Homeopathy as "nanopharmacology"? The only thing "nano" is the quantity of the science involved

[HuckleB]

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/12/homeopathy_as_nanopharmacology_the_only.php

"...

You remember Dana, don't you? He's the Energizer Bunny of Woo, a homeopath who shows up in many blogs, including mine, to whine whenever a skeptic has the temerity to point out that homeopathic remedies are a mixture of water and magical thinking, all serially succussed until any hint of science, logic, or reason has been diluted to nothing. Just like a real homeopathic remedy, come to think of it. This time around, he's back at that repository of all things anti-vaccine and quackery, that home to luminaries of woo such as Deepak Chopra, that online publication in which no form of quackery is too quacky to be included. That includes Dana Ullman's latest dive into sympathetic magic entitled How Homeopathic Medicines Work: Nanopharmacology At Its Best.

Before I delve into the woo, I love the way that Ullman slaps a coat of science onto his pseudoscience by appropriating science-y terms like "nanopharmacology." However, it should be pointed out right here that when it comes to putting a science-y gloss on homeopathic nonsense, Ullman is a rank amateur compared to Lionel Milgrom. Now there's a creative homeopath. I mean, come on! His concepts of quantum homeopathy, likening homeopathy to a quantum gyroscope, and, finally, viewing homeopathy as a chiral tetrahedron. That just leaves appropriating, well, lame terms like nanopharmacology. Don't get me wrong. Nanotechnology is being used in pharmacology, and the combination has been termed nanopharmacology, although there appears to be a lot more hype there than reality at the moment. Appropriating it to describe homeopathy is what's lame. Lame like this:

It is commonly assumed that homeopathic medicines are composed of extremely small doses of medicinal substances. And yet, does anyone refer to an atomic bomb as an extremely small dose of a bomb? In actual fact, there is a power, a very real power, in having atoms smash against each other.

Wow. Just wow. Amazing. Too bad there isn't any real power, other than perhaps a homeopathic dilution of power, in having Ullman's brain cells smash against each other. We used to have a saying about particularly dim bulbs that their brain consisted of two neurons connected by a spirochete. In Ullman's case, I'm not so sure about the spirochete. In any case, it never occurs to Ullman that there is a vast difference between reactions occurring at the molecular level and chain reactions occuring at the atomic level. And what is it with homeopaths and atomic bombs, anyway? Remember Charlene Werner, the homeopath who produced a cringe-worthy video allegedly describing the physics behind homeopathy that likened homeopathy to a molecular "bomb" releasing all the energy in the matter involved, which sounds an awful lot like an atomic bomb to me.

..."


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Why, oh, why does Huffington Post continue to discredit itself by publishing non-scientific nonsense? We need Huffington Post to be a good source of information, but this does not help.

[SidDithers]

1. Holy crap, that was at Huffpo?...

Homeopaths are the biggest idiots in the woosphere.

Sid

Edit: Huffpo link http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-ullman/how-homeopathic-medicines_b_389146.html
Embarrassing.

[Oregone]

2. Perhaps Homeopaths are

But Nanopharmacologists are geniuses. They have it down to a science, of how to make people pay a fortune for inert water.

[MineralMan]

3. Homeopathetic medicine is a total fraud.

It is that simple. Nothing cures nothing, and nothing is all homeopathetic practitioners have to offer.

[Warpy]

12. Hypochondria + placebo effect = cure

Other than that, it's utterly worthless at best, damaging at worst as people opt for fakery instead of real medicine and are injured or dead as a result.

[eShirl]

4. Unfortunately, he's a regular contributor.

It's his 10th article there, apparently.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-ullman

[wuvuj]

6. homeopathy...what they don't want you to know?

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/12/22/Why-Skeptics-Love-to-Hate-Homeopathy.aspx

Perhaps the most derided of alternative medicines is my own favorite – homeopathy. Over the past few years, detractors have focused their efforts in the United Kingdom and have succeeded in crippling homeopathic hospitals and clinics funded by the National Health Service, as well as the practices of many homeopaths.

A few well-placed editorials in prominent newspapers have done the trick, despite the fact that Prince Charles and the rest of the royal family are ardent supporters of homeopathy.

