A Placebo Effect Cul De Sac, Featuring Tina Fey and Her New Book, Bossypants

by Vinton McCabe

When I am not busy trying to make the world safe for homeopathy, I am often busy reading books and reviewing them for the New York Journal of Books—and, in doing so, I am busy trying to make the world safe for readers as well.

In the book I am now reading for my next review, Bossypants by Tina Fey, I came upon a short chapter that resonated with me. Called “I Don’t Care If You Like It,” the chapter had to do with the concept of whether it is right or wrong for women to be comedians. But there was something in the universality of people having the right to do or think as they like that hit close to home with me. So I thought I’d share it with you.

First a few chapters from Bossypants:

“Amy Poehler was new to SNL and we were all crowded into the seventeenth-floor writers’ room, waiting for the Wednesday read-through to start. There were always a lot of noisy ‘comedy bits’ going on in that room. Any was in the middle of some such nonsense with Seth Meyers across the table, and she did something vulgar as a joke. I can’t remember what it was exactly, except it was dirty and loud and ‘unladylike.’

Click here to read the full blog post Homeopathy Skeptics and Chinese Food

With the U.S. government drowning in more than $14 trillion dollars of debt – tied in part to the cost of health care and Medicare payments, isn’t it time to examine our health care options and find a better way?

A system that has been around over 200 years and is being used successfully by over 200 million people worldwide could solve many of our problems.  That system is homeopathy.  It is effective, safe, inexpensive and has a laudable and extensively documented clinical record with literally hundreds of high quality, peer-reviewed basic science, pre-clinical and clinical studies showing its effects.
The U.S. Medicare system provides health insurance for U.S. citizens over the age of 65.  Given our aging population, it is an expense that is choking the Federal government because conventional medicine is expensive and often fails to cure those with chronic diseases.

A large study on homeopathic treatment of elderly patients in Europe provides real evidence that homeopathy can help improve patients’ lives – while cutting the cost of health care and reducing the deficit.

A large observational study with follow-up over a two year period was recently concluded in Germany and Switzerland by two of Europe’s leading medical researchers – Claudia Witt M.D., Rainer Ludtke M.D., among others.  The aim of the study was to determine the range of medical problems facing the elderly and the treatments being received, and then describe the course of illness over time among older patients who chose to receive homeopathic treatment for the first time in their lives.  This multi-center study looked at 3,981 patients, 70 years old or older, treated by homeopathic physicians in primary care practices in Germany and Switzerland.   Ninety-eight percent of all diagnoses were chronic with an average duration of 11.5 years.  Eighty-two percent of the patients were taking medication at the start of treatment. The most frequent diagnoses were hypertension (20.5%, 11.1 years) and sleep disturbances (15.7%, 25.8 years).  The severity of patient complaints and physician assessment of those complaints decreased significantly between the start and 24 months later.   Patients improved and visits to the doctor declined!

Given the perplexing problems facing the U.S healthcare system and our aging population, homeopathy offers the hope of reducing suffering for millions at great savings to all.

For more information on homeopathy and its potential to help, the National Center for Homeopathy provides resources and links to research on homeopathy.

Interview with leading cellular biologist Dr. Bruce Lipton

In this interview, Dr. Lipton discuss Quantum Mechanics, the plausability of homeopathy and the future of medicine resulting from advances in Quantum Bio-Physics.

Bruce H. Lipton, PhD is an internationally recognized leader in bridging science and spirit. Stem cell biologist, bestselling author of The Biology of Belief and recipient of the 2009 Goi Peace Award, he has been a guest speaker on hundreds of TV and radio shows, as well as keynote presenter for national and international conferences.

Dr. Lipton began his scientific career as a cell biologist. He received his Ph.D. Degree from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville before joining the Department of Anatomy at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Medicine in 1973. Dr. Lipton’s research on muscular dystrophy, studies employing cloned human stem cells, focused upon the molecular mechanisms controlling cell behavior. An experimental tissue transplantation technique developed by Dr. Lipton and colleague Dr. Ed Schultz and published in the journal Science was subsequently employed as a novel form of human genetic engineering.

Read more about Dr. Bruce Lipton, PhD

2 million people protected from epidemic

A study in the August 2010 UK journal Homeopathy describes the successful use of homeopathy to prevent epidemic disease—one of the first such studies and the largest homeopathic trial in modern medical literature. It took place in Cuba, where researchers and public health officials collaborated in the homeopathic immunization of over 2 million persons against Leptospirosis.

