MarkWebles

I know that you think the buzzing noise you here all the time is just a sign of aging, but it is in fact the point going over your head. "Smallpox was officially declared eradicated in 1979". The Smallpox vaccine is no longer given because the Smallpox vaccine worked and we didn't have every febrile, reactionary bead clutcher getting in the way. As for the plague that killed millions, it is now treatable with antibiotics. Science, not potions or prayers or prostrations; Science. The scientific method is just that, a method. Nothing to sell. Oh, and for the record, the quote is "lies, damn lies and statistics". I think your millennia old belief system is showing. How gauche.

http://www.crispian.net/PTIR/Nonsense.html Just sayin'!

cafemediterraneo, I believe you are quite correct to be concerned about vaccinations. Nobody should be able to prevent us from contracting whatever infectious disease strikes our fancy. Say, smallpox, or whatever you think might go well with the drapes. Do you honestly believe that the well-being of one individual outweighs the health of an entire society? Do you know that The Black Plague killed almost 100 million people in the 14th. century. How many people do you know of that have died from it? Anybody? Anybody at all? Didn't think so. Science: It's not just for movies, anymore.

Peer review is where you watch the boats at rest.

Stop confusing us with all this sciency sounding stuff. Genetic? Who is that, anyway? Just some know-it-all with high degrees.

This post has to be a POE? Am I right? Louis Pasteur died over 120 years ago. I think you'll find that things have progressed a little since then. For example, it's my understanding that blood letting has recently fallen out of favour. So much wrong in so little space.

"All those". Hyperbole, another word not in your vocabulary.

Let's see. We have a non-sequitur and an erroneous assumption. Perhaps it is simply that you don't understand what having 20/20 hindsight alludes to, as your post suggests?

...He said with perfect 20/20 hindsight.

I usually go to the Goodyear on Pepe Guizar. Only a single treatment required. Lasts, typically, 2 years. They do brakes, too.

This is why I come to this site: The entertainment. Never for information.

It's a rather pedestrian realization, but what's possible tends to happen everywhere, all the time, whereas what's not possible, never happens anywhere. So forget about the sick and do something we've never seen.

Rescue Remedy is 27% Grape Based Brandy and as such is not an homeopathic solution. Homeopathic solutions are, by definition, pure water.

I'm curious, what do you read into this vis-a-vis the efficacy of homeopathy. I find it to be as bereft of coherence as much of what the HP publishes. The first sentence positively screams logical fallacy: "The Swiss government has a long and widely-respected history of neutrality, and therefore, reports from this government on controversial subjects need to be taken more seriously..." Things go downhill from there. ...and therefore? Really? Edited to add: Dana Ullman is not a scientist, nor is he a doctor, he is a writer selling a book.

This is all well and good, but it says nothing about whether or not it works.

Yes, the Lancet is a more than suitable source. However, sometimes conventional medicine doesn't work and people look for alternatives. Until you are one of those people, you won't ever get it. I remember when Chiropracters were also considered quacks. An interesting read... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1847554/ I suppose you're in the group that doesn't believe in the benefits of medical marijuana either? Sometimes it just takes time for the "proof" to catch up with all the anecdotal evidence. Interesting, but not convincing. One of the studies quoted concludes... "At the moment the evidence of clinical trials is positive but not sufficient to draw definitive conclusions because most trials are of low methodological quality and because of the unknown role of publication bias. This indicates that there is a legitimate case for further evaluation of homoeopathy, but only by means of well performed trials." But they didn't include this in the article you linked to. I would love to see the results of some "well performed trials". Ad hominems aren't really the best way to make a point, don't you think? But to your final point, on marijuana, it at least has an identifiable active ingredient, THC, homeopathic remedies are, for all intents and purposes, pure water. Until someone can provide evidence (not proof, as you posted above) as to how it will cure cancer, or my halitosis, or a child's skinned knee, I'll remain a skeptic.

Did you read the article? At no point does it say that homeopathy has any better efficacy than does the placebo effect. In fact, it states quite clearly that most benefits are tangential to homeopathy's health claims; benefits such as keeping people from needless, and potentially harmfull, use of antibiotics. To repeat, at no point does the article state, without qualification, that homeopathy actually works! Sorry for the late addendum, but here is a summary of a 1994 study on alternative medicines done by Washington and Alaska Blue-Cross.

Here's a summary of findings by The Lancet. A suitably reliable source, I hope. There are many, many other studies that come to the same conclusion: feel free to do some research on your own. Do you know what the medical professions call alternative medicine that works? Medicine. Homeopathy isn't it.

...And Bontekoe didn't ask for yours. But at least he/she appears to have an idea as to what a fraud homeopathy is, and in exposing it as such, perhaps saving someone some money they really can't afford to waste. Homeopathy is a fraud, but if you can prove otherwise, please do so.