It now seems that some of these folks are taking their show on the road. Two key UK players, Michael Baum and Edzard Ernst have published a commentary in the November 2009 issue of the American Journal of Medicine <1> in which they state, “a belief in homeopathy exceeds the tolerance of an open mind. We should start from the premise that homeopathy cannot work and that positive evidence reflects publication bias or design flaws until proved otherwise.”

Not surprisingly, their commentary also reflects a complete ignorance of homeopathy and the range of studies that support its effectiveness. For example, their article incorrectly uses the term “potentation” instead of “potentization” for the method used to create homeopathic remedies (more on this later). The authors also insist on citing a single negative meta-analysis study that has already been shown to be methodologically flawed <2>, while ignoring many positive studies in respected publications, including two other meta-analyses that showed positive results <3—8>.

So why do the skeptics love to hate homeopathy? Perhaps because it is one of the most threatening alternative modalities – financially, philosophically, and therapeutically. Actually, homeopathy has been a threat to allopathy ever since the 1800s, when German physician Samuel Hahnemann developed the homeopathic system.

[HuckleB]

7. WOW!

Mercola is really going off the deep end!

:rofl:

[wuvuj]

8. What's it really like there in the deep end of the pool?

...

[HuckleB]

9. I wouldn't know.

That's your territory, apparently.

[HuckleB]

10. More Homeopathy Apologetics

http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=1383

"...

And now, Amy L. Lansky, PhD, a computer scientist and now homeopathy proponent, writing for Mercola.com (a site that promotes every sort of medicine – as long as it is unscientific), decides to enter the fray for the most embarrassing homeopathy apologetics. After a bit of whining about persecution, she attacks homeopathy’s critics, referring to a recent editorial by Michael Baum and Edzard Ernst:

"Not surprisingly, their commentary also reflects a complete ignorance of homeopathy and the range of studies that support its effectiveness. For example, their article incorrectly uses the term “potentation” instead of “potentization” for the method used to create homeopathic remedies (more on this later). The authors also insist on citing a single negative meta-analysis study that has already been shown to be methodologically flawed, while ignoring many positive studies in respected publications, including two other meta-analyses that showed positive results."

Calling Edzard Ernst completely ignorant of homeopathy is rich. He is not a computer scientist like Lansky, but an actual professor of complementary and alternative medicine (if you search PubMed on Ernst E and Homeopathy, you will find more than 70 peer-reviewed published articles by Ernst). He has thoroughly studied the evidence for homeopathy, from a sympathetic point of view, but was simply appalled by the grossly unscientific nature of homeopathy.

Picking on the editorial for using the term “potentation” instead of “potentization” is just absurd – not to mention a non-sequitur. It is not a substantive criticism. Meanwhile Lansky claims that Edzard cites “a single negative meta-analysis.” This is a demonstrable lie (or such appallingly sloppy scholarship that there is functionally no difference). In the commentary Lansky is referring to, Should We Maintain an Open Mind about Homeopathy? – there are several relevant references to back up the claim that the evidence does not support the efficacy of homeopathic remedies for any indication, not just a single meta-analysis.

..."


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:rofl:

[wuvuj]

11. Apologists for the current medical establishment....

...should be careful....somebody might put together some info on all the unnecessary deaths in hospitals and from the use of FDA approved drugs...etc and so forth?

While I can't prove the efficacy of homeopathy...I could point out the deficiencies of established medicine.

[HuckleB]

13. ...

Funny thing, established medicine points out the deficiencies of established medicine.

Your homeopathic scam artists do not do the same.

Since you have no actual response to anything I've posted, one wonders what the point of your posts might be.

[wuvuj]

14. Point?

Keep an open mind and don't waste time dumping on things you might not know a whole lot about?

[Orrex]

16. Actually, here's the point:

A system that encourages self-correction is inherently superior to a system that prevents and discourages any form of correction at all.

I would be very interested if someone could tell me about a basic principle of alternative medicine and/or homeopathy that has been disproven via alternative medicine and/or homeopathy.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

5. HuffPo LOVES homeopathy and other forms of pseudoscience.

No idea why. Maybe it's Arianna's thing.

[Orrex]

15. The prevalance of it makes the site unreadable for me

I just can't take Chopra's quantum smirk, and when Weil shows up, it's all over.