

Not as active as the gin, though.