Leptospirosis is a bacterial disease of the tropics and the developing world. In recent years, however, it has increasingly been recognized as a serious problem worldwide. Primarily spread through contaminated drinking water, the incidence rises during rainy seasons, floods, and natural disasters. Dozens to hundreds of deaths and tens of thousands of serious illnesses are caused by Leptospirosis in Cuba each year, primarily from October to December.

In October 2007, with an unusually early rise in disease incidence indicating the likelihood of an especially dire season and with the inability to procure enough conventional vaccine, the Cuban Ministry of Public Health used a homeopathically prepared vaccine product. Made from 4 strains of Leptospira, the homeopathic product was administered orally to 2.1 million people in regions considered at highest risk. The rest of the 11 million Cubans did not receive any preventative forms of medicine, other than 15,000 ­people in the intervention region, who received the conventional vaccine.

Unprecedented results

Within 2 weeks of giving the homeopathic product, a 90% decrease in disease incidence was observed in the intervention region. This was stunning, considering that the disease had historically increased during this period (even with administration of conventional vaccination) and statistical models had predicted a nearly 100% increase. No decrease was observed in the non-intervention region—instead, the usual increase for this time of year occurred.

In September 2008, a second round of homeopathic prophylaxis was given—this time to 2.3 million persons. Again, results demonstrated the effectiveness of the homeopathic product, with disease rates significantly below the historical average, despite a record rainy season. In the non-intervention region in 2008, disease incidence remained at historical levels, just as in 2007.

The total annual incidence of Leptospirosis was reduced in the intervention region by 84% from 2007 to 2008, while incidence rose in the non-intervention region by 21%. The researchers considered numerous variables besides homeopathy that may have influenced the trends, but all were shown to be statistically non-significant.

Prestigious institute, significant implications

The study was conducted at the Finlay Institute—Cuba’s national medical research institute and a World Health Organization recognized facility on par with major university medical centers in the U.S. The institute is primarily involved with conventional medicine but also has a small homeopathy arm.
Since 1998, scientists at Finlay have manufactured the world’s only trivalent conventional vaccine for Leptospirosis—“vaxSpiral.” This product takes almost a year to make, costs the Cuban government $3M, and covers just 800,000 of its citizens (leaving a large percentage unprotected). By contrast, the homeopathic vaccine was manufactured within one week at a cost of $200,000 (about 2% of the cost of conventional vaccine) and covered 2.3 million people.

The fact that homeopathic prophylactic medicines can be manufactured so quickly makes it possible to create vaccines in real time using the exact strain of annual infectious organisms as they emerge—something not possible in conventional vaccine manufacture and often leading to vaccine failure (in influenza, for example).

None of this invalidates conventional vaccinations, but it does present a potential lifesaving opportunity for developing countries that lack resources to either purchase the conventional vaccine and/or administer it to their populations. If replicated sufficiently in further studies and shown to be reliable, homeopathic immunization could greatly benefit the developed world as well.

Imagine that…

Which brings up the unfortunate fact that none of the prominent conventional ­medical journals would publish it. Homeopathy editor Peter Fisher commented: “It is hard to imagine that such an impressive study of a conventional medicine or ­vaccine would not be published in a major medical journal, especially given the sample size of 2.3 million subjects.”

But we don’t need to imagine, since the authors of this study have indeed had their work in conventional medicine consistently published in prominent journals. Lead author Gustavo Bracho and investigators Jorge Menendez, Luis Garcia, Rosa Solis, and Concepcion Campa have published dozens of papers in journals such as Science, Vaccine, Human Vaccines, Expert Review of Vaccines, Infection and Immunity, The International Journal of Medical Microbiology, and Immunology and Cell Biology.

This sort of “all evidence is equal but some evidence is more equal than others” attitude is a fact most in the homeopathic community have unfortunately grown accustomed to.
Nevertheless, it is a good day for homeopathy and for those willing to listen.

Christopher Johnson, ND, is Vice President of the Virginia Association of Naturopathic Physicians and a graduate of Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine. He practices in Alexandria, Virginia. www.thrivenaturopathic.com or 703-836-3678

Click here for more information on homeopathy and homeopathic research.

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