Homeopathy is stronger than antidepresants/antipsychotics

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A lot of drugs are based on natural chemicals or synthetic chemicals simular to natural chemicals....I find it to be very intresting, its amazing how many plants that just grow naturally all over the place can be used as remidies, recreatinal substances or can be deadly when ingested. I wish I could take a college course about that...but since they don't have any I am slowly just trying to learn as much as I can because it intrests me.

Oh, there are a lot of very interesting compounds in plants. Nicotine, for example, has some very interesting medical benefits, though it does put some wear and tear on your circulator system and some of your other subsystems. Otherwise, it's really a very interesting and potentially useful compound.

Another good one is chamomile. It has one extract that acts as a monoamine transporter activator. It's very very interesting what certain plants can actually produce.

And there are also some interesting gems to be found in obselete medicines that were once used to treat seemingly unrelated problems. For example, the amantadine that I am on used to be used for treating Parkinson's Disease and has been slowly replaced by newer, more effective drugs. Well, although I don't notice the effect myself, other people complain loudly and tell me that I am rambling and being annoying whenever I forget to take a couple of doses. It does clear up a lot of my issues, apparently. It also apparently makes me less prone to being temperamental and "catty."

So yeah, there are a lot of very interesting avenues in medicine, medicinal plants being one of them.

No, wait...diluting it makes it STRONGER, completely forgot about that...just like ammonia and water...



I think you missed this the first time around so I am going to show you it again:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1UJ_qGZ24k&feature=related[/youtube]



No, it is still quack science. Read this and this.



Oxyxcodone was also taken away because of abuse...but it was reformulated and put back in medicinal use. Why have they not reformulated Ephedra if it is that safe for the general population?



There are numerous examples off this since my last post, and I want to lump it in with this one since this is the clearest.

This is not a religious debate on PPR or a question about advocacy in the Activism thread. We are talking about a procedure that has yet to be proven physically to work, tends to be much more expensive than other "traditional" treatments, and poses a danger to OTHERS, not just the person taking the "medicine." This is also the same argument for chelation, GFCF, and any other treatments anti-vaccine people claim to treat children with autism, but has never been proven effective (see the IMFAR reports on the GFCF diet). This is a serious risk to people taking the "meds" and, if the disease is contagious, other people.

Anecdotal stories are also not evidence, like the OP and others. If you want to show it works, you cannot use that.

Drugs should be the last resort for people with autism, and should only be used for symptoms like depression, anxiety, etc. But to sit here and say to someone that it is OK to try a treatment that has never been shown to work in any real scientific study because they have an "opinion" that they should take it is nonsense. I'm sorry, but the correct word here is nonsense. If you can show it works, show it to James Randi and get your million dollars.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swDpWNKB5Co&feature=related[/youtube]

Many pharmaceuticals are based off of natural herbs and other plants. Take Adderall, for instance. It's amphetamine. Amphetamine was first isolated from the ephedra plant in the 1920's.

Is that interview supposed to be PROOF of something? I saw no proof of anything offered or discussed, it was all conversation with no evidence brought into the conversation. Yes, I saw it and do not see the point you are making with it.



I'm not really interested in getting into a link war here... you have links against, I have links for. You only believe in what someone else sticks on a slab, under a microscope or analyzes in a computer. I think humans are narrow minded and dismissive of anything they don't understand to can't prove with what they believe are scientific methods. You say you have a hard answer, I ask if they asked the right questions. We don't agree. No arguement there.



Because ephedra is a plant and therefore cannot be altered other than to tamper with the plants genetics. It is technically supposed to be outside FDA regulation because it is a 'supplement' and not considered food or medicine. Some people are sensitive and/or allergic to ephedra. They have no clue what percentage of the population has sever adverse reations, which compound within the plant causes it or how to identify the susceptible population. Because it is a naturally occurring plant, there is no way to patent it, therefore no interest or money to research those answers so they just made it illegal. Problem solved.

I don't know about you but doctors in my area are terrified of prescribing any painkiller at all. Anyone asking for pain meds is treated like an addict looking for a fix. Oxycodone is still half a step from heroin - still just as addictive but still one of the only meds that can even touch severe pain. Nothing about Oxy's is safe. It is the most commonly traded and abused pharmaceutical on the market.




Science relies on anecdotal evidence to guide research all the time. In fact, psychology relies on it heavily since brain science is still in its virtual infancy. Science DOES use it.



The OP found relief with a treatment and he shared his experience. I pretty sure most comments here have already agreed that pharmaceuticals essentially suck. If you are trying to say the OP is lying or that he somehow shouldn't share his experience because you want scientific proof to back up his personal claim then I'd say that's in censorship territory and that it has no place in this conversation. You can disagree all you like but I'm afraid you have no juristiction over anothers opinion.

