[Mb-civic] it has started in england in the lancet and on tv and radio

Mon Aug 29 11:52:37 PDT 2005

So you can be informed when it hits this country.
Bill

The Revolutionary Revival of Homeopathy and its Demolishment by the World
Media

by Louise Mclean

27th August 2005.

Anyone who read the papers, watched the news or listened to their radios
yesterday might be forgiven for wondering what yesterdayÂ’s media
demolishment of homeopathy was all about.  It comes hard on the heels of a
report on 24th August that Prince Charles commissioned a study on the
economic benefits of complementary medicine and a report in The Times UK on
21st August which stated that Â‘demand for alternative therapies such as
acupuncture and homeopathy is soaring and people are increasingly using
their medical insurance to pay for itÂ’. 

This news appears to have sent the pharmaceutical companies into a flat
spin and they went into coordinated overdrive to get all their favourite
medical and science correspondents to put out highly negative stories about
homeopathic medicine in newspapers all around the world.  These reports
were based on a very unfavourable study on homeopathy published in the
Lancet which stated that the benefits of homeopathy could be all in the
patientÂ’s mind.  The study was unveiled with fanfare at the end of a week
full of complimentary articles about alternative medicine.

Commenting on the study Prince Charles commissioned, Professor Edzard
Ernst, the only professor of complementary medicine in Britain, made
unfavourable remarks about homeopathy and yet in an article of 22nd
November, 2003 entitled Â‘A Scientist in the Alternative CampÂ’ published
in the British Medical Journal Online, he says: Â‘Our family doctor in the
little village outside Munich where I grew up was a homoeopath. My mother
swore by it. As a kid I was treated homoeopathically. So this kind of
medicine just came naturallyÂ’. 

The ferocity of the media attack can only mean one thing Â– that there is a
huge rise in popularity of homeopathic medicine and that it is now becoming
a threat to the billion dollar drug industry!  This worldwide revolution
has taken place almost entirely by word of mouth and by personal
recommendation - a truly remarkable phenomenon because up until now the
media has studiously ignored and excluded any positive news on the subject.  

A few years ago the programme Horizon on BBC 2 tried to demolish the work
of Dr. Jacques Benveniste whose studies proved that homeopathic medicines
work.  Benveniste claimed his studies had been replicated hundreds of
times.  Dr. David Reilly of the Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital has also
conducted many such successful studies and the Bristol Homeopathic Hospital
has conducted long term studies of the benefits of homeopathic treatment.
All these homeopathic hospitals, including the London Homeopathic Hospital
reportedly have at least 6 month waiting lists.

If anyone needed proof of the efficacy of homeopathic medicine, they need
only study the statistics of various epidemics during the 1900s.  In 1854 a
cholera epidemic struck London.  A report revealed that under allopathic
care the mortality was 59.2% whereas under homeopathic care the mortality
was only 9%.  In the yellow fever outbreak in the US in 1878, the mortality
in New Orleans was 50% under allopathic care and 5.6% for homeopathic care.
Records of three years of diphtheria in Broome County, New York from 1862
to 1864, show the mortality rate for allopaths as 83.6% and 16.4% for
homoepaths.

There are 220,000 homeopathic doctors in India and all over Europe,
especially France and Germany, homeopathy is hugely popular.  The Queen,
who is arguably the richest woman in the world, reportedly travels
everywhere with a homeopathic first aid kit and often dispenses to staff.
The kings and queens of Britain have always had their own personal
homeopathic doctor and for the last two centuries the aristocracy has
traditionally enjoyed the benefits of homeopathic medicine.  Many famous
people, including MPs choose homeopathic treatment. Tony BlairÂ’s
sister-in-law, Lyndsey Booth, changed careers from being a lawyer to
becoming a qualified homeopath. Is it possible that all these people have
been deluded into taking dummy pills, the effects of which are Â‘all in the
mindÂ’, in their imagination?!  Hardly.

What about animals and babies?  How does the placebo effect work on them?!
As any homeopathic vet will tell you, homeopathic medicine works almost
better on animals than on humans and likewise, babies respond particularly
well to treatment.  Is it even possible to explain to them that the
homeopathic remedy alleviated their symptoms, much less that the
psychological effect of taking it brought about the cure?!

Hippocrates said there were two laws of cure Â– the law of opposites
(orthodox medicine) and the law of similars (homeopathy).  In homeopathy, a
small, highly potentised dose of a substance (that in a large dose would
produce the patientÂ’s symptoms), works as a catalyst to stimulate the
patientÂ’s own dormant healing power, setting it into motion to bring about
cure.  During the process of creating a homeopathic medicine, the dilution
alone would do nothing. It is the effect of the succussion (vigorous
shaking) in combination with the dilution that causes the medicine to
become highly potent in its action. 

This Lancet study is probably just another skewed trial intent on bringing
down homeopathy, akin to the kinds of trials we have to come to expect from
a pharmaceutical industry that gave the green light to such medicines as
thalidomide and Vioxx.

The fact of the matter is that homeopathy has enjoyed a huge rise in
popularity for one simple reason and that is because it works.

____________________________________________________________

Possibly the largest worldwide press coverage of homeopathy in one day!
Please contact me at louise at zeusinfoservice.com if you canÂ’t get any of
the articles up.

D-W World, Germany: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1692210,00.html

Arrive.Net, USA: http://press.arrivenet.com/pol/article.php/685773.html

Medpage
Today:http://www.medpagetoday.com/PrimaryCare/AlternativeMedicine/tb/1609

The Scotsman: http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=1836902005

Gulf Times:
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=50040&vers
ion=1&template_id=38&parent_id=20

BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/health/4183916.stm

The Guardian, UK:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/monarchy/story/0,2763,1555248,00.html?gusrc=rss

The Daily Mail,
UK:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/thehealthnews.html?
in_article_id=360205&in_page_id=1797

The Courier Mail,
Australia:http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,163
74714%5E401,00.html

Reuters:http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyI
D=2005-08-24T110146Z_01_KNE439306_RTRUKOC_0_UK-BRITAIN-ROYAL.xml

New Zealand
Herald:http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=5&ObjectID=10342648

Fox News, USA: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,166947,00.html

Mail & Guardian Online, South Africa:
http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__inte
rnational_news/&articleid=249200

IOA, South Africa:
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=vn200508271010458
68C276991

The Times of India: http://t
imesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1211449.cms

The Weekend Australian:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16397748%255E2
702,00.html

Herald & Times: http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/45761.html

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