You would want to be able to examine their methodology, though. Before you just agree that a conclusion is valid, you should study the method that was used to arrive at that conclusion and try to understand it.

What we are dismissive of is for something that is not based on anything resembling science being sold under scientific pretensions. If homeopaths were to treat their potion crap as a religious exercise, some of us would have a markedly reduced urge to find them and strangle them.

You never hear people lambasting the practice of Reiki healing, do you? It's because practitioners of Reiki rank their art alongside practices such as meditation or yoga. The person who teaches you a certain form of meditation doesn't care that certain kinds of meditation have been proven to have health benefits in clinical trials. Whoever runs your yoga class, if it's being done traditionally, is more concerned with balancing your chi than in improving your heart function. The difference is that these guys don't operate under false pretenses.

If homeopaths were selling their crap as a traditional art, that would be one thing. They are selling it as a pseudoscience, though, and it's outright immoral.

They made it illegal because people were dropping dead, and some of us tend to find this type of reaction to be upsetting. Did you know that, right now, I am on a drug that has no patent on it? It is an antiglutamatergic drug that works by slowing down the NMDA receptor, and it also has cholinergic effects that are still poorly understood. Furthermore, most typical antipsychotics no longer have patents on them, either. You could open up a lab of your own and sell almost any typical antipsychotic for a profit. You would probably have to get a license of some sort in order to do it and pass some fairly rigorous inspections, but little you could manufacture and sell a drug like haloperidol if you really wanted to.

The point is, there is a plentitude of synthetic compounds on the market that nobody presently holds any form of patent on. The doctors are not getting any sort of kickback off of prescribing it to you unless it's some brand name for a drug that has cheap generic alternatives (you could do the same with herbs, though, just by claiming that your particular herbs were grown in a higher grade of cow manure). These generics are still on the market because doctors are still prescribing them to treat human illness because they WORK.

Has it occurred to you that the doctors might actually be trying to look out for the best interests of their patients? The stronger pain-killers on the market lose their effectiveness pretty quickly, and some of them can be harmful.

Yes, and he was told very plainly that homeopathy is a crock. He should consider the possibility that there could be other explanations for his experience, such as the possibility that antipsychotics are doing him more harm than good. Or perhaps all he really needs is more self-confidence.

Nope. SSRIs are wonderful drugs, and they have a broad range of uses. Unfortunately, it has taken a while for researchers to figure out where it can be used and where it might do more harm than good. I went through a very traumatic experience with the drugs. However, the drug has also helped many people to live relatively normal lives when they would otherwise be barely functioning, and I think that this class of drug is appropriate if it is being used to treat certain conditions.

Pseudoscience must be destroyed.

You make a very reasonable statement:

then utterly destroy your argument by injecting hyperbole:

[/quote]
What we are dismissive of is for something that is not based on anything resembling science being sold under scientific pretensions. If homeopaths were to treat their potion crap as a religious exercise, some of us would have a markedly reduced urge to find them and strangle them.
[/quote]


I am a VERY logical person and fully appreciate what rationalism, reductionism, scientific method and repeatable, evidentiary exploration of our world bring to us. But I see time and time again people that inject their own contempt into their disagreements with others, utterly convinced in the superiority of their views.


Chew on this:

Scientific process is sufficient to the apprehension of reality if and only if there exists nothing that can be known outside of scientific process that cannot also be known within it.

Can you PROVE that science can determine all that is knowable? Because you cannot prove this, you must accept at best accept it as axiomatic, or, in other words, take it as an article of faith (faith does not always connotate religious ideas).

You could reasonably claim that science and rationalism are better than other descriptions of reality, but you cannot claim that they are sufficient without being non-scientific while making that claim.

That is a placebo effect.

ruveyn

(Thread moved from Autism discussion to PPR)

Why, one wonders. One would have thought the science board a more appropriate spot.

No, I think I will just ignore you until you have learned to abstain from such hostile-sounding language. If you have something of value to contribute to the discussion, you should present it as such rather than trying to insult me with it.

Last edited by WilliamWDelaney on 12 Jun 2011, 11:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

I thought so, as well. Nothing relevant to PPR here, except tangentially. Perhaps there would be policy implications... But the actual effectiveness of these approaches is entirely a matter of science and tech.

Well, the thing is, homeopathy is a subject on which emotions tend to run high, and the moderator thought that such might be poisonous to a forum that is intended to draw more enlightened, less passionate conversation. Furthermore, the subject of homeopathy has gotten highly tangled-up in politics.

So instead of keeping topics where they belong, we want to turn PPR into a honeypot for toxic discussions? Shameful.

Homeopathy is less about science and more about belief! So I put it here. The thread had ceased to have anything to do with autism discussion.

Homeopathic "medicine" is not a science. It is bogus diddly squat.

It has failed every rigorous experimental test.

ruveyn